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The Junior Hiring Crisis

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Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#261

Post by johnnyanmac »

strickjb9 wrote: post #57
hex4def6 wrote: post #14

> We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating away that work. Both studies I referenced above cited the same thing - AI is getting good at automating junior work while only augmenting senior work. So the evidence doesn’t show that AI is going to replace everyone; it’s just removing the apprenticeship ladder. Was having a discussion the other day with someone, and we c…

Adding to this: it's not just that the apprenticeship ladder is gone—it's that nobody wants to deal with juniors who spit out AI code they don't really understand. In the past, a junior would write bad code and you'd work with them to make it better. Now I just assume they're taking my feedback and feeding it right back to the LLM. Ends up taking more of my time than if I'd done it myself. The whole mentorship thing…

>Now I just assume they're taking my feedback and feeding it right back to the LLM.

seems like something a work policy can fix quickly. If not something filtered in the interview pipeline. I wouldn't just let juniors go around and try to copy-pasting non-compilable Stackoverflow code, why would I do it here?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#262

Post by agumonkey »

wwweston wrote: post #238
icedchai wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some definite signs of over reliance on AI. From emojis in comments, to updates completely unrelated to the task at hand, if you ask "why did you make this change?", you'll typically get no answer. I don't mind if AI is used as a tool, but the output needs to be vetted.

Exactly. Use LLMs as a tutor, a tool, and make sure you understand the output.

My favorite prompt is "your goal is to retire yourself"

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#263

Post by kalinkochnev »

linsomniac wrote: post #246
lordnacho wrote: post #134

I suspect this junior hiring crisis thing is linked to the ridiculous hoops people are put through to get a job these days. When I was starting, you were checked for potential as a trainee. In my case, options trading. They checked over that you could do some mental arithmetic, and that you had a superficial idea of what trading was about. Along with a degree from a fancy university, that was all that was needed. I d…

>ridiculous hoops people are put through to get a job these days I'm sure that's true in some areas, but our last hire I was shocked at the ridiculous lengths the applications would go to to avoid putting in even a minimum effort to apply for the job. Like the Van Halen brown M&M test, we put a line in the middle of the job advert saying "If you've read this, put your favorite color in at the top of your job applicat…

As a new college grad I might be able to add some insight.

We're stuck in a stalemate where the sheer volume of applications for employers to handle and applicants to send makes them take shortcuts, leaving both sides wonder why people aren't trying.

If somebody has to send in 300-500 applications (which is not unheard of) and answer the same questions till they go blind, it's not surprising that certain things are missing or people don't care. Applicants don't have any reason to believe their info isn't thrown in the trash by an LLM as soon as it is sent.

Lazy people will always be a problem but until there is transparency or trust developed I doubt we will see meaningful change.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#264

Post by johnnyanmac »

shagie wrote: post #73
strickjb9 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to this: it's not just that the apprenticeship ladder is gone—it's that nobody wants to deal with juniors who spit out AI code they don't really understand. In the past, a junior would write bad code and you'd work with them to make it better. Now I just assume they're taking my feedback and feeding it right back to the LLM. Ends up taking more of my time than if I'd done it myself. The whole mentorship thing…

> Now I just assume they're taking my feedback and feeding it right back to the LLM. This is especially annoying when you get back a response in a PR "Yes, you're right. I have pushed the fixes you suggested." Part of the challenge (and I don't have an answer either) is there are some juniors who use AI to assist... and some who use it to delegate all of their work to. It is especially frustrating that the second gro…

I must ask once again why we are having these 5+ round interview cycles and we aren't able to filter for qualities that the work requires of its talent. What are all those rounds for if we're getting engineers who aren't as valued for the team's needs at the end of the pipeline?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#265

Post by samiwami »

timoth3y wrote: post #232
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #56

> The social contract between large companies and employees has been broken for years now. US companies are optimized for quarterly earnings, not long term investment in their employees. Going to throw out another anecdote here. At a company that a number of my friends work for (a fortune 50), they are currently making record profits that they loudly brag about during employee townhalls. They also are in the process…

