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by gbuk2013 405 days ago
In my experience it only works if you pull in juniors into strong teams and keep the proportion of juniors reasonably small. You also need to have a process in place for training them - it’s not enough to rely on ad-hoc mentoring from peers.

If you get the ratio wrong, with too many juniors and weak technical leadership then you will end up in a very bad place in your code base.

In terms of value, even if juniors are half the cost, it is much wiser to hire one senior instead of 2 juniors for the same money.
1 comments
betterThanTexas 405 days ago
> it is much wiser to hire one senior instead of 2 juniors for the same money.

Maybe in terms of pure productivity, but if you can match hiring to roadmaps you can give them more approachable/further from revenue work for which seniors would be an overkill. Etc. I'm just saying anyone with a simple explanation is only telling you part of the story.

Besides, hiring is expensive. If you say live near a university, you have an edge in finding talent.

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gbuk2013 405 days ago
> give them more approachable/further from revenue work for which seniors would be an overkill

My experience suggests there is no such thing. There is work that seniors might not want to do, but if you hired well then they will be professional enough to do it, if it really needs to be done. And it takes some experience to determine which “non-revenue generating” work (e.g. tech debt) actually needs to be done, to advocate doing it to the stakeholders and to actually do it well.

Juniors need a lot of supervision and that is not free. Which is not a reason not hire them in the first place, just that that it should be done mindfully.

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johnnyanmac 404 days ago
>which “non-revenue generating” work (e.g. tech debt) actually needs to be done

This mentality is part of the problem. You can't fundamentally treat juniors as a profit center. Especially in more niche fields. They need to be trained and schools don't cover your specific pipeline.

maybe it doesn't "need" to be done, but some refactoring work will pay off to turn your juniors today into seniors tomorrow. If you can only think in productivity charts, then you don't hire juniors.

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