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The Junior Hiring Crisis

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Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#321

Post by johnnyanmac »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #291
parliament32 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a thing for a long time and I've thought about it quite a bit, but I still have no solutions. I'm pretty sure it just comes down to bean-counting: "we have a new fulltime permanent asset for $100k" vs "we have a new fulltime permanent asset for $120k" is effectively the same thing, and there's a clear "spend money, acquire person" transaction going on. Meanwhile, "we spent $20k on an asset we already ha…

In my view, I have observed many good, underpaid engineers because they choose stability over higher pay. Most people are happy with slow and stead pay rises while working at the same company. Companies know this and pay accordingly. Only your top 1-10% of employees need more careful "TLC" to give higher raises and regular off-cycle feedback: "You're doing great. We are giving you a special raise for your efforts." Y…

>You can mostly afford to lose the rest.

I guess that's how we got here to begin with. We take a workforce and treat is as expendable instead of as a proper team.

I suppose it will vary per industry but I can't imagine an other kind of engineering being comfortable just letting go of people mid-project because "we can afford to lose them".

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#322

Post by johnnyanmac »

andrewmutz wrote: post #205
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…

They could do that: hire juniors, lose money while you train them, and give them aggressive raises. Or they could just do what they are doing: skip the juniors and just hire the people who've got experience.

Everyone's kicking the can down the road and we're very soon going to hit points of "no one has experience (or are already working)". Someone needs to do the training. It doesn't seem like school and bootcamps is enough for what companies need these days.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#323

Post by getnormality »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #264
shagie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

There's no fix for this problem in hiring upfront. Anyone can cram and fake if they expect a gravy train on the other end. If you want people to work after they're hired, you have to be able to give direct negative feedback, and if that doesn't work, fire quickly and easily.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#324

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

>but instead invests that money in poaching.

give a big enough raise and they won't want to be poached. You won't retain everyone, but your goal probably isn't to compete with Google to begin with. So why worry of the scenario of boosting a good junior from 100k to 150k but losing them to a 250k job?

In some ways you will also need to read the room. I don't like the mentality of "I won't hire this person, they are only here for money", but to some extent you need to gauge how much of them is mission-focused and how much would leave the minute they get a 10k counter-offer. adjust your investments accordingly and focus on making something that makes money off that.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#325

Post by BuckRogers »

The comments here amuse me because there's a strong scent of resentment towards people using AI, along with people who copied from SO. I am a mid level developer that started using AI about 4 months ago, and view it as justice against unreasonable and constant micromanagement through estimates on every single task. You want a robot? You're getting your robot now.

Not to mention I'm the only white person on my team other than the owner/operator. They already brought in bots of sorts from overseas. The constant drive to cheaper labor and gutting of the American middle class has been vast compared to the suffering the industry will have under junior developers using AI. It's definitely made my job easier. And I really don't care. No one cared about me. I have relatively low pay, no health insurance, and no 401K. When the last person left, management replied to his goodbye email saying he'd be replaced in a week. And then they proceeded to try to hire someone in Mexico City. Maintain the same time zone, but pay 3rd world wages and likely to have coercive control over them through desperation. Never found anyone.

I have no love for this industry or any of the "woes" it'll have with AI. Overall it's going to lead to lower wages and less jobs. For those out there producing "AI slop", I support you. It's hardly what they deserve, but they've earned it.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#326

Post by johnnyanmac »

QuercusMax wrote: post #176
dgunay wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't companies just grant raises more aggressively? Was the ease of poaching engineers not a clear market signal?

When I worked at a very small company we were extremely concerned about this, and so we paid people well enough that they didn't want to leave. All I can figure is that the bean counters just don't understand that churn has a cost.

some places like Amazon operate around the churn. Keep everyone anxious and they won't try to collectively bargain nor ask for raises. They won't be around long enough anyways.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#327

Post by johnnyanmac »

izacus wrote: post #211
dgunay wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't companies just grant raises more aggressively? Was the ease of poaching engineers not a clear market signal?

Same reason why companies don't pay everyone 10 million bucks a month. Where do you think the money comes from?

Where do you think that money is going?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#328

Post by johnnyanmac »

loeg wrote: post #210
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…

Arguably, the cross-pollination of developers moving around is good for employers.

Good to minimize bus factor, bad when you want to innovate and expand your business. So I guess it's ideal for this slowing economy focused on "maintenance".

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#329

Post by johnnyanmac »

semiquaver wrote: post #185
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…

People have been saying this for at least 30 years.

40, that's around the time pensions were starting to be removed.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#330

Post by icedchai »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #274
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.

What is wrong with emojis in comments? I see no issue with it. Do I do it myself? No. Would I pushback if a young person added emojis to comments? No. I am looking at "the content, not the colour".

The emojis are not a problem themselves. They're a warning sign: slop is (probably) present, look deeper.
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