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I dont get it. Why do they not invest in hiring less experienced developers and make them the best employees. It may cost more in the short run, but if you inv

by toddan 11y ago

I dont get it. Why do they not invest in hiring less experienced developers and make them the best employees. It may cost more in the short run, but if you invest early in a developer with little to no experience you get the opportunity to shape that developer into your tech stack and company.

pjc50 11y ago
Conventional answers to that question: - hard to select based on "potential", especially in a nondiscriminatory way - devs are hard to teach; risk it may not work out, which is additional risk startups do not want - process is time- and energy-consuming at the best of times; detracts from growing the product and business - if you train people, they will expect to be paid more All three of these are somewhat true. Really it's the giant employers (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Oracle) that should be training graduates, rather than startups with tiny funding. But employees don't appear on the balance sheet as an asset, just a liability.
brlewis 11y ago
I don't know which part of the article you're referring to, but in general it's best to have a variety of experience levels together, and that's how you help less experienced developers grow. Hiring only one or the other isn't a good option.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Some people do that. A friend of mine took such a job - her first developer job ever. I told her to take the job, learn from the training and earn 2x-3x her previous salary as a secretary. Then I told her that a year from now she should start looking for an employer who will pay market rate and won't spy on her reddit account. If you do invest in less experienced devs, make sure you can recognize the ones that are too naive to realize when their value has gone up. Maybe also use psychological tricks to give them impostor syndrome.
- chralieboy 11y ago
  And that's why companies don't provide a lot of training. Turnover is incredibly high in SV. Most people stay at jobs for 2 years, so if it takes a year to get them to the equivalent level you're making a large investment for little return. To answer the question of "why not just pay them more to keep them?", it isn't always that simple. Two years is a long time in startup land, meaning the equity component offered by a much smaller company can be really compelling and unreasonable for the parent company to match. It may make sense for the employee to take that job, but it also therefore makes sense for the employer to not train them if they think they're going to leave.
- anbotero 11y ago
  To be honest, yeah, you stated EXACTLY one of the reasons they would never want to invest in training you: because the first thing you are thinking when you join what seems to be a nice company is leaving. Of course they can simply make a calculation on how much time is required to get that training costs out of you, and I believe companies which offer the real absurd perks already have so much money that they just need to flush it out and maybe save taxes on the way of people leaving.
  - artmageddon 11y ago
    > because the first thing you are thinking when you join what seems to be a nice company is leaving. Of course it's a risk, but there are two things to consider in counterpoint: 1). If the employee gets adequate training and the chance to contribute to his/her work with said training, that may improve their happiness and desire to stay. Both parties win. They win, you lose. 2). Suppose the exact scenario above plays out, you spend money on training, and they leave sometime thereafter. 3). What if you don't train the employee, but that employee stays? Everyone loses. Obviously, scenario 2 is the one you're most worried about, but imo if the environment is structured in such a way that that employee is looking for ways to leave at some unspecified point, there are probably bigger problems with the environment that need to be addressed.
    - anbotero 11y ago

by toddan 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

Conventional answers to that question: - hard to select based on "potential", especially in a nondiscriminatory way - devs are hard to teach; risk it may not work out, which is additional risk startups do not want - process is time- and energy-consuming at the best of times; detracts from growing the product and business - if you train people, they will expect to be paid more All three of these are somewhat true. Really it's the giant employers (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Oracle) that should be training graduates, rather than startups with tiny funding. But employees don't appear on the balance sheet as an asset, just a liability.

brlewis 11y ago

I don't know which part of the article you're referring to, but in general it's best to have a variety of experience levels together, and that's how you help less experienced developers grow. Hiring only one or the other isn't a good option.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Some people do that. A friend of mine took such a job - her first developer job ever. I told her to take the job, learn from the training and earn 2x-3x her previous salary as a secretary. Then I told her that a year from now she should start looking for an employer who will pay market rate and won't spy on her reddit account. If you do invest in less experienced devs, make sure you can recognize the ones that are too naive to realize when their value has gone up. Maybe also use psychological tricks to give them impostor syndrome.

chralieboy 11y ago
And that's why companies don't provide a lot of training. Turnover is incredibly high in SV. Most people stay at jobs for 2 years, so if it takes a year to get them to the equivalent level you're making a large investment for little return. To answer the question of "why not just pay them more to keep them?", it isn't always that simple. Two years is a long time in startup land, meaning the equity component offered by a much smaller company can be really compelling and unreasonable for the parent company to match. It may make sense for the employee to take that job, but it also therefore makes sense for the employer to not train them if they think they're going to leave.
anbotero 11y ago
To be honest, yeah, you stated EXACTLY one of the reasons they would never want to invest in training you: because the first thing you are thinking when you join what seems to be a nice company is leaving. Of course they can simply make a calculation on how much time is required to get that training costs out of you, and I believe companies which offer the real absurd perks already have so much money that they just need to flush it out and maybe save taxes on the way of people leaving.
- artmageddon 11y ago
  > because the first thing you are thinking when you join what seems to be a nice company is leaving. Of course it's a risk, but there are two things to consider in counterpoint: 1). If the employee gets adequate training and the chance to contribute to his/her work with said training, that may improve their happiness and desire to stay. Both parties win. They win, you lose. 2). Suppose the exact scenario above plays out, you spend money on training, and they leave sometime thereafter. 3). What if you don't train the employee, but that employee stays? Everyone loses. Obviously, scenario 2 is the one you're most worried about, but imo if the environment is structured in such a way that that employee is looking for ways to leave at some unspecified point, there are probably bigger problems with the environment that need to be addressed.
  - anbotero 11y ago