[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.

[mgkimsal]

"Companies have been hiring tons of inexperienced devs throughout the late '90s and early '00s, and they have been hurt badly by it."

Hiring "junior devs" and "hiring inexperienced devs" can be a world apart.

Hiring someone for position X who turns out to be inexperienced is not the same as explicitly hiring a junior developer with the intent of training them up.

I've seen a lot of the former, but not much of the latter. The two ideas get conflated quite often, but in reality are different and the latter takes a bigger commitment of resources.

"So nowadays, smart companies build their team around seniors, and only then start hiring juniors one at a time."

5-10 years from now, the conventional wisdom will probably be different. Sr devs might be more willing to leave, and if there are fewer of them, a larger percentage of your company knowledge, culture and IP resources go with them.

[karmajunkie]

I agree with you in principle but your ratio is way off. Once you get out of the startup phase, a senior team lead plus one senior to two juniors is plenty. Training them isn't any more costly than hiring a senior, and they have the benefit of, you know, being available to hire.

[Retric]

I have seen several teams with this idea but they start calling someone senior after 4-5 years...

The following team is vary senior heavy and would avoid the junior dev team syndrome without costing an arm an arm and a leg and is still reasonably stable over the long term as long as turnover is low.

1 person with 0-2 years exp, 1 person with 2-5, 1 with 5-7, 3 with 7+ and 1 with 15+.

To, keep priming the pump just look for one new grad every 2 years and keep a lookout for the occasional great senior dev out there to cover for attrition.

[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.

[dsolomon]

In the DC area too. The positions that need 5+ years experience and need TS/SCI/FSP still pay $60K/yr.

[phaus]

I see a few low paying jobs for experienced people, but I also see a lot of 80-130k jobs. Most of them require at least a Top Secret, but not all of them. Try clearancejobs.com if you have any kind of clearance at all.

[dsolomon]

That's a resume farm.

[phaus]

What's a resume farm? I'm actually pretty new to looking for a job. I have been in the military for almost a decade.

[dsolomon]

A resume farm is an entity that collects (farm) resumes. The job postings are most likely taken from other sites. Salaries are inflated to make you want to submit your resume.

[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.

[mspaint]

>well and after all that investment the person leaves for better salary/etc

They could offer them a raise based on their new value? If this company can't pay people well or offer a good work environment, how are they going to get senior developers?

> (any NoSQL/Hadoop) can be picked in a week

I can't believe there are companies looking for people with a "week" of experience in NoSQL who aren't mid-level developers already.

[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.