Who Killed the Junior Developer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#701

Post by lovich » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #333

Declanomous wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because fixing 1 and 2 are really expensive. On top of that, the further removed someone is from the work being done, the more they want people to look "busy". I got moved from a desk in in a dead end office with to a desk in a bullpen so that I could be "closer to the people who I work with." My performance fell off a cliff. People would stop by all the time to check up on things, there was always a conversat…

> That's because fixing 1 and 2 are really expensive. Re point #1, I simply don't understand how, long term, it is more cost efficient to hire and train someone entirely new than it is to build a culture of valuing current staff. Maybe I'm naive? Maybe it is difficult in ways I don't perceive?

Different budgets. Raises are continual, ongoing costs but the cost for hiring a new person can be considered one off costs, even though you are performing the "one off" task repeatedly

Some managers also seem to only respond to crises. Being down an employee is a crisis. Making sure that your employee gets an appropriate raise isn't, especially since most people aren't going to leave their boss know that they are looking for another job

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#702

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #634

madamelic wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Have you ever been in a union? No. There is a reason I went into software development and not blue-collar work. ;) (Nothing wrong with it, just not the stuff I want to deal with. Unions included. I lose enough money already to the gov't.)

I went the trades route because I didn't have any concrete plan for college when I finished high school and I wanted to get some form of gainful employment so an electrical apprenticeship seemed like a good idea until I figured out something else. I have been in a union before (nearly a decade of industrial electrician/power plant operator work before I obtained my CS degree). You bet there is corruption in some unio…

I'd like to think that a tech worker's union composed of people already aware of white hat, grey hat, and black hat distinctions would be set up with some structural impediments to corruption. In my head, it would have similar structure to working groups, where stuff gets done by consensus, without anyone having so much authority that they can do an obviously wrong thing and still preserve their influence.

I'm not sure how it would work to have a union that can essentially fork itself whenever the leadership goes bad, or even one that has no leadership to begin with, and manages everything with a consensus/compromise algorithm.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#703

Post by oldandtired » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #447

binarycheese wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then they aren't a rockstar. And frankly, I've spent my career cleaning up the obfuscated, badly documented, untested code of "rockstar" devs. The idea of a "rockstar" you seem to be referring to has, in my experience, been a dev who can go into a corner and pump out high volumes of code with little supervision or collaboration. That's great, except no one else can make sense of the code they pump out, so when it com…

A great dev gets out amongst his user community and finds out the real feelings of those who are using the software. The great dev tries to understand the actual user requirements (not just what has been supplied by the design docs). The great dev listens to the criticisms of the users and discusses what can and can't be done.

I don't disagree with your "great dev" qualities but there is more needed to make a "great dev". Otherwise all the documentation, code ease, mentoring, being a part of the team, etc. is not going to make the code useful to anyone.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#704

Post by g051051 » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #690

g051051 wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm saying that your arguments are wrong. I don't care how good the junior dev is, I can out code them every time. > If you're working on the premise "we can’t afford to have our senior developers mentor juniors" , you're misusing the senior devs. Actually, no argument there. Mentoring is indeed a critical function of senior devs. > It's not just cost-ineffective (you're paying a senior do to a junior's work) And…

Look. Aren't you spending time thinking? Do you imagine you think faster than everybody aged 23? Could you do an MSc at a top-level US university (in your primary domain of expertise) in a week? Because plenty of people (juniors by definition, almost all of them) can do it in 2 years, so if you're "100x" in the sense that you say you are, you should be able to do all that work in 1 week. At least that much should be…

> Aren't you spending time thinking? Do you imagine you think faster than everybody aged 23?

No, but I probably think better...i.e. how to approach a problem, sift out the relevant details, formulate a plan, execute it, understand the trade-offs, etc. As a result, I can deliver more correct code faster than a junior dev.

> you can't possibly be "100x" in the sense that you claim to be.

I never claimed to be 100x. I was just mentioning the reason why I'm cheaper than a junior dev (that I'm not paid in line with my "effectiveness multiplier"). You were the one that mentioned a 100x engineer thing in a link, so I included the number.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#705

Post by tslothrop » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #216

tslothrop wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird, I'm in Sydney and last year I sent around more than 100 resumes over the span of 6 months, only to land an intern position in a terrible "startup like" company, where I was underpaid and overworked. I had to quit after burning out in a few months. I know of several other juniors with this same issue.

