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There is a huge pool of exceptional junior engineers

(workweave.dev)
263 points mooreds | 7 comments | 30 Sep 25 03:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.631s | source | bottom
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Cornbilly ◴[30 Sep 25 04:08 UTC] No.45421796[source]▶
When I hire juniors, I try to give them problems that I know they likely won't be able to solve in the interview because I want to see how they think about things. The problem has become that a lot of kids coming out of college have done little more than memorize Leetcode problems and outsourced classwork to AI. I've also seen less and less passion for the career as the years go by (ie. less computer nerds).

Unless the company is doing something that requires almost no special domain knowledge, it's almost inevitable that it's going to take a good while for them to on-board. For us, it usually takes about year to get them to the point that they can contribute without some form of handholding. However, that also mostly holds true for seniors coming to us from other industries.

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Aurornis ◴[30 Sep 25 04:50 UTC] No.45421994[source]▶
> The problem has become that a lot of kids coming out of college have done little more than memorize Leetcode problems and outsourced classwork to AI. I've also seen less and less passion for the career as the years go by (ie. less computer nerds).

I started browsing spaces like /r/cscareerquestions and joined a few Discords to get a sense for what young devs are being exposed to these days. It's all very toxic and cynical.

I've noticed an inverse correlation between how much someone is immersed in Reddit, Twitter, and Discords and how well they function in a business environment. The Reddit toxicity seems to taint young people into thinking that their employer is their enemy and that they have to approach the workplace like they're going into battle with evil managers. I've had some success getting people to chill out and drop the Reddit vibes, but some young people are so hopelessly immersed in the alternate reality that they see in social media that it's hard to shake them free.

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zwnow ◴[30 Sep 25 05:40 UTC] No.45422272[source]▶
The employer might not be the enemy but the employer certainly is not a friend either. Also its expected of young people to spend their time off with these things as well. All this plus the constant fear of being laid off results in people simply not caring too much. Which is reasonable. Maybe the bar is simply too high for what you get?
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1. rectang ◴[30 Sep 25 05:57 UTC] No.45422375[source]▶
Companies are amoral profit-seeking automata. Individuals, even those in senior leadership, have only limited capacity to act in opposition to the company's nature.

Workers can definitely forge mutually beneficial relationships with such entities but anthropomorphizing them leads to sorrow.

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2. zwnow ◴[30 Sep 25 06:01 UTC] No.45422399[source]▶
Corporations are the reason for lobbyism and wealth accumulation which actively damage my personal quality of life. Its only fair for me to not view them in a positive manner. They view me as an asset, I view them as necessary evil to afford housing and food. I should not anthropomorphize them, yes, but I can anthropomorphize the management and stakeholders. And if they are greedy and behave as such, its my good right to be repulsed by them.
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3. 1718627440 ◴[01 Oct 25 19:47 UTC] No.45442454[source]▶
This only applies to large monopolistic companies in an unregulated, thus nonfree market. The most companies, which actually perform the work in the country are small people, who have huge risk and not much money and generally have the company, because they like the work and want to create things. Most people are moral, otherwise we had far more crimes.
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4. zwnow ◴[02 Oct 25 06:04 UTC] No.45446752{3}[source]▶
This applies to any CEO no matter the business size. Otherwise most people could afford life.
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5. 1718627440 ◴[02 Oct 25 08:06 UTC] No.45447293{4}[source]▶
Small companies don't even have a CEO. Most people can afford to life or they would be dead now. :-)

The company boss won't afford treating his costumers like assets, because then he won't have costumers and bringing his children to the kindergarden will become the gauntlet.

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6. zwnow ◴[02 Oct 25 11:04 UTC] No.45448192{5}[source]▶
It would greatly surprise me to see one company owner paying themselves out equally to their employees. While that's not the case that person is exploiting their employees labor for their personal gain. And no, people cant afford life. They do so many things to meet months end, which cant go on forever.
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7. 1718627440 ◴[02 Oct 25 21:30 UTC] No.45455829{6}[source]▶
> to see one company owner paying themselves out equally to their employees.

Depends on what you mean. Getting the same pay, the same pay per hour or the same pay per hour averaged over a long time? Bosses often have a higher pay, but they are also more likely to "work" at home during the family meeting or at night, without it being clocked in anywhere. That's kind of the deal with being the company. They also don't see any money in when the company is in a rougth situation. Often they also don't have a salary at all.