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Discussion on: The cultural push to hire junior software developers

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madhadron profile image
Fred Ross

I was frustrated by not having anyone to learn from. It was whatever I could figure out on my own.

I can empathize with this. I was incredibly lucky early on. My first boss when I was a teenager had been in computing since the 1960's, and in the IRC channels I hung out in (playing Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1990's), there was a graduate student in programming languages and a very experienced enterprise software developer who regularly gave me direction. I remember talking about the stuff I was introduced to by these three as a teenager with a former Microsoft Fellow I later worked for and him telling me, "I'm so envious. I didn't find that stuff until I was almost 40."

In the trades and in certified engineering disciplines, you have to work under a senior practitioner for some specified amount of time before you can go out on your own, so this problem doesn't come up.

I almost wonder if I should be rounding up a few very experienced friends and opening up a coaching practice on the side.