Comment by ilc

Comment by ilc 17 hours ago

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I think AI clouds the real issues around Junior hiring. Defective companies.

Let's say you hire your great new engineer. Ok, great! Now their value is going to escalate RAPIDLY over the next 2-3 years. And by rapidly, it could be 50-100%. Because someone else will pay that to NOT train a person fresh out of college!

What company hands out raises aggressively enough to stay ahead of that truth? None of them, maybe a MANGA or some other thing. But most don't.

So, managers figure out fresh out of college == training employees for other people, so why bother? The company may not even break even!

That is the REAL catch 22. Not AI. It is how the value of people changes early in their career.

contrarian1234 10 hours ago

I think this is the crux of it. When i got my first job I probably made half the salary of the senior engineer in our division. I am 100% sure I was not half as productive. Juniors take a lot of training and time and aren't very productive, but their salaries are actually not reflective of that. The first few months at your first job you're probably a net loss in productivity.

If salaries reflected productivity, you'd probably start out at near minimum wage and rapidly get raises of 100% every half year.

On top of that, if the junior is successful he'll probably leave soon after he's up-and-running b/c the culture encourages changing jobs every 1-2 years. So then you need to lock people down with vesting stock or something..

It seems not easy at all. Even if you give aggressive raises, at the next interview they can fake/inflate their experience and jump in to a higher salary bracket

Hiring and training junior developers seems incredibly difficult and like a total waste of energy. The only time I've seen it work is when you get a timid autistic-savant-type who is too intimidated with interviewing and changing jobs. These people end up pumping out tons of code for small salaries and stay of for years and years. This is hitting the jackpot for a company

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  • citrin_ru 3 hours ago

    > Juniors take a lot of training and time and aren't very productive, but their salaries are actually not reflective of that

    In the current economic situation you can offer a junior 2x may be even 3x less and still get candidates to choose from.

    Also there juniors who are ready to compensate for lack of experience by working longer hours (though that's not something you would learn during hiring).

    > The first few months at your first job you're probably a net loss in productivity.

    It's true for a senior too, each company is different and it takes time to learn company's specific stuff.

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  • johnnyanmac 5 hours ago

    >Even if you give aggressive raises, at the next interview they can fake/inflate their experience and jump in to a higher salary bracket

    I don't think the kinds of people who see a 50% raise and complain that it's not 100% are the kinds of candidates you want to hire anyway. I'd like to see more of that before deciding we tried nothing and ran out of ideas.

    I didn't leave my first job because I was non-autistic. I left because I was paid 50k and the next job literally tripled my total comp. Oh, and because I was laid off. but tbf I was already out the door mentally around that time after 2 years of nothing but chastising and looking at the next opportunity.

    I would have (outside of said chastising) gladly stayed if I got boosted to 75k. I was still living within my means on 50k.

    >Hiring and training junior developers seems incredibly difficult and like a total waste of energy

    If that's the attitude at large, we're all falling into a tragedy of the commons.

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QuercusMax 17 hours ago

I actually got a major raise after 6m, and then another major raise 1y into my career, because my boss recognized my value.

Sadly this is not as common as it should be - but I've also mentored folks at FAANGs who got promoted after 1y at the new-hire level because they were so clearly excelling. The first promotion is usually not very hard to attain if you're in the top quartile.

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  • johnnyanmac 5 hours ago

    >not very hard to attain if you're in the top quartile.

    No biggie, just be the best in the interview stage and continue to be the best for years after that. It's that simple.

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kovezd 11 hours ago

What you are saying is not a hiring problem, but an education one.

If colleges stayed up to date, and teach valuable skills, the jump wouldn't be so steep!

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  • johnnyanmac 5 hours ago

    Dumping our apprenticeship programs onto academia is exacly how we got into this mess to begin with. It has historically not been the job of a college to produce junior talent. They teach a best for T shaped individual and setup for more of their pipeline in research should students want to delve deeper

    If industry doesn't want to pay for training, they better pay bootcamps to overhaul themselves and teach what they actually need. I don't think universities will bend much more since they have their own bubble on their hands.

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