3 ms·

Serious question: Why did it never occur that you might need to take in a less experienced developer and train them? Wouldn't it make sense that there are no ex

by hiou 12y ago

Serious question: Why did it never occur that you might need to take in a less experienced developer and train them? Wouldn't it make sense that there are no experienced developers available because they are currently fully employed?

nathanvanfleet 12y ago
I work with less experienced developers. They really put a drag on the project. They need to be watched and you have to give a lot of pointers and refactoring suggestions. And then their tasks just don't end up coming in fast enough either. Personally I think I'd learn a lot more if I was working with more advanced devs where I could learn from them than seeing the mistakes I would have made years ago.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  So, basically you are saying you want to be the less-experienced dev, but not work with them. I think the prevalence of this attitude is a key part of the problem.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  And then a more advanced dev might say the same of you. People should come first. Everyone has to start from the beginning at some point.
- wyclif 12y ago
  Everybody wants to hire a flying purple unicorn that is a master of "full stack." It seems nobody has time for "jack of all trades, master of some." But knowing only one or two domains is a step on the ladder of programmer competence, and there's no shame in it at all. As other commenters say, you have to start somewhere. And it's incredibly hard as a developer to go from intermediate to truly advanced mastery—there's very little training and mentoring coming from the employer direction (because, as Sweet Brown says, ain't nobody got time for that: anybody who is a real "ninja" is swamped), and therefore the only sane strategy is to take complete responsibility for your own career development, continuing education, and improval of skillset. But that's just another reason why developers should be paid more.
jtbigwoo 12y ago
Not sure why this was down-voted. If I rejected over 99% of applicants, I'd start to thinkg I was either looking in the wrong place or looking for the wrong person. I once posted a job on monster.com and we rejected probably 50 resumes for each one we interviewed. We were looking in the wrong place. At a different job, we had a terrible time trying to find somebody with 10+ years of embedded systems experience in a town that didn't really have that kind of industry. In retrospect, we probably could have found a less experienced person that we could train. We were looking for the wrong person.
lobotryas 12y ago
Not op, but I am in a similar position and can offer insight. I am unlikely to hire a candidate who would need training because I simply do not have the time to train them. I need someone who gets things done, can self-train if needed, and who already has the minimum required experience so they have minimum impact on team velocity. Moreover I live in an "at will" employment state, so any money/time I spend training a person can just walk out the door at any moment (something I have seen happen just because a person was offered even more money elsewhere).

by hiou 12y ago

nathanvanfleet 12y ago

I work with less experienced developers. They really put a drag on the project. They need to be watched and you have to give a lot of pointers and refactoring suggestions. And then their tasks just don't end up coming in fast enough either. Personally I think I'd learn a lot more if I was working with more advanced devs where I could learn from them than seeing the mistakes I would have made years ago.

vonmoltke 12y ago
So, basically you are saying you want to be the less-experienced dev, but not work with them. I think the prevalence of this attitude is a key part of the problem.
Bahamut 12y ago
And then a more advanced dev might say the same of you. People should come first. Everyone has to start from the beginning at some point.
wyclif 12y ago
Everybody wants to hire a flying purple unicorn that is a master of "full stack." It seems nobody has time for "jack of all trades, master of some." But knowing only one or two domains is a step on the ladder of programmer competence, and there's no shame in it at all. As other commenters say, you have to start somewhere. And it's incredibly hard as a developer to go from intermediate to truly advanced mastery—there's very little training and mentoring coming from the employer direction (because, as Sweet Brown says, ain't nobody got time for that: anybody who is a real "ninja" is swamped), and therefore the only sane strategy is to take complete responsibility for your own career development, continuing education, and improval of skillset. But that's just another reason why developers should be paid more.

jtbigwoo 12y ago

Not sure why this was down-voted. If I rejected over 99% of applicants, I'd start to thinkg I was either looking in the wrong place or looking for the wrong person. I once posted a job on monster.com and we rejected probably 50 resumes for each one we interviewed. We were looking in the wrong place. At a different job, we had a terrible time trying to find somebody with 10+ years of embedded systems experience in a town that didn't really have that kind of industry. In retrospect, we probably could have found a less experienced person that we could train. We were looking for the wrong person.

lobotryas 12y ago

Not op, but I am in a similar position and can offer insight. I am unlikely to hire a candidate who would need training because I simply do not have the time to train them. I need someone who gets things done, can self-train if needed, and who already has the minimum required experience so they have minimum impact on team velocity. Moreover I live in an "at will" employment state, so any money/time I spend training a person can just walk out the door at any moment (something I have seen happen just because a person was offered even more money elsewhere).