[wait_a_minute]

Ehhh I’m skeptical about juniors needing face to face. Those juniors might just not be cut out for the field.

Generally there’s nothing in-person provides them that proper management in general does not. You’d both be looking at code anyway, on a screen, so pair programming is the same no matter the distance.

And there’s also the fact that experienced hires tend to not want to always baby juniors anyway. They need to learn how to read documentation and spend time on writing code. That’s mostly it for the first few years.

[alisonkisk]

Not everyone is a loner, and the people who aren't loners tend to get promoted more.

The most amazing programmer in my team, who is a loner, is 5-10years behind on the promotion ladder (against his desire).

[oblio]

> Ehhh I’m skeptical about juniors needing face to face. Those juniors might just not be cut out for the field.

You might be from a different era :-)

IT is a mass employer these days, there is no "not cut out of the field". Companies need software. They'll be bad engineers, but they'll be engineers regardless.

[wait_a_minute]

This is a fascinating point that I had not considered. Thank you! I think you're right.

[orthoxerox]

> Ehhh I’m skeptical about juniors needing face to face. Those juniors might just not be cut out for the field.

If your company's chat rooms are great, the onboarding might go well. Otherwise there's a big difference between noticing your boss/buddy is looking at their phone or having another kind of break and sneaking in a question or vice versa, noticing your junior dev's frustrated face, and looking at the green signal next to their name and wondering if it's a good time for a call.