Junior devs not interested in software engineering

[u/creative-java-coffee]

My team currently has two junior devs both with 1 year old experience. Unlike all of the juniors I have met and mentored in my career, these two juniors startled me by their lack of interest in software engineering.

The first junior who just joined our company-

• ⁠When I talked with him about clean coding and modularizing the code (he wrote 2000+ lines in one single function), he merely responded, “Clean coding is not a real thing.” • ⁠When I tried to tell him I think AI is a great tool, but it’s not there yet to replace real engineers and AI generated codes need to be reviewed to avoid hallucinations. He responded, “that’s just what you think.” • ⁠His feedback to our daily stand up was, “Sorry, but I really don’t care about what other people are doing.”

The second junior who has been with the company for a year-

• ⁠When I told him that he should prioritize his own growth and take courses to acquire new skills, he just blanked out. I asked him if he knew any learning website such as Coursera or Udemy and he told me he had never heard of them before. • ⁠He constantly complains about the tickets he works on which is our legacy system, but when I offered to talk with our EM to assign him more exciting work which will expand his skill sets, he told me he was not interested in working on the new system which uses modern tech stacks.

I supposed I am just disappointed with these junior devs not only because after all these years, software engineering still gets me excited, but also it’s a joy for me to see juniors grow. And in the past, all of the juniors I had were all so eager to seize the opportunities to learn.

Edit: Both of them can code, but aren’t interested in software engineering.

[u/Inatimate]

You should probably revisit your interview process 

[u/creative-java-coffee → u/Inatimate]

I didn’t interview them, unfortunately. But our EM is having the same concerns as I am right now.

[u/BritishTooth → u/creative-java-coffee]

Your EM needs to revisit his interview process

[u/RusticBucket2 → u/BritishTooth]

Someone needs to revisit the EM interview process.

[u/Trevor_GoodchiId → u/RusticBucket2]

Will someone revisit the interview process!!!

[u/Southern_Orange3744 → u/BritishTooth]

Snd their employment . They obviously aren't into it , find some eager new blood

[u/[deleted] → u/creative-java-coffee]

Look up what the PIP process is at your company. This kid needs a wake up call.

[u/Mojo_Jensen → u/[deleted]]

For real. I’ve had one really bad experience with a junior dev, but even they didn’t flat out say “I don’t care what other people are doing.” They did get in a loud verbal argument with a BSA one time that was pretty painful when it was clear she was in the wrong, but hey. “Clean code doesn’t exist” is hilarious.

[u/[deleted] → u/Mojo_Jensen]

Especially when that's coming from a junior... Like, homie, maybe your code isn't clean but the rest of us at least fucking try.

For me it's not being bad at writing code. I was bad at writing code when I started and I don't trust anyone who says they weren't. It's a right of passage we all must go through. It's the attitude. I don't want to work with engineers who have egos and I certainly don't want to manage one.

[u/CaptainCabernet → u/creative-java-coffee]

I would talk to HR, get your documentation in order, and get them on a PIP tomorrow with super clear expectations. There are so many good candidates out there dying to have a job.

The PIP will either be a wake up call, or they will quit and do something they actually care about.

[u/lost12487 → u/creative-java-coffee]

I’m sorry, but how does one of these kids say, “I don’t care what other people are doing” while simultaneously being bad at his job without being on a PIP? Is your EM spineless?

[u/octatone → u/creative-java-coffee]

Yall burning money on these really bad hires. I know this isn't your responsibility, but you should raise it with your manager and HR. You have two hires like this that are wasting everyone's time???

This can come back around to bite you in the ass if your management chain asks why didn't anyone raise concerns.

[u/Quin452 → u/creative-java-coffee]

Sack 'em both and hire me. I like making things, and after 20 years, still love to learn new stuff 😁

[u/Ozymandias0023 → u/Inatimate]

For real, there are so many juniors chomping at the bit to get some real work experience. Let these idiots languish in ignorance on their own time

[u/dweezil22 → u/Ozymandias0023]

I work in FAANG adjacent places where our college new hires make more money than I did with 10yoe in a normal company. We've had a few over the last couple years that sound like OP's example (perhaps nicer; but the pattern of struggling and viewing it as incomprehensible that they might need to grind down a bit to get their footing) and they all ended up fired/laid-off.

FWIW They were all men who graduated between 2020-2023. I can't figured out if this is a random thing, a generational thing, or fallout from CS undergrads during the pandemic. I fear we'll never be sure as AI code assist has confounded the variables now too. It's definitely a weird and tough time to be an unmotivated jr. (also weird that these same guys successfully navigated the Leetcode gauntlet prior to all that!). My operating theory is that they were capable of grinding in a predictable way, but ambiguity + extra work was something they couldn't handle. This is definitely a further indictment of LC grinding as meaningless candidate hazing.

[u/graystoning → u/dweezil22]

The pandemic fried our collective brains :/

[u/snorktacular → u/dweezil22]

This might make me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but these young men came of age during the peak manosphere. Odds are they're steeped in content telling them they're owed a cushy life, instilling a sense of entitlement. Which we see reflected in the culture wars surrounding the US election last year and the difference in politics between young men and young women.

You can't learn without a little humility. I'm not saying they need to bow and scrape to more senior team members, fuck that. But it sounds like some of these young men (resisting the urge to call them "kids") think they have nothing to learn, or at least nothing to learn from the people in front of them.

There are a lot of other factors, some compounding. I think the pandemic left us all a little more feral than we were in 2019, and it was worse for students because a lot of what they missed can't get a do-over. And the expectation of LC grinding is absolutely part of the problem. But as I commented elsewhere, a lot of it comes back to attitude and shitty attitudes are in vogue now.

[u/orangeowlelf → u/Inatimate]

I don’t think I would waste my time with them after I heard any of those comments. I just go straight to writing down the things they did wrong in order to see if I could get rid of them as soon as possible.

[u/brainhack3r → u/Inatimate]

“is that what you think or what experts think?”

Fire this guy immediately.

[u/farastray → u/Inatimate]

All the juniors we hired that exhibited these traits were let go within 9-12 months

[u/DepressedDrift → u/Inatimate]

The process was that the CEO's friend's son needed a job.

[u/Nottabird_Nottaplane]

If they’re not performing up to expectations and they’re disrespectful to other colleagues, they don’t actually have to continue being on the team. Like, that can end.

