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by frankbreetz 295 days ago
The issue with hiring many juniors is, when there is another dev boom, all the juniors that were hired, now mids or seniors, are going to jump ship to whoever is going to pay them the most. So, the company can either grow talent and then pay them market rate or hire at market rates from other companies that grew them. Hiring juniors, while good for the industry in the long run, doesn't really benefit an individual company. It is game theory and it is still why senior developers make a lot of money despite there being an oversupply of juniors.
3 comments

> all the juniors that were hired, now mids or seniors, are going to jump ship to whoever is going to pay them the most

Yeah, that's the point!

> So, the company can either grow talent and then pay them market rate or hire at market rates from other companies that grew them.

It's not a zero sum game. The simple fact you overlooked is not every junior jumps ship.

> Hiring juniors, while good for the industry in the long run, doesn't really benefit an individual company

Things that are good for the industry DO benefit individual companies. Having a large and capable talent pool is good for everyone.

> Hiring juniors, while good for the industry in the long run, doesn't really benefit an individual company

If this is really a concern, require a long-term employment contract from incoming candidates.

Yep, that's how the military solved it. ROTC trains you, but then you're committed for 4 years.
Unethical bullshit, but sure
Nothing unethical about voluntary contracts that you freely enter into.

There are tradeoffs and you'd do well to acknowledge agency in this world.

Sure, for varying values of "freely"
Is someone being forced? Can you call the police?
Also, a lot of companies are not attractive enough for seniors (low job security/ not good environment/ not exciting work/ etc), so they are forced to hire juniors