The Elephant in the Tech Room
It’s really no secret that getting into the tech world is a hard task. When I graduated from the coding bootcamp, I thought that I would land a job within 3 months at a great company doing fullstack web development. While that wasn’t the case, I do now have experience as a software engineer in testing but I’d like to get back into development. So I’ve picked up the job search again and I’ve noticed so many small things that really frustrate me as a junior software engineer.
For starters, whoever is creating the job description should be knowledgable of different languages and frameworks. I saw a listing for a ReactJS Developer with 10 years of experience. The only issue with that is ReactJS has been out since 2013 so there isn’t anyone on this planet that has that kind of experience, at-least not for the next 2 years!
Under valuing juniors and over valuing seniors is something I constantly see but I get it. You want to play it safe with a senior engineer that seemingly knows everything. And you’ll gladly pay their six fig salary if it means you’ll increase the speed to market. Here’s where things get a little hazy. A junior engineer will ask for a range between 70k -90k and the little known secret is that between junior and senior level engineers, the biggest difference is that senior level engineers have perfected the skill of googling things. Not to say that it’s the only thing, don’t get me wrong!
A junior is a valuable asset because as technology is changing, so are the technologies that are being taught in classrooms. So maybe I don’t have 3 years of experience with C#, but I do understand newer frameworks fairly well. Senior engineers should also recommend junior engineers to the team. Why’s that? Well, I’m willing to wager that a group of senior level engineers are probably doing junior level work at times. You could be upscaling someone with those small responsibilities and your company would save themselves a few grand from the differences in pay scale.
Lastly, I’m of the mentality to pay things forward. I didn’t get to where I am by myself and I have so many people to thank. I also understand the struggles of this tedious search. I’ve been lucky enough to make it to the last rounds of interviews several times now. Each time I lose out to anther candidate and when I ask for feedback there really isn’t anything wrong with me in terms of ability to code or my soft skills. Most times, it’s just that they found that the other person was a better fit due to their experience in customer service or something along those lines. Shout out to all those people that got the position though, I hope you’re killing it!
When I get to a more senior level role, I will pay things forward. Seems like the hiring process is incredibly broken and I’d like to help someone reach their goals in a shorter time span than what it took me.
Thanks for reading!
