February 14, 2018 at 15:35Who killed the junior?
- Transfer
There are many juniors, there are not enough vacancies.
A few months ago I went to an event for women in IT. Many beginner developers, graduates of programming courses or training programs gathered there. Almost everyone said they were having problems finding a first job.
Personally, I was lucky. My first "real" job after college in 2010 was the position of junior application developer at Columbia University. Nowadays it’s hard to even find a job for a junior. People posting such vacancies are inundated with resumes. At the same time, companies complain that they cannot find good senior level developers.
But why is this happening?
I’m not quite sure about the exact mechanics of what is happening, because I myself do not manage such a company. But I know that these companies tell me: “We don’t want to hire juniors, because we can’t spend the time of the leading programmers on their training.” I saw the senior rates, because I myself am like that, and my project managers made me take time to budget. I know that rates are approximately $ 190- $ 300 per hour. This is why companies find it unprofitable to hire new recruits.
I do not believe this, because no seigneur does not work all day at a rate of $ 300 per hour. In addition, groans about excessive expenses are similar to crocodile tears, taking into account all the time that experts spend in vain (at least in my opinion) on meetings and the like.
But let's say that companies will again begin to take juniors into teams. Now you will have a new problem, since the seniors do not have experience with beginners - and in general there is no experience in teaching people. When I first started working with juniors, I had no idea how to do this. I was lost and confused. My company could not help you: "Just give them some work so that they learn something." But in reality this is not enough.
I looked for some reference materials on this subject - and found nothing. If you know such, then please let me know in the comments. In the end, I made up a somewhat suitable strategy from fragments of different courses and various tasks.
But the madness is how much I had to learn in the process. I don’t think that I would ever be able to understand JavaScript functions at a deeper level if I didn’t have to explain them to another person. Some of the tools that I developed for training ended up being useful in real projects.
There were times when I was disappointed. Especially when project managers or other managers did not understand the situation. When they didn’t understand that I couldn’t take my work on time because I was wasting time training these people.
I am trying to say that the entire software development ecosystem needs newcomers for their own well-being. Their training comes at a price, but also has benefits.
If the company wants to hire juniors again, I would recommend taking the time to develop a program that will help the seniors and everyone else who works with the juniors to effectively master the skills of mentors. And also take into account the harsh reality.
You need to understand that not all novice coders will become successful programmers. How to relate to this? Will you blame their mentors? Or to track the development of skills and transfer those who are not doing very well to other positions where they can succeed: for example, to project managers, sales support engineers, and other positions not related to programming, but where software knowledge is valuable.
And not all seniors become successful mentors. There are many great developers who simply don't have that kind of talent. They should be able to move away from these responsibilities. Mentoring must not be punished. In one team, I trained the beginner most of all - and there was a feeling that this was considered to be less “real” work than other senior men. Because of this, later on I was reluctant to take on such a role. Yes, and I believe that the attitude of men to women here also matters: when a woman takes on such a role, she often looks like a kind of caring mother-patron. This means less prestige, and usually the less prestige - the lower the salary.
I cannot but mention some other economic difficulties that interfere with juniors. I recently attended an event at one company, and they essentially said that all the “light” work was outsourced to another country. Previously, juniors did this kind of work. Then there is automation. A significant part of the work that I personally did as a junior is now automated.
Now it’s hard for novice programmers to find a first job. You may have to do what I really hate to recommend, for example, to work on various projects for free. If you find a really great open source project, which you can then indicate in your resume. I am less likely to recommend a free startup job.
In addition, you will have to look for yourself a mentor. It is best to study in person, although I understand that this option is not available to everyone. Therefore, you can try closed thematic channels in Slack and Discord. And it sucks like a date invitation. Be prepared that you will often be denied. You will have to work on sloppy and completely failed projects, because they are afraid of placing a lot of responsibility on free workers. As one junior told me, he stopped going to our meetings because his project failed. I had to persuade him to continue working and take up new projects, knowing that many of them were sloppy and would not end in anything good.
For my part, I am happy to help the guys at our meetings and would like to work on the development of more formal mentoring programs in these conditions.
Not sure if this solution is suitable for everyone. I'm not sure if companies without juniors can be called unbalanced - or vice versa, they act competently. The reality is that most developers do not stay in one place for a long time - maybe it makes no sense to invest heavily in someone else's training? Or maybe industry should ask themselves why people keep jumping from place to place? Maybe because many of them are sloppy programmers, but maybe for many this is the only way to increase salaries. I can either wait for a stupid, pointless annual “performance review” that will raise my rate by 1%, or take my resume, go for an interview in another place - and get an increase of 10% or more.
