Comment by alephnerd

> Perhaps juniors (and in fact all of us) are going to seem more palatable as contractors at first

It actually might help.

This is the model used in Eastern Europe and India - the vast majority of new grads are hired by mass recruiters like EPAM, WITCH, Deloitte, and Accenture at low base salaries but also the expectation that they self train and learn how to become productive SWEs, or they just stagnate at the low rungs. Japan, Korea, and China use a similar model as well.

But honestly, even FTE isn't much of a headache if I can hire a junior SWE for $60k-80k, invest in training them, and then bumping salaries to market rate after they have matured. This is what a number of traditional F500s like Danaher [0], AbbVie [1], and Capital One [2] do via Leadership and Trainee Development Programs, and honestly, it's much easier to make a case to hire someone if they have a couple of years of real world work experience.

[0] - https://jobsblog.danaher.com/blog/leadership-development-pro...

[1] - https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/student-programs.html

[2] - https://www.capitalonecareers.com/get-ahead-with-early-caree...