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How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

dom96 9y ago
Thanks for sharing. In regards to the BBC however, and on behalf of my SO, I am curious how to get your foot in the door as a script writer (or as something related to this). Does anyone have any insights/tips/contacts that they would give to someone interested in becoming a script writer for the BBC?
- DanBC 9y ago
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/
  - dom96 9y ago
    I was hoping for something other than this. This is something that I am already aware of.
    - ErrantX 9y ago
      Find an agent. 100% best method. Except for that the only way is the "hard" way, requiring some luck, through things like writers room.
    - ljf 9y ago
      I was at the BBC for a few years. I can't talk for much other than Children's BBC, but there many of the people involved in that area of production had also worked in a range of roles in the BBC and migrated over to that position. Alternatively they had worked writing and creating outside of the BBC, possibly in passion projects but likely on other paying gigs - possibly with agencies. But generally they were people who were able to point to a large body of previous work. I don't think I ever saw a role like 'script writer' on the internal job sites. Don't forget that a large amount of the production is out of house - through production companies of varying sizes. What I loved about working there was the genuine passion for content and the audience that most people there had - good luck if they can get in.
    - jdietrich 9y ago
      Write, pitch, repeat. Working as a runner might help you network and understand the industry, there are various mentorship schemes, but ultimately nobody gives a shit unless you've got a great script. You don't need permission from anyone to write a script and send it to a commissioner. There's a mile-long queue of people who want to be a script writer, but a much more exclusive club of people who actually write and pitch scripts regularly. As the great Ronnie Coleman said, "everybody wants to be a body builder, but ain't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight".
- KGIII 9y ago
  First, I have no idea how to answer your question. I did do some writing, but nothing famous and not scripts. I was a journalist to earn money while I was went to the university. But, your question made me curious. It really does look like the link in the sibling post is as valid a link as you're going to get. I'd suggest your SO put the work in and make use of all the resources at that link. Having said that, write and network. Certain jobs aren't acquired by the usual methods. There probably is no long interview and application process. Instead, your SO will have to do something to get noticed. There are probably lots of ways to get noticed that involve luck. I'd not depend on luck. I'd make opportunities to get lucky, however. I did find this link, it seems like a good link and the information passes the smell test. Here: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/insiders-guide-to-becoming-screenwriter https://www.theguardian.com/careers/insiders-guide-to-becomi... I think the networking idea is probably one of the biggest ways to get noticed. Join local writer's groups. Go to workshops. Get to know people. Instead of contacting them and saying, "Hey, I want a job!" Have them contact someone, probably having made some good contacts first, and say, "Hey, I really could use some advice." I'd suspect that getting contacts is the first step. Do the research. Make use of the site they sibling post gave you. Do what they suggest, and then some. If there is an event for screenwriters, be there. If there is a pub they frequent, be there. I'd not immediately pressure for a hire, or even to show samples. I'd listen, learn, ask as many questions as I could, and I'd make it a point to listen. People love to have an audience. So, when developing this network, be an active listener. Active listening is a very, very underrated skill to have. People love to talk, encourage them to do so. Pay attention to what they say. Ask good questions. Ask questions that invite them to share their knowledge. Most of all, truly listen and take their advice to heart. Write... If you want to be a writer, write. Write a lot. Write all the time. Write about anything and everything. Write stuff that people will see, even if it is just forum posts. Write constantly and cover a wide variety of topics. Write about what you know, and use your writing as an excuse to learn more so that you can write about that. Put yourself out there. Find people who will honestly give you advice. This means you're going to need people who understand both good writing and the subject matter. You can find those people online or in the real world. Friends and family shouldn't be your first choice. They aren't always able to be unbiased. Nobody likes to tell a loved one that they suck and their dream is hopeless because they have no skills. If they do suck, that doesn't mean they can't learn - so keep at it. Keep writing, keep taking classes, keep going to creative writing groups, go to any writing group that will have you. Write ad copy for free. Find a website and edit their work and then send it to them. Build up a portfolio. Even if it is just a blog, get your stuff out there. They want to see someone that can be prolific and good. They want to see someone who is capable of putting out consistently good work. They want to see someone who has motivation to complete projects. So, write, write, write... Learn, learn, learn. Network until your schedule is so full that you barely have time to live a normal life. And be ready for rejection. Be ready for a lot of rejection. Be ready to sacrifice your dream and be willing to write for a different company. When rejection happens, and it will, don't give up. When they reject one script, ask them why and then make the script into something that fixes those problems. I'm sure scads of people also want to write for the BBC. They not only have to be better than the rest, they have to have more drive than the rest. They have to stand out and be noticed. They have to have someone who is rooting for them on the snide of the company. The BBC has to want then, make them want you. Make them aware that not taking you means that their competition will take you. Make them know that you're an asset that they don't want going to a different company. Make them know that you can solve a problem and fills niche that nobody else can fill better than you. Some of this is covered in the link I gave you. I could go on but this is already long enough. If they want to work there, they are going to have to work at it. Use the resources available and be ready to work harder than your SObhas ever worked in their life,
user5994461 9y ago
Isn't the BBC a company where the only senior positions are as a contractor, charging 3 times the amount of their permanent counterpart for much less hassle? I am not sure if the author is trying to write a nice PR piece or is so inexperienced that he believes in all this corporate bullshit he's repeating. ^^
- M2Ys4U 9y ago
  >Isn't the BBC a company where the only senior positions are as a contractor, charging 3 times the amount of their permanent counterpart for much less hassle? Not really, no.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    Digital do seem to have sorted this out, with clear job titles and stuff, at least for programmers, and tech jobs upto band 10. Elsewhere it's not so clear cut. Support have no way to progress past band 8 without going into a terrible management structure. Good engineers are rarely good managers.
- DRW_ 9y ago
  I'm not the author, but I recently joined the BBC as a software engineer and haven't found all that many contractors at all, the ones I have are in regular non-senior positions. It may be the case for 'talent' and management of TV projects (for example), but in the tech departments - your assertion, in my experience seems to be far from true.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    I've been here 14 years which is just about long enough to not be a newbie any more. I now plenty of contractors, most are useless. After 5 years one of the few good ones has taken a staff job. We do seem to be getting better, the recent IR35 rules helped, but we still have contractors employing contractors. At a high level they're typically there to implement some bad idea and the fuck off so everyone can blame them afterwards.
rokhayakebe 9y ago
Going from Jr to Sr in an organization is "easy/ier." Making the same progress as a freelancer/contractor is more difficult.
- k-mcgrady 9y ago
  I disagree. I would struggle to get many senior dev roles in companies due to gaps in my knowledge (e.g. TDD, Agile or whatever PM style they use). As a freelancer/contractor however I can pick roles that only require skills I'm very good at and can therefore charge senior rates. NB: This is if you were defining junior/senior based on pay. Hard to tell from your comment if you were.
- richardknop 9y ago
  Most contractors are senior devs from my experience. One reason to go contracting is if you're a senior dev already and your career progression seems stuck because you're at the top of salaried positions in your company already. Going contracting is a way to get a pay rise for people like that.
  - nvarsj 9y ago
    Going contracting in IT in London is a way to get a pay rise for anyone. A senior dev contractor will likely make more than a director or architect at the same company. The whole situation is wacky.
    - richardknop 9y ago
      Yeah that's true. But to get really high daily rates you need to be senior dev with decent amount of experience from my experience. I agree the whole situation is a bit ridiculous. But when in majority of companies salaries for developers are limited to something like 60-70k. This has been slowly changing and there are more companies willing to pay up to 90k but even then as contractor you can make equivalent of 120k or more even after still taking 25 days off per year.
bjornlouser 9y ago
"I wanted to make sure that my first job post-university would be somewhere where I would feel happy and work not on my own, but with an agile team ..." It's interesting that any young developer would regard the micromanagement that comes with agile as a plus.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Do they just mean agile in the sense of "adaptable and fast-moving"? Also, for some (many) junior anythings some micromanagement is a good thing, especially for a college grad with little "real world" experience.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    BBC levels of management are good for no one other than the management.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - josh602 9y ago
