juniors are a way bigger risk than seniors and usually leave a company right around the time that they’re getting good.
Personally, as a manager, I find the opposite.
It’s always the juniors that exceed expectations. You never hire somebody senior and find they can do twice as much as you thought. Juniors are often eager to learn if you are willing to teach them. They want to be good at their job, because they know they are laying the foundation of their career. Seniors often have all the bad habits baked in.
Then, if you get a good reputation for developing people (because they leave your team and impress their next set of colleagues) it becomes easier and easier to hire.
I’m glad some managers see it that way. I wish it were easier to get junior headcount. Our mobile team is very small so we have huge bus factor at all times. A couple of junior devs, say 1 for each of the mobile components in our stack (backend, iOS, android) would help mitigate those risks for comparatively cheap, on top of improving our overall velocity.
You never hire somebody senior and find they can do twice as much as you thought.
Generally juniors are expensive for their performance though. If they can do double what you thought it’s great but I’m not sure how much of a cost savings that is against an engineer coming in as a senior (not lead or staff - just a vetted competent programmer who works). Then again I’m not in management at all: I could have the performance-per-dollar figure entirely wrong.
We have a fairly big step up in pay from junior to senior. I can take on 2 or 3 juniors to a high senior or especially principle engineer.
We’re often also taking juniors on that we already have a relationship with through placements during their university course. That minimises the risk.
Personally, as a manager, I find the opposite.
It’s always the juniors that exceed expectations. You never hire somebody senior and find they can do twice as much as you thought. Juniors are often eager to learn if you are willing to teach them. They want to be good at their job, because they know they are laying the foundation of their career. Seniors often have all the bad habits baked in.
Then, if you get a good reputation for developing people (because they leave your team and impress their next set of colleagues) it becomes easier and easier to hire.
I’m glad some managers see it that way. I wish it were easier to get junior headcount. Our mobile team is very small so we have huge bus factor at all times. A couple of junior devs, say 1 for each of the mobile components in our stack (backend, iOS, android) would help mitigate those risks for comparatively cheap, on top of improving our overall velocity.
Generally juniors are expensive for their performance though. If they can do double what you thought it’s great but I’m not sure how much of a cost savings that is against an engineer coming in as a senior (not lead or staff - just a vetted competent programmer who works). Then again I’m not in management at all: I could have the performance-per-dollar figure entirely wrong.
We have a fairly big step up in pay from junior to senior. I can take on 2 or 3 juniors to a high senior or especially principle engineer.
We’re often also taking juniors on that we already have a relationship with through placements during their university course. That minimises the risk.