[jdlyga]

The trouble with hiring juniors now is it's much more difficult to get them up to speed so they can be productive. Before covid, you'd sit next to them, get asked questions every so often, do some pair programming, and discuss ideas over lunch. You can, on paper, do the same exact things over Slack and Zoom. But there's much more friction. And a junior that's struggling is a lot less visible than it used to be. So what ends up happening is seniors become more heads down, getting things done, and juniors struggle to get time with more experienced coworkers.

[closeparen]

Which is why junior and senior talent alike are forced back into the office. Except that tenured senior and staff employees from the boom times are in the San Francisco office, but all the new grad hires from the last 2-4 years are in various third world offices. And neither of them can get conference rooms, so everybody's on Zoom at their desk all day, trying to be heard over their neighbors.

[hibikir]

So man companies that are doing RTO are in no way trying to reorg to make teams stay colocated, it's rather puzzling. I know a UK manager with only reports in the different parts of the americas, and there's never more than 2 in the same city, so for all intents and purposes, the teams are just fully remote but stuck badging in. And that's after a reorg this april, where many US managers got laid off.

Along with trends like having line managers be in charge of 20+ direct reports, it leaves people scratching their heads.

[zmmmmm]

Yeah ... my org immediately stopped provisioning space for new employees once we had remote and could desk-share, so when RTO idea came up, the first thing that stopped it was we physically have only about 50% of the desks we need now. It's now actually awkward when we hire someone new and they want to work in the office because we have to explain we actually physically can't accommodate that.

But still there are people who preach RTO as if all the desks are just waiting there. I think all the benefits of remote work are just taken for granted now and people just see downsides.

[jansan]

Good thing there are companies outside San Francisco, too. Actually, almost every company is not in San Francisco if you think about it.

[teaearlgraycold]

My brain can't understand companies not in San Francisco.

[closeparen]

What happened to onshore development in Silicon Valley in 2022 happened to corporate America’s IT departments in the early 2000s.

[skipkey]

So in the 2010s I was working in game development for a company that mostly did Facebook and mobile games. I'm an early bird, I would usually be in the office at 6-6:30am. The next person would show up usually about 10-15 minutes before the 10am standup, so I'd have 3 hours of quiet productivity.

Generally I'd get all my deliverables done by the time that anyone else showed up, so after standup I'd just circulate and see what everyone was working on, and if I saw someone who was frustrated, I'd see if they wanted help. This let me help train and teach the kids, which I really enjoyed.

That's the one reason I don't like fully remote/zoom jobs. I really enjoy the interaction and the ability to teach.

[fsckboy]

>Before covid, you'd sit next to them, get asked questions every so often, do some pair programming, and discuss ideas over lunch

the real glory days were the 70's when we all had to share a single multitasked computer, and the terminals (not enough for everybody) were all connected by wires and formed a sort of hive around the mini in a room called "the bullpen". Senior, junior, multiple unrelated projects sitting shoulder to shoulder, the shared tips and techniques, the humor, man it was so much fun. The day my coworker learned to play Ride of the Valkyries on the VT-100 keyboard due to a bug in the autorepeat function... music! the shared computer disk could not have held a single mp3 had mp3's even been invented yet

[budman1]

not just the terminals. the bookshelf with the documentation was in the terminal room.

(buy a VAX, get a library. oh, and a computer too.)

the 6 months after the first screen editor was installed was constant questions and answers bouncing across the room on how to do things.

[MikeNotThePope]

It’s not hard. You give them mentorship and time. Even as a senior engineer, I’ve found it difficult to get assistance at times from team members. Everyone is more focused on knocking at tickets for tomorrow’s standup, and there’s a disincentive to spend time on anything other than doing your own work.

[mc3301]

Fully agree. I'm all for remote work. However, in my first 2 years of programming, being able to go the the office, put my laptop and notebook down next to a senior dev, point and say, "Help me," was so valuable.

[cbdevidal]

I’ve never known the joy of sitting with someone more experienced to ask for help; I’ve either always been the most knowledgeable in the room (which is not necessarily saying much) or I was the only one in the room.