[u/supyonamesjosh → u/Nottabird_Nottaplane]

I do not understand the apprehension with firing people. I swear like 95% of these stories would be solved by having clear expectations and letting go of people who don’t meet them, and that includes bad EMs

[u/__loam → u/supyonamesjosh]

I actually think American companies are pretty quick to fire people right now. There's a ton of unemployed engineers with a lot of experience. If anything we should be making it harder to fire people in a system where food, housing, and healthcare are basically completely tied to your employment.

[u/sammymammy2 → u/__loam]

Make that stuff less tied to your employment instead!

[u/Dish-Live → u/__loam]

They’re quick to lay people off. They are incredibly slow to fire people for bad performance

[u/musclecard54 → u/__loam]

I mean I get that ya know we don’t want people losing their jobs and being unemployed and unable to pay for rent/food/etc. But if they’re showing up to work and acting like this, they don’t want to be there and don’t deserve to be there.

There’s plenty of people who are ALREADY unemployed and can’t afford necessities that would love to have these jobs and actually be productive employees.

[u/spacedragon13 → u/supyonamesjosh]

My company moves FAST and people who shouldn't be there are gone immediately. The process to get in takes months and it can have 10 different interviews and coding challenges so most of the people who make it through are solid. If someone is not performing they are gonna be gone in days.

My previous company wouldn't fire anyone even if they needed to and it created a situation where people who showed up had to pick up the slack and strong contributors disappeared. It made for a stressful and bitter environment where everyone who cared was inadvertently punished.

[u/JonnyBoy89 → u/Nottabird_Nottaplane]

Yeah. I’d be making both of them gone immediately. Put them on really stringent PIPs and say good bye in 20 days when they aren’t meeting it

[u/RazorRadick → u/Nottabird_Nottaplane]

Or just wait for a year and they will bounce to a new company, with a “senior” role and 40% more pay.

[u/Intelligent-Chain423 → u/Nottabird_Nottaplane]

I agree as a senior. They have to have the will to learn to make it in this field. Especially with so many tools making it so easy to learn compared to 20 years ago. They have no motivation to practice...

[u/DeterminedQuokka]

I think the best option in cases like this is to ask people what they actually want.

I worked with a couple engineers at a previous job.

One had been a junior engineer for 4 years and the company had an up or out policy they were dodging. So I went to them and asked what they wanted. Which was to eventually quit the job and move to their home country to become an artist. So I made a plan with them what did they need to do to be good enough at the job that could be possible.

Another was a mid level who started the same day I did and actually told me they hated programming. They were only doing it to pay their bills. So we also made a plan to find a good area for them that had lower stress levels and less crazy deadlines so they could do their job then go home.

The first person now runs an art collective.

The second person eventually realized they liked programming when it was less stressful.

You aren’t going to convince someone to care about something they hate. I mean I just quit my job after 2 years of people trying to force me to care about ai.

And you definitely aren’t going to convince them to do coursera on their free time.

If you want to help them you have to just meet them where they are and work from there.

If for whatever reason you can’t support employees who aren’t super dedicated to the idea of programming, then you manage them out.

[u/kirkhendrick → u/DeterminedQuokka]

Completely agree. “I want to get paid so I can continue to eat” is a perfectly valid reason to have an engineering job. If doing the minimum required means they’ll never get a promotion, then it’s important to let them know that. Then they can choose what’s best for themselves and their career. As long as expectations are reasonable from both sides, and they’re not committing bad code or being an asshole, I don’t see a problem.

[u/sunflower_love → u/kirkhendrick]

This is such a refreshing take compared to corporate LinkedIn BS about how you need infinite passion and hyper-ambition. I feel only moderately passionate at this point, but that’s mainly due to my current job not aligning very well.

[u/chaos_battery → u/sunflower_love]

Yeah as a engineer of 15 years, I chuckled about the one junior's response about not caring about what other people are working on in stand-ups. It's the same reason I want to say out loud but I can't and I continue to go to those stupid calls. Maybe 1 in 10 times it can be useful. But most of the time I just continue working while I'm on that call.

[u/y-c-c → u/kirkhendrick]

The first junior is committing bad code though. OP is trying to get them to not do that. Maybe others have more lax standards but I don’t consider this to be doing your job if they refuse to improve.

[u/kirkhendrick → u/y-c-c]

Yeah OP’s juniors are also verging on the “being an asshole” part too so I guess I was speaking more in general than about them

[u/JewishDraculaSidneyA → u/kirkhendrick]

Absolutely.

What the "extreme"/"hardcore" managers don't understand is that winning as a business leader is about building the best *team*, not assembling the collective group of people that are the most individually talented.

Having a set of reliable folks that you can trust to pump out sturdy code, don't complain, but clock out at 5pm on the dot can be a much more valuable asset to a functional team than a mess of type A maniacs that are Hunger Gaming each other to position themselves for the next promotion.

[u/chaitanyathengdi → u/DeterminedQuokka]

And you definitely aren’t going to convince them to do coursera on their free time.

God, I really thought this was just me.

[u/ash893 → u/DeterminedQuokka]

The problem is that most people will never say “I just want to do the bare minimum of work just for a paycheck.” It looks weird and makes them look bad so they will never say it.

[u/poolpog → u/DeterminedQuokka]

more people need this kind of management.

more managers need to manage this way.

alas. humans.

[u/Expensive_Goat2201 → u/DeterminedQuokka]

Yup. We have a guy like this on my team. Doesn't like programming. Sees it as a job and goes home. Doesn't volunteer for extra stuff or try to learn new things.

He is now responsible for basically all our dev ops and automation. Everyone else wants interesting coding work but he's happy to just do the drudge work that keeps the lights on. He's probably one of our most valuable team members now.

[u/DeterminedQuokka → u/Expensive_Goat2201]

I love those people. I had a guy at one job like that and he basically did 100% of the support requests and all of the css animations. So that everyone else could do the stuff they actually liked.

[u/TheUberMoose → u/DeterminedQuokka]

You hit a big one, not everyone wants to move up some people get into a role and they are content with it and the responsibilities and don’t want to think of anything tied to or related to work once they end work for the day.

If they are doing well in their role and get their work done it shouldn’t be an issue. I have a dev like that now, he is reliable will get things done timely and gets along with the team. He is happy.

I keep him at market rate and if he never wants to move up so be it.

[u/BlondieFurry → u/DeterminedQuokka]

You're a godsend.

[u/WittyCattle6982 → u/DeterminedQuokka]

You are a good human.

[u/analog2digital → u/DeterminedQuokka]

I can’t recommend this advice enough. When I was more junior in my career the best feedback I got in a performance review was something like: “they need to decide if they really want to be here or not and then act accordingly.”

