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What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

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Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#241

Post by throwaway2037 »

uejfiweun wrote: post #164
jdlyga wrote: post #143

The trouble with hiring juniors now is it's much more difficult to get them up to speed so they can be productive. Before covid, you'd sit next to them, get asked questions every so often, do some pair programming, and discuss ideas over lunch. You can, on paper, do the same exact things over Slack and Zoom. But there's much more friction. And a junior that's struggling is a lot less visible than it used to be. So wh…

Office work removes corporate friction at the expense of personal friction (commuting, dress codes, etc), while WFH removes personal friction at the expense of corporate fiction in the way you've just described. It's an interesting dichotomy. Given who the power lies with in our society, I think we all know which one will win out in the long run.

The first part of your post was very insightful, and I broadly agree. It is interesting that you consider (office) "dress codes" a personal friction. Do dress codes still really exist? I work in a very conservative industry, and the dress codes have changed dramatically in the last 10-20 years. For any other industry, I'm sure the changes are even greater. Also, I am the type of person that really likes to dress well and maintain good appearance when I go to the office. It's a nice way to start the day. The idea of working from home wearing "house clothes" isn't for me.

However, I disagree with this part:

    > Given who the power lies with in our society, I think we all know which one will win out in the long run.
In a capitalist system, there is always push and pull between employer and employee. Look how desperate tech hiring was during the COVID-19 crisis. It was insane. You had silly stories on HN of people working two jobs at once. Next, the economy slowed and layoffs came. The script flipped. Once the economy is strong again, employers will be more flexible on accepting remote work. For many industries that employ technologists, part-time work-from-home is now a permanent reality. If you not a "gold standard" company, you need to find non-economic advantages when hiring. One of those is part-time work-from-home.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#242

Post by throwaway2037 »

honkycat wrote: post #196
jdlyga wrote: post #143

The trouble with hiring juniors now is it's much more difficult to get them up to speed so they can be productive. Before covid, you'd sit next to them, get asked questions every so often, do some pair programming, and discuss ideas over lunch. You can, on paper, do the same exact things over Slack and Zoom. But there's much more friction. And a junior that's struggling is a lot less visible than it used to be. So wh…

BS. Pairing works great over zoom

When I compare pair programming in person vs. by video chat, there is no comparison. In person is always more effective. That said, if you have no choice (your pairing partner is not in the same office), then video chat is way better than 10 years ago, and is a reasonable alternative.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#243

Post by throwaway2037 »

tetromino_ wrote: post #105
esalman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is absolutely directly responsible. Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer. Most people are taking credits, and internships are getting cancelled left and right.

> Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer That's a bit like asking them to choose between AI credits and a visit to the dentist. No engineer has ever hosted an intern in the hopes of improving their project's velocity; people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry, because it's psychologically satisfying for many people, and to build cred and/or…

    > people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry
This is bullshit, assuming that we are talking about for-profit corporations.

In my experience, the reason why my teams have hired interns is to get a solid, multi-week preview of their potential quality and abilities. During the hiring phase for juniors, the signal-to-noise ratio isn't very good, but a good intern can get a lot done in one summer. You can easily pick the best one or two interns to hire when they graduate. Then you dramatically reduced junior engineer hiring risk. Also, if they suck or are disappointing, then the loss is minimal -- don't hire them. If they are really awful, then just throw shit work at them and don't waste time trying to mentor them. Really, it goes both ways.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#244

Post by throwaway2037 »

esalman wrote: post #99
exabrial wrote: post #6

AI is not responsible for anything at the moment, except making existing senior developers reasonably more efficient for sleeve of tasks, but not the tasks that take the most time. Saying "we don't need as many staff because AI" is an oft-repeated trope because it sounds like a reasonable excuse to fire people. It's nearly impossible to back up the claim with any measurable method, and investors will look aside on th…

AI is absolutely directly responsible. Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer. Most people are taking credits, and internships are getting cancelled left and right.

    > Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer
My Brandolini's Law alarm is ringing loud and clear here. I would say the answer is both -- hire the intern and give them a bunch of AI credits. Ask them to work through the old backlog of shitty, low risk work that no one else wants to do.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#246

Post by throwaway2037 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #137
bradleyy wrote: post #131

What if Financial Times has a vested interest in the real estate industry, and therefore wants RTO mandates? Something something AI I mean.

i'm glad reading your comment, because i nearly always get that feeling with FT articles, and very often with Economist patronizing subset of articles.

Can you provide some example financial/economic newspapers and magazines that do not give you "that feeling"?

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#247

Post by maxehmookau »

Absolutely get in the bin with this ridiculous take from a newspaper with a vested interest in getting people back in to expensive office real estate.

Juniors cost more to train, take more effort, and time from seniors who are otherwise "productive" and so companies don't want to hire them and be responsible for that additional work.

It's not remote working, or AI that's to blame for weak junior hiring. It's short-termism from companies that see no reason to spend their time training up juniors.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#248

Post by hbs18 »

agentifysh wrote: post #201

Surprised none of these comments address the issue from cultural/generational value gap I increasingly find across different borders that Gen Z simply are not optimal or desirable for hire and its not just "remote coding jobs" but across the spectrum. In South Korea, there are lot of of 35yo+ getting hired while people in their early 20s struggling. I see the same outcome in different advanced economies and the answe…

> Perhaps the biggest difference I see from millenials and gen z is that the degree in which they realize the difference between having earned the right to expressing your opinion and expressing your opinion.

This reads like the classic case of "I had it bad therefore everybody else should too"

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#249

Post by throwaway2037 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #92
steviedotboston wrote: post #8

I couldn't imagine working remote straight out of college. I'm very glad I work remote now though.

It's hard to really compare when we(the pre-internet generation) were raised in an offline environment from the start. At my current job we see "junior" devs with 3 years of GitHub contributions and fully in production personal projects. Those obviously learned through a different path that what most had 20 years ago, but they're definitely not an exception either, and I genuinely think there is an adaptation process…

    > Those obviously learned through a different path that what most had 20 years ago
Why do you think it was different? Lots of programmers were doing exactly that 20 years ago -- they had personal projects.

Re: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?

#250

Post by throwaway2037 »

nitwit005 wrote: post #214
smarm52 wrote: post #3

The paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6787638 Unclear if it's been peer reviewed. The abstract looks fairly convincing. But it is argued against by the majority of research on this topic.

The first handful of sentences from the abstract were a rather convincing case against the paper to me.

You only needed to read the "first handful of sentences from the abstract" to dismiss an EIGHTY-TWO page paper? Can you share a sample sentence and what you don't like about it?
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