[LRUG] Juniors

Wed May 21 09:10:39 PDT 2014

I feel like I should weigh in on this topic as I’m a Junior Developer at GDS.  

I got offered a part time (hourly paid) internship before finishing Uni back home in Belfast with a local freelancer who had too much work on. I had very little knowledge of Ruby beyond programming concepts, but I had a fair bit of front end knowledge and studied Interactive Design. After 3 months, I joined a small, local agency that we merged with.

I worked there on various small projects and had a few years under my belt, but applied as a Junior to GDS as my experience with large scale projects was practically nil and I’d spent the last 2 years only picking up one senior dev’s bad habits, rather than multiple ones.

As far as I can see, a Junior Dev should have decent fraction of the knowledge their non-Junior devs have, but lacking the experience that comes with working on more complicated and larger projects. Pairing helps with that, as does the patience of other developers. Being a Junior at a big organisation, or a Junior working on large scale/audience projects appears to require more knowledge than being a Junior at something like a small agency.  

The job ad specifically mentioned that it would be a good fit for those that have never worked on anything big, so maybe the definition of Junior might be a sliding scale, depending on where you are?

Tommy  

--  
Tommy Palmer
@tommypalm
http://tommyp.org/

On Wednesday, 21 May 2014 at 16:57, Najaf Ali wrote:

> Glad you asked! Quite a few people who've read this email me about how they used it to find them their first job: http://happybearsoftware.com/kickstart-your-developer-career
>  
>  
> On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Marc Burt <marc.burt at gmail.com (mailto:marc.burt at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > Since it's on topic,
> >  
> > I'm one of these new Juniors (London unfortunately Ian) and have just started looking for my first job - I've been self-training for the past 6 months through on-line courses.
> >  
> >  
> > Does anyone have advice on what I should be doing to maximise my chances of finding somewhere soon?
> >  
> >  
> >  
> >  
> >  
> > On 21 May 2014 16:41, Ian Moss <hello at ianmoss.com (mailto:hello at ianmoss.com)> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >  
> > > I've just started reaching out to 2nd and 3rd year Computer Science /
> > > Software Engineering students in Manchester to get involved with 196
> > > destinations on a contributory / for experience basis. Pleasantly
> > > surprised with getting 5 or so interested, given I've not had much
> > > response from local experienced rubyists, who are happy with their day
> > > rate, rather than taking a big risk on a startup. (Understood).
> > >  
> > > If any of your juniors are in the Manchester area and want to get
> > > involved on a similar basis, then it'd be great to hear from them. A
> > > real opportunity to help shape a new company :)
> > >  
> > > Front-end developers as well as server-side specialists are needed.
> > > (Ideally with a love of travel, and a team orientated sociable outlook).
> > >  
> > > We're an early days startup, with a partnership with several big travel
> > > companies in place. Pre-revenue & pre-investment, but lots of potential,
> > > with the right help.
> > >  
> > > --
> > > Ian Moss
> > > http://196destinations.com - capturing your travel dreams & helping you
> > > get on the plane!
> > > http://twitter.com/oceanician // http://startupdigest.com/manchester  //
> > > http://www.linkedin.com/in/alteris //
> > >  
> > > ----- Original message -----
> > > From: Thayer Prime <thayer at team-prime.com (mailto:thayer at team-prime.com)>
> > > To: London Ruby Users Group <chat at lists.lrug.org (mailto:chat at lists.lrug.org)>
> > > Subject: [LRUG] Juniors
> > > Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 14:22:07 +0100
> > >  
> > > Hi LRUG
> > >  
> > > I often come across juniors in my work (few a month), and almost none
> > > of my clients ever want junior ruby developers, I get like 1-2 junior
> > > roles in a team once or twice a year, sadly. And even then they're
> > > often "juniors" that must have 2 years exp and a PHD and and and ;-)
> > >  
> > > If any of you ever do want juniors (and I mean 0-1 years experience
> > > types), drop me a line. If I have any at the time you're welcome to
> > > them free of charge as I'd really like to help more juniors get into
> > > our industry.
> > >  
> > > Seems strange that there's so much talk about skills shortages and yet
> > > not many companies seem prepared to train their own. *shrug*
> > >  
> > > Thayer
> > >  
> > > --
> > > Thayer Prime
> > > --------------------
> > > CEO & Founder
> > > Team Prime Ltd
> > > http://www.team-prime.com
> > >  
> > > http://www.linkedin.com/in/thayerprime
> > > http://www.thayerprime.com
> > > @Thayer
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