This does not mean that a flaw in any particular company. This is a flaw in the entire industry.
A few months ago I went to an event for women in IT. Many beginner developers, graduates of programming courses or training programs gathered there. Almost everyone said they were having problems finding a first job.
Personally, I was lucky. My first "real" job after college in 2010 was the position of junior application developer at Columbia University. Nowadays it’s hard to even find a job for a junior. People posting such vacancies are inundated with resumes. At the same time, companies complain that they cannot find good senior level developers.
But why is this happening?
I’m not quite sure about the exact mechanics of what is happening, because I myself do not manage such a company. But I know that these companies tell me: “We don’t want to hire juniors, because we can’t spend the time of the leading programmers on their training.” I saw the senior rates, because I myself am like that, and my project managers made me take time to budget. I know that rates are approximately $ 190- $ 300 per hour. This is why companies find it unprofitable to hire new recruits.
I do not believe this, because no seigneur does not work all day at a rate of $ 300 per hour. In addition, groans about excessive expenses are similar to crocodile tears, taking into account all the time that experts spend in vain (at least in my opinion) on meetings and the like.
But let's say that companies will again begin to take juniors into teams. Now you will have a new problem, since the seniors do not have experience with beginners - and in general there is no experience in teaching people. When I first started working with juniors, I had no idea how to do this. I was lost and confused. My company could not help you: "Just give them some work so that they learn something." But in reality this is not enough.
I looked for some reference materials on this subject - and found nothing. If you know such, then please let me know in the comments. In the end, I made up a somewhat suitable strategy from fragments of different courses and various tasks.
But the madness is how much I had to learn in the process. I don’t think that I would ever be able to understand JavaScript functions at a deeper level if I didn’t have to explain them to another person. Some of the tools that I developed for training ended up being useful in real projects.
There were times when I was disappointed. Especially when project managers or other managers did not understand the situation. When they didn’t understand that I couldn’t take my work on time because I was wasting time training these people.
I am trying to say that the entire software development ecosystem needs newcomers for their own well-being. Their training comes at a price, but also has benefits.
If the company wants to hire juniors again, I would recommend taking the time to develop a program that will help the seniors and everyone else who works with the juniors to effectively master the skills of mentors. And also take into account the harsh reality.
You need to understand that not all novice coders will become successful programmers. How to relate to this? Will you blame their mentors? Or to track the development of skills and transfer those who are not doing very well to other positions where they can succeed: for example, to project managers, sales support engineers, and other positions not related to programming, but where software knowledge is valuable.
And not all seniors become successful mentors. There are many great developers who simply don't have that kind of talent. They should be able to move away from these responsibilities. Mentoring must not be punished. In one team, I trained the beginner most of all - and there was a feeling that this was considered to be less “real” work than other senior men. Because of this, later on I was reluctant to take on such a role. Yes, and I believe that the attitude of men to women here also matters: when a woman takes on such a role, she often looks like a kind of caring mother-patron. This means less prestige, and usually the less prestige - the lower the salary.
I cannot but mention some other economic difficulties that interfere with juniors. I recently attended an event at one company, and they essentially said that all the “light” work was outsourced to another country. Previously, juniors did this kind of work. Then there is automation. A significant part of the work that I personally did as a junior is now automated.
Now it’s hard for novice programmers to find a first job. You may have to do what I really hate to recommend, for example, to work on various projects for free. If you find a really great open source project, which you can then indicate in your resume. I am less likely to recommend a free startup job.
In addition, you will have to look for yourself a mentor. It is best to study in person, although I understand that this option is not available to everyone. Therefore, you can try closed thematic channels in Slack and Discord. And it sucks like a date invitation. Be prepared that you will often be denied. You will have to work on sloppy and completely failed projects, because they are afraid of placing a lot of responsibility on free workers. As one junior told me, he stopped going to our meetings because his project failed. I had to persuade him to continue working and take up new projects, knowing that many of them were sloppy and would not end in anything good.
For my part, I am happy to help the guys at our meetings and would like to work on the development of more formal mentoring programs in these conditions.
Not sure if this solution is suitable for everyone. I'm not sure if companies without juniors can be called unbalanced - or vice versa, they act competently. The reality is that most developers do not stay in one place for a long time - maybe it makes no sense to invest heavily in someone else's training? Or maybe industry should ask themselves why people keep jumping from place to place? Maybe because many of them are sloppy programmers, but maybe for many this is the only way to increase salaries. I can either wait for a stupid, pointless annual “performance review” that will raise my rate by 1%, or take my resume, go for an interview in another place - and get an increase of 10% or more.
This does not mean that a flaw in any particular company. This is a flaw in the entire industry.
