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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#401

Post by dragonwriter »

padobson wrote: post #375
vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

I love that you pointed out the need for political strength within organizations. I agree, and I think it directly conflicts with this line from the post: Yeah, I’m gonna bring gender into it, because I’m a woman and when women take on roles like this they often get pigeonholed into “den mother” stereotypes. That means less prestige and less prestige usually means less pay. Having the admiration and respect of the ne…

> Having the admiration and respect of the next generation of developers at your company offers far more leverage than the nebulous prestige

“Prestige” and “respect” are essentially synonyms, and careerwise respect of developers in the org often is not as important as respect of management.

> What could provide more organizational political power than building a hierarchy of capable engineers that consistently come to you when they need help?

Being perceived by management as delivering results rather than being the one behind the scenes enabling others to be perceived that way.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#402

Post by petagonoral »

dalbasal wrote: post #269
virgilp wrote: post #223

> we don’t hire junior developers because we can’t afford to have our senior developers mentor them. That feels too dumb to be real (which is exactly why it's probably a real thing). You don't hire senior devs to code - good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! You hire senior devs to guide you WHAT and HOW to code. And they can do that so much more effectively if they don't have to…

The problem I've seen with mentoring, in practice, is the 1 in 3 juniors that takes up all the time. Maybe the particular job doesn't suit them. Maybe they shouldn't be a dev. Maybe it's personality. Some managers, mentors or such seem to deal with this well. But, in the cases that I've seen having an employee that is not producing value is stressful and time consuming. Largely, it's driven by empathy. You don't want…

In my opinion, attitudes similar to yours are toxic to this industry.

I've been working >10 years as a software engineer. If I'd never worked on a (necessarily) complicated system(s), I could maybe understand your viewpoint. Churning out the same CRUD app with minor differences would probably be safe enough to expect a junior dev to 'have at it'.

> Everything is fast

Unfortunately, this is the current 'thinking' on how some un-enlightened people think the industry should work. Ultimately, I think this is a load of nonsense. Software engineering is engineering. Some people may have snuck in & survived as they never had to do something non trivial & deal with the resulting consequences.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#403

Post by binarycheese »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #381
vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

My "standard" team typically has two jr engineers, and two Sr engineers. When we hire Sr engineers we hire people that like to mentor others and see it as part of being Sr. Jr engineers know that in order to become Sr one of the skills they need to master is mentoring. This is 100% a management issue, and it starts at the hiring filter. Hiring Jrs btw is its own skill as you are filtering for potential not skill or k…

Then you will need two senior devs. This is because rockstar devs rarely want to mentor junior devs nor attend meetings. Most inventors are not professors.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#404

Post by DontGiveTwoFlux »

tboyd47 wrote: post #388
virgilp wrote: post #223

> we don’t hire junior developers because we can’t afford to have our senior developers mentor them. That feels too dumb to be real (which is exactly why it's probably a real thing). You don't hire senior devs to code - good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! You hire senior devs to guide you WHAT and HOW to code. And they can do that so much more effectively if they don't have to…

> good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! For at least 2 companies I've worked at, this is false. Junior devs cannot complete their work at all without help. This may be the real problem: there is no way to learn the skills to do the job without actually getting a job first and learning the skills as you go.

But the ‘learning the skills as you go’ part is where the seniors come in. I’ve benefited immensely from the code reviews which took things that technically worked but we’re convoluted and transformed them into code that could be maintained and read easily.

Now that I’ve had some mentorship I can be productive on my own, but yeah, it took some work.

The senior devs get pulled into meetings, customer escalations, bug reviews, etc. all the time. The juniors, now trained and competent are free to code all day and get the work done because they have fewer responsibilities.

Yes, it takes work to get there, but it’s worth the effort.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#405

Post by wilsonnb »

adjkant wrote: post #16
jarjoura wrote: post #7

Most junior level positions are being filled with the massive influx of new grads from really strong intern programs at most companies now. If you're in college now, make sure you get an internship at a company in your field. If it's too late for that, then you'll have to do a little extra work and probably work on a couple side projects and post them on GitHub. That first job will always be the hardest to get, so do…

This. If you're graduating without an internship or two, you're in trouble.

As someone who graduated in the summer of 2016 without having done any internships, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment.

Finding a job was much more difficult than I thought it would be. Part of that is because I was looking in a very specific geographic area so I could live with my girlfriend (now wife) , part of it was a low GPA, but most of it was because I didn't have any experience outside of college classes.