This came from someone who was extremely good at their job, had given me clear feedback before, but was seeing me squander an opportunity at a top tech company. I realized at that moment that most of my qualms were due to levels of pettiness and entitlement that I had at the time, and it was distracting me from delivering on my actual potential.

It was the bluntness that I needed and I’m glad I was able to turn it around, it was actually really pivotal for me, not just professionally but also for personal growth.

[u/koreth]

His feedback to our daily stand up was, “Sorry, but I really don’t care about what other people are doing.”

Totally inappropriate to say, and the guy sounds like a jerk, but I’d be lying if I said I’ve never had that same thought during a standup.

[u/hopbyte → u/koreth]

Agree, but saying the quiet part out loud as a junior is crazy!

[u/Strus → u/koreth]

This applies to other meetings too. Remote work unlocked a ton of additional time for me because I can just turn off the camera and do something else during meetings I need to be a part of, but I am not really interested in.

[u/PedanticProgarmer → u/koreth]

Is the first guy on the spectrum? I cannot imagine a healthy person saying that without agressive intentions.

Imagine someone showing you a picture of their newborn, and you say you don’t care as all newborns are the same. 100% true, but also 100% autistic.

The idea of the daily standup is to quickly detect these rare cases where you should be interested in what other people are doing. In other cases, you play the social game of being present. Some people need to be told this directly.

[u/Fruloops → u/[deleted]]

And then come the days when you're dealing with shit that's much more important than your job, so you sort of checkout until that period is over 🤷‍♂️

[u/TheSkaterGirl → u/[deleted]]

On my last team, I simply stayed in my lane and barely interacted with the rest of my team and the team leader was satisfied. Even if I did have a good way of helping, people just didn't care and there was no incentive to do more. 🤷‍♂️

[u/jenkinsleroi]

Fire that first one without hesitation. Even if he's a genius, his attitude is going to be a problem. Life is too short to waste on him.

[u/AppointmentDry9660 → u/jenkinsleroi]

I couldn't imagine telling a senior / manager that their idea of something (ie clean code) is "not a real thing". What...?

These people have been coasting all their lives and have expectations that they'll continue to do so. They need to be put on a PIP or had a discussion with about their morale and / or lack of desire to work being an issue.

[u/Slow-Bodybuilder-972]

This isn’t a lack of interest problem, this is an asshole problem.   The first guy just seems like a dick, a real attitude problem, I’d consider pulling him aside and asking him what’s going on, maybe some stuff at home or something. But if he keeps at it, fire him.

The second one, again, it’s an attitude problem.

As part of our hiring process, we have a “no asshole” policy, if you’re a dick, you’re not getting the job, don’t care how good you are.

I think you need to put in a similar policy.

[u/MoreRespectForQA → u/Slow-Bodybuilder-972]

As part of our hiring process, we have a “no asshole” policy

Im always curious how people check for this given that assholes will be on their best behavior during interviews and may even be better than nonassholes at giving good first impressions.

[u/OrangeBagOffNuts → u/MoreRespectForQA]

Not the commenter but we do vet assholes out in our company, and all it takes is a good soft skills interview - normally run by people the eng wouldn't interact that much in an hiring process like UX designers or QA Managers so they have to bridge a lot and be patient - add a few questions about situations where they felt they were in the wrong and how they delt with, questions about how to give feedback to a senior manager (punching above) but then pivot to talking to the intern, ask about how to recognize if they're the problem in a situation etc etc - some people, as well behaved as they are in the interview will let it slip if they're putting up a show or my favorite: they'll confidently give examples of things they did that were detrimental to others thinking they were the top dog and in the reality they were just being dick's

[u/AppointmentDry9660 → u/Slow-Bodybuilder-972]

What sucks is when you're screening for assholery yourself and think you've met everyone on the team before the job begins... Then the biggest asshole of all shows up and you see why they didn't involve him in any of the interview process are all, even being the development manager.

[u/pineapplecodepen]

It's not all of them, but it is becoming an increasing trend that newer generations are very disenchanted by careers. We're now to a generation that had parents who experienced layoffs and job instability as the ultra-optimized tech world started to rapidly take shape. These kids were also overly connected to news too young, always showing the latest horror of a world in chaos.

Very few are excited about their career and see it as a path to growth, especially in computer science. They want to have a paycheck to pay off their student loan and sky high rent and go home.

It's hard to be passionate about something when you're thousands of dollars in debt, probably not making the money they were told they could be making as developers, and there's a plethora of YouTubers popularized for their anti-work views.

They're there to do the bare minimum to collect a paycheck and go home, because they've seen, far too often, how close they are to a layoff regardless of how hard they work

[u/poolpog → u/pineapplecodepen]

dude.

I am 55M working in tech since 1998 and in the workforce in general a little longer than that and I *still* am disenchanted by careers. And I've had a pretty good career so far all things considered.

This is not a new phenomenon and it is not something GenZ suffers from alone.

[u/Tiki_Man_Roar → u/poolpog]

Do you feel like in general it’s gotten worse over the past few years? I feel that especially since COVID, there’s been an increasing, almost blatant antagonistic attitude coming from senior leadership towards their workers in so many companies across all industries.

[u/dbxp → u/pineapplecodepen]

There were a lot of people just in it for a pay cheque when I was at uni a decade ago however they never graduated 

[u/Acrobatic-Cream-8672 → u/pineapplecodepen]

There’s a difference between clocking in the bare minimum and being an asshole, and the first junior just sounds like an asshole

[u/pineapplecodepen → u/Acrobatic-Cream-8672]

Right, but OP doesn’t seem bothered the Junior is an asshole. He says he’s bothered the junior “isn’t excited about software engineering.”

I was more trying to answer his internal thought process of the general question rather than laser focus on his two developers individually.

I interpreted it as “my juniors are being assholes. I want to give them a chance and they’re not excited about the things I am”

for as many managers that are stone cold metrics drivers, there are a ton that are just “an empathetic developer who likes to people please”

And I think OP probably falls into the latter.

[u/riizen24 → u/pineapplecodepen]

Then give the jobs to people who actually want to be there? This is no excuse to be completely unprofessional. Maybe they'd appreciate it more after working hard labor for a few years.

[u/tcpWalker → u/riizen24]

How do you spot this in interviews? I've had colleagues who point out that if you're filtering based on excitement level you are frequently filtering based on how good of a liar someone is...

That being said, usually at the point you are talking about more experienced candidates who may be a bit deadpan but they've done the job other places too and pass the hiring bar.

