3 ms·

I'm more partial to the summer interns hypothesis.

by kenhwang 7y ago

bobthepanda 7y ago
Rule one of having interns and retaining your sanity is that interns get their own branch to muck around in.
- vorticalbox 7y ago
  All changes should be in a new branch.
  - devin 7y ago
    I used to believe this. Having solid lower environments which are identical to production, receiving live traffic where engineers can stage changes and promote up removes some of the “all things should live on a branch” business. I know that sounds crazy, but it is possible for teams of the right size to go crazy on master as long as the safety nets and exposure to reality are high enough in lower environments.
- kenhwang 7y ago
  Sure. The interns have their own branch, but it doesn't stop them from being disruptive to the human in charge of mentoring them.
- jrockway 7y ago
  Rule one of having a useful intern experience is to get them writing production code as quickly as possible. They check in their first change? Get that thing into production immediately. (If it's going to destabilize the system, why did you approve the CL? You two probably pair programmed the whole thing together.)
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    I completely agree- even if it's something small. I'm an intern in a big company with an internal robotics and automation group, and I recently got to wire up a pretty basic control panel, install it, and watch workers use it. That was so cool, and made me appreciate what I was doing a lot more.
gowld 7y ago
Pretending that junior engineers is the problem, is the problem.
- rapind 7y ago
  Just checking what your objection is. Is it that you think experience is overrated, or is it just that he was speculating without any evidence?
  - echelon 7y ago
    If you don't train new and capable engineers, you'll eventually lose talent due to attrition and retirement. Talent can be grown in-house; engineering companies are much better environments than universities to learn how to build scalable platforms. The cost of acquisition is low, too, because junior engineers can still make valuable contributions while they learn to scale their impact.
  - dan-0 7y ago
    Can't speak for OP, but I can tell you what mine is. If you have an intern or a Junior Engineer, they should have a more senior engineer to monitor and mentor them. In the situation where a Junior Engineer gets blamed for a screw up: 1. The Senior Engineer failed in their responsibility. 2. The Senior Engineer failed in their responsibility. A Junior Engineer should be expected to write bad code, but not put it into production, that's on the Senior. If I hit approve on a Junior Engineer's PR, it's my fault if their code brings the whole system down. If a Junior Engineer had the ability to push code without a review, it's my fault for allowing that. Either way it's my fault and it shouldn't be any other way. It's a failure to properly mentor. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's never the Junior Engineers fault when it does.
    - tiredyam 7y ago
      the amount of time that the summer intern / new grad eat up of seniors time is the problem. Tech debt that does not get addressed in a timely manner because of mentorship responsibilities is the problems
jmharvey 7y ago
I agree with this, but to be clear, the "summer interns hypothesis" is not "summer interns go around breaking stuff," it's "the existing population of engineers has finite resources, and when the interns and new grads show up, a lot of those resources go toward onboarding/mentoring the new people, so other stuff gets less attention."

I'm more partial to the summer interns hypothesis.

bobthepanda 7y ago

Rule one of having interns and retaining your sanity is that interns get their own branch to muck around in.

vorticalbox 7y ago
All changes should be in a new branch.
- devin 7y ago
  I used to believe this. Having solid lower environments which are identical to production, receiving live traffic where engineers can stage changes and promote up removes some of the “all things should live on a branch” business. I know that sounds crazy, but it is possible for teams of the right size to go crazy on master as long as the safety nets and exposure to reality are high enough in lower environments.
kenhwang 7y ago
Sure. The interns have their own branch, but it doesn't stop them from being disruptive to the human in charge of mentoring them.
jrockway 7y ago
Rule one of having a useful intern experience is to get them writing production code as quickly as possible. They check in their first change? Get that thing into production immediately. (If it's going to destabilize the system, why did you approve the CL? You two probably pair programmed the whole thing together.)
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  I completely agree- even if it's something small. I'm an intern in a big company with an internal robotics and automation group, and I recently got to wire up a pretty basic control panel, install it, and watch workers use it. That was so cool, and made me appreciate what I was doing a lot more.

gowld 7y ago

Pretending that junior engineers is the problem, is the problem.

rapind 7y ago
Just checking what your objection is. Is it that you think experience is overrated, or is it just that he was speculating without any evidence?
- echelon 7y ago
  If you don't train new and capable engineers, you'll eventually lose talent due to attrition and retirement. Talent can be grown in-house; engineering companies are much better environments than universities to learn how to build scalable platforms. The cost of acquisition is low, too, because junior engineers can still make valuable contributions while they learn to scale their impact.
- dan-0 7y ago
  Can't speak for OP, but I can tell you what mine is. If you have an intern or a Junior Engineer, they should have a more senior engineer to monitor and mentor them. In the situation where a Junior Engineer gets blamed for a screw up: 1. The Senior Engineer failed in their responsibility. 2. The Senior Engineer failed in their responsibility. A Junior Engineer should be expected to write bad code, but not put it into production, that's on the Senior. If I hit approve on a Junior Engineer's PR, it's my fault if their code brings the whole system down. If a Junior Engineer had the ability to push code without a review, it's my fault for allowing that. Either way it's my fault and it shouldn't be any other way. It's a failure to properly mentor. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's never the Junior Engineers fault when it does.
  - tiredyam 7y ago
    the amount of time that the summer intern / new grad eat up of seniors time is the problem. Tech debt that does not get addressed in a timely manner because of mentorship responsibilities is the problems

jmharvey 7y ago

I agree with this, but to be clear, the "summer interns hypothesis" is not "summer interns go around breaking stuff," it's "the existing population of engineers has finite resources, and when the interns and new grads show up, a lot of those resources go toward onboarding/mentoring the new people, so other stuff gets less attention."