      Could you expand on that?
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        I could, but W1A, a BBC sitcom does a much better job. Beyond that, we’re talking about criminally overpaid management which until relatively recently spent a few decades covering for the likes of Jimmy Saville. It’s the same management which still can’t quite figure how to deal with the realities of content delivery in 2017, because it might mean real change.
- sudhirj 9y ago
  > micromanagement that comes with agile It's a sad day when the ideas behind the agile movement have fully become the Agile System (tm) in engineer consciousness. The word used to denote a style of working, not characterised by micromanagement or by a Scrum Master (tm, again) telling people what to do, but ironically by leaving behind dogma for a loose collection of principles that worked effectively for the team and the problem at hand. The word has been lost, though. Using the word 'agile' now evokes more derision than enthusiasm or excitement.
dopeboy 9y ago
I train new technical hires at Fortune 500 financial institutions so this article struck a chord with me. One of the key points that I leave my cohort with overlaps with the OP's point about fresh perspectives. The hires I'm with are up to speed with the newest languages, newest frameworks, and newest tools. I encourage them over and over to try to bring that knowledge into their roles.
tweedledee 9y ago
By grooming them?
vegancap 9y ago
This is an exciting read for me as I start as a Software Engineer at the BBC on Monday!
- ArbitraryString 9y ago
  Good luck with your job! What sort of languages/technologies will you be working with?
- josh602 9y ago
  Awesome! London or Salford?
eosrei 9y ago
> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.
- spaceseaman 9y ago
  > Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers. Sadly this is far from my experience as well. It's likely a few toxic work environments. Not to hijack your comment but I would like to offer a specific example I've seen of toxic behavior from senior developers. Many don't actually read the questions you ask of them or trust your knowledge. It's very similar to attitudes I see on Reddit, HackerNews, or StackOverflow: "Hey I'm having a bit of trouble getting this to compile / run / there's this weird error I'm encountering. I read the documentation and based on that tried X, Y, and Z, but none of those solved my problem / my problem appears somewhat different." (Where each of X, Y, and Z are somewhat long explanations of what was tried). "Did you try X?" "Uh yes I did" (then to be polite I repeat my explanation of doing X) "What about Y?" You see what I mean. Especially in text, I find that some senior developers can't be bothered to actually read what someone else said. So if you're worried that you're a poor senior developer, I recommend you actually try and read what your younger colleagues say and ask of you. And especially trust that they are being honest with you. Don't assume that someone is lying or that they're wrong on the first pass - it's condescending, frustrating, and usually a waste of time. If you hired someone in the first place, you should be allowed to assume a bare minimum of competency and if for some reason that fails, you can always question them after the fact. I think it's a result of our engineering mindset to assume absolute idiocy in every case and then work our way up, but I think it's more productive (and especially better leadership) to assume that your subordinates know what they are doing. In the context of an online forum like this, I think it's best to do the opposite: assume idiocy and work your way to competency - simply because we are all anonymous and don't know each other. The actual workplace should be treated differently though. People always perform better when you put your trust in them.
valuearb 9y ago
Lots of good stuff in this, but i have a couple of significant nits. First, paired programming is a great way to help a junior learn. But it’s dependent upon their desire, i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing. But otherwise paired programming is just a great way to slow me down. Secondly, the open floor plan they described is a clear disregard for the productivity of individual software engineers. Maybe the author never experienced the difference, but it’s significant.
- danielharrison 9y ago
  Entirely subjective.
- makmanalp 9y ago
  > i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing This is so sad and frustrating. I get distracted easily too, but when someone is taking time to show and explain something to me, they have my full attention. Anything less is so disrespectful and just a waste of time.
- josh602 9y ago
  > Secondly, the open floor plan they described is a clear disregard for the productivity of individual software engineers. Maybe the author never experienced the difference, but it’s significant. Actually, I have. I've worked in two small digital agencies where the devs were in their own office. I didn't like it. It was too quiet for me and I felt like I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. I concentrate better when I have background noise. Some of my colleagues have headphones, but I don't like to use them because I don't want to give the impression that I don't want anyone to interrupt me. I prefer people coming up to me to speak to me rather than sending me a message. There's a very good historical reason why the BBC is committed to open plan offices and hot desking. Back in BBC Television Centre days (if I'm remembering correctly), it used to be that managers would have their own offices and the teams they line managed would be based in a completely different part of the building. Eventually, someone realised this is silly. There was a huge transformation of the corporation's culture, which brought about the existence of the BBC Values, and no one was allowed to have their own private office any more. Managers would sit with their teams, and people were able to just go up to other teams and chat with them, collaborate, etc. It would go against the BBC Values if someone senior gave themselves a sense of greater self-importance just because they were a higher grade. No one should be told, 'You can't talk to me because your grade is too low'.
rntksi 9y ago
I was once a Jr Dev for the BBC too (back in the days). It was exactly as you described. Extremely beneficial in terms of personal development due to the culture it offered.
Proven 9y ago
Ffs the guy is praising a "values" of a "company" that lives by streaking money from his fellow citizens. Shameless
throwaway7645 9y ago
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know if they still use Perl? I think the BBC iPlayer used it.
- rntksi 9y ago
  I do remember they used Perl for backend, and there was a resident Perl-guru. I'm not sure with all the new Zend engine refactoring whether Perl still lives inside the BBC ...
  - isostatic 9y ago
    The BBC is bigger than just the online devs. In news we still have a fair amount of perl, mainly in Nagios checks and other bits of monitoring, but pretty much any news package you see coming in from abroad, and many in the UK, passes through a system with critical perl elements (JFE and davina). PHP is more prevalent for more recent developments - Raven is PHp for example - anything you see edited for the party conferences is recorded and edited on Ravens, whenever you watch Asia Business Report every clip you see is played out of Raven, as are the graphics running on the screens in the studios. The lower third graphics on ABR are casparcg loading templates that are ttraditional perl cgi (mainly just to insert various variables). The news archiving system in bureaus has a perl front end, as does the web part of the video production system. Our offline captioning system (webcap) is perl, and the standard ubuntu build we use on c. 1200 machines has a lot of perl tweaks to configure and monitor. These are critical systems, but we don't have the resources of online/fmt/digital/whatever, of all those systems only Raven gets any active development (about 2 man months a year), we just don't have the manpower or the time, so don't expect to find a job wanting perl though :)
    - throwaway7645 9y ago
      Thanks for the explanation!
nnain 9y ago
Kinda ironic that BBC Desing and Engineering team would publish their blog on Medium!
- isostatic 9y ago
  Yes, especially given there's a proper BBC blog system (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet). I wonder if the poster had permission to post this, or if it's just a personal blog. Hopefully he won't get in too much trouble if the latter.
  - DRW_ 9y ago
    It's under the 'BBC Design & Engineering' page on Medium which has several managers from the department listed as editors: https://medium.com/bbc-design-engineering/about https://medium.com/bbc-design-engineering/about It has also been shared internally on a few slack BBC teams that I'm in, so it's all good.
  - josh602 9y ago
    We're trying out Medium as a blogging platform because it was seeming like the BBC Internet Blog wasn't reaching our intended target audience any more. Better to go where your readers are than expect them to come to you.
lostPoncho 9y ago
Sorry to stray offtopic, but are remote junior dev jobs feasible?
- p4lindromica 9y ago
  you need to be in the office as a junior dev because you don't know what you don't know and you can learn a lot through osmosis
  - andkenneth 9y ago
    Learning by osmosis is just not a thing. You can't just smack a junior in the middle of a team that doesn't effectively do remote, but a team with a good remote culture should certainly have no issues with a junior being remote as well.
    - p4lindromica 9y ago
      how does a junior dev know the difference when accepting a job offer? (aka you don't know what you don't know)
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Maybe. I wouldn't recommend it.
- isostatic 9y ago
  How remote? 1 visit every 6 months, or 1 day a week? And what type of dev - software, or something more BBC specific involving actual broadcast?
  - lostPoncho 9y ago