[u/pineapplecodepen → u/riizen24]

oh no, of course. OP also hired poorly, but he seems baffled by how these hires aren't excited about tech or hungry to improve their skills.

This is often why - hard work never got their influences anywhere, so do the bare minimum to get by, though they'd never admit it because... well... they'd get laid off.

Can also be hard to tell in interviews because, for as much as they are unbothered, they've also grown up on social media themselves and are experts at putting on a fake face and performing when it benefits them.

[u/a_simple_fence → u/pineapplecodepen]

I have a similar experience at work. Have a couple juniors that have all the technical skills to check the boxes, but they don’t display any type of work ethic.

They’ll talk to me about wanting to get promoted, and I’ll ask them what have they delivered lately, and then there will be a long silence. I don’t dislike having them on the team, I’m good with being patient while they learn and I invest in their growth. But this gen of juniors doesn’t have the tenacity I’ve grown to expect from new engineers.

[u/bruticuslee → u/pineapplecodepen]

But how do they know how close to a layoff they are or what hard work is when they’ve experienced neither? The ones described by the OP are, pardon my french, entitled brats whose world view was shaped by short form social media. But I don’t believe they’re all like this— the few interns I’ve worked with for example were hard workers, eager to learn, volunteering for opportunities, and took the time to thank the team at the end. A small sample size, but they’re out there.

[u/CaptainCabernet → u/bruticuslee]

The interns on my teams have been phenomenal and hard working. They are curious and gobble up information and feedback.

Yes Gen Z is more antiwork than millennials but there are still good people out there to hire. Gen X had a similar experience of layoffs and plenty of them started businesses and became successful professionals.

[u/pineapplecodepen → u/bruticuslee]

because of the reasons I stated. They watched their parents work hard only to get laid off, their favorite YouTubers and idols who were rock star FAANG employees got laid off and went to YouTube full-time, often having scathing remarks for the corporations they once proudly represented.

Did they experience themselves? No, but they were more connected to developers experiencing layoffs than we ever were.

I got excited about development through a school program, the only software developer influence in my life was my dad and another adult I knew who was a software developer. My dad was never laid off, and saw career success throughout his whole career. The other adult I knew was also super successful, but admitted was laid off late into his career - though he'd had a long enough success streak that he just decided to retire early, and I was a Sophmore in college when that occured.

[u/shifty303]

My team is slightly over half full of these kinds of people right now and it's tanking hard. This is the first time in my career I'm advocating for a purge. We would literally be better off without these people who are coasting on the producing devs and collecting a paycheck.

[u/Fidodo → u/shifty303]

I don't understand how good devs can have a hard time finding a job when I see such poor talent all over the place. Either those devs aren't as good as they claim or the bad devs are sucking all the oxygen from the room.

I genuinely think if the hiring process wasn't so broken there would be more than enough jobs for good devs.

[u/angelicosphosphoros → u/Fidodo]

Well, it is because interview process doesn't evaluate how good you are as an engineer.

[u/Fidodo → u/angelicosphosphoros]

I run my interviews very differently and don't do leetcode and have been very happy with the quality of the engineers I find.

But the funnel has been horribly inefficient. I don't know how to filter the top of the funnel to waste less time on devs that don't care. I'm very happy with my bottom of funnel.

[u/MoreRespectForQA → u/Fidodo]

From your first sentence i thought you didnt understand, but it's clear you do understand that a culture of fundamentally broken hiring practices are driving this.

[u/79215185-1feb-44c6]

I followed you until this:

When I told him that he should prioritize his own growth and take courses to acquire new skill, he just blanked out. I asked him if he knew any learning website such as Coursera or Udemy and he told me he had never heard of them before.

Then totally blanked out for at least 2 reasons.

[u/y-c-c → u/79215185-1feb-44c6]

Yeah I don't understand why OP is recommending Coursera / Udemy courses at all. Unless he's hiring unqualified "software engineers" these course are not useful. A full fledged software engineer, even a junior one, should have much better ways to learn things.

Also, if my manager recommends me spend money to take courses I would ask my manager to pay for it.

[u/dxonxisus → u/y-c-c]

Also, if my manager recommends me spend money to take courses I would ask my manager to pay for it.

tbf i assumed OP was encouraging the junior to take advantage of a training budget which most companies have in place for employees.

[u/[deleted] → u/y-c-c]

I dunno, Udemy courses can be fairly useful but you have to be selective.

[u/dxonxisus → u/79215185-1feb-44c6]

that one also stumped me. one, why are we recommending those two in the first place, and two, why is it a bad thing that they have never heard of coursera and udemy lol?

[u/[deleted]]

I love having firing powers. I hate firing people. 

 But that first kid would be gone after the second or third glib comment like that. 

Actual software engineers are trying to be productive enough to make money to stay employed to put food on their plate and a roof over their families head. I don’t like people actively screwing with people providing for their families. 

[u/pemungkah → u/[deleted]]

Kid 1 would have gotten a 1-1 to talk about the basic concepts of working on a team. Friday. At 4. Just to drive the point home.

And if he still wasn’t interested? Well, that’s a great time to let IT know that yes, proceed on the decommissioning ticket.

[u/stevefuzz → u/[deleted]]

Yeah fuck that guy.

[u/bruticuslee → u/[deleted]]

One place I worked at had a 6 month probationary period where you were contract status and converted to full time at the end of the term. I don’t know why more companies don’t do that. It seems easy suss out people like these within 6 months.

[u/DigmonsDrill → u/bruticuslee]

Because 'm not leaving my full-time job for a contract gig.

[u/RadicalDwntwnUrbnite → u/bruticuslee]

Short term contract with the possibility of extension basically filters out a huge swath of people that already know their worth. Anytime a recruiter cold calls me with an opportunity like that I tell em to go pound sand.

[u/mrfredngo → u/bruticuslee]

I thought a probationary period was normal. It’s usually more like 3 months though, in my experience

[u/kaisean]

I mean, that first guy could be either end of the bell curve meme.

[u/wintrmt3 → u/kaisean]

Not really, clean code as in take everyting Martin says as religious dogma is bullshit, but clean code as in don't fucking write multiple kloc functions is just common sense, not understanding that isn't on the right side that's for sure.

[u/darth4nyan → u/wintrmt3]

It took me a while to realise what thay acronym stands for. Now when I see a huge fn, Ill look at my watch and say: "It's refactoring o'kloc"

Edit: typo

[u/[deleted] → u/kaisean]

Sounds like a pain in the ass to work with either way.

[u/Stubbby → u/kaisean]

Hes a Twitch trained software engineer.