With AI coding agents, I finally feel like I can tap the shoulder of a pro for help.

It’s not the absolute expert, and I know it’ll make mistakes. But much more knowledgeable than me at certain technologies and techniques.

[rgblambda]

Guessing you maybe work in the consulting industry?

The "seniors" tend to be glorified salespeople whose job is to put together presentations and reassure clients that everything's going well, while the one or more interns/recent grads do all the technical work. Some projects there'd be one junior literally writing every line of code while the seniors spent their entire time in meeting rooms talking about god knows what.

Dressing smart, talking smoothly, and being older looking (to imply experience to clients) are the attributes that get you a senior role.

[distances]

Not at all my experience of consulting companies. What I saw was that they were very useful training pipelines for juniors.

The companies would staff projects with a mix of seniors and juniors. Seniors to get started fast, in the right direction, and actually guarantee the delivery; juniors to keep the costs lower and to have a pipeline of new people. Hands-on from day 1, sitting with seniors in a project with clear timelines and deliverables, with projects and technologies changing regularly, tended to level up the newcomers fast.

This was in small to midsize (50-500) consulting companies where the projects did not come via CEOs being buddies with others.

[cbdevidal]

I just have never been in any kind of dedicated developer role. A sysadmin who happens to know development for the past 25 years.

And didn't know development at a high level; no one to guide, so I self-learned and acquired some bad habits that I'm now breaking, and didn't learn some necessary techniques that I'm now learning.

[moron4hire]

I have worked as a software development consultant for more than 20 years and have never seen what you describe.

[jaggederest]

I don't know how much experience you have, and this also goes broadly for those looking but not commenting here, but if any of you would like a mentor, I'm happy to volunteer, contact info in the profile. Mentoring is, as far as I'm concerned, the most rewarding thing in the industry, and I want to do as much of it as I can handle.

Anyone else open to mentoring feel free to chime in, the more the better - mentoring is highly individualized.

[cbdevidal]

:-) I'll keep you in mind.

[culopatin]

I have the same experience. Getting hired with this background is weird. I don’t know how confident I should or shouldn’t be. And I wasn’t in consulting until recently. I like to put the focus on understanding the end to end workflows more than spending time worrying about my solution being the absolute best that would make HN drool over though

[c0rruptbytes]

seems more like a culture problem, i have my calendar very public, all my junior devs know ill get on a zoom with no hesitation and they actually seem to enjoy the screen sharing, every zoom is recorded with AI summary/transcript so they’re more focused on asking questions instead of taking notes (and i think they’re really solid juniors and actually go back and watch)

there’s the whiteboard element but i’ve gotten pretty good at exalidraw and zoom annotating

add in the remote makes it kinda easy to not be distracting in meetings so i can easily DM them context on the side to get them ramped up easier

[Root_Denied]

Tossing in my two cents here to agree with you. I worked remotely on and off from about 2014 onward until post-COVID RTO brought me into an office for 18 months before I became remote again. During that time (and across a bunch of companies) I went from desktop support to senior sysadmin to security on the cusp of senior security engineer.

In my experience the biggest factor in teams usually came down to the middle management layer. If their "style" was "watch over your shoulder, butts in seats" type of micromanagement then juniors didn't tend to progress unless they were self motivated to seek it out.

[frereubu]

I'm sure this is quite a personal thing. I much prefer being in-person for that kind of interaction, and I don't think it's about efficiency as such, I just prefer being around people despite not being an extrovert - hybrid working is perfect for me.

[ariwilson]

zoom settings fucking suck to set up full AI summary / transcript btw. i know it's a one time cost but it's across every engineer

[wombatpm]

Screen share on slack or teams gives you the same. I’d routinely work with remote teammates that way, and we’d jump in a control each others machines as needed. We’d do hours of that as a team, breaking into breakout rooms as necessary. Much more effective that a hot conference room

[jolmg]

Even simply taking pictures of one's monitor and sending them along with text/whatsapp messages can be surprisingly practical, low friction, and effective. Adds the benefit of being asynchronous collaboration.

