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Question of the Day: If you were buying a TV today, which brand would you choose?
Where are all the skilled developers?
- Thread starter roguemat
- Start date
Well obviously. But that's not what was spoken about. Teaching a class of devs or wanna be devs, is a different ball game. I think we're digressing here from the topic at hand though.
Possibly, but I think its important. Too many companies don't train up junior devs. And that reflects on the skills. Passing off mentoring as training is part of the problem. If you want to have skilled developers in your organisation you need to have 4 processes in place:
1. Continuous training. This applies to senior and junior. New releases. New technologies etc
2. Mentoring new joiners. This more about getting new joiners familiar the organisations processors and any in-house tools
3. Mentoring junior devs.
4. Training apprentices and junior devs. Most organisations will outsource this as it can be time consuming. It should not be shoved in with mentoring.
Training requires specific skills. Just because someone knows a lot about something, doesn't mean they can teach it to someone else.
Definitely agree with that. It takes a special person to teach effectively.
With you points though:
1. Tend to agree here. But any good developer will be reading and studying new techs in their language / interests, etc, on their own. Companies cannot push devs this way. What would be the point?
Pushing the dev in other ways though, i.e. new, challenging projects is one way to do it. But, ultimately, I believe its the dev's responsibility to take an interest in themselves and their future. If you don't care about yourself, don't expect others too, either.
You want a dev that has the drive and passion to learn more and grow - regardless of their experiences.
2. I think that goes with any new employee, regardless of their profession.
3. We've discussed this - and I agree, this part is very important.
4. You said it right there - that is very time consuming.
On the job training is probably one of the best ways someone will learn. You just need two things:
1. A manager / boss to see the potential in someone, enough to give them a chance and take a small risk.
2. A company willing to go through this process and at the end of the day, getting a skilled dev out of it, provided that person wasn't a fly-by-night, trying to make a quick buck.
I think it is there that companies are hesitant on the idea as I am sure they have been burnt before this way.
Lastly, a potential dev, looking to be trained up to skill in a company should not expect to come to the interview knowing nothing at all. You want to interview someone who has, at least put effort into self study or even some uni / college. From a company's point of view - why should they put the effort in, hiring a real junior and training him up, if he hasn't even bothered to do anything before arriving at that interview. It has to work both ways in order for the program to be effective.
Regarding point 1, you are right. Can't push devs. However, companies should have a training budget. The last co I worked at and my current employer do this. The first one actually gave me, and everyone else, a £2000 training budget each year. You used it or lost it and couldn't carry it over. However, you couldnt just go on any course. It had to be approved. Current employer doesn't have the pre-determined budget, but every year we get the chance to request budget for training we think should go on.
When a newby starts, he/she gets a mentor. That usually goes for about a month.
We have a junior who joined from our UAT dept. He has been on courses paid for by the co. Initially one of the other seniors was mentoring him. Now, 6 months on, he talks to anyone who is nearby. We don't tell him to ask his "official" mentor. We all chip in.
He is doing well, and at no time feels out of place. The combination of training from professionals and mentoring and just having senior devs around who are approachable works well.
My last job in SA was the pretty much same as my current job in the UK. I took on 2 youngsters straight out of tech. Sent them on courses and then myself and another senior showed them ropes. Still good friends with them. In fact that is the same co that spent R30k+ on my external training(I had zero experience) and then had a senior mentor me. So I guess I am a bit biased toward that process because it worked for me and I've seen it work for others.
When a newby starts, he/she gets a mentor. That usually goes for about a month.
We have a junior who joined from our UAT dept. He has been on courses paid for by the co. Initially one of the other seniors was mentoring him. Now, 6 months on, he talks to anyone who is nearby. We don't tell him to ask his "official" mentor. We all chip in.
He is doing well, and at no time feels out of place. The combination of training from professionals and mentoring and just having senior devs around who are approachable works well.
My last job in SA was the pretty much same as my current job in the UK. I took on 2 youngsters straight out of tech. Sent them on courses and then myself and another senior showed them ropes. Still good friends with them. In fact that is the same co that spent R30k+ on my external training(I had zero experience) and then had a senior mentor me. So I guess I am a bit biased toward that process because it worked for me and I've seen it work for others.
