4 ms·
My old company used to hire broke, desperate, and underachieving college students out of the local university for that exact reason - desperate people are often
by jimbob45 5y ago
My old company used to hire broke, desperate, and underachieving college students out of the local university for that exact reason - desperate people are often the most dedicated people.
The scheme worked something like how the New England Patriots run things: keep a solid core of veterans well-paid and happy, then use them to train the hell out of new hires. Later, make sure those new hires get excellent jobs elsewhere in 4-6 years and repeat the cycle, ensuring that you never have to pay for premium talent since you can develop it at budget cost in-house.
When I say "train the hell out of", I mean each new dev had a senior dev dedicated to just them who would criticize everything about their code and workmanship like a Mr. Miyagi. Every email that dev sent also got CC'd to that senior dev and the senior dev always knew what they were working on, how long such a thing should take them, and knew what questions/difficulties were likely to come up and when during the process of that item. Good mentorship cannot be substituted for during the training process.
The system fell apart once management got flipped and forgot what made them successful in the first place.
- nickstinemates 5y agoSounds like the traditional trades system applied to tech.
- walshemj 5y agoMore like an advanced apprenticeships where like me you'd be doing 1 day a week and possibly an evening at community collage and that is in my case was a four year. The trouble is the cohort that would be ideal candidates now go to university as those roles are now degree entry.
- imbnwa 5y agoGods I wish I'd started my career at your company
- oblak 5y agoBefore or after the whole thing fell apart?
- imbnwa 5y agoBefore, mentoring was something that was only present when I started for less than a year but I could've used a more persistent program like this, I think, to help rectify a number of long-standing problems I'm only now starting to perceive and take action for much later.
- pkaye 5y ago> When I say "train the hell out of", I mean each new dev had a senior dev dedicated to just them who would criticize everything about their code and workmanship like a Mr. Miyagi. The management should also be aware that senior dev productivity will also go down in order to train the junior devs. Schedules should be adjusted to accommodate this.
- MattGaiser 5y agoThat is impressive actually.
- bennysomething 5y agoHow do you keep a senior Dev happy whos cc d in on every email a junior sends?
- sleepybrett 5y agoI've seen places where the juniors don't even really send email. They are essentially apprentices for their senior in like the medieval blacksmithing tradition. Working the bellows while the senior pounds out the sword. Eventually they graduate up but at first they aren't really trusted with anything but the most basic tasks.
- shultays 5y agoExpecting a new graduate/junior to stay at the same (probably his first) company for 4-6 years seems a bit optimistic. The companies often pay shit to such people and even if they excel at what they do, that additional +X% performance impact on their salary will barely matter if their starting salary was shit. Often job hopping is needed for any significant bump.
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoWell this approach doesn't work unless you actually promote people once they're no longer junior. In my time at a FAANG, I got a 33% pay rise nine months in along with a promotion. That kind of behaviour engenders a lot more loyalty than CPI adjusted raises when an employee is clearly killing it.
- emptysongglass 5y agoThat sounds awful for the morale of the juniors. Juniors should feel empowered to take their own initiative and find their own groove. Having trust put in me when I was a greenhorn made all the difference to my verve and drive at the company. The times where I was castigated and hounded over every little style choice made me loathe the company and the senior doing it.