[bkovacev]

We've recently started hiring for a junior front-end position and we've stumbled upon code bootcamps graduates asking for 120k with one or two demo projects on their github. NYC Area, which I find absurd.

Unsure if it's the mentors at those schools that are telling their students to ask for that much or the students themselves think that companies that want to hire juniors usually have that deep of a pocket.

[yomly]

I'd argue that it's absurd that we still think 120k is a lot of money when we look around at how expensive things like property are.

My father, with a modest education and a modest first job, was able to get married, raise a child and buy a house near London well before he was 30.

Property in that area is now worth hundreds of thousands and would require a six-figure salary (supposedly a lot of money!!) to be able to qualify for a mortgage to buy.

[zanny]

This. Its not that junior devs are overpaid, its that almost every single salaried job is underpaid for the amount of revenue they produce.

If you work for a company and produce a million in value every year and they pay you 100k for it, you are basically accepting that the company was 90% of the reason you made any value at all. For almost every single developer that is not true. On average you could probably make the exact same amount on contract / as a consultant. The fact the business is making fortunes off your work is just exploitative.

This also applies to way more industries than just software, its just most apparent in software because of how many ludicrous buckets of money big tech players are taking home each year while still paying their dev teams only 6 figures.

Your worth to a corporation is the amount of revenue you produce for their bottom line (or how much loss you offset). If you are making them way more money than they are paying you you are being taken advantage of, whether that be at 30k a year or 300k a year.

[brooklyn_ashey]

Absolutely. 100. Do you have any revolutionizing ideas about how to change this for the better? I think you could start a movement right here.

[yomly]

Well for starters, losing the mentalities "well if I got paid x when I was a junior, then this junior should also be paid x" and "if I'm a senior earning a, this junior should not be earning more than b" when you reach leadership positions will help.

Having profit-sharing schemes when you run your own business are also helpful. Another alternative would be reserving a sizeable proportion (like 20%) of your company's shares strictly for employee ownership.

[zanny]

Absolutely this. Income is not zero sum. Someone else fighting to earn more should be incentive for you to do the same, not villainize them as "greedy".

You cannot be greedy in salary negotiations. A company will not keep you on staff if you demand to be paid more than you are worth. If someone can get paid more by fighting for that raise you should be there supporting them 110% and fighting your own battles to be paid justly for your productiveness.

And you cannot feel guilty about the millions who struggle on substantially lower incomes. It is a problem way larger than an individual that only a small fraction of the working class produces trillions in revenue while the rest make close to parity with their productive yields at fractions of what the top end make. That being said, its not something to ignore, but at that scale its social and political. You have to fight the fights in the arenas they are suited for. Avoiding your own right to the fruit of your labor because your labor produces substantially more revenue than someone elses contributes to holding everyone back when competing for just wages.

[wakkaflokka]

We've been getting something similar - data analysts with solely Excel and SQL experience who've been in the industry for < 6 months, looking for $120k starting salaries as data scientists in non-SF/NYC/Seattle locales. I'm sure they're not that interested in the position and just fishing to see if some company will pick them up (and maybe some will, but there's not even close to a shortage of analysts/data scientists to command that type of salary for that experience).

[matwood]

I've seen this attitude also, and it completely turned me off from interviewing bootcamp graduates. I'm sure there are great bootcamp people out there, but a 12 week course + a demo is basically an intern in my book.

[swyx]

hello, recent bootcamp grad in nyc here. pple are asking that much because other companies are offering that much. I'm sympathetic to the cost perspective for employers, but that is actually the price that many companies are willing to pay (source: got multiple >120k offers myself)

[brooklyn_ashey]

Are these just basic junior devs, or are they specialists in another field with multiple advanced degrees from top tier schools ($$$) and professional experience in that other field? (law, medicine, the arts) and (Yale, Princeton, Juilliard) If so, I'd say they are well worth $120,000, probably have a giant body of work in another field, and are motivated to make back their investment in a mountain of education that has led them over and over again to unemployment or low wage work. If not, my guess is that the math of buying so much schooling over so many years (even mid-tier) and then having to buy tuition at a coding school because the competition is so tight they have no time to waste teaching themselves just doesn't work out, especially when they have to pay $2000 a month in rent plus a 5 month security deposit in NYC, just to attend the "free", "scholarship-supported",or "tuition deferred" bootcamp, that is, if they are new to the city. If they are already New Yorkers, they are probably about to be evicted due to non-payment of same. No one is really talking openly about this with respect to this group of people; the affected must hide their ivy league scholarship homelessness at all costs if they want to ever get a job. It leads to a whole new breed of homeless: living as a homeless person/person-on-the-brink-of-homelessness, well educated, loans to pay, healthcare to pay because they aren't young anymore and really have to get root canals and cancer screenings, middle class props, lunches, and clothes to pay for so they can "pass" as middle class at interviews. It is not sustainable. This wave of unemployed people is exceptionally educated and professionally seasoned (in other fields) in a way that most in previous waves of new job seekers didn't have to be. And on top of all of this, they aren't good at the business of being poor-- they don't know how to get support because they were raised to behave like the middle class. Their families don't understand why they can't get jobs. I remember how little a junior dev had to know just 8 years ago in order to get work. The bootcamps aren't being honest about the lack of interest in bootcamp grads. The online programs aren't getting completed by students. Just a year ago on HN, very few would even recognize the lack of interest in junior devs. Now, we can't ignore it anymore. The tech ecosystem is unhealthy and dishonest with itself about its addictions to certain cultures and practices. It needs to take responsibility for educating newcomers (of all ages and backgrounds) because it is responsible for the fact that these highly skilled people are now useless in this increasingly tech-based society. Mentoring should be a natural part of prepping the soil. It should not matter if devs stay at the company that mentored them. The only reason this is a problem right now is because tech behaves like warring nations not like collaborating artists.

[zanny]

You might be having a bit of grass is greener syndrome. I graduated in 2012, so a bit after that 8 year ago mark, but after over a year of the traditional "apply and interview with big tech companies all over the country" and nobody wanting to take on verbatim junior devs (at least not at my skill level at the time) I just pivoted into free software for two years and consulting for small businesses the last three.

There has never been a point in time where corporations were willing to hire on the inexperienced cart blanche to train them. It has always been a problem that nobody wants to foot the proverbial bill of Jimmys first real dev team. It is only getting worse now as more and more people enter the industry but major giants are slowing down their rampant horizontal department growth that gave a large chunk of juniors a path to classical employment in the nulls.

[brooklyn_ashey]

Yes,perhaps it depends a lot who and where and the year it started to turn. Around 8 years ago, NYC was more open. The free and easy "hey, apply in whatever language you know, we will pay you while you learn ours", etc...this whole notion of "language agnostic" that applies to truly accomplished coders but not juniors. Not really open, just a lot more than it is now. 10 years ago, it was easy to get a junior dev job with basic coding skills. I graduated "several" years before you, friend, so I'll keep that actual number vague ;) I just think it is important that we notice what's happening and notice that they/we can't afford to work for free/very little for may years-- eventually, one can't afford to front anymore, and the bills are coming due, at least here in NYC. We are seeing it in salary demands, lowered enrollment in dev programs, new additions to the severely impoverished (PHD grads who live in their car and take interviews from there). It is important to be truthful about the economy and the state of tech within it and supportive of those who are going through this, and to understand what they are now up against. Because of course mainstream media and similar would have us believe that there really is a giant "skills gap"in tech. I don't think anyone can claim that so vaguely any longer. When "they" suffer, it just means "we" will suffer soon enough.