I think a lot of this has to do with the explosion of CEO (and by extension CxO) pay over the past 30 years. Today, a CEO can turn in a few quarters of really solid earnings growth, they can earn enough to retire to a life a private jets. Back when CxO pay was lower, the only way to make that kind of bank was to claw your way into the top job and stay there for a decade or more. The current situation strongly incenti…

CEO’s also never face consequences for destroying companies. Zaslav has run WBD into the ground and it’s currently being surrounded by vultures, and he’s still making like half a billion a year.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#266

Post by knollimar »

ike2792 wrote: post #174
andrewmutz wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not helping that in the last 10 years a culture of job-hopping has taken over the tech industry. Average tenure at tech companies is often ~2 years and after that people job hop to increase compensation. It's clear why people do it (more pay) but it sets up bad incentives for the companies. Why would a company invest money in growing the technical skill set of an employee, just to have them leave as soon as they…

When I'm hiring an engineer, HR will easily let me bump up the offer by $10-20K if the candidate counters. It is nearly impossible to get that same $10-20K bump for an existing engineer that is performing extremely well. Companies themselves set up this perverse incentive structure.

And retraining that candidate probably costs you a month of productivity, too.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#267

Post by knollimar »

izacus wrote: post #214
kulahan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would assume the solution is to simply offer a good package and retain employees with that. I returned to an old company after a few years of floating around because I realized they had the perfect mix of culture and benefits for me, even if the pay isn't massive. You're falling for the exact same fallacy experienced by failed salesmen. "Why would I bother investing time in this customer when they're just going t…

The game theory here says that such a company will be outcompeted and killed by a company which doesn't spend money+time on retention and training but instead invests that money in poaching. What you say only works if everyone is doing it. But if you're spending resources on juniors and raises, you can easily be outcompeted and outpoached by companies using that saved money to poach your best employees.

What's the solution? Locking juniors in with contracts? Vesting cliffs?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#268

Post by johnnyanmac »

gunsch wrote: post #218
mooreds wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are some juniors who use AI to assist... and some who use it to delegate all of their work to. Hmmm. Is there any way to distinguish between these two categories? Because I agree, if someone is delegating all their work to an LLM or similar tool, cut out the middleman. Same as if someone just copy/pasted from Stackoverflow 5 years ago. I think it is also important to think about incentives. What incentive doe…

Pair programming! Get hands-on with your junior engineers and their development process. Push them to think through things and not just ask the LLM everything.

I've seen some overly excessive pair programming initiatives out there, but it does baffle me why less people who struggle with this do it. Take even just 30 minutes to pair program on a problem and see their process and you can reveal so much.

But I suppose my question is rhetorical. We're laying off hundreds of thousands of engineers and maming existing ones do the work of 3-4 engineers. Not much time to help the juniors.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#269

Post by skeeter2020 »

>> we’ve spent a decade normalizing senior engineers opting out of developing the next generation.

This seems like a deeply flawed take on the dual track IC-management ladder. Senior ICs don't keep plugging away by themselves because they're not managers, they just don't get people-management tasks. I think the leadership & mentorship they provide is harder than for me (a manager) because they don't have the hammer of a "manager" job title, and need to earn all their credibility. I have not had a senior IC and above in more than 10 years that didn't have a significant amount of junior & int development explicitly defined in their role, and the easiest way to get promoted is with leverage. Try and be 20% better than your peers with your contribution (hard). Make 10 people 3% better (much easier)

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#270

Post by [deleted] »

strickjb9 wrote: post #57
hex4def6 wrote: post #14

> We used to have a training ground for junior engineers, but now AI is increasingly automating away that work. Both studies I referenced above cited the same thing - AI is getting good at automating junior work while only augmenting senior work. So the evidence doesn’t show that AI is going to replace everyone; it’s just removing the apprenticeship ladder. Was having a discussion the other day with someone, and we c…

Adding to this: it's not just that the apprenticeship ladder is gone—it's that nobody wants to deal with juniors who spit out AI code they don't really understand. In the past, a junior would write bad code and you'd work with them to make it better. Now I just assume they're taking my feedback and feeding it right back to the LLM. Ends up taking more of my time than if I'd done it myself. The whole mentorship thing…

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