    1 visit every 6 months based on location and software
- sumobob 9y ago
  I have mixed feelings on this, it seems to me it is doable, but it requires 2 important things: 1. The Junior has worked remote before. If you get someone where this is their first remote job, unless they're incredibly organized and have a remote strategy they will lose socialization and much more. 2. A ton of work on the manager's part. Mentoring sessions, checkins, very active communication channels etc.
yeukhon 9y ago
Curious any companies in the Us can self-proclaim having similar environments? BBC only hires engineering in the UK
k__ 9y ago
It somehow always saddens me to read that. Most devs I know started at a small company who didn't "grew" them at all. I worked 7 years at a small company and never got any mentoring or external education etc. while the "good" ppl I knew from university got jobs at big corps and got even better because they got "grown" right. Who already has is given.
- m_st 9y ago
  Same here. Started as junior (with 7 years programming experience from school) with a few other juniors at a company working on a new product without any senior developers anymore. It sure was a little rough sometimes and we sure made our fair share of errors and technical debt, but it was an amazing experience. And the product still works fine today. So with a motivated team and some autodidactic learning you can still get very far! Especially since Google and Stackoverflow.com are at your disposal.
  - k__ 9y ago
    It didn't even occur to me that I could educate myself in that time. I started doing it after I was 9 years in.
    - dozzie 9y ago
      So you basically sat on your ass and said "somebody teach me"? No wonder that your colleagues from university got so much better. I never got much help from other people. In the beginning, I didn't have anybody interested in computers around me at all, yet I managed to learn programming. Then, when I started studying IT and switched to Linux, and I didn't have anybody to systematically learn working with unix from. This happened when I didn't have an access to the internet, and we had very little learning material published (first half of '00 decade), so it wasn't even possible for me to ask a question on StackOverflow or something. And then the pattern repeats a number of times. It's not mentoring that helps people grow. It's learning. It can be done with a teacher/mentor (and in fact it's easier in a number of fields), but it doesn't require one. Don't blame others for your own idleness.
sdrothrock 9y ago
I work at a small Japanese company with only two developers; myself and a junior developer (also American) we brought on as my assistant a year ago. He came on with little to no development and technological experience but an incredible work/study ethic and a willingness to learn, which are both MUCH more important to me. The skills can be learned and refined over time, but the fundamentals need to be there; if a developer doesn't have the right mindset or ability to learn, then they're never going to grow, no matter how much you poke at them. One issue I've been fighting (with myself) is knowing when to criticize and knowing when to let him go; I err toward the latter a lot, especially technically, but lean toward giving advice sessions or examples when it comes to communication/professional growth skills. The reason I do this is because it's much, much easier to refine technical skills than it is to refine personal skills... and the personal skills are equally as important at a small company when time is precious and you're working directly with other people who are also under heavy loads and pressure. I bring this up because I was surprised to see zero mention of independence as a prized quality after the author commented that he did NOT feel like a cog in the machine at the BBC. There is, I feel, a fine line between needing to be told what to do every time and being able to make the right decisions on your own. The latter quality -- reasoned independence -- is something I think every work environment should foster in its team members in order to have a team that respects and can support each other. Teams fall apart if members need to be told each and every thing they're supposed to do: members will either grow to hate that or will become mindless minions; the team falls apart when the order-giver is no longer there; over-communication becomes an issue and more time is spent in meetings or replying to 100+ e-mail chains instead of developing things for customers. I rarely see much talk about this kind of growth in developers here though... and it makes me wonder if I'm misguided in placing so much importance on this concept.
- austincheney 9y ago
  Agreed. It is more about personality than anything else. If you want to learn and solve problems you will simply work at it until you figure it out. I have seen so many developers utterly fail at this. They require not just a particular language, but a particular framework and a certain specific mountain of abstractions. Any less that could remotely expose their incompetence is immediate cause for rebellion. Their strong arguments are whining and excuses instead of simply figuring it out. I don't want to have to work at as a baby sitter if I am hired to be a senior developer. Some junior devs are a pleasure to work with and really bring appreciation to the job and others make me want to quit and go do something else. I say junior devs, but I have also encountered some senior devs whom I would describe as junior.
lc94 9y ago
What they don't mention is the abysmal salary (£23,000~) they start you on. No idea why anyone would choose to work there.
- IshKebab 9y ago
  Wow that really is bad.
- josh602 9y ago
  I turned down a graduate contract in London for £30k, going up to £40k after two years, to be at the BBC. If you want to work at BBC D&E, you accept that you're not going to get a competitive salary. But in return, you get very relaxed and laid back working conditions. (Or so people tell me. I haven't worked at any other large software org to compare.) Someone I know, who is now a principal dev, was previously a contractor for the BBC. He decided to leave contracting and join the corporation permanently. He's one of the most amazingly clever developers I have ever met. (But yes, we'd all still appreciate it if we could be paid more.)
- jlebrech 9y ago
  for the BBC that's terrible, they also pay their TV licensing goons peanuts too.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  They pa{y,id} contractors well last year but IIRC they were drastically reducing their use due to new tax regulations or something.
lordnacho 9y ago
One thing about junior devs is the level of skill varies greatly. Where I work there's a guy who is nominally a junior dev, but he already knows everything the senior devs are expected to do. If he was an average guy there'd be a lot more handholding, but somehow with barely any hiring process (he was a friend of a friend) we lucked out. I'm wondering whether management will be smart and pay him like a senior dev so he doesn't leave as soon as he finds out he could be making a few hundred grand instead of a few tens. One major downside of this kind of variation is managers think they can somehow repeat the trick. If we just make the hiring process hard enough and shove enough candidates through, we can pan for those elusive 10x guys. It also makes people think that 10x guys are a thing like a gold nugget in the river, rather than the outcome of a long process of maturation in an appropriate environment.
- therealdrag0 9y ago
  Yeah I've kinda been that guy. Went from university straight into a green field project that allowed me to grow very fast and I was smart and competent enough to handle it. I knew the project inside and out and everyone liked me. They billed me out at $250 and paid me $40. So I switched jobs after 1.5yrs for a 40% raise. Then the same thing happened, so after 1yr I got another job, also through a guy I had worked with who had seen I was good, for another 15% raise. It's funny how a company can get hung up on relative pay-raises instead of considering actual value added.
  - jomkr 9y ago
    I'm that guy but instead of leaving I hung around, god knows why. After three years, I'm interviewing and getting offers of about 60% salary increase. From £32,200 -> £55,000.
gaius 9y ago
Didn't the BBC outsource all of their programming jobs to Siemens? I had a few friends there who were TUPEd.
- isostatic 9y ago
  No, they tried doing that - first into an external company (BBC Technology), then in 2006ish they sold that off for something like £500m. Some programming jobs went (Coledia, which was attempts to commercialise things like BNCS and Jupiter), but the software jobs that were really close to the business like the news website stayed in house. Since then things like iplayer were built in house, and obviously R&D were never moved out. Other technology that moved included areas like networks, most commodity IT (domain controllers, file servers etc), and for some reason the main area that looked after satellite bookings, routings etc (analog video distribution and audio tag frames are fairly core broadcast technology). However the news area that did this stayed in house, as did most of the desktop support in news (but not elsewhere), and most of the broadcast support. Except in Glasgow where pretty much everything was moved to Siemens. It was a total mess, and it still is a bit of a mess. Many of the people who were outsourced are still working for ATOS (who took over Siemens/SBS/SIS), in fact I think they even kept the final salary pension which everyone else lost a few years later. A few who had been moved out were moved back in too. However that all seems to be changing again - I believe most of the Atos jobs are moving from Bracknell to Eastern Europe as part of the new contract, and the WAN connectivity which Atos held (through vodafone) has recently moved to BT
  - gaius 9y ago
    However that all seems to be changing again - I believe most of the Atos jobs are moving from Bracknell to Eastern Europe as part of the new contract Yes, it was reported in El Reg that the BBC claim they have to lay off all their UK tech people in order to afford to close the salary gap between their already incredibly well paid on-air performers. Funny how commercial they can be when it suits them.
jlebrech 9y ago
I hope they fill their diversity quota and don't just hire people from the huge white pool. because I want them to fail.

