5 ms·

>I was very much a weak candidate when hired for my first programming job after university. Being a weak candidate and being an inexperienced candidate are tw

>I was very much a weak candidate when hired for my first programming job after university. Being a weak candidate and being an inexperienced candidate are two different things.

FLUX-YOU 10y ago
People make that judgment based on inconsistent opinions though because ultimately it's measuring developer ability against a commonly held standard and we don't even know how to do that.
taurath 10y ago
I was an inexperienced candidate when I got my first dev job. I had literally some very basic front end skills in that I could use jquery to change font colors. I'm now a fairly seasoned backend developer - if nobody had taken a risk on me (for low pay at first) or mentored me I would not be anywhere near where I am today. We treat training like a cost center and despite the huge amount of money being made out of the tech industry there are very few companies organizations or even groups of people that prioritize taking time to make people productive. I don't know the solution but it seems that there is a huge untapped amount of potential skill that will never get used.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I don't think programming is much different than any other endeavour. Talent will bring you a long way, but requires practice and training to get you to the point where you are good (or better than good). People with average talent can become quite good, but just like everything else, they won't be able to catch the more talented person who puts in as much effort and receives as much coaching. However, if you look at things like sports, the margins are really fine. A 2 minute margin of victory in the Tour de France represents less than 1% of the total time in the race. People at the top end of sports have the best training, the best coaching and the best talent because 1% is the difference between winning the championship game and not even making the team. The margins in programming are huge in comparison. Someone with average talent who has good coaching and works hard in a consistent way will be so much better than your average developer that I think talent barely works into the equation. Just like everything, the super talented are rare, but in our field it doesn't matter because we can potentially train people to be much more than "good enough". You have hit the nail on the head, though, with respect to the problem. Training is a cost centre. Let's say you take a person right out of a boot camp -- they can write code, but have only a couple months of practice under their belts. While they can improve dramatically over a year or two, it's still going to take 5 years or more for them to hit the "much more than good enough" level. If you want them to be able to handle the nuances of making sure a project is successful, you need at least another 5 years on top of that. People change jobs every 2-3 years on average. You are just starting to see some payback on your investment and they are gone. Even worse, investing in training costs you more than buying talent. If you spend time and money (and factor in the cost of lost opportunity by hiring people who are still learning their craft), when they reach the level of a more experience/talented individual they want the same pay! So you can pay double for someone talented who has 5-10 years of experience, or you can try to train someone up to that level. After 5 years, they still want double (if they are even still around), even though you have invested in them. This is why the top teams are willing to spend ridiculous money (2x the median) on top people and are unwilling to train anyone. The teams who aren't willing to pay top dollar also are unwilling to pay for training. They think they can get twice as many people if they pay half as much and will get more done. They aren't interested in paying for increased skill. Unlike sports, 1% difference in ability has virtually no meaning in programming. This means we don't need to scour the world for the best young programmers and build a world class training program for them. At best, we pay double for people who have the talent and/or experience to be "much better than average". It's broken, but I don't know how you can fix it.
  - taurath 10y ago
    I think part of it is about the price of failure - why do people need not only GOOD programmers but the BEST? Because their business model doesn't work unless they succeed fully, the first time (and most still fail). I wonder if it would be better for innovation if ventures could be made without putting ones entire livelihood on the line - I've found that the more "assured" a business is of its model, the more willing they are to coach and train people (at scale, it costs less to have a training regime so you can move lower-paid programmers through your company than it does to pay the highest sought after people in every place of your company).
    - mikekchar 10y ago
      I think part of that perception may come from the kinds of companies you have dealt with. There are many companies where the "IT" side of the company is considered to be mostly superfluous. In fact, most programmers work for these kinds of companies. In my experience, there is still very little training. At best you'll get a 2 day "Scrum Master" course, or a couple of days to go to a conference here or there (which is sadly often seen in the same light that sales people view a sales junket). Even in big insurance companies, etc people don't stick around as employees for long. Of course these companies are not the ones paying double for good programmers.

