Prosper Opara

Posted on Jun 21, 2020

Junior Developer Check List

#discuss #hiring #career #recruiting

Dear recruiters,

When hiring Junior talents what does your checklist look like?

Latest comments (50)

Md. Rasel Hossain • Jul 23 '20

I need a job as a front end developer. There are many founders here, you can hire me Emergency

Abiodun Longe • Jun 23 '20

I went through the comments and learned a lot, these tips will help when I'm hunting for a junior role as I'm currently interning. Thank you.

Great Emeka • Jun 23 '20

Wonderful lists so far, awesome comments everywhere...I just came to read and I'm pleased i did...Thanks all!

Ahmed Rebai • Jun 23 '20

I recommend this article towardsdatascience.com/soft-skills... about soft skills for developer

Miles Watson • Nov 14 '20 • Edited

Thanks for that! I'm working on marketing myself as a junior dev, and those are the sort of things I had forgotten to emphasise.

Durhode Petifort • Jun 22 '20

Basic mastery of your tech stack (If the job is for embedded systems, maybe don't walk in and say you only know HTML lol)

Basic GIT

Basic algorithms (if you can do fizzbuzz you're gold)

Enthusiasm

A willingness to learn.

It might take 3 months of training to get someone from a hobbyist to professional junior level but they'll also probably spend much more time with the company to learn. If I had a company I would want someone who has attachment to the company, not someone who shows up for a check.

Durhode Petifort • Jun 22 '20

If you're not willing to invest in people I don't see how you can ever expect them to invest in your vision.

jrogers8835 • Jun 22 '20

A general hunger to learn
Lack of ego as mentioned by others
Ability to take a problem as a client would describe it and then translate that to problems that can be coded
some degree of comfort with any programming language (not html or css)
ability to communicate especially code design ideas, problems you're stuck on, and why you did what you did.

A lot boils down to not necessarily having the right answer but communicating how you get to SOME answer and being willing to have constructive conversations about your design and code.

Miguel • Jun 24 '20

Ability to take a problem as a client would describe it and then translate that to problems that can be coded

This! Also, the inverse of this which is the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical clients, like informing stakeholders why feature x would take x amount of time.

jrogers8835 • Jun 24 '20

Fair call out, I typically see this as senior or above expectation but that could depend on the team and the company.

Prosper Opara • Jun 23 '20

In what ways can a Junior show Ego?

jrogers8835 • Jun 23 '20

If I asked a lateral thinking question (how many ping pong balls can fit on a school bus), complaining that it's a waste of time or pointless question.
refusal to listen to help (though I acknowledge this is easily misconstrued during interviews with not wanting to look ignorant) I think there was one or 2 other examples I had in mind when I posted but they aren't coming to me. I've interviewed a few people who thought their school, internship, or 1 other brief job made them way better than they were. They ended up being close minded, hard to work with in a team, and poor at communicating their ideas.

David Snyder • Jun 22 '20

as a junior developer, it pisses me off to see all "junior developer" or "intership" job postings that require 3+ years of experience

Prosper Opara • Jun 23 '20 • Edited

I'm not sure if there is a standard but from searching I think the maximum is 1 year?

But then I think different companies always have an interpretation for what experience really is...

Jason C. McDonald • Jun 22 '20 • Edited

Zero. They can read, and any good organization should have a workflow document somewhere. Heaven knows, there are only about a hundred possible "standard" workflows possible with Git.