100 applications with almost no luck sounds really bad but there is a possibility you are missing something in your resume. I work in Melbourne, if you want email me your resume and I will take a look to make sure you are not missing something basic.

Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. I had my resume looked over at Reddit and by other industry professionals, it was just lacking working experience and qualifications (I graduated from TAFE, not uni). I'm not looking anymore, now, as I got a much better job, although not development related (which was, anyway, what I wanted, after burning out).

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#706

Post by kenhwang » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

JAFTEM wrote: post #672

kenhwang wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring juniors in LA has been delightful; so many strong candidates, no real competing offers. That being said, it's also pretty easy to poach burnt out, fed up experienced juniors from the Bay Area.

Poach said junior devs from the Bay Area to LA or in general? Sort of confused with your second statement. The crazy thing is that every one of my CS major friends I graduated with at USC moved up the coast to the Bay Area or Seattle, or to the east coast in NYC.

Bay Area to LA but in general too; many grads leave the LA area, so it's not a hard sell to get them to come back after they pick up some experience. Bay Area just happens to be the biggest consumer of fresh graduates.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#707

Post by dte22 » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #358

Game_Ender wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those headphones only block constant background noise, not conversations . In order to do that you have to put your hearing at risk with enough actual noise to overwhelm the rest.

I have tried some decent quality ones. They don't block out conversations completely, but it does sound a lot quieter. They are definitely an improvement over not wearing them.

Yep.. my Bose QC35's are amazing!

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#708

Post by loup-vaillant » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

dabockster wrote: post #492

loup-vaillant wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried, and nearly got fired for this. Well, not fired , but I'm currently a contractor, and was told because of this that I may not become an actual hire. (This has since settled down, but I'm still not hired because of unrelated issues —they're still waiting for a government grant.) The story is simple: we have a prefab building with 3 stories, a beautiful interior, 52 desks on each floor. All open, but for 2 clos…

> I'm currently a contractor, and was told because of this that I may not become an actual hire They are never going to hire you. The contract is, in a way, a more airtight way of paying you under the table. Depending on the size of the business, labeling everyone as 1099 can reduce taxes for the business quite a bit. Thing is, though, is that it's illegal. But it's usually up to the worker to report it, so it is ext…

First, I live in France. The practices you speak of are familiar, but legislation may be different. Second, several contractors did got hired before me. Third, the terms of the grant they seek compels them to have very few contractors. They are expected to hire en masse if they get it.

Fourth, my contractor status is actually secondary to me. More important is being allowed to work part time (4 days a week), which I'm currently negotiating.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#709

Post by joncrane » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

Declanomous wrote: post #139

aerotwelve wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the answer, but they just won't listen. Management at so many firms have convinced themselves that developers leave because of all these magical reasons that aren't either 1) they're dissatisfied with their pay and you're not listening 2) they're dissatisfied with their working conditions (bullpens or open offices anyone?) so they'll never keep their best people and they'll never learn.

That's because fixing 1 and 2 are really expensive. On top of that, the further removed someone is from the work being done, the more they want people to look "busy". I got moved from a desk in in a dead end office with to a desk in a bullpen so that I could be "closer to the people who I work with." My performance fell off a cliff. People would stop by all the time to check up on things, there was always a conversat…

This is why you take notes.

Re: Who Killed the Junior Developer?

#710

Post by loup-vaillant » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

Declanomous wrote: post #661

loup-vaillant wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounting. Open offices take less space, which is cheaper. The real costs are hidden, so they tend to be ignored. It also looks good from the outside.

Yeah, the funny thing is that the accountants and HR all had private offices with doors that locked because they dealt with confidential matters.

In our case, even the higher ups have their desk in the open plan. Closer to the corners of course, but still. And I think this actually contributes to the delusion of harmlessness of this environment.

Having their desk in the open plan, they're more be inclined to think they are as affected as everyone else. Except they're not, because they spend way more time in meetings, and live on the manager's schedule.

As far as I can tell, the higher ups actually do mean well. I'm not sure what drew them to the open plan, but I think cold blooded cynicism explains only a fraction of their error.