[mspaint]

May I submit that if companies collectively hired some junior/entry level employees, they might eventually have some mid and senior level developers in the market? Just looking at Startuply for example, there is maybe one junior position out of 53 positions listed in Austin.

Perhaps hire one senior level and a two or three junior level developers to work closely together, and try and raise the productivity of the new devs.

If there are NO senior level programmers available, maybe they should get creative.

[wyclif]

Spot on. I've seen this again and again: everyone is hurting for senior people, and everyone wants rock stars/ninjas. Hardly any companies that I see are willing to hire a junior dev or admin and contribute anything at all to his/her personal development, skill accumulation, and experience. They just wanna plug the hole and fill the position as fast as they can, and that's usually bad for both employer and employee long term.

[rickmb]

Bull.

Companies have been hiring tons of inexperienced devs throughout the late '90s and early '00s, and they have been hurt badly by it. Incoherent teams full of junior devs that lacked practical skills and didn't know how to work in a team nearly killed many software based companies.

A CS degree teaches barely any professional skills, it's all on the job training, so training a junior is extremely costly.

So nowadays, smart companies build their team around seniors, and only then start hiring juniors one at a time. Which means 3 to 4 seniors for every junior dev.

It's not about "plugging the hole", it's about making sure the ship doesn't start leaking so badly it sinks.

[nhangen]

This is the problem I've had with job listings in the startup world. I'm a jr level web developer, self-taught in the past year, that can't seem to find a single job listing that isn't asking for a ninja, rockstar, guru, or dragon slayer.

Where are the companies hiring warlocks in training, people willing to learn but needing the chance to grow and be challenged.

I guess I wonder why, if I was indeed a sr level engineer, why I would work for anyone at all when I could command high rates as a freelancer, or build my own products.

[phaus]

I live close to the DC/Baltimore area right now. 95% of the positions I see advertised as either junior or entry level are looking for someone with a Top Secret (SCI) clearance and 3 years of professional experience. In addition to the ridiculous requirements they typically offer 40-60k a year.

On the other hand for people with 5+ years of experience there seems to be tons of high paying jobs.

Five years ago you could get a job around here as a security guard making 80k if you had a TS clearance.

[VladRussian]

>Hardly any companies that I see are willing to hire a junior dev or admin and contribute anything at all to his/her personal development, skill accumulation, and experience.

well and after all that investment the person leaves for better salary/etc... to somebody who is looking to hire senior people and not "willing to hire a junior dev or admin and contribute anything at all to his/her personal development, skill accumulation, and experience" There is a reason for the things even if we don't like the reason.

And again, the "hot" skills (any NoSQL/Hadoop) can be picked in a week and even junior with such skills would easy find a place. There is just no excuse for somebody unsuccessfully looking for work in this market to not sit down and master some of such skills.

[michaelochurch]

"Rock star" is code for "junior dev who thinks he should be senior and will work 90 hours per week to prove it". People who've been programming for 5+ years generally avoid the "rock star" epithet like the plague.

[bbwharris]

In general companies seem unwilling to "train". Everyone has to start somewhere. I honestly consider software development to be a trade skill.

For startups, it makes sense to desire a senior level developer. Midsize and large companies really should explore internal training programs. Everyone a generation older than me talk about a world where the "entered through the mail room" and worked their way up. Does this world even exist today? From my point of view, it seems like we only expect top talent everywhere.

[larsberg]

The only thing harder to hire than an experienced developer is a manager experienced at turning junior or early-career developers into senior ones.

Seriously, few things can sink the ship faster than taking on inexperienced people and hoping they'll learn. From that point of view, I can see why many startups, particularly those whose CTO/VP-E doesn't have management depth in addition to their technical depth.

[sarcasmatron]

Technical Management - either Operations or Project - is still regarded as a soft skill, and therefore isn't desired by most startups. As a result, they don't know how to recruit, don't know how to interview, and don't know how to manage their teams, whether in the office or distributed.

I've been doing it for about 5 years now, almost exclusively remote - it's not difficult, it just requires that everyone communicate well, or be willing to learn, if they don't already.

Part of the problem I've encountered are founder/senior managment who are willing to learn these management skills themselves - they are conditioned that everything is on them, so that can be tough.

At this point, I'm of the opinion that in most cases, especially with startups, remote is far more humane than in the office. It's also far more cost effective.

[Cyranix]

I'm going to drop a small plug for my former employer, MyEdu (an Austin startup) -- they frequently hire people into junior roles, and I feel fortunate to have had such an opportunity myself. I'm not saying that everything is sunshine and roses there, but they definitely have a company culture that values the professional growth of junior employees.

[viandante]

How junior? And do you know if the hire remote for a probation period?