CatNew Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code.
corsicanguppyI’ve said it before, but this is a 20-year-old problem.
After Y2K, all those shops that over-porked on devs began shedding the most pricey ones; worse in ‘at will’ states.
Who were those devs? Mentors. They shipped less code, closed fewer tickets, cost more, but their value wasn’t in tickets and code: it was investing in the next generation. And they had to go because #numbersGoUp
And they left. And the first gen of devs with no mentorship joined and started their careers. No idea about edge cases, missing middles or memory management. No lint, no warnings, build and ship and fix the bugs as they come.
And then another generation. And these were the true ‘lost boys’ of dev. C is dumb, C++ is dumb, perl is dumb, it’s all old, supply chain exploits don’t exist, I made it go so I’m done, fuck support, look at my numbers. It’s all low-attention span, baling wire and trophies because #numbersGoUp.
And let’s be fair: they’re good at this game, the new way of working where it’s a fast finish, a head-pat, and someone else’s problem. That’s what the companies want, and that’s what they built.
They say now that relying on Ai makes one never really exercise critical thought and problem-solving, and I see it when I’m forced to write fucking YAML for fucking Ansible. I let the GPTs do that for me, without worrying that I won’t learn to code YAML for Ansible. Coding YAML for Ansible is NEVER going to be on my list of things I want to remember. But we’re seeing people do that with actual work; with go and rust code, and yeah, no concept of why we want to check for completeness let alone a concept of how.
One day these new devs will proudly install a patch in the RTOS flashed into your heart monitor and that annoying beep will go away. Sleep tight.
No one wants mentors. The way to move you in IT is to switch jibes every 24 months. So when you’re paying mentors huge salaries to train juniors who are velocity drags into velocity boosters, you do it knowing their are going to leave and take all that investment with them to a higher paycheck.
I don’t say this is right, but that’s the reality from the paycheck side is things and I think there needs to be radical change for both sides. Like a trade union or something. Union takes responsibility for certifying skills and suitability, companies can be more confident of hires, juniors have mentors to lean from, mentors ensure juniors have aptitude and intellectual curiosity necessary to do the job well, and I guess pay is more skill/experience based so developers don’t have to hop jobs to get paid what they are worth.
Yeah those job hoppers are the worst. You can always tell right away what kind of person those are. I’ve had to work with a “senior” dev who had 15 years of experience and to be honest he sucked at his job. He couldn’t do simple tasks, didn’t think before he started writing code and often got stuck asking other people for help. But he got paid big bucks, because all he did his entire career was work somewhere for 2-3 years and then job hop and trade up. By the time the company figured out the dude was useless, he went on to the next company.
Such a shitty attitude, which is a shame because he was a good dude otherwise. I got along with him on a personal level. And honestly good on him for making the most he can, fuck the company. But I personally couldn’t do that, I take pride in my work.
Maybe if people were paid more it wouldn’t be such an issue.
peregrin5Honestly good on that dude. Yeah it sucks for the bottom line of the company but as you said fuck the company. They’re always exploitative and would drop you in a hot minute if they found someone cheaper even if you were good at your job.
Dude found a way to survive in this system and I don’t fault people like that. I do wish I could be one but the interview process stresses me out too much and I couldn’t do it every other year.