

Ask HN: What is the market like for junior software engineers? - adamzerner

Everyone talks about how there is such a shortage of engineers and that they&#x27;re in such high demand. But I sense that this refers to SENIOR engineers. What&#x27;s the market like for JUNIOR ones?
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argonaut
1\. Let me tell you the secret: if you call and market yourself as junior,
then you WILL be limited to junior opportunities. The idea that someone is a
_junior_ engineer is a self-limiting and self-filtering belief. Very few
companies will say they want junior employees, for good reason (there is
something amateurish about calling yourself a junior employee - I can't quite
put my finger on it). But that doesn't mean that when a company advertises a
"[Normal] Software Engineer" position, you're disqualified (you aren't). Most
fresh college grads I know don't call themselves junior engineers; why should
you?

2\. The market for senior developers is red-red hot. The market for normal
software engineers (including junior, entry-level, whatever labels you want)
is merely "hot" \- but there is still plenty of opportunity to go around. What
bohnej is saying doesn't align with what I've seen in SV.

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adamzerner
Thanks, that's a great point about limiting yourself. I appreciate it!

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bohnej
Not good. There are very very few junior developer jobs. Everyone wants senior
or lead developers in 2014. Possibly the only junior developer jobs these days
are in very remote locations where they can't find any senior developers.

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adamzerner
There seems to be a chicken-egg problem here. How do you get to be a senior
developer if you can't find a job as a junior one?

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panorama
Living in SF, I also feel like this issue pertains to the tech industry in
general, for non-programming jobs. In my girlfriend's experience, tech
startups are looking for people who have had tech experience prior, even in
Sales, AM, Customer Support, and other more entry-level-leaning roles.

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panorama
1\. I don't think there is a universal standard for "junior level" anymore. If
you have a year's worth of working with Rails across the stack in a production
setting, you are more than capable of landing a decent job in SF (not Senior
or Lead, of course)

2\. I can't quantifiably say there's a shortage, but I'd have to guess the
amount of decent "juniors" that code bootcamps are pumping out are hurting the
market if you're a junior competing for the same jobs in web. The bootcamps
are collectively graduating thousands of students per year in San Francisco
alone. HN doesn't think favorably of this lot, but they are hard workers, have
learned modern programming conventions and best practices, and are desperate
for work.

Caveat to #2: You can differentiate from this group if you basically _aren't_
a Ruby/Rails or Javascript dev, since those are the primary languages taught.

~~~
adamzerner
What are you saying in #2?

\- Are bootcamp grads further along than juniors?

\- Are bootcamp grads taking the jobs away from juniors?

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panorama
a. It's hard to say because as I admitted in 1, it's hard to know what
"Junior" qualifies for anymore, and I'm unsure of what your metric is for it.
If you'd like, we can talk separately and I can try to give you an honest
assessment (I conduct engineering interviews at a YC '12 company) of where you
stand in relation to what I perceive to be other juniors (and bootcamp
graduates).

b. Yeah - bootcamp grads are taught to go after these junior-facing roles (and
even forego internships), so this is definitely the market you're competing
with, assuming you're Junior as well. Once again, I can only really speak for
SF and in web.

~~~
adamzerner
I should have mentioned but I'm starting a bootcamp (Fullstack Academy) in 2
weeks. I thought that I'd be considered junior after I graduate and was
wondering about the future.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to do some sort of assessment to see where I
am. It's not too important (just curiosity really) so if you have other
priorities I completely understand, but if you've got time HMU -
azerner3@gmail.com.

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rahulvarshneya
We don't typically recruit junior developers being a startup as we want the
person to hit the ground running. But bigger companies sure do hire junior
developers as they have the leeway to groom them for bigger tasks.

I'm sure there are enough avenues for junior developers, purely going by the
salaries that are being doled out by these companies for INTERNS, what with
$4,000-$6,000/month salaries. For INTERNS!

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greenyoda
Depends on what geographical locations you're interested in and what
industries you're considering (web startups, big internet companies like
Google, finance/trading, enterprise software, embedded systems, etc.). Some
more information about what you're looking for would be helpful.

~~~
adamzerner
Web startups/internet companies.

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Spoom
Companies don't want to have to train people at all now, especially startups.
So my advice to the OP would be to freelance until he can confidently call
himself a senior developer.