Eventually I lucked out and found a job with a company that was looking to train someone because they develop software for IBM mainframes and weren't having any luck finding people in that field in the area.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#406

Post by matwood »

maxxxxx wrote: post #32
CryoLogic wrote: post #17

The growth of undergrand CS program enrollment is pretty insane, same with bootcamps. Lots of these people have no real interest in the positions outside of pay, which is fine for most careers. But in tech we put a lot of value on self learning and interest. I've definitely seen the number of new grad applicants and bootcamp grad applicants at least quadruple in the past few years. Most of these can make an Angular a…

That's something I have noticed too. In the 90s most people I worked with were genuinely interested in the work and often came from very eclectic backgrounds. Almost nobody had a CS degree. Now it seems a lot of people go into programming because it pays well and looks like a good career but they don't really care for tech. I definitely found the industry more fun in the 90s but that may just be the fact it's becomin…

> Now it seems a lot of people go into programming because it pays well and looks like a good career but they don't really care for tech.

This was already happening in the late 90s. Initially my undergrad was filled with people because CS paid well, but back then at least the first two classes were setup to weed those people out.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#407

Post by g051051 »

virgilp wrote: post #389
Retric wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get better with practice. So, yes senior developers tend to be significantly faster coders. It's not that they do everything faster, but by getting better at the hard parts they finish complex tasks vastly more quickly. PS: Most people have never worked closely with someone with 25+ years of experience, but the difference is staggering.

Well, I am someone with 25 years of experience, does that count as "worked closely with"? Good junior devs are... well, by definition, good. They're just younger, and less experienced - but every bit as smart as you are, and pretty skilled in the art of coding. If anything, they have more time than I do and are a lot more eager to "prove themselves". I don't view the value I add as "can code features faster"...

> I don't view the value I add as "can code features faster"

I do, at least partly. I can code so much faster that my cost per feature is lower than a junior dev.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#408

Post by Itaxpica »

consp wrote: post #343
zemanel wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High probability of “not productive effort”, i’m fighting my own rather serious battle with management at the moment. On further note, before i started the contract i was asked to bring my own laptop as work computer, i didn’t necessarily agree (for all the obvious reasons as security and business/personal risk) but he was being pushy about i said i could take my laptop (at least to get started) and i was expecting t…

I have worked on my own laptop for a while (due to startup lack of money, it was either wage or the laptop at some point due to liquidity issues), with one point made to my employer: All copyright on work done on my laptop belongs to me, and only me. You can 'rent' it by paying me my wage but as soon as I leave, all code on it is mine and I'm taking it with me for future 'reference'. Don't know how this works legally…

All copyright on work done on my laptop belongs to me, and only me. You can 'rent' it by paying me my wage but as soon as I leave, all code on it is mine and I'm taking it with me for future 'reference'. Don't know how this works legally but since I'm not a self employed person who has a business contract, I'm pretty sure you cannot legally force someone to use their own stuff without compensation.

In the US at least, any work you do for an employer and get paid for is covered under what are called work-for-hire laws which assign the copyright to the company, unless you have a written contract stating otherwise. This is true regardless of what equipment you use, and there’s absolutely zero legal barrier to a company asking you to use your own equipment in the course of a job without any compensation. The fact that your ultimatum wasn’t met with a “lol no” from Legal is pure luck.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#409

Post by matwood »

emodendroket wrote: post #36
maxxxxx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I have noticed too. In the 90s most people I worked with were genuinely interested in the work and often came from very eclectic backgrounds. Almost nobody had a CS degree. Now it seems a lot of people go into programming because it pays well and looks like a good career but they don't really care for tech. I definitely found the industry more fun in the 90s but that may just be the fact it's becomin…

I don't think someone necessarily has to live and breathe code to be good at their job. That kind of focus is hard to maintain forever. When I was new I was constantly reading programming books and now, like, I'm still interested, but other things are going on in my life that also need my attention, you know?

> When I was new I was constantly reading programming books and now, like, I'm still interested, but other things are going on in my life that also need my attention, you know?

It's not a binary thing. The fact that you were/are interested enough in technology in the past is different than someone who only did the bare minimum. I consider it more of a mindset thing.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#410

Post by Raphmedia »

tboyd47 wrote: post #380
vinceguidry wrote: post #364

There were never any junior dev jobs. You have always had to lie, cheat, and steal your way into the field. I have a buddy who legit cheated his way to the top Magento certification and now cycles through $150k+ jobs where they keep him on long enough to realize he doesn't have any coding skills then they fire him. Reason is software is always an ancillary concern to the business. You see this in other fields, like s…

Ok, the first part of your comment makes no sense to me. How do you lie your way into a certification? An interview I can understand, but don't you have to take a test to get a cert? From the second paragraph down, you're absolutely right for non-software companies. They still don't have an understanding of how to build software development into their business model. They don't realize that the low barrier entry to b…

You can get through a Magento certification by memorizing the answers that are all over the internet, http://magecert.com ect.
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