Thanks for sharing. In regards to the BBC however, and on behalf of my SO, I am curious how to get your foot in the door as a script writer (or as something related to this). Does anyone have any insights/tips/contacts that they would give to someone interested in becoming a script writer for the BBC?

DanBC 9y ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/
- dom96 9y ago
  I was hoping for something other than this. This is something that I am already aware of.
  - ErrantX 9y ago
    Find an agent. 100% best method. Except for that the only way is the "hard" way, requiring some luck, through things like writers room.
  - ljf 9y ago
    I was at the BBC for a few years. I can't talk for much other than Children's BBC, but there many of the people involved in that area of production had also worked in a range of roles in the BBC and migrated over to that position. Alternatively they had worked writing and creating outside of the BBC, possibly in passion projects but likely on other paying gigs - possibly with agencies. But generally they were people who were able to point to a large body of previous work. I don't think I ever saw a role like 'script writer' on the internal job sites. Don't forget that a large amount of the production is out of house - through production companies of varying sizes. What I loved about working there was the genuine passion for content and the audience that most people there had - good luck if they can get in.
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    Write, pitch, repeat. Working as a runner might help you network and understand the industry, there are various mentorship schemes, but ultimately nobody gives a shit unless you've got a great script. You don't need permission from anyone to write a script and send it to a commissioner. There's a mile-long queue of people who want to be a script writer, but a much more exclusive club of people who actually write and pitch scripts regularly. As the great Ronnie Coleman said, "everybody wants to be a body builder, but ain't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight".
KGIII 9y ago
First, I have no idea how to answer your question. I did do some writing, but nothing famous and not scripts. I was a journalist to earn money while I was went to the university. But, your question made me curious. It really does look like the link in the sibling post is as valid a link as you're going to get. I'd suggest your SO put the work in and make use of all the resources at that link. Having said that, write and network. Certain jobs aren't acquired by the usual methods. There probably is no long interview and application process. Instead, your SO will have to do something to get noticed. There are probably lots of ways to get noticed that involve luck. I'd not depend on luck. I'd make opportunities to get lucky, however. I did find this link, it seems like a good link and the information passes the smell test. Here: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/insiders-guide-to-becoming-screenwriter https://www.theguardian.com/careers/insiders-guide-to-becomi... I think the networking idea is probably one of the biggest ways to get noticed. Join local writer's groups. Go to workshops. Get to know people. Instead of contacting them and saying, "Hey, I want a job!" Have them contact someone, probably having made some good contacts first, and say, "Hey, I really could use some advice." I'd suspect that getting contacts is the first step. Do the research. Make use of the site they sibling post gave you. Do what they suggest, and then some. If there is an event for screenwriters, be there. If there is a pub they frequent, be there. I'd not immediately pressure for a hire, or even to show samples. I'd listen, learn, ask as many questions as I could, and I'd make it a point to listen. People love to have an audience. So, when developing this network, be an active listener. Active listening is a very, very underrated skill to have. People love to talk, encourage them to do so. Pay attention to what they say. Ask good questions. Ask questions that invite them to share their knowledge. Most of all, truly listen and take their advice to heart. Write... If you want to be a writer, write. Write a lot. Write all the time. Write about anything and everything. Write stuff that people will see, even if it is just forum posts. Write constantly and cover a wide variety of topics. Write about what you know, and use your writing as an excuse to learn more so that you can write about that. Put yourself out there. Find people who will honestly give you advice. This means you're going to need people who understand both good writing and the subject matter. You can find those people online or in the real world. Friends and family shouldn't be your first choice. They aren't always able to be unbiased. Nobody likes to tell a loved one that they suck and their dream is hopeless because they have no skills. If they do suck, that doesn't mean they can't learn - so keep at it. Keep writing, keep taking classes, keep going to creative writing groups, go to any writing group that will have you. Write ad copy for free. Find a website and edit their work and then send it to them. Build up a portfolio. Even if it is just a blog, get your stuff out there. They want to see someone that can be prolific and good. They want to see someone who is capable of putting out consistently good work. They want to see someone who has motivation to complete projects. So, write, write, write... Learn, learn, learn. Network until your schedule is so full that you barely have time to live a normal life. And be ready for rejection. Be ready for a lot of rejection. Be ready to sacrifice your dream and be willing to write for a different company. When rejection happens, and it will, don't give up. When they reject one script, ask them why and then make the script into something that fixes those problems. I'm sure scads of people also want to write for the BBC. They not only have to be better than the rest, they have to have more drive than the rest. They have to stand out and be noticed. They have to have someone who is rooting for them on the snide of the company. The BBC has to want then, make them want you. Make them aware that not taking you means that their competition will take you. Make them know that you're an asset that they don't want going to a different company. Make them know that you can solve a problem and fills niche that nobody else can fill better than you. Some of this is covered in the link I gave you. I could go on but this is already long enough. If they want to work there, they are going to have to work at it. Use the resources available and be ready to work harder than your SObhas ever worked in their life,