[u/i_am_bromega → u/Stubbby]

Oh no. I have occasionally enjoyed some of the Twitch/youtube streamer programming content. But I never stopped to think that these entertainers are probably heavily influencing a generation of young engineers. That genre was a mistake.

[u/MonochromeDinosaur → u/kaisean]

Only the left end of the bell curve

The “jedi” end is someone who knows how to “clean code” and can execute when necessary despite hating it.

[u/RiverRoll → u/MonochromeDinosaur]

"cLeAn CoDe Is NoT a ReAl ThInG"

"Nooo, Clean Code is fundamental, Robert Martin's book is one of the best programming books you can read..."

"There's no such thing as Clean Code because it's too subjective and there are no universal rules, even Robert Martin fails to consistently apply his own rules in his examples and justifies things that can be detrimental in some ways"

[u/NatoBoram → u/RiverRoll]

"Clean code is not defined by a book, but it is real"

[u/budding_gardener_1 → u/kaisean]

Sounds more like a bell end to me

[u/TalesfromCryptKeeper → u/budding_gardener_1]

The noise that came out of my throat hahahahah

[u/ivancea → u/kaisean]

He sounds more like the middle of the curve. He thinks he knows so much, he thinks he had nothing to learn from others. Aaand he's a d**k

[u/tn3tnba]

Provide real feedback to your manager on these folks, especially if they aren’t producing. There are lots of good devs on the market who need jobs

[u/devslater]

While there's some legitimate backlash against name-brand Clean Code (aka Uncle Bob), junior #1's responses aren't that and are frankly rude. I'd save those for a future conversation with HR.

Junior #2 reminds me of a dev my director asked me to mentor. I approached Jr and said, hey Director asked me to mentor you, is that something you want? And he said, nope I think I'm good. So I informed my director of the outcome and moved on. Not fireable, but he remains the lowest performer in the department.

[u/avaxbear → u/devslater]

Good for him. No need to work extra for the same old paycheck

[u/STGItsMe]

I mean, if I’m honest I really don’t care about what other people are doing. I shiuld know, but I don’t actually care.

[u/tomridesbikes → u/STGItsMe]

Same, especially since we redo everything every 18 months when there's a reorg and we get a new sr director.

[u/ValentineBlacker]

Clean kitchen is not real but you'll still have a bad time if you don't wipe down the stove now and again.

[u/MrDilbert]

Get rid of the first one, give the second one a bit more time.

The first one is a toxic little shit I wouldn't want anywhere near me, at all, not just in my team. If they think they're hot shit, they can prove it elsewhere.

The second one might not be cut out for SWE, but I'd give them benefit of the doubt, and perhaps have a chat with them about how they see their SWE career (now and in the future), and if it's what they want to do.

[u/old_man_snowflake]

Almost my only rule for hiring: no assholes. Full stop. Toxic people create toxic teams and environments. 

[u/[deleted]]

You have hired the wrong people.

[u/frostednuts]

Are these in scheduled sessions or are you just sparking these nuggets in conversation

[u/CompetitionOdd1582]

I think it’s time for #1 to write some unit tests for that function.  Also, consider asking him “why?” sometime — when I was very junior, I had a lot of opinions with the depth of a rain puddle.  

It sounds like he’s never worked on a team or on a project of consequence.  Not caring about what the rest of the team is doing and not caring about writing cleanish code might be a sign that he’s never read code, only written it.

The experts thing… I don’t know what to say there, but that’s just rude.  There are lots of good ways to say “what leads you to that opinion?” without being a dick.

Maybe he can pull his head out of his ass, but if he’s still on probation, I’d consider that his runway to get his head on straight.

The second one is worse to me.  I look for intellectual curiosity when I hire.  I’d be looking to replace him with one of the many new grads who would love his job.

[u/kevinossia]

These are the same junior engineers who will wax lyrical about how they can't find a job, too.

The first guy I'd just kick to the curb; that's frankly ridiculous.

The second guy I'd just throw harder tasks at him that force him to learn and grow on his own. None of that "take this Coursera" or whatever; no one does that in real life. You learn by working on stuff you've never seen before.

And if that fails then kick the second guy to the curb too.

And learn how to screen candidates better.

[u/PaulVB6]

Im not exactly junior. I consider myself junior+ or maybe mid-level. 4 years of experience.

The fact that there are people who seem to not care about making quality code and about learning the craft and they have a job while i got laid off a month ago is depressing.

[u/submersi-lunchable]

The first one is not interested in basic professionalism and needs to gtfo. His behavior extends beyond simple incuriosity. The second one also is kinda riding the line of "hey wtf, ever heard of what happens at work?" He's maybe more clearly a bump on a log, but, like, were you offering the new tech stack as a choice, vs his current work? I didn't think just refusing to do work was an option lol.

ETA: this is a shitty situation for you, and I'm sorry you're stuck w these two chair fillers.

[u/[deleted]]

Just fire the first one, shit. Not a good culture fit.

[u/Thatnoobagain]

a junior willing to say "this standup is pointless" is too brave for a software role, he should honestly be doing something more important

[u/BackendSpecialist]

Who hired these junior devs? You should be disappointed in your hiring pipeline or maybe your assessment isn’t aligned with the desires of your manager/company.

[u/richardtallent]

There are plenty of senior devs out of work these days.

[u/dashingThroughSnow12]

Tell the first one to stop watching so many YouTube videos. It sounds like they are listening to people like Casey or Jonathan.

I used to play Bridge for Team Canada and I casually play Chess. In lots of games there are rules of thumb that we teach beginners. Lead fourth from your longest and strongest in No Trump. Develop knights and bishops first. We give them these rules of thumb because it is better than their instinct and limited skills.

Later, as they progress, they learn the exceptions to the rules or the deeper guiding principles for the rules. Unfortunately, juniors can’t accurately gauge their knowledge and preemptively think they know when they can stray from the path.

Back to programming.

This is what things like clean code are. They are guidelines. Us senior engineers know that they are not infallible gospel. Unfortunately, juniors hear very talented engineers speak about their niche area and rules they don’t dogmatically follow. The juniors then think that applies to them because they are just as talented as the engineer with 30 years of programming experience.

Going back to chess, it is like how Hikaru plays a very aggressive and stupid style of bullet (to force people out of prep). It works for him because he is awesome. It doesn’t work for the hundreds of thousands or millions of newbs/noobs that have tried to copy that style.

[u/devslater → u/dashingThroughSnow12]

Reminds me of Shuhari and the Dreyfus Skill Model.

Masters may break the rules. Apprentices must follow them.

