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Comment by zz865 | Hacker News Reader

I work for a big corp that hires lots of grads and it really isn't working out. The first year they take a lot more work than they produce, but start to get useful. People used to stay for 2-4 years so it was worth it for the company, recently people have been leaving pretty much after those first 12 months (this is pre-covid too). I used to spend a lot of time helping the grads but it really isn't worth it.

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Sounds like your pay or working conditions are below market.

As always, companies don't really have problems hiring or keeping workers. They just have problems at their price point, which they are unwilling to change.

Possibly, but it used to be frowned upon for people to switch jobs after a year - it was a bad thing to have on your resume. People joined a grad program with the understanding that they'd hang around after they were trained. Now that deal is gone - we shouldn't bother training them in the first place.

Sure, you could simply stop hiring junior devs and focus on poaching senior devs. With your below-market pay and working conditions, there should be no problem doing this. That'll show those junior devs who's boss!

Why are you still at this company?

There is information missing here. Why are they leaving? What work are you giving them it takes that long to play even? What kind of juniors are you hiring to begin with?

FWIW Ive heard the same thing from someone I know who ran a consultancy. He said it was 50/50 of whether a new grad would be up to speed and productive enough after 8 months. Basically the first 8 months the company was likely to lose money on the new hire.

Your comment seems to insinuate that the blame falls with the company. There is just a long ramp up that needs to happen with junior hires. There is so much technology and processes to learn about.

Let me turn it around: in what world would you find it acceptable for a paid professional to take 8 months before they stop being a liability? Especially in today's jobhop heavy environment?

Humans learn incredibly fast when motivated, so yes, I am quite skeptical when someone throws such a vague statement as if we should just accept the problems lie with juniors and not any of the many things a company could be doing wrong. In your case, "so much technology and processes", I'm already skeptical an individual needs to know that much to be productive in a junior role, for a few contexts only.

> Why are they leaving?

Cause all the recruiters start calling. I left my first job after 12 months, BigCorp needed developers and I was offered double then current salary.

I nearly doubled my salary when I jumped ship. Market is quite competitive for decent devs even if they are junior. And junior isn't always a good indicator on programming ability as well, my friend wrote a Pascal compiler in two days for example.

Tragedy of the commons? After they’re trained up a new company can afford to give them more money since they don’t have to break even on the training period any more.

This has been my experience as well. We have a fairly organized stack where our juniors can start being productive and learning from the first weeks

What ends up happening is that they end up leaving at the 6 month mark after they've become proficient enough to get higher paying (by a couple hundred more) job

It takes a toll on me personally, feels like I'm stuck in a never ending loop of making others better, but getting nothing in return

I wonder if having a clear promotion plan for juniors could help. But as soon as a monetary incentive is there, it becomes problematic...

>by a couple hundred more

... Thousands? Or just hundreds?

I agree with you - I regularly see advice on Reddit, Twitter and other forums to change jobs after 12-18 months, often people recommend juniors to jump ship as soon as recruiters reach out, that the first job should be just foot in the door to get to the industry. It means that companies hiring for entry-level positions are at a disadvantage

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