user5994461 9y ago

Isn't the BBC a company where the only senior positions are as a contractor, charging 3 times the amount of their permanent counterpart for much less hassle? I am not sure if the author is trying to write a nice PR piece or is so inexperienced that he believes in all this corporate bullshit he's repeating. ^^

M2Ys4U 9y ago
>Isn't the BBC a company where the only senior positions are as a contractor, charging 3 times the amount of their permanent counterpart for much less hassle? Not really, no.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Digital do seem to have sorted this out, with clear job titles and stuff, at least for programmers, and tech jobs upto band 10. Elsewhere it's not so clear cut. Support have no way to progress past band 8 without going into a terrible management structure. Good engineers are rarely good managers.
DRW_ 9y ago
I'm not the author, but I recently joined the BBC as a software engineer and haven't found all that many contractors at all, the ones I have are in regular non-senior positions. It may be the case for 'talent' and management of TV projects (for example), but in the tech departments - your assertion, in my experience seems to be far from true.
- isostatic 9y ago
  I've been here 14 years which is just about long enough to not be a newbie any more. I now plenty of contractors, most are useless. After 5 years one of the few good ones has taken a staff job. We do seem to be getting better, the recent IR35 rules helped, but we still have contractors employing contractors. At a high level they're typically there to implement some bad idea and the fuck off so everyone can blame them afterwards.