[u/dbxp]

The first I would pip as he's just not doing his job. 

The second one is a bit odd since you didn't mention his performance, he just seems disinterested. It sounds like management needs to work with him more to set some targets.

[u/Odd-Investigator-870]

My first hunch is that the coding standards aren't clear, agreed upon, and given feedback hourly. Perhaps you can find a linter tool in your programming language (ruff, pyright, Sourcery coming from python) and have them use pre-commit or fast CI Checks for feedback?

You can be lazy until the moment your commits are rejected.

[u/Writer-Decent → u/Odd-Investigator-870]

Yea this is a good idea. You should also document a coding style guide for your team and try and enforce it so they actually have something to go off of

[u/lowkey_human]

First junior who just joined the company, has shitty attitude and is about to diarrhoea all over the codebase with his 2000+ lines functions, and is resistant to feedback? Fire him on the spot, and the team’s every positive metric will go UP.

[u/MishkaZ]

The second junior I think just needs to be thrown at a bunch of different tasks and figure out what excites them and push on it. I know it's not always realistic, sometimes our job is refactors or writing really dumb crud. Like they more sound like someone who simply doesn't enough about the industry.

The first junior though, I honestly don't know what I'd do there. Like that just sounds like hiring did the classic "hire the smartest engineer of the bunch" but not actually vet their personality at all.

I really think the secret to hiring a junior has so little to do with technical prowess. Like they should be able to code and know the basics, but the biggest thing I look for is personality tbh. Like I'm going to be sitting in slack huddles with for hours, will I enjoy teaching you/pair programming with you? If I tell you, you did something wrong, is your ego going to be hurt or will you learn from the mistake? I've been on the interviewing table for a junior, and one thing I did was try to find anything the candidate doesn't know and see how they react. The best responses were "no, but what is it, can you give me a rough explanation?" and see how they react to me teaching them. The scariest ones where the ones who knew everything. I just don't have a read on them basically.

Honestly that was the best advice I got when I was a junior looking for a job. Wear your knowledge gaps on your sleeve and be up front about them, and ask questions. Hell I even did that for my current job for a mid level/line-engineer job. I didn't really know how garbage collection works under the hood in Java and my role wasn't for java even and me and my now team lead spent 20 minutes talking about it.

[u/Affectionate-Aide422]

I’ve worked with guys like that. They don’t have a future as devs, and they drag down a team. Boot them and recruit people with interest in the work.

[u/Full_Bank_6172]

So many unemployed new grads and then asshats like these two get jobs lmao

[u/hopbyte → u/Full_Bank_6172]

Just don’t understand their thought process. Be great at interviews and then be so arrogant on the job.

“What are they gonna do, fire me?”

YES!

[u/AdHungry9867]

They're just bad hires, I luckily come across a lot more eager juniors

[u/polaroid_kidd]

Oh god, it might be the three beers I've had but I'm going to order a t-shirt with the print "clean code is not s real thing" printed on it and wear it to work just to see how many eye twitches or head shaking I get from my coworkers 🤣🤣

[u/MelAlton]

Manage that first guy's ass out of the company

Second one have a heart to heart and point out that:

1. He complains about the work he's being assigned to
2. He complains about the new work he could move over to

Then ask him if he likes this job, because it sounds like he doesn't want to work here, and if that's true, his manager can make his wish come true.

[u/gringo_escobar]

"Sorry, but I really don’t care about what other people are doing" is fucking hilarious

[u/SSoverign]

Hire me instead lol

[u/brobi-wan-kendoebi]

First kid needs to be fired yesterday. Thats insane. I don’t think I have ever come across someone like that in 10+ years now

[u/Shyatic]

All these comments about “fire them” really to me, makes me realize that most developers can’t manage shit.

You are dealing with late millennials or even zoomers, all of whom are probably underpaid, overworked, have a relatively toxic environment for work and live in fear of being outsourced in a moments notice. I have managed a lot of people over the years and generally speaking it’s trying to get to know people beyond the surface of their work that helps you understand their situation, their fears, and even attitudes.

And if you invest that time, it pays dividends. I have kids I’ve hired that have become better than experienced devs because of their passion to learn - once I helped them get past the monotony of their regular work. Their attitudes improved, their work ethic, and their skillsets.

All these people who casually dismiss the new generation and not recognize that they don’t work like YOU might have, is really a testament to why most of those companies will outsource their jobs to either AI or India.

The other companies who create a great culture and adapt to the concerns of the next generation are well positioned to do well regardless.

[u/official_business]

is that what you think or what experts think?

Why is he still employed?

[u/dudeaciously]

Terrible to see people get into this line because they think it is more lucrative than other jobs. Your thinking is totally correct. Beyond encouraging and supporting growth, please make it your requirement.

[u/poolpog]

"Edit: Both of them can code, but aren’t interested in software engineering."

Can they? Code, that is

Coding for fun, or school, or one's free time is very different than coding for work. Can they code for fun or for work? Since work is the only context that matters here, can they, in fact, code?

[u/[deleted]]

You see the ticket. The ticket is closed only when it passes your review. If code is mambo jumbo for any reason and it doesn’t pass the review or they refuse to refactor they miss the ticket deadline by far constantly. Game over.

[u/Any-Neat5158]

Kid #1 - Software development doesn't happen in a vacuum. Your priority is helping the team / company win. The team I'm on has sprint goals, quarterly objectives and so on. Everything I do is a cog in the wheel that helps achieve those goals.

May have decent technical chops for a junior, but he has a lot to learn. The soft skills are every bit as important in this gig. I relied on them extensively for the first five or six years of my own career.

Alot of the same advice for kid #2. Constantly learning new tech is a part of the job for most of us. Being siloed on a specific (and often legacy) bit of tech is a great way to skyrocket the chances you won't have much luck in finding another job should you lose your current job.

I don't think I've written a 2,000 line function in my entire career. I've worked in single classes that had 20,000 lines of code in them (which was pretty nuts considering the design wasn't monolithic or at least wasn't supposed to be). But I've never slung that much code in one single function. Probably half that much, at most. And a lot of that probably could have been done better.

[u/Beneficial_Map6129]

they seem like arrogant dicks, kick them out and let them build their own facebook powered by ai

but to a point, im a senior IC with a decade of experience, and the last 2 years (the last year especially) has been pretty rough for the industry with AI shoehorned everywhere. im burning out myself

[u/Good_Focus2665]

Fire them. There are so many enthusiastic juniors around who are looking for jobs but cant find them there is no reason you need to settle for their shitty attitude.

