Within the next couple of months, I will be graduating with a degree in Computer Science, and I am currently job hunting for an entry-level Software Developer position.😊 I am curious to know what individuals think when they hear that a new developer may be joining their team. Do you have high expectations for this individual or are you prepared for there to be mistakes? If you could tell them one piece of advice before they join the team, what would it be?
Elizabeth1998
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As a developer, what are you expecting from your employees/fellow developers when they first start at the company?💻
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Top comments (8)
Echoing what @rad_val_ and @kethmars said (and @dploeger , but tools can be taught), what a junior dev has the capability and willingness to become is far more important to me.
Unfortunately, I think we're in the minority. Of course, most "junior" roles also tend to have ridiculous requirements, simply because the companies posting them are too cheap to pay for the experience they want. From most hiring managers:
None of these things tell them anything useful about you (and if the interviewer is a senior dev, they should know better).
If you're lucky, the process will instead go something like this:
This is probably not true for every hiring manager out there (usually the bigger the company, the more standard and number-oriented the process) but at junior level I don't specifically look for tech skills.
Instead, I'm usually trying to see how interested the person is in this field and how much effort is (s)he willing/able to put in kickstarting his/her career.
Of course, a really passionate developer will also have the skills, but what I'm trying to say is that, I find it more important to be curious, passionate and willing to put the effort to learn, than being able to answer some pre-baked questions by preparing in advance.
In a nutshell, I tend to hire for the personality (even for seniors), not the apparent skills (aka numbers)
What I found pretty disturbing to see is brand new developers coming directly from the University doesn't know their basic tools. Like how to handle a vcs or an IDE or a build system. Maybe universities don't teach that stuff, but it's more important than all of the complex standard algorithms they do teach.
And I expect developers to keep track with current developments (like i.e. how to work with containers) without the employer specifically asking for it. We're on a job that is never gonna stop evolving, so we need to keep up.
But aside from that I expect that a new developer knows when to close the lid of their laptop and do something completely different as a hobby.
Like I said, this job requires a lot of commitment that can't be handled properly without a good life balance.
So welcome to our world. All the best for you career! 😊
Meanwhile hiring managers ask questions like "Can you do bubble sort on the whiteboard?" So, I wouldn't blame only the universities for that.
Absolutely true. I'd test new engineers differently. I'd poke around in the tools knowledge and how willing the candidate is to keep on learning. And then only left would be to estimate, if they fit into the team socially. Those are the most important parts imho. (Exactly like you mentioned in your other comment)
People skills are the most important thing I look for. Coming out of university, I'm expecting your actual development skills to be pretty close to zero (this is a just a personal way for me to set clear expectations and not meant to be derisive).
The most important things I look for are problem solving methodologies and your ability to work independently.
For the first little while, I don't really care how long it takes you to solve a problem, no matter how small. What I want to see is you taking steps to actually solve it, even if those steps are wrong.
If you spend a day working on a problem UT not solving it, you're already in my good graces. From there, we look to bring you up to where you need to be to fill those gaps together.
What I mostly want to avoid is someone sitting there doing nothing because they don't know what to do, or constantly badgering other members of the team without putting any work in themselves.
Great answer.
Mistakes are always OK, even by experienced developers. But from a beginner, the thing I expect the most is curiosity - asking questions and being proactive.