rokhayakebe 9y ago

Going from Jr to Sr in an organization is "easy/ier." Making the same progress as a freelancer/contractor is more difficult.

k-mcgrady 9y ago
I disagree. I would struggle to get many senior dev roles in companies due to gaps in my knowledge (e.g. TDD, Agile or whatever PM style they use). As a freelancer/contractor however I can pick roles that only require skills I'm very good at and can therefore charge senior rates. NB: This is if you were defining junior/senior based on pay. Hard to tell from your comment if you were.
richardknop 9y ago
Most contractors are senior devs from my experience. One reason to go contracting is if you're a senior dev already and your career progression seems stuck because you're at the top of salaried positions in your company already. Going contracting is a way to get a pay rise for people like that.
- nvarsj 9y ago
  Going contracting in IT in London is a way to get a pay rise for anyone. A senior dev contractor will likely make more than a director or architect at the same company. The whole situation is wacky.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    Yeah that's true. But to get really high daily rates you need to be senior dev with decent amount of experience from my experience. I agree the whole situation is a bit ridiculous. But when in majority of companies salaries for developers are limited to something like 60-70k. This has been slowly changing and there are more companies willing to pay up to 90k but even then as contractor you can make equivalent of 120k or more even after still taking 25 days off per year.

bjornlouser 9y ago

"I wanted to make sure that my first job post-university would be somewhere where I would feel happy and work not on my own, but with an agile team ..." It's interesting that any young developer would regard the micromanagement that comes with agile as a plus.

nerdponx 9y ago
Do they just mean agile in the sense of "adaptable and fast-moving"? Also, for some (many) junior anythings some micromanagement is a good thing, especially for a college grad with little "real world" experience.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  BBC levels of management are good for no one other than the management.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - josh602 9y ago
    Could you expand on that?
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      I could, but W1A, a BBC sitcom does a much better job. Beyond that, we’re talking about criminally overpaid management which until relatively recently spent a few decades covering for the likes of Jimmy Saville. It’s the same management which still can’t quite figure how to deal with the realities of content delivery in 2017, because it might mean real change.
sudhirj 9y ago
> micromanagement that comes with agile It's a sad day when the ideas behind the agile movement have fully become the Agile System (tm) in engineer consciousness. The word used to denote a style of working, not characterised by micromanagement or by a Scrum Master (tm, again) telling people what to do, but ironically by leaving behind dogma for a loose collection of principles that worked effectively for the team and the problem at hand. The word has been lost, though. Using the word 'agile' now evokes more derision than enthusiasm or excitement.

dopeboy 9y ago

I train new technical hires at Fortune 500 financial institutions so this article struck a chord with me. One of the key points that I leave my cohort with overlaps with the OP's point about fresh perspectives. The hires I'm with are up to speed with the newest languages, newest frameworks, and newest tools. I encourage them over and over to try to bring that knowledge into their roles.

tweedledee 9y ago

By grooming them?

vegancap 9y ago

This is an exciting read for me as I start as a Software Engineer at the BBC on Monday!

ArbitraryString 9y ago
Good luck with your job! What sort of languages/technologies will you be working with?
josh602 9y ago
Awesome! London or Salford?

eosrei 9y ago

> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

spaceseaman 9y ago
> Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers. Sadly this is far from my experience as well. It's likely a few toxic work environments. Not to hijack your comment but I would like to offer a specific example I've seen of toxic behavior from senior developers. Many don't actually read the questions you ask of them or trust your knowledge. It's very similar to attitudes I see on Reddit, HackerNews, or StackOverflow: "Hey I'm having a bit of trouble getting this to compile / run / there's this weird error I'm encountering. I read the documentation and based on that tried X, Y, and Z, but none of those solved my problem / my problem appears somewhat different." (Where each of X, Y, and Z are somewhat long explanations of what was tried). "Did you try X?" "Uh yes I did" (then to be polite I repeat my explanation of doing X) "What about Y?" You see what I mean. Especially in text, I find that some senior developers can't be bothered to actually read what someone else said. So if you're worried that you're a poor senior developer, I recommend you actually try and read what your younger colleagues say and ask of you. And especially trust that they are being honest with you. Don't assume that someone is lying or that they're wrong on the first pass - it's condescending, frustrating, and usually a waste of time. If you hired someone in the first place, you should be allowed to assume a bare minimum of competency and if for some reason that fails, you can always question them after the fact. I think it's a result of our engineering mindset to assume absolute idiocy in every case and then work our way up, but I think it's more productive (and especially better leadership) to assume that your subordinates know what they are doing. In the context of an online forum like this, I think it's best to do the opposite: assume idiocy and work your way to competency - simply because we are all anonymous and don't know each other. The actual workplace should be treated differently though. People always perform better when you put your trust in them.

valuearb 9y ago

Lots of good stuff in this, but i have a couple of significant nits. First, paired programming is a great way to help a junior learn. But it’s dependent upon their desire, i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing. But otherwise paired programming is just a great way to slow me down. Secondly, the open floor plan they described is a clear disregard for the productivity of individual software engineers. Maybe the author never experienced the difference, but it’s significant.

danielharrison 9y ago
Entirely subjective.
makmanalp 9y ago
> i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing This is so sad and frustrating. I get distracted easily too, but when someone is taking time to show and explain something to me, they have my full attention. Anything less is so disrespectful and just a waste of time.
josh602 9y ago
> Secondly, the open floor plan they described is a clear disregard for the productivity of individual software engineers. Maybe the author never experienced the difference, but it’s significant. Actually, I have. I've worked in two small digital agencies where the devs were in their own office. I didn't like it. It was too quiet for me and I felt like I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. I concentrate better when I have background noise. Some of my colleagues have headphones, but I don't like to use them because I don't want to give the impression that I don't want anyone to interrupt me. I prefer people coming up to me to speak to me rather than sending me a message. There's a very good historical reason why the BBC is committed to open plan offices and hot desking. Back in BBC Television Centre days (if I'm remembering correctly), it used to be that managers would have their own offices and the teams they line managed would be based in a completely different part of the building. Eventually, someone realised this is silly. There was a huge transformation of the corporation's culture, which brought about the existence of the BBC Values, and no one was allowed to have their own private office any more. Managers would sit with their teams, and people were able to just go up to other teams and chat with them, collaborate, etc. It would go against the BBC Values if someone senior gave themselves a sense of greater self-importance just because they were a higher grade. No one should be told, 'You can't talk to me because your grade is too low'.

rntksi 9y ago

I was once a Jr Dev for the BBC too (back in the days). It was exactly as you described. Extremely beneficial in terms of personal development due to the culture it offered.

