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I’ve gotten plenty of use out of junior devs. The critical bit is what makes anyone a useful worker. I’ve found anyone that’s both dedicated and meticulous is
by Retric 8mo ago
I’ve gotten plenty of use out of junior devs. The critical bit is what makes anyone a useful worker. I’ve found anyone that’s both dedicated and meticulous is worth the investment.
Sure there’s a wide range of skills and you can’t just hand any task to anyone and expect it to work out but some fresh collage graduates are more capable than the average person with 5 years of professional experience. At the other end you need to focus on whatever they actually are capable of doing. 40+ hours a week can slowly expand even an extremely narrow skillet as long as they’re a hard worker.
- raw_anon_1111 8mo agoAnd have you compared the output of three junior devs to hiring one mid level ticket taker who isn’t that much more expensive + AI coding agents?
- Retric 8mo agoYou don’t want 3 Jr devs at the same time because of diminishing returns. Most projects have grunt work where attention to detail is important but experience doesn’t really help much. AI can quickly come up with alt text for images, but ensuring it’s actually useful for someone using a screen reader is a different story. 1 new Jr every 2 years works quite well for a team of 7+ developers.
- raw_anon_1111 8mo agoAnd that junior dev will probably leave in 2 years because HR won’t allow you to give them a raise to match their market comp. But with a team of 7, I can’t believe that giving them all a Claude Code subscription wouldn’t be much cheaper and much more productive than hiring a junior. A junior though with AI is more dangerous than a junior without.
- Retric 8mo agoThat’s not really an either or situation, you can have 7 team members with Claud Code and 1 Jr without. I’ve seen many people stick around for a surprising amount of time while severely under compensated. I suspect that’s why HR does it.
- raw_anon_1111 8mo agoWhat’s the use of the junior? You have just widen the gap between mid and junior developers making them less useful
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- Retric 8mo agoWorking on problems that are a poor fit for a mid level developer with AI assistance of which there are still plenty. I find AI tools make everyone better at exactly the same kind of problems, which means a larger percentage of what’s left over is more cheaply done by Jr’s working without AI assistance.
- bdangubic 8mo ago> I find AI tools make everyone better at exactly the same kind of problems Fascinating. I am finding the exact opposite, like complete 180
- Retric 8mo agoHow exactly do some people leverage AI to rearrange the furniture in the conference room for an office party? Physical labor may be a tiny fraction of what a team of developers do, but I’ve seen what amounts to several thousand dollars spent on that kind of silly task because teams leverage the tools they have.
- raw_anon_1111 8mo ago