I have a bit of a situation here. I work in a small dev team with little to no support of note. More often than not I have spend days if not weeks struggling to figure out what was happening in the first few months. Once I got the hang of the basics I know my way around.
Problem is that now my manager does not allow me the scope of taking initiative to learn more about the back-end system. I literally have to feed off scraps by cleaning up CSV files or changing image on a website. None of the task given to me are things that require me to think. As a result I end up being a 'copy and paste' dev. I do have a degree and would really love to learn and get exposure to other technologies. Cant spend a year doing CSS and HTML.
I would appreciate any advice or criticism you may have.
Problem is that now my manager does not allow me the scope of taking initiative to learn more about the back-end system. I literally have to feed off scraps by cleaning up CSV files or changing image on a website. None of the task given to me are things that require me to think. As a result I end up being a 'copy and paste' dev. I do have a degree and would really love to learn and get exposure to other technologies. Cant spend a year doing CSS and HTML.
I would appreciate any advice or criticism you may have.
mercurial
MyBB Legend
Get another job?
Says it all really. If you're not being challenged and finding yourself slipping into a copy & past dev, like you say. Start looking for a new position. Salary should be the second priority on the list - so be prepared to take a small (or large?) knock on salary. If you find the right position - salary will grow as you do. More importantly, you will feel 100x better, being challenged and actually making a difference.
@Zippy: From that prespective, I can see how the program works very well. Tell me - these guys you train up - do they come off the 'street' not knowing anything at all or do they have some knowledge on what they want to do?
2 blokes I took on in SA have done SQL programming courses and possibly some other language at college/tech. If I recall, one chap had done a Delphi course at some Afrikaans college around Pretoria. Can't remember which. No work experience in programming at all. In fact I don't they had held a job before anywhere.
Now tell me - if they came to you with zero experience in programming of any sort and knew nothing about it. Just that they wanted to do it - what would your position be on this?
@Tander, taking another wage cut would mean I will earn less than R10K, which is not a great idea. I have actually taken a wage cut before in a bid to move towards Java development from a .Net environment.
I can see how that would be an issue. But don't let it stop you from looking for another position. You might be surprised and have an offer around your current salary if not a little more. All I am saying is don't let salary hold you back. At least go out and look and get a proper idea of what offers you could expect. Right now it's all guess work.
I probably wouldn't take them. There are students who have taken the trouble to do the courses and pass them. They have proven their interest more. Entry into programming is difficult enough. And we arnt a charity.
It's entirely possible that you meet someone exceptional that doesn't qualify on paper, but unless they are recommended, they won't get in through any standard selection process, because their cv won't even have got to me, through that process.
I realise that I could miss out on some real talent, but there is no way you can interview EVERY interested applicant. You would end up hiring a fraction of the people you could purely because of the load.
So it just isn't practical.
My primary concern is not my salary per se, more to do with the direction my career will take within the company. I see no point leaving if I am going to get the same thing as before. Its quite tough to know what the company culture is like, as past experience has taught me that what managers say and do can be two very different things.
I completely agree with you there. That's where I was going with this. If someone hasn't taken the trouble to at least learn something about what they want to do or taken any interest. Why should you?
LadyJanet
Member
Universities want to deliver skilled developers.
You now have a chance to impact the education of software developers and tell educators what you would like by completing the Software Development Education Survey: http://quiz.nwu.ac.za/content/software-development-education-0 The data from this survey allows educators to understand what they need to offer students if they want to attract and retain the best talent and prepare them for their future career in Software Development.
You now have a chance to impact the education of software developers and tell educators what you would like by completing the Software Development Education Survey: http://quiz.nwu.ac.za/content/software-development-education-0 The data from this survey allows educators to understand what they need to offer students if they want to attract and retain the best talent and prepare them for their future career in Software Development.
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A fruitless exercise if I ever saw one.
Hamster
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I'd really like them to learn the importance of user experience. For instance, when a link is posted in a forum and it doesn't work. Copy paste is a REALLY essential part and of the core foundation blocks of any software project:
sp4ceman
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link worked for me in the original thread.
Hamster
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Original thread? Nevermind. Just paste the link here