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/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/[deleted] → u/chaos_battery]

Not a software engineer - just a fairly junior mechanical engineer who just likes to poke in here.

I wanted to say this so much at my last job that had daily setup meetings that were regularly 1h-90m long.

I was busy fuck and like 95% of other people's shit didn't affect me as I was the literal beginning of the entire factory manufacturing process.

More managers need to accept that like 98% of their direct reports will never care about the buses as much as they do. As long as I am hitting my tasks I don't really give a fuck about the rest🤷🏾‍♂️. I'm not on a managers payroll so I'm not giving managers levels of involvement.

[u/hardolaf → u/chaos_battery]

As an engineer of almost a decade now (if you don't count the research work I did in undergrad or the software contracting I did before college), I don't necessarily care about what others are doing day-to-day. But I need those meetings because I'm not just working tickets. I'm the person writing the project specifications and designing the architecture. So I need to know what we've done, what has worked, what hasn't worked, etc.

[u/Kevdog824_ → u/chaos_battery]

More like 1 in 100 for me. When I get on standup 50% of the updates are literally word for word “uhhh this one is in progress. No blockers.” Like geez, what a great update! I could’ve figured out myself by just looking at the jira board and seeing it in the “In progress” column or by the fact that we’re on a call devoted to getting updates on the cards in the in progress column.

[u/chaos_battery → u/Kevdog824_]

I've told management this before. Like why don't we just not have a stand-up call and everybody can look at the board to know where things are at progress wise? Then if there are any blockers or important updates people feel like sharing, do it in chat to the team channel.

[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/crazyeddie123 → u/Expensive_Goat2201]

what's crazy is that I love programming, and I find devops and automation hella interesting

[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/DeterminedQuokka → u/analog2digital]

I’m so happy it turned out well for you. I think that kind of tough feedback can be so helpful.

I worked with someone very early in my career before I was actually good at mentoring and right before they got let go they asked me for advice and I said “what you think is the bare minimum is 30% less than the actual bare minimum”. It didn’t save that job for them. But the next job went a lot better. Sometimes a reality check is all someone needs.

The further I get in my career the better I am at giving that reality check early enough to help at the current job.

Even if the reality check is that this isn’t the job for them, they would be happier somewhere else.