3 ms·

With all due respect, if hiring an entry level dev is a loss for your business then perhaps don't hire them? A dev should be a net gain regardless of skill lev

With all due respect, if hiring an entry level dev is a loss for your business then perhaps don't hire them? A dev should be a net gain regardless of skill level. You pay them market when they need to be trained, you pay them market when they move up the skill food chain.

vetinari 8y ago
He is a loss in short term. He is supposed to be a net gain in long term. If he leaves prematurely, the loss is realized and the gain never happens. If he stays for long enough time, he is a net gain.
- brandall10 8y ago
  Again, if an entry level dev is a loss then don't hire entry level devs; your company does not adequately utilize them.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    Not every company is using popular, widely available tech, that folks can learn in their spare time. In this regard, unfortunately, we are using a proprietary platform and there is no chance to learn anything until you have access to the bits and docs. Due to that, fresh hires are completely useless to be utilized in any way, until they learn at least basics.
    - brandall10 8y ago
      You're conflating ramp up time of business domain knowledge with skill level. Yes, a sr. dev will come up quicker than an entry because they have the wisdom and experience of past companies, but all devs need some sort of ramp up in an environment like that. You don't hold back pay from your sr. staff until they've ramped up, right? Of course not, they would take a better offer elsewhere. As would your entry levels that have now risen to mid-levels once they get the chance. But all the same, any company should be able to make any dev useful from pretty much the very beginning. Whether it's rote refactoring work, research tasks that are too time consuming for more sr. folks, tasks that are in the domain of data entry that can be automated with simple scripts, low-hanging fruit bugs, etc. It's a failure of the org not to properly utilize the abilities of a smart person who knows how to program.
ebiester 8y ago
And as such, junior developers don't get hired, because the first 2-3 months of their career, a junior developer is at negative productivity, considering the work the team is doing to start getting them up to speed. Some of HN works in areas that are harder than the bog-standard CRUD app. So, do you give up on hiring junior developers at all? I believe our whole industry suffers if we come to that conclusion.
- brandall10 8y ago
  This whole CRUD app crap is a cop-out - please don't insinuate it's my lack of experience that has me making this assertion. I've been an engineer for 23 years and spent the first 16 years largely working on large enterprise systems in C/C++, then C#, primarily in the health care space often with some hardware component. Regardless, the work I've done over the past 7 years with modern web tooling is some of the most difficult I've done in my career. It's a failure of the organization to not utilize entry levels from the first week. At any company. After all, the FAANGs of the world have a different bar of entry. People keep talking about this like you're literally training people how to program. That's BS. Every org has refactor work, tests to write, processes to improve, tasks to research, low hanging fruit bugs to tackle, systems to blueprint, all sorts of stuff that's a strain on the more sr. staff that's been pushed aside but needs to be addressed. You can strategically bring entry levels up in a way that's a net gain in any environment.
  - ebiester 8y ago
    The truth, however, is that a senior developer is $140,000 and a junior developer is $80,000, and that same junior developer will be $100,000 in two years. (This is assuming salaries in one market.) That junior developer will take 3-4x the time to handle the same task as a senior engineer, and will take some of the senior engineer's time to guide the solution, provide feedback, and mentor. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't hire junior developers - in fact, it's our duty as an industry to hire and mentor. However, it is with open eyes knowing that junior developers are not cost efficient in many areas for the first year. But we go back to the original statement: "With all due respect, if hiring an entry level dev is a loss for your business then perhaps don't hire them? A dev should be a net gain regardless of skill level." If you have $320,000, and can have 3 junior developers or two senior developers with the same budget, the 3 junior developers will be a net loss for the first year. They can be productive, but you have to compare on budget. ___ But I find that as a bizarre set of work that you call out. * Refactor work is often the largest need from senior developers. Learning how to refactor safely is a separate skill that is not a skill junior developers have without instruction and feedback. * My senior developers write tests as they develop. If there is test debt, it means sitting down with a copy of Michael Feathers and that is definitely not an introductory text. Trying to write tests for code that wasn't written with unit tests in mind requires a set of skills that many senior developers don't have, much less junior developers. * I'm curious what processes you see that junior developers can improve. * Researching tasks can be something useful, but what are these tasks that aren't done while a senior developer needs a break? * Low hanging fruit bugs are likely the most obvious thing for junior developers, but a highly cohesive team that is writing tests has fewer bugs that are low hanging fruit. * What systems can a junior developer blueprint? A senior developer understands patterns and quickly solves the problem.

