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Who Killed the Junior Developer?

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Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#461

Post by p0nce »

austenallred wrote: post #104

I’m the cofounder of a YC-backed Computer Science academy ( https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science ), and we’ve noticed a few things: 1. The junior dev market is flooded. It’s also flooded with people that cannot code. We’ve done quite a bit of analysis, and we’re talking 10% can write fizzbuzz. Bootcamps are pumping people out as fast as they can collect money, and while some are solid juniors many are just compl…

What I get from your post is that in less than 10 years, people that get such a short training will be good regardless. Maybe then good programmers will become a commodity: this will surely change a thing or two.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#462

Post by jnovek »

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…

I am philosophically similar, although I generally hire at a 2 to 1 ratio, senior to junior.

I've found that I'm (as in, the boss guy) the most common blockade to ensuring that mentorship is productive and not disruptive. A 2 to 1 hiring ratio is playing the same game you are but on "Easy" instead of "Normal". So :thumbsup: on maintaining a 1 to 1 ratio.

Regarding how this relates to hiring women -- it's not just women. It has been a general diversity boon to teams where I've employed this practice, increasing diversity not just in the "affirmative action" groups (not to diminish the importance of that) but also in programmer background. I've had junior engineers bring insights far outside my sphere simply because they were previously (e.g.) a copywriter.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#463

Post by padobson »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #432
padobson wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its about pay and promotion Pay and promotion is about making yourself valuable. If you mentor engineers and gain a reputation for doing so, you're effectively shaping the culture of the organization, not to mention gives you a ton of leverage with the productive employees you taught to be productive. It makes you far less disposable. When mixed with even amateur negotiating skills, that leads to promotion and bet…

If you ignore the part about stigmatizing, which happens to women by default, then sure. An objective management team would act as described. But the 'den mother' comment comes out of a real issue, of womens roles being sidelined. One pragmatic response is to avoid roles that feed into the stereotype. In a better world, this would not be a thing. But here we are.

One pragmatic response is to avoid roles that feed into the stereotype.

You make a good point, and I agree with the pragmatism of the choice, but I also believe mentorship can be a means of advancement.

The point of my original comment was to advocate for another choice - one that will both advance the mentor and their proteges. Hopefully, this will give us that better world we're looking for.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#464

Post by padobson »

yetanotheruser wrote: post #459
padobson wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Depends if the leaders even care what 3 junior devs think.

The leaders will care a great deal if the three devs are well trained and capable.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#465

Post by [deleted] »

purerandomness wrote: post #453
g051051 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I directly disputed the central thesis that OP (the person I was responding to, not the article) was putting forth, that senior developers shouldn't be coding: > You don't hire senior devs to code - good junior devs can code not only "just as fast", but probably faster too! > "Mentoring" is basically the job you hire a senior dev to do What other "points" did OP make?

Your reading comprehension suffers under your fragile ego. Nobody said 'senior developers shouldn't be coding'. The topic is about a lack of mentoring for junior devs. You being a certified 100x rockstar developer is totally fine but irrelevant, because you don't scale. What would scale is if you were to start coaching junior devs, because if you don't, all the juniors will keep reinventing 'left-pad' in this week's…

[deleted]

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#466

Post by dalbasal »

petagonoral wrote: post #402
dalbasal wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Where did I say that?! I never said junior devs should work independently.

Anyway ,it's not about how people think the industry should work it's about how it does work. This is a fast industry, irl. People change jobs more frequently. Companies grow faster. Products go from conception to release faster. Financial horizons are shorter.

A big chunk of the 2018 industry did not exist in 2008. Mobile, for example. Not the companies, not the specializations. It's not philosophy. It's reality. I'm talking about side effects of this reality.

No one at Snapchat thinks "we'll hire this kid, he'll make a great engineering manager in 15 years." They do in some industries. We're on the other end of the spectrum.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#467

Post by tannhauser23 »

austenallred wrote: post #104

I’m the cofounder of a YC-backed Computer Science academy ( https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science ), and we’ve noticed a few things: 1. The junior dev market is flooded. It’s also flooded with people that cannot code. We’ve done quite a bit of analysis, and we’re talking 10% can write fizzbuzz. Bootcamps are pumping people out as fast as they can collect money, and while some are solid juniors many are just compl…

What bootcamps are teaching their students HTML/CSS for 11 weeks? You should call them out by name.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#468

Post by jnovek »

I've long maintained a maxim that's something like "Look in the opposite direction of everyone else." So when everyone flocks to the bay area, get the heck out of there. When everyone says "I have no space for junior devs" think about how you can take advantage of that underutilized resource.

Junior devs are cheap. If you're willing to spend the time to sift -- and you will be doing a lot of resume sifting -- and setup a framework for mentorship, you can hire junior devs with more promise than your average senior dev.

Anecdotally, one of my junior hires from a few years ago earned his way through positions quickly and became a senior software engineer in just three years. I actually invited him to be my co-founder on my next venture and he turned me down :-P.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#469

Post by nradov »

binarycheese wrote: post #403
jmvoodoo wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To a first approximation there is no such thing as a "rockstar" developer. I mean a few of them exist, but the actual stars (not poseur wannabes) are already locked down doing other things so it isn't possible to hire them anyway. If you're hiring or building a team you have to target developers who are actually available, not the stars.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#470

Post by yomly »

bkovacev wrote: post #298
derrekl wrote: post #122

The problem is squashed salaries. I’ll have junior devs or people straight out of code school asking for 75-80% the salary of a solid senior dev. If I have to make a bet on who will be easier to manage and get productive 4 seniors vs 5 juniors for the same total expenditure I’ll choose the seniors every time. Even at 2 to 1 I’m taking seniors. Maybe around 3 or 4 to 1 juniors might look better. But that means junior…

We've recently started hiring for a junior front-end position and we've stumbled upon code bootcamps graduates asking for 120k with one or two demo projects on their github. NYC Area, which I find absurd. Unsure if it's the mentors at those schools that are telling their students to ask for that much or the students themselves think that companies that want to hire juniors usually have that deep of a pocket.

I'd argue that it's absurd that we still think 120k is a lot of money when we look around at how expensive things like property are.

My father, with a modest education and a modest first job, was able to get married, raise a child and buy a house near London well before he was 30.

Property in that area is now worth hundreds of thousands and would require a six-figure salary (supposedly a lot of money!!) to be able to qualify for a mortgage to buy.

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