Proven 9y ago

Ffs the guy is praising a "values" of a "company" that lives by streaking money from his fellow citizens. Shameless

throwaway7645 9y ago

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know if they still use Perl? I think the BBC iPlayer used it.

rntksi 9y ago
I do remember they used Perl for backend, and there was a resident Perl-guru. I'm not sure with all the new Zend engine refactoring whether Perl still lives inside the BBC ...
- isostatic 9y ago
  The BBC is bigger than just the online devs. In news we still have a fair amount of perl, mainly in Nagios checks and other bits of monitoring, but pretty much any news package you see coming in from abroad, and many in the UK, passes through a system with critical perl elements (JFE and davina). PHP is more prevalent for more recent developments - Raven is PHp for example - anything you see edited for the party conferences is recorded and edited on Ravens, whenever you watch Asia Business Report every clip you see is played out of Raven, as are the graphics running on the screens in the studios. The lower third graphics on ABR are casparcg loading templates that are ttraditional perl cgi (mainly just to insert various variables). The news archiving system in bureaus has a perl front end, as does the web part of the video production system. Our offline captioning system (webcap) is perl, and the standard ubuntu build we use on c. 1200 machines has a lot of perl tweaks to configure and monitor. These are critical systems, but we don't have the resources of online/fmt/digital/whatever, of all those systems only Raven gets any active development (about 2 man months a year), we just don't have the manpower or the time, so don't expect to find a job wanting perl though :)
  - throwaway7645 9y ago
    Thanks for the explanation!

nnain 9y ago

Kinda ironic that BBC Desing and Engineering team would publish their blog on Medium!

isostatic 9y ago
Yes, especially given there's a proper BBC blog system (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet). I wonder if the poster had permission to post this, or if it's just a personal blog. Hopefully he won't get in too much trouble if the latter.
- DRW_ 9y ago
  It's under the 'BBC Design & Engineering' page on Medium which has several managers from the department listed as editors: https://medium.com/bbc-design-engineering/about https://medium.com/bbc-design-engineering/about It has also been shared internally on a few slack BBC teams that I'm in, so it's all good.
- josh602 9y ago
  We're trying out Medium as a blogging platform because it was seeming like the BBC Internet Blog wasn't reaching our intended target audience any more. Better to go where your readers are than expect them to come to you.

lostPoncho 9y ago

Sorry to stray offtopic, but are remote junior dev jobs feasible?

p4lindromica 9y ago
you need to be in the office as a junior dev because you don't know what you don't know and you can learn a lot through osmosis
- andkenneth 9y ago
  Learning by osmosis is just not a thing. You can't just smack a junior in the middle of a team that doesn't effectively do remote, but a team with a good remote culture should certainly have no issues with a junior being remote as well.
  - p4lindromica 9y ago
    how does a junior dev know the difference when accepting a job offer? (aka you don't know what you don't know)
whipoodle 9y ago
Maybe. I wouldn't recommend it.
isostatic 9y ago
How remote? 1 visit every 6 months, or 1 day a week? And what type of dev - software, or something more BBC specific involving actual broadcast?
- lostPoncho 9y ago
  1 visit every 6 months based on location and software
sumobob 9y ago
I have mixed feelings on this, it seems to me it is doable, but it requires 2 important things: 1. The Junior has worked remote before. If you get someone where this is their first remote job, unless they're incredibly organized and have a remote strategy they will lose socialization and much more. 2. A ton of work on the manager's part. Mentoring sessions, checkins, very active communication channels etc.

yeukhon 9y ago

Curious any companies in the Us can self-proclaim having similar environments? BBC only hires engineering in the UK

k__ 9y ago

It somehow always saddens me to read that. Most devs I know started at a small company who didn't "grew" them at all. I worked 7 years at a small company and never got any mentoring or external education etc. while the "good" ppl I knew from university got jobs at big corps and got even better because they got "grown" right. Who already has is given.

m_st 9y ago
Same here. Started as junior (with 7 years programming experience from school) with a few other juniors at a company working on a new product without any senior developers anymore. It sure was a little rough sometimes and we sure made our fair share of errors and technical debt, but it was an amazing experience. And the product still works fine today. So with a motivated team and some autodidactic learning you can still get very far! Especially since Google and Stackoverflow.com are at your disposal.
- k__ 9y ago
  It didn't even occur to me that I could educate myself in that time. I started doing it after I was 9 years in.
  - dozzie 9y ago
    So you basically sat on your ass and said "somebody teach me"? No wonder that your colleagues from university got so much better. I never got much help from other people. In the beginning, I didn't have anybody interested in computers around me at all, yet I managed to learn programming. Then, when I started studying IT and switched to Linux, and I didn't have anybody to systematically learn working with unix from. This happened when I didn't have an access to the internet, and we had very little learning material published (first half of '00 decade), so it wasn't even possible for me to ask a question on StackOverflow or something. And then the pattern repeats a number of times. It's not mentoring that helps people grow. It's learning. It can be done with a teacher/mentor (and in fact it's easier in a number of fields), but it doesn't require one. Don't blame others for your own idleness.

