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There is a huge pool of exceptional junior engineers

(workweave.dev)
263 points mooreds | 2 comments | 30 Sep 25 03:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.419s | source
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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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1. deaux ◴[01 Oct 25 05:35 UTC] No.45434598[source]▶
> 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.

I know that such places exist from reading HN but it always seems so counterproductive to join such a place as a fresh grad. As a beginner you need to be getting your hands dirty, getting some ownership and respobsibilities, making mistakes and decisions. Figuring stuff out, exploring tradeoffs and experiencing them firsthand.

It's like when a football player joins a big team before they're ready and spends a year or 2 on the bench. It completely stunts their development and they never reach their potential. When you look at those who reach the top, they were all playing nearly every match from a young age as an important member of their team.

Obviously I'm biased due to personal experience, as everyone is. And there naturally must be upsides to joining your company as a first job as well. But I'm very glad that in my first job I was writing production code and doing both brownfield as well as greenfield stuff by week 2.

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2. tonyedgecombe ◴[03 Oct 25 14:58 UTC] No.45463730[source]▶
>But I'm very glad that in my first job I was writing production code and doing both brownfield as well as greenfield stuff by week 2.

If you can get up to speed in two weeks then you can be replaced that quickly as well.

Getting to know how the business works can be as valuable as CS knowledge.