vetinari 8y ago

He is a loss in short term. He is supposed to be a net gain in long term. If he leaves prematurely, the loss is realized and the gain never happens. If he stays for long enough time, he is a net gain.

brandall10 8y ago
Again, if an entry level dev is a loss then don't hire entry level devs; your company does not adequately utilize them.
- vetinari 8y ago
  Not every company is using popular, widely available tech, that folks can learn in their spare time. In this regard, unfortunately, we are using a proprietary platform and there is no chance to learn anything until you have access to the bits and docs. Due to that, fresh hires are completely useless to be utilized in any way, until they learn at least basics.
  - brandall10 8y ago
    You're conflating ramp up time of business domain knowledge with skill level. Yes, a sr. dev will come up quicker than an entry because they have the wisdom and experience of past companies, but all devs need some sort of ramp up in an environment like that. You don't hold back pay from your sr. staff until they've ramped up, right? Of course not, they would take a better offer elsewhere. As would your entry levels that have now risen to mid-levels once they get the chance. But all the same, any company should be able to make any dev useful from pretty much the very beginning. Whether it's rote refactoring work, research tasks that are too time consuming for more sr. folks, tasks that are in the domain of data entry that can be automated with simple scripts, low-hanging fruit bugs, etc. It's a failure of the org not to properly utilize the abilities of a smart person who knows how to program.

ebiester 8y ago

And as such, junior developers don't get hired, because the first 2-3 months of their career, a junior developer is at negative productivity, considering the work the team is doing to start getting them up to speed. Some of HN works in areas that are harder than the bog-standard CRUD app. So, do you give up on hiring junior developers at all? I believe our whole industry suffers if we come to that conclusion.

brandall10 8y ago
This whole CRUD app crap is a cop-out - please don't insinuate it's my lack of experience that has me making this assertion. I've been an engineer for 23 years and spent the first 16 years largely working on large enterprise systems in C/C++, then C#, primarily in the health care space often with some hardware component. Regardless, the work I've done over the past 7 years with modern web tooling is some of the most difficult I've done in my career. It's a failure of the organization to not utilize entry levels from the first week. At any company. After all, the FAANGs of the world have a different bar of entry. People keep talking about this like you're literally training people how to program. That's BS. Every org has refactor work, tests to write, processes to improve, tasks to research, low hanging fruit bugs to tackle, systems to blueprint, all sorts of stuff that's a strain on the more sr. staff that's been pushed aside but needs to be addressed. You can strategically bring entry levels up in a way that's a net gain in any environment.
- ebiester 8y ago
  The truth, however, is that a senior developer is $140,000 and a junior developer is $80,000, and that same junior developer will be $100,000 in two years. (This is assuming salaries in one market.) That junior developer will take 3-4x the time to handle the same task as a senior engineer, and will take some of the senior engineer's time to guide the solution, provide feedback, and mentor. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't hire junior developers - in fact, it's our duty as an industry to hire and mentor. However, it is with open eyes knowing that junior developers are not cost efficient in many areas for the first year. But we go back to the original statement: "With all due respect, if hiring an entry level dev is a loss for your business then perhaps don't hire them? A dev should be a net gain regardless of skill level." If you have $320,000, and can have 3 junior developers or two senior developers with the same budget, the 3 junior developers will be a net loss for the first year. They can be productive, but you have to compare on budget. ___ But I find that as a bizarre set of work that you call out. * Refactor work is often the largest need from senior developers. Learning how to refactor safely is a separate skill that is not a skill junior developers have without instruction and feedback. * My senior developers write tests as they develop. If there is test debt, it means sitting down with a copy of Michael Feathers and that is definitely not an introductory text. Trying to write tests for code that wasn't written with unit tests in mind requires a set of skills that many senior developers don't have, much less junior developers. * I'm curious what processes you see that junior developers can improve. * Researching tasks can be something useful, but what are these tasks that aren't done while a senior developer needs a break? * Low hanging fruit bugs are likely the most obvious thing for junior developers, but a highly cohesive team that is writing tests has fewer bugs that are low hanging fruit. * What systems can a junior developer blueprint? A senior developer understands patterns and quickly solves the problem.