sdrothrock 9y ago

I work at a small Japanese company with only two developers; myself and a junior developer (also American) we brought on as my assistant a year ago. He came on with little to no development and technological experience but an incredible work/study ethic and a willingness to learn, which are both MUCH more important to me. The skills can be learned and refined over time, but the fundamentals need to be there; if a developer doesn't have the right mindset or ability to learn, then they're never going to grow, no matter how much you poke at them. One issue I've been fighting (with myself) is knowing when to criticize and knowing when to let him go; I err toward the latter a lot, especially technically, but lean toward giving advice sessions or examples when it comes to communication/professional growth skills. The reason I do this is because it's much, much easier to refine technical skills than it is to refine personal skills... and the personal skills are equally as important at a small company when time is precious and you're working directly with other people who are also under heavy loads and pressure. I bring this up because I was surprised to see zero mention of independence as a prized quality after the author commented that he did NOT feel like a cog in the machine at the BBC. There is, I feel, a fine line between needing to be told what to do every time and being able to make the right decisions on your own. The latter quality -- reasoned independence -- is something I think every work environment should foster in its team members in order to have a team that respects and can support each other. Teams fall apart if members need to be told each and every thing they're supposed to do: members will either grow to hate that or will become mindless minions; the team falls apart when the order-giver is no longer there; over-communication becomes an issue and more time is spent in meetings or replying to 100+ e-mail chains instead of developing things for customers. I rarely see much talk about this kind of growth in developers here though... and it makes me wonder if I'm misguided in placing so much importance on this concept.

austincheney 9y ago
Agreed. It is more about personality than anything else. If you want to learn and solve problems you will simply work at it until you figure it out. I have seen so many developers utterly fail at this. They require not just a particular language, but a particular framework and a certain specific mountain of abstractions. Any less that could remotely expose their incompetence is immediate cause for rebellion. Their strong arguments are whining and excuses instead of simply figuring it out. I don't want to have to work at as a baby sitter if I am hired to be a senior developer. Some junior devs are a pleasure to work with and really bring appreciation to the job and others make me want to quit and go do something else. I say junior devs, but I have also encountered some senior devs whom I would describe as junior.

lc94 9y ago

What they don't mention is the abysmal salary (£23,000~) they start you on. No idea why anyone would choose to work there.

IshKebab 9y ago
Wow that really is bad.
josh602 9y ago
I turned down a graduate contract in London for £30k, going up to £40k after two years, to be at the BBC. If you want to work at BBC D&E, you accept that you're not going to get a competitive salary. But in return, you get very relaxed and laid back working conditions. (Or so people tell me. I haven't worked at any other large software org to compare.) Someone I know, who is now a principal dev, was previously a contractor for the BBC. He decided to leave contracting and join the corporation permanently. He's one of the most amazingly clever developers I have ever met. (But yes, we'd all still appreciate it if we could be paid more.)
jlebrech 9y ago
for the BBC that's terrible, they also pay their TV licensing goons peanuts too.
zimpenfish 9y ago
They pa{y,id} contractors well last year but IIRC they were drastically reducing their use due to new tax regulations or something.

lordnacho 9y ago

One thing about junior devs is the level of skill varies greatly. Where I work there's a guy who is nominally a junior dev, but he already knows everything the senior devs are expected to do. If he was an average guy there'd be a lot more handholding, but somehow with barely any hiring process (he was a friend of a friend) we lucked out. I'm wondering whether management will be smart and pay him like a senior dev so he doesn't leave as soon as he finds out he could be making a few hundred grand instead of a few tens. One major downside of this kind of variation is managers think they can somehow repeat the trick. If we just make the hiring process hard enough and shove enough candidates through, we can pan for those elusive 10x guys. It also makes people think that 10x guys are a thing like a gold nugget in the river, rather than the outcome of a long process of maturation in an appropriate environment.

therealdrag0 9y ago
Yeah I've kinda been that guy. Went from university straight into a green field project that allowed me to grow very fast and I was smart and competent enough to handle it. I knew the project inside and out and everyone liked me. They billed me out at $250 and paid me $40. So I switched jobs after 1.5yrs for a 40% raise. Then the same thing happened, so after 1yr I got another job, also through a guy I had worked with who had seen I was good, for another 15% raise. It's funny how a company can get hung up on relative pay-raises instead of considering actual value added.
- jomkr 9y ago
  I'm that guy but instead of leaving I hung around, god knows why. After three years, I'm interviewing and getting offers of about 60% salary increase. From £32,200 -> £55,000.

gaius 9y ago

Didn't the BBC outsource all of their programming jobs to Siemens? I had a few friends there who were TUPEd.

isostatic 9y ago
No, they tried doing that - first into an external company (BBC Technology), then in 2006ish they sold that off for something like £500m. Some programming jobs went (Coledia, which was attempts to commercialise things like BNCS and Jupiter), but the software jobs that were really close to the business like the news website stayed in house. Since then things like iplayer were built in house, and obviously R&D were never moved out. Other technology that moved included areas like networks, most commodity IT (domain controllers, file servers etc), and for some reason the main area that looked after satellite bookings, routings etc (analog video distribution and audio tag frames are fairly core broadcast technology). However the news area that did this stayed in house, as did most of the desktop support in news (but not elsewhere), and most of the broadcast support. Except in Glasgow where pretty much everything was moved to Siemens. It was a total mess, and it still is a bit of a mess. Many of the people who were outsourced are still working for ATOS (who took over Siemens/SBS/SIS), in fact I think they even kept the final salary pension which everyone else lost a few years later. A few who had been moved out were moved back in too. However that all seems to be changing again - I believe most of the Atos jobs are moving from Bracknell to Eastern Europe as part of the new contract, and the WAN connectivity which Atos held (through vodafone) has recently moved to BT
- gaius 9y ago
  However that all seems to be changing again - I believe most of the Atos jobs are moving from Bracknell to Eastern Europe as part of the new contract Yes, it was reported in El Reg that the BBC claim they have to lay off all their UK tech people in order to afford to close the salary gap between their already incredibly well paid on-air performers. Funny how commercial they can be when it suits them.

jlebrech 9y ago

I hope they fill their diversity quota and don't just hire people from the huge white pool. because I want them to fail.