[doubled112]

But not logs or code. Please do not send me screenshots of logs or code.

[jolmg]

A phone's font is large. A picture let's you see code/logs properly formatted and in proper context. It also gives you the opportunity to circle/arrow and otherwise annotate the points of interest while displaying context around.

A picture prevents you from copying, but often that's not as important. One can use judgment to determine whether a picture or text can be better.

Receiving such messages can sometimes mean I need to transcribe a bit of what I'm seeing, but the added clarity to what they're trying to communicate can be worth it. I welcome it.

[doubled112]

I don't think people are using any judgement, but if they are it is only poor judgement. I've rarely received a helpful screenshot like you describe.

I tend to get things like 1/3 of a terminal window missing all of the context. No commands and only half of the error.

Ever receive a photo (not a screenshot) of a spreadsheet when they expect you to do something with the content? I have.

Another personal favourite is a browser window cropped so tight I can't tell where they are. No address bar, page header removed, sidebar missing, etc.

Send text as text! One of these times I am going to print the photo, annotate it, and fax it back. Or maybe I need better coworkers.

[magicalhippo]

Part of being in the office is that you pick up on what's going on around you. Coworkers might discuss some issue and you might decide to listen in, and so on.

That's the bit I really notice I am missing out on when I work at home.

[starkparker]

working at a fully remote company, this happened all the time in slack. people used slack constantly, socially and professionally. channels filled up with context, and it was not only easy but asynchronous to search or even just go back through a day's unread posts in a channel and see what things happened, reply about something, copy it over to a colleague and get them involved, hell even spin off a ticket from it with an automation. people were in hundreds of channels, and it was a firehose, but teams helped each other make the most of it

then we got acquired by a much larger onsite-first company, and their slack is dead. nobody posts anything unless they absolutely have to (i.e. "the men's toilet on the 3rd floor is overflowing" at least twice a week, or that some printer needs paper or toner). there aren't slack bots because nobody checks slack. everything else happens in person, in a servicenow ticket, or at most via email

their IT team has no idea how to support how we used slack before. in one case they told us to stop posting in a channel used by other parts of the company because we were generating too much disruptive activity. I can see the team cultures around it eroding week over week, but we're not in any office, so there aren't any in-person behaviors replacing it. we're all simply becoming increasingly isolated, losing track of each other both as people and in the work we're doing, and becoming unhappier and less effective

this shit isn't hard, but it requires effort and people who see the benefit of it. there's a perception that people with remote work skills can just roll up into an office and be as effective without changing any fundamental aspects of how they work, and vice versa, and it's all bullshit

[whstl]

I've had a few situations where developers and made a lot of important decisions in person, and then the one person who was almost-always remote felt left out.

It was a bit of drama and the person ended up leaving because they wanted others to adapt to them. I think they ended up in a remote-only company in the end. Very talented developer.

Similarly, being available to stakeholders and colleagues from other teams come to me at any time and get a quick answer was something that ended up being amazing for my career, got me a few lifelong friends and even a cat.

[adabyron]

I've found less friction in my experience. I prefer pair programming remotely over in person.

Pair Programming in person - one computer & one person looking over another's shoulder usually.

Pair Programming remotely - two computers & you can easily swap control of either's device or change who's sharing their screen.

The only thing working in an office wins on imo is building very close relationships with co-workers. I think physical presence is a human thing that cannot be beat. You can still build great relationships remotely but they're not the same. From the point of view of a company, remote relationships might be good enough or even better as they can prevent people becoming "to close" and ending up on the news at a concert together.

[magicalhippo]

We hired two junior devs just before Covid lockdowns. The lockdowns were quite strict here in Norway, so even when it opened back up we could only have a fraction of the people in the office.

We did indeed notice it took very long to get them up to speed.

They didn't really get going until the lockdowns were fully lifted and people returned to office.

Hard to tell what would have happened without the two+ years of Covid restrictions, but with a sample size of two I feel like it wasn't a fluke.

