Show me your juniors and I'll tell you how good your company is

Companies tend to hire people with or without a modicum of experience and call them juniors. That’s fine. However, I’ve come across managers who would hire as juniors mid-level candidates who failed the interview.

He failed, I know, but maybe at least we can offer him a junior role.

Proper juniors. That’s a common misconception. A junior is a part of the team and should be hired with the utmost care. For me, there are different levels of junior. There are so-called proper juniors (my term). Those kinds of employees are valuable assets to the team as they can challenge seniors and architects. The proper junior can approach a senior developer and ask the right questions. Also, they are detailed and double-check their work. When they integrate with a senior’s solution, and something doesn’t work, the junior’s code works perfectly and it’s the senior’s solution with a bug. The proper junior dares to ask and challenge the status quo.

Mindset is important. In general, the proper junior is a mindset and a craft. The bad news is that it’s very hard to find such people and convince everyone what a junior should be, not a person who is only fit for fixing typos in your project! The good news is that they can be found in a whole range of professions, not only in IT. They can be quickly trained to do the job, with their mindset and potential being the most important here.

Company culture. On the other hand, from the proper junior perspective, the next company choice can be tricky. They require an appropriate position, but at the same time, they cannot search indefinitely as even the worst IT business experience is better than none at all. When they are finally hired, an employer should dedicate them a buddy — a coach or a mentor from the senior team. Investments (spending money, time, and resources) in such juniors can be questioned by short-sighted managers or a delivery sales team only focused on chasing features. However, this is a long-term investment. It works because, even if the junior leaves, the challenging questions, fresh ideas, and word of mouth among their friends and colleagues stay. If an employer can attract such bright juniors to the team, there is no better advertisement for the company. More importantly, if a firm is able to hire someone from any profession and train them to be a proper junior — one who asks just the right questions and has no fear of challenging an architect. This is a great company culture which can bring a host of benefits in the long run.

Junior > Senior. Those who have 10+ years of experience need to be challenged every day. They drive a car with eyes closed because they know the road in front of them. All proper juniors need quality projects and the best leaders who will shape their future. By creating such a symbiotic HR system, the problem of a lack of skilled, experienced employees can be resolved, and the team, perhaps the whole company, can benefit from fresh, bright ideas. It’s only possible if we stop hiring people who poorly perform at the interview and call them juniors. Winning that junior role should be harder than that of a mid-level or even a senior position.