>I was very much a weak candidate when hired for my first programming job after university. Being a weak candidate and being an inexperienced candidate are two different things.

FLUX-YOU 10y ago

People make that judgment based on inconsistent opinions though because ultimately it's measuring developer ability against a commonly held standard and we don't even know how to do that.

taurath 10y ago

I was an inexperienced candidate when I got my first dev job. I had literally some very basic front end skills in that I could use jquery to change font colors. I'm now a fairly seasoned backend developer - if nobody had taken a risk on me (for low pay at first) or mentored me I would not be anywhere near where I am today. We treat training like a cost center and despite the huge amount of money being made out of the tech industry there are very few companies organizations or even groups of people that prioritize taking time to make people productive. I don't know the solution but it seems that there is a huge untapped amount of potential skill that will never get used.

mikekchar 10y ago
I don't think programming is much different than any other endeavour. Talent will bring you a long way, but requires practice and training to get you to the point where you are good (or better than good). People with average talent can become quite good, but just like everything else, they won't be able to catch the more talented person who puts in as much effort and receives as much coaching. However, if you look at things like sports, the margins are really fine. A 2 minute margin of victory in the Tour de France represents less than 1% of the total time in the race. People at the top end of sports have the best training, the best coaching and the best talent because 1% is the difference between winning the championship game and not even making the team. The margins in programming are huge in comparison. Someone with average talent who has good coaching and works hard in a consistent way will be so much better than your average developer that I think talent barely works into the equation. Just like everything, the super talented are rare, but in our field it doesn't matter because we can potentially train people to be much more than "good enough". You have hit the nail on the head, though, with respect to the problem. Training is a cost centre. Let's say you take a person right out of a boot camp -- they can write code, but have only a couple months of practice under their belts. While they can improve dramatically over a year or two, it's still going to take 5 years or more for them to hit the "much more than good enough" level. If you want them to be able to handle the nuances of making sure a project is successful, you need at least another 5 years on top of that. People change jobs every 2-3 years on average. You are just starting to see some payback on your investment and they are gone. Even worse, investing in training costs you more than buying talent. If you spend time and money (and factor in the cost of lost opportunity by hiring people who are still learning their craft), when they reach the level of a more experience/talented individual they want the same pay! So you can pay double for someone talented who has 5-10 years of experience, or you can try to train someone up to that level. After 5 years, they still want double (if they are even still around), even though you have invested in them. This is why the top teams are willing to spend ridiculous money (2x the median) on top people and are unwilling to train anyone. The teams who aren't willing to pay top dollar also are unwilling to pay for training. They think they can get twice as many people if they pay half as much and will get more done. They aren't interested in paying for increased skill. Unlike sports, 1% difference in ability has virtually no meaning in programming. This means we don't need to scour the world for the best young programmers and build a world class training program for them. At best, we pay double for people who have the talent and/or experience to be "much better than average". It's broken, but I don't know how you can fix it.
- taurath 10y ago
  I think part of it is about the price of failure - why do people need not only GOOD programmers but the BEST? Because their business model doesn't work unless they succeed fully, the first time (and most still fail). I wonder if it would be better for innovation if ventures could be made without putting ones entire livelihood on the line - I've found that the more "assured" a business is of its model, the more willing they are to coach and train people (at scale, it costs less to have a training regime so you can move lower-paid programmers through your company than it does to pay the highest sought after people in every place of your company).
  - mikekchar 10y ago
    I think part of that perception may come from the kinds of companies you have dealt with. There are many companies where the "IT" side of the company is considered to be mostly superfluous. In fact, most programmers work for these kinds of companies. In my experience, there is still very little training. At best you'll get a 2 day "Scrum Master" course, or a couple of days to go to a conference here or there (which is sadly often seen in the same light that sales people view a sales junket). Even in big insurance companies, etc people don't stick around as employees for long. Of course these companies are not the ones paying double for good programmers.