[creesch]

From a different perspective your sample size is just one, your team/company.

I started in a whole new team (as a senior) remotely during Covid which also contained juniors. They did incredibly well and were able to reach anyone remotely with no issue.

What might have been different is that the entire team was new and we knew we had to focus on our communication online and think about effective ways to do so. Which also benefited the juniors in the team. Many teams and companies never really gave it that much thought to begin with and I still see teams struggling to work remote at times. But, after giving them some pointers they often manage to do a whole lot better.

Some basic things out the top of my head that have benefited teams and juniors specifically:

- Have a "working together" channel where people can start meetings and where anyone can join if they feel like it. It often ends up being used by people who either like working together or those who can use some overall input on what they are working on. - Have social online moments as well. One team had a 15 minutes social block in front of standup's an other team had just a weekly social call. - Actively check in on other team members. Which feels silly to say, but the amount of times where I have seen teams only communicate during standup is also silly. Specifically juniors. If they are given a task after a little while check in with them how it is going and ask if they want to share their process. Basically how you probably in the office would walk past and also have a little conversation with them. - Take time for questions from juniors and make it clear you will do so. Whenever you are in the office and they approach you for help it means you also often serve them on the spot. Yet online I have seen juniors being ghosted for a variety of reasons. At the very least make sure to respond to juniors with a "give me 5 minutes and I'll give you a call".

To be clear, I personally like working hybrid and I do think there are benefits to coming to office at least for one day per week (assuming it is coordinated and not a ghost town). But my main point is that juniors struggling due to remote work is often more a symptom of the company not really having a good training and coaching process/culture in place more than anything else. Which I am not blaming on individual teams either. Training people is hard, people get bachelors degrees in education and then spend a lifetime getting better at educating. It's up to companies to educate their teams in this as well, offer the resources and have people on staff who solely focus on junior training.

[creesch]

> So what ends up happening is seniors become more heads down, getting things done, and juniors struggle to get time with more experienced coworkers.

I just replied further down ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48353154 ) about this. You are entirely right, but it is also something that can largely be mitigated if companies and teams are self aware enough. I am not going to rewrite that entire comment but in addition to what I wrote there any self respecting company over a certain size should still have a junior training process in place that spans at least a year possibly two. Letting individual teams or even individuals figure out how to handle juniors always would give you wildly different results, but being in the office this was often hidden because some juniors would organically find other people for support. If you are not physically in the office you need to make sure they have other check-in moments with each other. Allow for moments where they can meet people outside their teams (knowledge presentations, workshops, etc).

I still think working hybrid (but one day per week imho is often enough) is the sweet spot for many reasons. But overall I mostly think that the FT (as often) is making excuse for things that boil down to "no, the main reason is actually corporate cost savings and refusal to invest in core processes".

[randusername]

Opt-in versus opt-out. Active versus passive. A lot of mentorship is just role modeling, juniors observing how seniors conduct themselves in various situations by proximity.

$DAYJOB might as well be fully-remote since the team is heavily distributed and it's the same problem.

I think it's a problem for all workers, not just juniors. Maybe 1 person in the org sees the whole elephant. Way too many "organizational branch mispredictions" from incomplete mental models colliding.

[uejfiweun]

Office work removes corporate friction at the expense of personal friction (commuting, dress codes, etc), while WFH removes personal friction at the expense of corporate fiction in the way you've just described. It's an interesting dichotomy. Given who the power lies with in our society, I think we all know which one will win out in the long run.

[throwaway2037]

The first part of your post was very insightful, and I broadly agree. It is interesting that you consider (office) "dress codes" a personal friction. Do dress codes still really exist? I work in a very conservative industry, and the dress codes have changed dramatically in the last 10-20 years. For any other industry, I'm sure the changes are even greater. Also, I am the type of person that really likes to dress well and maintain good appearance when I go to the office. It's a nice way to start the day. The idea of working from home wearing "house clothes" isn't for me.

However, I disagree with this part:

    > Given who the power lies with in our society, I think we all know which one will win out in the long run.

