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Hiring a junior dev is a luxury for big companies that can afford to tie up senior devs tandem coding with a junior for months, then giving easy projects to the

Hiring a junior dev is a luxury for big companies that can afford to tie up senior devs tandem coding with a junior for months, then giving easy projects to the junior dev with extensive code review and hand-holding for another year. I don’t think anyone has the budget for that anymore - not even the big companies. It’s two years of negative $ output for the $ you put in and after those two years the junior dev leaves anyway for a more senior position.

robofanatic 1y ago
This isn’t a new phenomenon and not limited to software development. Companies know that people get trained and leave all the time. Most companies have plans for that.
- rtkwe 1y ago
  The answer used to be pensions, reasonable reliable raises, and promotion from within. Workers are responding to the signals sent by companies, the way to make the best money is bouncing around every few years to get actual raises, so that's what a lot of people do.
laidoffengineer 1y ago
i'm a laid off senior engineer (or at least that was my level when i was employed). i apply to junior roles all the time and get rejected without interview. feel like there are other senior engineers out there in the same boat. this could be an amazing time for companies to pick up more experienced engineers at junior position/salary. but they aren't biting.
t-writescode 1y ago
There’s a lot to be said about this comment, but I’ll stick to two things. 1) it’s a waste of resources for seniors to be doing the work that the juniors and 2s can do. Hunting down infrequent or low priority bugs, fixing small layout issues, etc. they’re perfect for someone paid less and growing and learning the codebase. There is *always* plenty of junior-ready work and the day a week of work to schedule, prep and help those juniors to do it pays dividends. 2) a Junior leaving because you won’t pay them, have a toxic culture or won’t give them a promotion when it’s time speaks more about a broken company culture and one of a style that’s rampant in the tech industry and business at large than it does about loyalty and willingness for the employee to stay at the company. Good leadership and skilled organizers can easily solve the problems you’ve listed; and, even better, create a culture of longevity for all the employees at a company, not just the juniors. Speaking as someone that has worked for companies that give a shit about their workers and who helped raise me up from a low SDE.
- lolinder 1y ago
  > it’s a waste of resources for seniors to be doing the work that the juniors and 2s can do. Hunting down infrequent or low priority bugs, fixing small layout issues, etc. These are tasks that in the current environment often get pushed back for "later" indefinitely. These tasks aren't un-resourced because the company isn't hiring juniors, the company isn't hiring juniors because they no longer have the funds for small fixes.
  - jiggawatts 1y ago
    As a customer of these types of businesses: yes, we can tell. We do care, and we are ready to drop the shitty products of these bad companies at the first opportunity.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    The problem with this idea is that being bug free and jank free is the moat that a mature app needs. Software lives on user trust. If everyone can see that the simple things aren't being done right, why will they have faith that the complex things are?
    - lolinder 1y ago
      You're right, but since when has long-term thinking been a feature of the average American business?
  - Libcat99 1y ago
    The issue is not that companies don't have the funds to chase these bugs (which will impact future trust/revenue), it's that they don't want to spend it chasing these bugs. Next quarter thinking leads to bad software.
mjr00 1y ago
IMO you're way overestimating how much hand-holding juniors need. Juniors coming out of college have a decent grasp of basic tooling like git, IDEs, debuggers, and yes AI coding assistants. We just hired two recent graduates and they were both getting meaningful work done independently within 2 weeks. They still need code review and guidance, but it's not like they need a senior watching over their shoulder telling them how to write a function in python. You're going to have to teach them about the unique frameworks and processes at your company, but you have to teach seniors about those things too. Unless you're doing something really unique, juniors don't need to tie up senior devs "for months". Remember they can help each other, too.
- ritcgab 1y ago
  Are the two recent graduate average fresh grads, or top ones?
soco 1y ago
This answer feels like right out of the MBA coursebook. If you ever hate your phone performance, your reservations app, your airline booking page, your... then know that this answer is the reason why.

robofanatic 1y ago

This isn’t a new phenomenon and not limited to software development. Companies know that people get trained and leave all the time. Most companies have plans for that.

rtkwe 1y ago
The answer used to be pensions, reasonable reliable raises, and promotion from within. Workers are responding to the signals sent by companies, the way to make the best money is bouncing around every few years to get actual raises, so that's what a lot of people do.

laidoffengineer 1y ago

i'm a laid off senior engineer (or at least that was my level when i was employed). i apply to junior roles all the time and get rejected without interview. feel like there are other senior engineers out there in the same boat. this could be an amazing time for companies to pick up more experienced engineers at junior position/salary. but they aren't biting.

t-writescode 1y ago

There’s a lot to be said about this comment, but I’ll stick to two things. 1) it’s a waste of resources for seniors to be doing the work that the juniors and 2s can do. Hunting down infrequent or low priority bugs, fixing small layout issues, etc. they’re perfect for someone paid less and growing and learning the codebase. There is *always* plenty of junior-ready work and the day a week of work to schedule, prep and help those juniors to do it pays dividends. 2) a Junior leaving because you won’t pay them, have a toxic culture or won’t give them a promotion when it’s time speaks more about a broken company culture and one of a style that’s rampant in the tech industry and business at large than it does about loyalty and willingness for the employee to stay at the company. Good leadership and skilled organizers can easily solve the problems you’ve listed; and, even better, create a culture of longevity for all the employees at a company, not just the juniors. Speaking as someone that has worked for companies that give a shit about their workers and who helped raise me up from a low SDE.

lolinder 1y ago
> it’s a waste of resources for seniors to be doing the work that the juniors and 2s can do. Hunting down infrequent or low priority bugs, fixing small layout issues, etc. These are tasks that in the current environment often get pushed back for "later" indefinitely. These tasks aren't un-resourced because the company isn't hiring juniors, the company isn't hiring juniors because they no longer have the funds for small fixes.
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  As a customer of these types of businesses: yes, we can tell. We do care, and we are ready to drop the shitty products of these bad companies at the first opportunity.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  The problem with this idea is that being bug free and jank free is the moat that a mature app needs. Software lives on user trust. If everyone can see that the simple things aren't being done right, why will they have faith that the complex things are?
  - lolinder 1y ago
    You're right, but since when has long-term thinking been a feature of the average American business?
- Libcat99 1y ago
  The issue is not that companies don't have the funds to chase these bugs (which will impact future trust/revenue), it's that they don't want to spend it chasing these bugs. Next quarter thinking leads to bad software.

mjr00 1y ago

IMO you're way overestimating how much hand-holding juniors need. Juniors coming out of college have a decent grasp of basic tooling like git, IDEs, debuggers, and yes AI coding assistants. We just hired two recent graduates and they were both getting meaningful work done independently within 2 weeks. They still need code review and guidance, but it's not like they need a senior watching over their shoulder telling them how to write a function in python. You're going to have to teach them about the unique frameworks and processes at your company, but you have to teach seniors about those things too. Unless you're doing something really unique, juniors don't need to tie up senior devs "for months". Remember they can help each other, too.

ritcgab 1y ago
Are the two recent graduate average fresh grads, or top ones?

soco 1y ago

This answer feels like right out of the MBA coursebook. If you ever hate your phone performance, your reservations app, your airline booking page, your... then know that this answer is the reason why.