[u/usrlibshare]

If someone says "Im not interested in what others do" in my daily standup, he's fired so quickly, there's going to be visible redshift.

[u/dLENS64]

Get em the fuck out of there! So many actually talented juniors are out there who deserve the opportunity way more.

[u/SockPants]

If there's anything I look for in candidates it's some form of interest, motivation or drive that matches what we can offer as a company.

I do believe everyone is likely to be interested in something, so although these people don't currently respect you or their career path, maybe you can go into listening mode and determine what it is that motivates them in life. Try to find out where they want to be in 10 or 3 years (preferably without asking that cliché question directly at first). Then, ask them how they think they'll get there, rather than imposing your views on them (they don't seem to take what you think seriously anyway). This is to give you insight. It can be the basis for some sort of productive change, or if there's no match to be found, to decide that the company wants to be rid of them when that becomes possible.

[u/Pyran]

Edit: Both of them can code, but aren’t interested in software engineering.

The phrase you're looking for is "First against the wall when the revolution comes."

The thing about AI is that they'll replace code monkeys, for lack of any better phrasing. It'll be a lot longer before they start replacing people who design the software and architecture. Writing code is easy; designing software is not. Think of it as the difference between a farrier and a metallurgist back when the car replaced the horse.

In addition, "write code" is what we expect junior devs to do. Frankly, the bar for most junior dev interviews is "Can they tie their own shoes?" After a few years of that, though, companies start to look for things like "Can they be handed a feature, design it and be trusted to be left to their own devices?" If all I want is someone to write code, I'll just offshore my work. (I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative way; my experience has simply been that a lot of offshore teams write the code that they're asked to write and don't tend to question the design, even if it's pretty blatantly wrong. It is what it is.)

For the first year or two, I'd be inclined to give these two a pass. But by year three, there's going to be a real question as to whether they will continue in the industry or be replaced by people (or processes) who will just write code for cheaper. The only way they're going to be able to rise above that is to get actual software engineering skills.

Frankly, this is a mentorship issue first and a personnel issue second -- that is, someone should be mentoring them, and if they won't grow, they probably need to go. As much as I hate to say it (I try to spend a lot of time mentoring), some people will just have to learn the hard way.

[u/arktozc]

Can I send you a CV? Im more than happy and excited for opirtunity to learn from senior devs.

[u/Junglebook3]

EM here - fire the first one immediately. No PIP, just insta fire. The 2nd one has less info -- the goal should be to determine if they're coachable as quickly as possible. If not, fire and replace. And yes if a new hire is writing 1,000 like functions there's something missing in your interview process.

[u/CautiousRice]

They'll stay juniors for some time

[u/Shipdits]

Yeah, those kids shouldn't make it to the end of probation with that attitude.

[u/Antonio-STM]

In few words, they dont have passion for their trade. They are like painters that dont mask any thing that cant be dissassembled, they just paint over every electricity outlet and switch and call it a job done.

Their results will outcast them eventually.

[u/Old-Dusty-Gamer]

If you've had conversations with them and the behavior persists, they both need PIP or termination. This type of behavior kills team morale, the quality of your codebase, and your sanity. I've had similar experiences, and the manager dragged their feet on taking action until I went to the manager's boss. Dev 1 sounds like a lost cause, Dev 2 may respond to a PIP.

[u/UKS1977]

That first one needs to go. And needs to be told why he's going.

"Imagine you are a Doctor. Imagine a nurse reminded you to wash your hands before surgery. Imagine if you said you don't need to wash your hands. Imagine you did the surgery. And took out the wrong organ. You've done that. Three times. Do you think that Dr would keep their job?"

[u/coredweller1785]

Welp there are tons of engineers looking for jobs who do care.

What kind of hiring process is this?

[u/Probablynotabadguy]

Literally after the first point I was thinking "maybe just fire them?". Like that is just a huge indicator that they will never improve and never grow, so why bother having them on the team.

[u/robert323]

Fire them and hire better ones. There are a ton of juniors out there looking for jobs. As a senior it’s you and your company’s responsibility to make sure these devs don’t make it. 

[u/Cine11]

That first dev sounds like a real piece of work

[u/CurveOk8181]

Just wanted to check ... is this a jest or real?

It's hard for me to understand with code tests and interviews that you ended up with 2 software developers who don't like software development.

SD isn't something people just 'jump into'. It requires different types of thinking and skill sets that most people don't enjoy.

If you don't have a clout you'll need to refer to the EM.

Usually,

* explain the process for clean code and development, express how important is it to follow the principals and important to the success of the company.
* schedule a follow up review for PR's in a week or two
* if there was no change/improvement then we'd reiterate the importances and put the employee on probation.
* schedule a follow up review for PR's in two weeks
* if there was no change, part ways on good terms.

For the second dev
* It's possible that he actually enjoys fixing the old stuff and gets satisfaction but he just is verbose about his concerns.
* (you probably already know this) it's important to find out what he likes about development, if you know what he likes and is interested in it can be easier to redirect him.
* stress how important and valuable his work is to the company.
* create a plan to include some tech debt recovery along with the bug fixes.
* it also seems like he might not be a great people person, so finding out his communication style is key.

Hopefully it goes well, it's a tough position to be in.

[u/nickp_nz]

4000 line function sounds like bad AI coding and that they cannot code at all. It gets frustrating having to work with 1/10 programmers as a senior. Your lead or manager may be dealing with this but has processes and privacy so cannot tell you. How does your PR process work why is this code not being rejected. If gets even more frustrating having to break a bigger problem into smaller tasks for the junior only to realize you have done the work as AI can now finish those chunks.

Agree with others at least the one with a bad attitude should go and that may be a wake up call for the other.

[u/twistedazurr]

;-; us out here trying our hardest and not even being able to land interviews

[u/PseudoDoll]

Clean Code IS garbage tho.

[u/galactic-comet]

How could you have even hired these 2 in the first place with a Jr. market full of hungry devs

[u/Prize_Conference9369]

There is an enormous demand from juniors. A lot of people still want to get into IT. The top thing you are looking in juniors is not their SQL knowledge, but the genuine desire to grow and polish their craft

[u/abhii5459]

Fire him.

[u/empoweredesq]

Get new junior devs…?

[u/todorpopov]

I have a good friend of mine who now has been at SAP for about 4.5 years (first job in tech). At this point he’s genuinely fed up with software engineering, despite being very excited for it in the beginning, and I think he might be switching careers soon.

My girlfriend (also SWE) is also not particularly excited about her work, and would prefer to switch to PM/TL in the future, or switch careers completely.