In a capitalist system, there is always push and pull between employer and employee. Look how desperate tech hiring was during the COVID-19 crisis. It was insane. You had silly stories on HN of people working two jobs at once. Next, the economy slowed and layoffs came. The script flipped. Once the economy is strong again, employers will be more flexible on accepting remote work. For many industries that employ technologists, part-time work-from-home is now a permanent reality. If you not a "gold standard" company, you need to find non-economic advantages when hiring. One of those is part-time work-from-home.

[Mezzie]

Dress codes definitely exist, even if they're usually not stated.

I'm a woman. I also have MS. A lot of people with MS, myself included, experience something called the 'MS Hug', which is spasticity, pain, and tenderness in your ribcage muscles.

Wearing a bra for 9 hours a day ensures that I'm in a shit ton of pain. A full time RTO job would mean being in pain constantly so that other people aren't offended by my body. Right now I'm hybrid with one day a week in and I just load up on painkillers and muscle relaxers for that day, but even then I can only do so much because you can't just down 8mg of tizanidine and then drive home.

You wouldn't know any of this by looking at me.

[throwaway2037]

Hat tip. Thanks for the honest reply. First hand accounts like this make HN a better place. I'm sorry you need to suffer from that. I wish you luck finding a job that will allow you to do 100% WFH!

[Mezzie]

Fortunately, there is flexibility on the 1 day a week in the office for me, so if I'm having a really bad day, I don't have to go. I've had full WFH in the past and it's worked well for me. I've also ended interviews when I'm told the job is 3+ days in office.

I know a lot of people with disabilities that can work if we're WFH, but the requirements of full RTO would push us out of the workplace. I can do 1-2 days, but more than that would end up being very difficult. I can borrow energy/slam caffeine/take an extra Adderall on office days and then just recover the next day or go to bed as soon as I get home, but doing that 5 days a week isn't going to work.

I understand where the RTO advocates are coming from. I do find those 3/4 days a month in the office to be helpful for context building, and there are a lot of jobs that do benefit from that in person collaboration.

My job is primarily supporting people across several countries with a side of system maintenance. There's not really any point to me being in the office more than I am. In fact, being able to work effectively remotely is a key skill for doing this job.

[uejfiweun]

Fair enough. I'm feeling more than a bit pessimistic right now to be honest, looking at the CEOs gleefully talking about how we're gonna have to find new jobs. Hopefully the pendulum does swing the other way again.

On the dress code, for me personally, unless I'm at home in commando sweatpants and a sweatshirt, there is always a low grade cognitive tax of me being uncomfortable in the garb that society deems acceptable to wear in an office. And I'm one of the lucky ones, I can wear khakis and a polo. My heart goes out to those poor Wall Street guys who are stuck in suits all day.

[preisschild]

It might be because I spent most of my childhood in teamspeak/mumble talking to others, but my first real time job was just a few months prior to the covid lockdowns and I have been (almost) fully remote since then. I personally had no issues adapting and becoming productive even without a senior engineer next to me since I could always reach out via slack anyways.

Of course other persons have other needs though

[honkycat]

BS. Pairing works great over zoom

[throwaway2037]

When I compare pair programming in person vs. by video chat, there is no comparison. In person is always more effective. That said, if you have no choice (your pairing partner is not in the same office), then video chat is way better than 10 years ago, and is a reasonable alternative.

[blharr]

As someone who has poorer vision than average, pair programming in person as the observer is almost impossible. Id have to ask the driver constantly for clarification on what they typed or have them increase their text size to something that would be uncomfortable to them.

That's just to say its not always more effective

[throwaway2037]

You raise an interesting and fair point. I "raise you" (poker like) with this challenge: What if you are sitting next to each other with side by side PCs? Your PC can have gigantic "boomer-style" fonts (no hate on that; each year over 40 for me... I swear I need a bigger font!) and your (twenty-something whipper snapper!) teammate can have microscopic 8-point fonts. Do you think the communication will be better face-to-face or over video? I still stand by my original point: Human communication is always better face-to-face compared to video.