
Ask HN: Lack of quality Junior Developers? Bad luck or an industry issue? - trh88
I have been working with a few Junior Developers recently, almost all out of coding bootcamps.<p>Now, I will say I have (what I think) are realistic expectations about what a Junior Developer is - little or no commercial experience and with often significant yet understandable (and forgivable) holes in knowledge.<p>However, the (majority of) Juniors that I have worked with of late seem to really lack a) common sense, b) problem solving ability, and c) curiosity to learn.<p>I have one Junior at the moment who literally copies and pastes every error message in the console and Slacks the whole chunk to me. No context. And waits for a reply. Sadly, this mentality seems to be more common than not. My default response to this is now that &#x27;you can work this out for yourself&#x27; (am I being too harsh?).<p>Have I just had bad luck?
Is there a general lack of good quality Junior Developers, or do I have unrealistic expectations of what a Junior is these days?
Is this because of the fast-track nature of these bootcamps, or maybe even the &quot;framework&quot; culture that means you don&#x27;t really need to understand what&#x27;s going on under the hood most the time?<p>Would love to hear thoughts. I&#x27;m really keen to help Juniors, but I can&#x27;t help but look back at when I was one and compare my peers ability to figure things out for themselves (is that not how you _really_ learn?).
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taylodl
Haven't working with developers from the coding bootcamps - we require all
developers have a 4 year CS degree. Generally not seeing the problems you are.
Don't know if that's a different between bootcamps and 4 year degrees or if
it's just an anecdote. I _do_ know that there are some people who simply have
no problem-solving skills - and these are people having 4 year degrees. I
haven't run across many of them but there have been a couple that are as you
describe.

Since you're hiring so many people from coding bootcamps maybe you should try
a different tactic: find out what they were doing _before_ the bootcamp. Were
they doing something that required analysis and problem-solving like an auto
mechanic, handyman or plumber or something? Or were they doing non-analytical
white collar work where you follow a set process? The former will make good
developers, the latter, not so much. Heck, we hired a photocopier repair man
who though he didn't have a 4 year CS degree, he did have 5 years experience
in IT with another firm (the "or equivalent" clause) and he's been an
_awesome_ developer. Anecdotally speaking, I've noticed most developers who
fix their own cars, do their own handyman work or simply worked in fields
doing a lot of analysis and problem-solving are very good at being developers.
It's the analysis and problem-solving skills you're after, the domain
knowledge will come with time.

In a separate vein, if you're looking at people who have 4 year degrees and
attended a bootcamp so they could find work, the 4 year degree is an indicator
of their ability to analyze and problem solve. Mathematicians, engineers, and
the hard sciences tend to be very good developer candidates, for example.

Good luck!

