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Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

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Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#211

Post by thayne »

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #129
oh-kumudo wrote: post #103

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

Kind of curious about what you're saying. Essentially that when the dev is getting up to speed with that training they quickly become more valuable to the company but the company isn't willing to acknowledge it?

That's only part of it (although I have certainly seen that existing employees raises don't compete with the salaries of new hires with the same amount of experience at the same company).

Another part is that if you hire an inexperienced programmer, not only do they have lower productivity than an engineer with 2+ years experience, but they lower the productivity of at least one other senior engineer that needs to mentor them and bring them up to speed. I'd estimate that mentoring a new inexperienced hire would at least half the mentor's productivity for a couple months at least. If you hire someone that's already worked a couple years, that lost productivity was paid for by a different company.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#212

Post by coder543 »

zeroname wrote: post #210
coder543 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are just my thoughts, take them with a grain of salt: Success makes more success. If you're a billion dollar company, you can afford to pay more for employees. This lets you hire better developers, which lets you be even more successful. If you're in a poor country and you're trying to start a company... you're still poor. The fact that you need developers doesn't suddenly make you rich enough to afford the sam…

> I'm no professional economist or anything, so I'm sure I'm missing some of the nuances of the situation... You could've just looked up the economic definition of "shortage". What you're describing is not an economic shortage, it's market equilibrium. Of course there's always more demand than supply for something at a cheaper price than what the actual market price is.

Your reply isn't helpful. It's not market equilibrium. It's a shortage, because they need access to a limited resource to achieve something, but that limited resource isn't there.

Google definition of shortage: "a state or situation in which something needed cannot be obtained in sufficient amounts." Huh, that's exactly what I said.

In this case, the resource is being consumed by higher paying consumers outside of the local market. The whole market isn't necessarily suffering a shortage, but there are absolutely local shortages within a global market. Everything is in equilibrium if you look at a large enough picture.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#213

Post by hvidgaard »

ryanobjc wrote: post #203
stormbrew wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the weird thing — they (because there are two cofounders) were actually paying very competitive salaries (for the local market). I was impressed to hear what some of them were making. So it's not the money. This is only half of what I asked. What about the raises? As someone in another thread chain pointed out, the expected raise from job leaping is maybe 15%. How did the raises your friend gave compare to t…

In fact in the good big companies, they crave for employee growth. Time and money for training, meaningful career growth, and pay growth, major tech switches without changing jobs. I find that small companies are often much worse in all these metrics. As a jr employee they’ll never rise to chief architect - your friend, the cofounder, has that job. And is never giving it up. Plus thanks to cash crunch, making shortcu…

> As a jr employee they’ll never rise to chief architect

Considering that only few people get to the top title at a big company (I think there is ~20 Technical Fellows in Microsoft world wide), I think that is a fallacy. If you work at a small company that grows, you're far more likely to become a chief architect.

> Now tell me my experience would be better in a 12 person startup/shop. I dare you.

Only applies to the US. EU citizens don't really have to worry about that.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#214

Post by hnthrwy1 »

eximius wrote: post #54

EDIT: to people emailing me (thanks!), I am currently on PTO overseas so I will respond, but maybe not super timely. Also, we're looking for our first QA and our first DevOps role if non-SEs are reading... If you're willing to work in Texas, send me an email (check my profile). We absolutely do not mind if you have gaps. semi-OT: To all people in this thread who say there is no shortage of developers: if you know any…

How do you react when someone fails to implement the max of a list? And how do they react?

I can't imagine how awkward it is for both the interviewer and interviewee.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#215

Post by lapnitnelav »

distant_hat wrote: post #111
rootsudo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on the culture. In Asia, it's not as cut throat as USA, where you shop around every 2-3 years. Japan they'll train you, and quitting isn't something that's easily done -- watch any Japanese netflix series about slice of life/normal life and you'll see the daily struggle or just read the news, or if you have the chance, go to Japan. Death by overwork is real and on the other hand, companies such as Rak…

Yes, this is common in India too. In fact, companies like TCS, etc are called 'mass recruiters' who recruit in bulk. There are satirical YouTube videos about them hiring by the kilogram. They hire indiscriminately, pay crap, in the the next 6 months people undergo on-the-job training. Some are kicked out, some are moved to better positions and offerings and the rest are contracted out to run-of-the-mill projects. Bac…

So, in which group were you? The ones that left or the one that stayed?

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#216

Post by Fr3dd1 »

atmosx wrote: post #195
pascalxus wrote: post #136

First of all the shortage of devs is mostly a myth. Companies that know how to hire don't have problems hiring. the problem is most software companies don't know how to hire and thus have a lot of problems. Or they're located in some impossible location like palo alto or San francisco and try to low ball everyone with salaries under 200K in a location where housing costs 3million$ plus. About hiring junior devs. You…

Is there any sort of training on how to go about hiring people? Other than experience of course.

I guess the best training is experience (I know, maybe not the answer you are looking for). If you hire someone and closely check up on how that person is doing in your company, you can get some feeling about what technical and personal traits are really needed.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#217

Post by nradov »

coder543 wrote: post #188
nradov wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually market economies are exactly that simple.

If market economies are that simple, why are wages that bad in parts of Europe? Are the business owners just greedy? Is that really what you think? see this reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18508361 If you think they're that simple, why don't you move somewhere dirt cheap, then call up some developers elsewhere and offer them competitive wages to move to that area? Show us all how it's done! You have that…

Market economies are that simple, but the market doesn't stop at the borders of any single European country. Personally I'm happy being an employee for now and have no desire to move or start a company. But if you're asking a bank to finance hiring more developers then you're really barking up the wrong tree. You need to find investors with a different risk profile.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#218

Post by abhishekjha »

pascalxus wrote: post #136

First of all the shortage of devs is mostly a myth. Companies that know how to hire don't have problems hiring. the problem is most software companies don't know how to hire and thus have a lot of problems. Or they're located in some impossible location like palo alto or San francisco and try to low ball everyone with salaries under 200K in a location where housing costs 3million$ plus. About hiring junior devs. You…

The thing is after failing for 8 months it kind of starts hurting.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#219

Post by Double_a_92 »

aphextron wrote: post #28

>I ask this because I'm 4-years-experienced as a front-end UI/interaction dev, nothing but glowing references, looking for another, similar, position (regular, not senior or lead) and have had...way too many interviews and rejections, and can't understand why companies are such sticklers for interested devs to have Every Single Box in their list of requirements checked when it would take days or a couple weeks to lea…

Why would you leave your job before having another one lined up?

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#220

Post by coder543 »

nradov wrote: post #217
coder543 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If market economies are that simple, why are wages that bad in parts of Europe? Are the business owners just greedy? Is that really what you think? see this reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18508361 If you think they're that simple, why don't you move somewhere dirt cheap, then call up some developers elsewhere and offer them competitive wages to move to that area? Show us all how it's done! You have that…

Market economies are that simple, but the market doesn't stop at the borders of any single European country. Personally I'm happy being an employee for now and have no desire to move or start a company. But if you're asking a bank to finance hiring more developers then you're really barking up the wrong tree. You need to find investors with a different risk profile.

As it turns out, those investors are generally in the successful areas, though... so, they're not around to ask. I mean, am I wrong?

You're right that banks aren't going to be excited about that, but if you have no local billionaires looking to take a risk, what are you supposed to do? Move to an area with lots of investors? That just reinforces the cycle of low wages in the area you moved from, it doesn't break it.

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