Live data from Hacker News

The Junior Hiring Crisis

people-work.io

361–370 of 535 posts

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#361

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#362
post #46

I upvoted the article for the purpose of discussion. I disagree with it. The core tenant of the article is that AI is the reason why companies aren't hiring juniors. That's just not it. Do people just blindly believe whatever some CEO or company says in their press briefings? This was all happening before the AI boom. Interest rates went up, hiring went way down, and then AI launched. Before interest rates, interview…

[deleted]

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#363
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone can cram and fake if they expect a gravy train on the other end. If you're still asking trvia, yes. Maybe it's time to shift from the old filter and update the process? If you can see in the job that a 30 minute PR is the problem, then maybe replace that 3rd leetcode round with 30 minutes of pair programming. Hard to chatGPT in real time without sounding suspicion.

That approach to interviewing will cause a lot of false negatives. Many developers, especially juniors, get anxious when thrown into a pair programming task with someone they don't know and will perform badly regardless of their actual skills.

I understand that and had some hard anxiety myself back then. Even these days I may be a bit shakey when love coding in an interview setting?

But is the false negative for a nervous pair programmer worse than a false positive for a leetcode question? Ideally a good interviewer would be able to separate the anxiety from the actual thinking and see that this person can actually think, but that's another undervalued skill among industry.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those economic policies were a backlash to the 1970s Civil Rights pushes. You can always count on racists to destroy themselves rather than to stop abusing others.

That LBJ quote rings true more and more with each passing year. “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

My favorite LBJ quote has always been the one about voting for Democrats for a hundred years. A true believer in equality, he was.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's the cargo cult kayfabe of it all. People do it because Google used to do it, now it's just spread like a folk religion. But nobody wants guilds or licensure, so we have to make everyone do a week-long take-home and then FizzBuzz in front of a very awkward committee. Might as well just read chicken bones, at least that would be less humiliating.

And who would write the guild membership or licensure criteria? How much should those focus on ReactJS versus validation criteria for cruise missile flight control software?

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of our current society's problems can be directly traced back to Reagan-era policies. Anyone who seriously believes in trickle-down Reaganomics is a fool or a liar.

Those economic policies were a backlash to the 1970s Civil Rights pushes. You can always count on racists to destroy themselves rather than to stop abusing others.

More a backlash to the economic policies of the 1970s and their effects than the social policies of the 1970s actually.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand such process for freshman, but for industry veteran with 10+ years of experience, with with recommendation from multiple senior managers? And yet welcome to leetcode grind.

Yeah, I was told I'd get less of this as I got real experience. More additions to the pile of lies and misconceptions. If you need to fizzbuzz me, fine. But why am I still making word search solver project in my free time as if I'm applying for a college internship?

I’ve started using ChatGPT for their take home projects, with only minor edits or refactors myself. If they’re upset I saved a couple hours of tedium, they’re the wrong employer for me.

And I’m being an accelerationist hoping the whole thing collapses under its own ridiculousness.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#368
This is a good use of government due to the existing dynamics.

Instead of only funding universities, provide lower risk curves for hiring juniors where the jobs are.

The big issue is the game theory of first mover disadvantage at play.

Whoever trains the junior loses all the investment when the junior jumps ship. This creates a natural situation of every company holding until the ‘foolish ones’ (in their eyes) waste resources on training.

Second mover advantage is real. This is what the government can fix.

Re: The Junior Hiring Crisis

#369
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone can cram and fake if they expect a gravy train on the other end. If you're still asking trvia, yes. Maybe it's time to shift from the old filter and update the process? If you can see in the job that a 30 minute PR is the problem, then maybe replace that 3rd leetcode round with 30 minutes of pair programming. Hard to chatGPT in real time without sounding suspicion.

That approach to interviewing will cause a lot of false negatives. Many developers, especially juniors, get anxious when thrown into a pair programming task with someone they don't know and will perform badly regardless of their actual skills.

The same could be said for leetcode. Except leetcode doesn't test actual skills in 2025.
Post reply on HN