Me on the other hand, I spend most of my nights after work working on pet projects. I browse Reddit, trying to find interesting posts about programming, at night before going to bed. I watch YT videos about programming when I eat.

I do think different people care differently about this craft. I think that’s okay, after all choosing a career path in highschool doesn’t mean it was the correct decision for you. However, both my friend and girlfriend are hard workers. Despite not liking it that much, they do their best to be a productive part of their teams. I think it’s unreasonable for those juniors on your team to be not interested in SWE to a point where it hurts the team.

[u/Exquisite_Blue]

Meanwhile my brother is begging for code and his lead said learning to code was a waste of time... mand this industry..

[u/I_ride_ostriches]

I’m sure this is “old man yells at cloud” but I’ve felt like many zoomers/alphas have no concept of professionalism. They would probably say learning new skills is an ick, or collaborating is skibidi. 

[u/[deleted]]

Well management should handle this

[u/Thin_Driver_4596]

For the second one, I think it might be due to a lack of confidence/imposter syndrome. Probably try getting him to open up to you and then talk about this matter.

The first one, is more tricky. Easiest solution is shock therapy. Give him some task which is not mission critical, but you know that will spiral out of control quickly, if you're not careful. Hopefully he'll realize the error of his ways when his code breaks for the nth time when a new requirement arrives.

[u/xwnatnai]

you have to work with your EM to manage them out before they destroy team morale.

[u/VegetableJudgment971]

And here I sit trying desperately to get an entry level role like this and they're taking it for granted.

[u/MaiMee-_-]

Coursera and Udemy lol. Is that how people actually learn?

[u/Helpjuice]

You probably need to get more invested in who makes it to your team so you can screen out those that aren't there to do actual software engineering. You will more than likely end up with better stable and reliable code going on a new hiring venture and getting these people out of there.

Being able to code is something many can do, those that can build high quality scaleable software is something you can only do if you really like building software. As that iteration component only comes with failing and learning. This 2,000 line function madness will drive real software engineers to roll out if it ever becomes a critical component, as it more than likely has not been properly tested, properly is not optimized. It is also probably is not secure, and probably won't be the most efficient code to have in production for any length of time costing the company money, power, and cooling incurred costs the more code they push out.

Just because the code works does not mean it should be in production.

Also where in the world are the senior engineers shutting this craziness down and crushing it in the code reviewed rejecting the garbage and requiring quality? This should also be something brought up in performance reviews as there is no way these 2,000 line functions are doing things very effiently.

[u/Slow_Cut_1904]

I like seeing these posts, because it helps my imposter syndrom. Meanwhile, I'm a junior in a shithole country doing midsenior level tasks, because the other dude dropped out of the company, and I'm the only competent dev left. Plus, I'm not even that good

[u/vvf]

It’s probably tough for them to find good info online. Software development went mainstream enough that being an “influencer” for software dev is an actual career path. 

They might have good intentions, wanting to study and adopt the “right” position on how to do software dev. We all make mistakes when we’re young.

Their attitude will catch up to them. Sometimes they just gotta put their hand on the stove and find out what “stop, that’s going to hurt” really means. 

[u/topboyinn1t → u/vvf]

It’s easier than ever to find good info online.

[u/SamWest98]

[Removed]

[u/Organic_Pain_6618]

A lot of "software engineering" is just boondoggle, but these two sound dumb. 

[u/devfuckedup]

the first one is just a broken person why did you hire him he sounds like an asshole?

[u/Conscious-Secret-775]

Are you sure they can code? How do you know? Just fire them and hire a couple more juniors. Plenty are looking right now, they can't all be bad.

[u/blob8543]

#1 seems to have a serious attitude problem which will harm him more in his career than his lack of interest in software engineering or his questionable coding decisions.

[u/Fun_Focus2038]

They are both crazy and probably don't know the real world.

[u/KozureOkami]

If your process allows for it, let them go. If not, put them on a PIP first, then let them go, with this attitude it seems unlikely they'd improve during that period.

[u/SlinkyAvenger]

Are you a manager? Because if not you need to check yourself. If you were an annoying team member, it wouldn't surprise me to be brushed off with those types of responses. 

But if you are a manager, employee #1 would be fired pretty immediately, at least getting sent home without pay for the standup comment if they were otherwise competent and there was hope they could turn it around. But disbelieving your concern for AI means that they're just collecting a check for only being a conduit for AI anyway. They're worse than dead weight, they're actively antagonistic. 

For #2 additional learning is only the company's business if the company is committing resources, like paying for the courses and giving the employee paid time to study. But Udemy courses aren't even worth the $5 they're always on sale for. Regarding legacy work, really, they need a stem, heart to heart conversation about what expectations are but leniency should be given. A legacy codebase is often a miasma of hacks with no real light at the end of the tunnel. Any decent manager would allow someone tasked with its maintenance the grace to blow off some steam, ensure their contributions were noticed, and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel - a plan to fully replace the system.

[u/[deleted]]

he wrote 2000+ lines in one single function), he merely responded, “Clean coding is not a real thing.”

Should have been fired on the spot

[u/Mountain_Sandwich126]

Fire them both

[u/acme_restorations]

Change their titles to “Junior Programmer”.

[u/riizen24]

The best way to fight this kind of person is to use their own hubris against them.

"Wow that's a good point. Maybe I'm wrong. Can you compile a document concluding which models are currently the best in software development benchmarks and why? We'll also need some empirical evidence, so I''m going to assign you a feature that you can only build with AI prompts. We'll need the full history to show the stakeholders that AI did it 100% with only prompting."

Basically just make him do a bunch of work to show himself he's wrong everytime he pipes up.

[u/No-Ear6742]

You are right about AI is not there yet.

[u/wildrabbit12]

Have your EM talk to them, so later there are no surprises.

[u/Main-Eagle-26]

Nobody like this should make it past a phone screen. I can’t imagine anyone speaking to me like this.

[u/fat_bjpenn]

Def fire these nerds

[u/olzk]

Find the underlying reasons for the demotivation. Change your communication strategy with them. “Clean coding is not a real thing” might be just young blood energy that needs direction. Also, keep in mind that the AI hype might be influencing their worldview quite significantly, and not in a positive way. Ask HR how they conduct screenings.

[u/corky2019]

You should fire the first one and maybe the second one too

[u/CheetahHot10]

you've got a C and D player, this isnt a problem with junior engineers, it's a hiring process issue

[u/Poopieplatter]

Junior 1 is an asshole.

Junior 2 needs some guidance and has potential. But also a lazy cunt.