[rememberlenny]

Yes.

I work at Conde Nast. I helped work with a bootcamp program to create a "internship" program for new graduates. We took eight students after attending a recruiting event and invited them to work on a cycling program. From the eight, we hired four.

We cycled the students through four of Conde Nast's brands/responsibilities. Currently, we have junior developers from this program working on GQ magazine, Glamour, and our in-house CMS system. They are doing JavaScript web app development.

Going into the hiring process, I was betting on the students rate of learning. We knew they didnt have the domain experience. We were hiring out of a RoR bootcamp, so their knowledge was also going to be irrelevant. Knowing they spent 10 weeks learning at a rapid pace, I believed we could extend that to our own code base.

Our experience was good. Because our company was in a unique hiring period, it made sense. We wouldnt do it again.

[niklasni1]

Why wouldn't you do it again if it was a good experience?

[rememberlenny]

Our company was in a unique hiring period where we were bringing on a relatively large number of junior developers. We dont normally have that case.

[alxndr]

What if the company needed to bring on a large number of junior developers again?

[ankitml]

They would probably be not in the same situation again where they end up having junior position.

[rememberlenny]

Exactly

[selllikesybok]

>Our experience was good. We wouldn't do it again.

If the experience was good, why not?

[rememberlenny]

As a company, we dont normally do large scale hiring. When we do large scale hiring, we can bring on junior devs.

If we are hiring for single spots, we need experienced developers.

[mcguire]

"If we are hiring for single spots, we need experienced developers."

That's why you don't see openings for entry level positions.

[s0uthPaw88]

But if you were in the same large scale hiring situation again and can bring on junior devs, would you do it again?

[rememberlenny]

It was a once a decade hiring process.

[steveklabnik]

Sometimes, you just don't need that many new people. This is one of the things that happened with Hungry Academy and Living Social back in the day. A sudden influx of 24 new people doesn't mean you're immediately ready as an organization to pick up 24 more, even if they are good entry-level engineers.

[nsxwolf]

You chopped the context out of the quote. I thought the original was sufficiently explanatory.

[wch]

That's actually not true. He/she quoted the original two sentences. The parent post was later edited to add a third (middle) sentence.

[nsxwolf]

Oh, pardon then. The original really does read strange.

[rememberlenny]

Sorry about that. Three people asked the same question, so I updated the post after.

[jaredsohn]

>Our experience was good. We wouldnt do it again.

I assume you mean 'would do it again'?

[rememberlenny]

No.

[wlesieutre]

The confusion here probably comes from the past tense phrasing. "We wouldn't do it again" strongly implies "If we were in the same situation as before we wouldn't do the same thing."

It'd be more clear to say "We probably won't do it again," I think. And if you did end up needing multiple entry-level hires, it sounds like you would be open to a similar approach?

[dragonwriter]

> The confusion here probably comes from the past tense phrasing.

Possibly pedantic, but, that's the simple conditional (which, in this particular context without an explicit condition, has the implicit condition of "in similar circumstances"), not the past tense.

[yongjik]

Apologies for out-pedanting you, but I believe it is still called the past tense. English past tense (a grammatical form) can be used in several situations, the dominant being signalling past time, but also used to signal conditionals.

[dragonwriter]

> Apologies for out-pedanting you, but I believe it is still called the past tense. English past tense (a grammatical form) can be used in several situations, the dominant being signalling past time, but also used to signal conditionals.

Its almost the reverse in this case. Among the meanings of the simple conditional form is the "future-in-the-past" meaning (which is sometimes called a form or tense of its own.)

There are conditional sentences in which one or the other of English's past tenses/forms are used, but they are used in the condition clause (which was implicit, not stated, in the sentence at issue). The other clause (the conditional) uses a future form (usually marked with the modal verb will or shall -- English doesn't actually have a future tense, as such) or a conditional form (marked with the modal verb would or should.)

[dragonwriter]

> Apologies for out-pedanting you, but I believe it is still called the past tense.

No. In "If we were in similar conditions again, we wouldn't do the same thing", the condition clause ("If we were in similar conditions again") uses the past tense, the main clause ("we wouldn't do the same thing") uses the conditional mood, which is marked (in this case) by the use of the modal verb "would".

In the sentence "We wouldn't do it again" where the condition is implicit, there is no use of the past tense, only the conditional mood.

[dragonwriter]

> Apologies for out-pedanting you, but I believe it is still called the past tense. English past tense (a grammatical form) can be used in several situations, the dominant being signalling past time, but also used to signal conditionals.

Its almost the reverse in this case. Among the meanings of the simple conditional form is the "future-in-the-past" meaning (which is sometimes called a form or tense of its own.)

There are conditional sentences in which one or the other of English's past tenses/forms are used, but they are used in the condition clause (which was implicit, not stated, in the sentence at issue). The other clause (the conditional) uses a future form (usually marked with the modal verb will or shall -- English doesn't actually have a future tense, as such) or a conditional form (marked with the modal verb would or should.)

[dragonwriter]

> Apologies for out-pedanting you, but I believe it is still called the past tense. English past tense (a grammatical form) can be used in several situations, the dominant being signalling past time, but also used to signal conditionals.

Its almost the reverse in this case. Among the meanings of the simple conditional form is the "future-in-the-past" meaning (which is sometimes called a form or tense of its own.)

There are conditional sentences in which one or the other of English's past tenses/forms are used, but they are used in the condition clause (which was implicit, not stated, in the sentence at issue). The other clause (the conditional) uses a future form (usually marked with the modal verb will or shall -- English doesn't actually have a future tense, as such) or a conditional form (marked with the modal verb would or should.)

[wlesieutre]

Pedantic but appreciated! My formal schooling in English was a bit lacking, so I don't always know what things are called. Filed away for future reference!

[rememberlenny]

Spot on.

[endeavour]

Is this in the US or UK?

[rememberlenny]

US. New York city.

[shaohua]

So why wouldnt do it again?