3 ms·

One issue, at least at my company, is that we just don't need as many experienced people. We have some uber-experienced developers who do architecture and codin

One issue, at least at my company, is that we just don't need as many experienced people. We have some uber-experienced developers who do architecture and coding for everything "hard", and then a mostly-interchangeable pool of young people who do the easy—but bulky and non-automatable (yet)—stuff. Honestly, when you look at a lot of startups, nothing they do is even remotely difficult. And they're filled with young people that can build on the hard work done by (now older) people on cloud platforms, with frameworks, tooling, etc. So on the one hand, yeah, we (seemingly) don't need as many older developers. OTOH, when we do need them, young people aren't even an option.

mooreds 11y ago
> So on the one hand, yeah, we (seemingly) don't need as many older developers. OTOH, when we do need them, young people aren't even an option. That's an interesting bifurcation that mirrors what's happening in broader society (plenty of both low and high end jobs, and a hollowing out of the middle). I wrote an essay a decade ago about how you get senior folks if you outsource all the junior work. I wonder the same thing in this situation--if you don't have a middle tier of developers, how do senior developers develop out of junior/entry level devs?
- dionidium 11y ago
  In the context of the larger society, those lower-end programming jobs pretty obviously are the middle
mixmastamyk 11y ago
That's probably true, though I'd argue that experienced developers tend to produce more maintainable code even on easier projects. Perhaps that's not enough to convince business folks though, who tend not to value maintainability highly.
spicytunacone 11y ago
>Honestly, when you look at a lot of startups, nothing they do is even remotely difficult. What do you consider difficult? Maybe it is because I am just a fresh-faced new grad, but I think there's a lot out there I would find hard to do, even with languages and frameworks aside, unless I trivialize it by thinking "oh that's just an application of solved problem X" or "it's just a lot of statistical plug-n-chug".

mooreds 11y ago

> So on the one hand, yeah, we (seemingly) don't need as many older developers. OTOH, when we do need them, young people aren't even an option. That's an interesting bifurcation that mirrors what's happening in broader society (plenty of both low and high end jobs, and a hollowing out of the middle). I wrote an essay a decade ago about how you get senior folks if you outsource all the junior work. I wonder the same thing in this situation--if you don't have a middle tier of developers, how do senior developers develop out of junior/entry level devs?

dionidium 11y ago
In the context of the larger society, those lower-end programming jobs pretty obviously are the middle

mixmastamyk 11y ago

That's probably true, though I'd argue that experienced developers tend to produce more maintainable code even on easier projects. Perhaps that's not enough to convince business folks though, who tend not to value maintainability highly.

spicytunacone 11y ago

>Honestly, when you look at a lot of startups, nothing they do is even remotely difficult. What do you consider difficult? Maybe it is because I am just a fresh-faced new grad, but I think there's a lot out there I would find hard to do, even with languages and frameworks aside, unless I trivialize it by thinking "oh that's just an application of solved problem X" or "it's just a lot of statistical plug-n-chug".