Anecdotally, after participating in some mentoring programs I believe most junior developer jobs in 2021 are actually quite good. At least among the mentoring c

Anecdotally, after participating in some mentoring programs I believe most junior developer jobs in 2021 are actually quite good. At least among the mentoring cohorts I’ve mentored. I think developer salaries have risen a lot since many of these negative anecdotes took place. The higher salary expectation for local developers has pushed a lot of the sketchy small shops to look for outsourcing opportunities for their tech work rather than trying to hire in house. I’ve started noticing the inverse of this situation: Some of the juniors I’ve mentored end up working at ultra-cushy jobs at overfunded and undermanaged startups where they’re paid a lot to do very little. After those experiences, it’s hard for them to go back to a regular job where they’re paid normal comp to do normal amounts of work. Once they’ve had a taste of working 2 hours per day on projects that will never actually get shipped , it’s hard to accept the types of workloads, expectations, and accountability that come from a normal job at a well-managed company. On the other hand, people who start in bad jobs tend to thrive when they’re hired into a normal, well-run company and realize just how much better it is.