Comment by contrarian1234

Comment by contrarian1234 9 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

citrin_ru 2 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 4 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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