<story><title>Talent Search versus Talent Development (2019) [pdf]</title><url>https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/201909/rnoti-p1471.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cheema33</author><text>During the past 5 years I spent untold hours helping 3 junior devs level up in a very supporting and encouraging environment.  In the end, it did not work.  The devs were not self driven or motivated enough to make a difference.  They would make small incremental improvements, but nothing that allowed them to work on a task independently.  They have up too quickly when they ran into a difficult situation or immediately wanted to jump to a subpar solution.&lt;p&gt;We had to let them go.  Then we hired an experienced dev who was self driven and the difference is night and day.  The senior dev costs slightly more than the junior dev.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think I will ever try the &amp;quot;talent development&amp;quot; approach again.  The talent needs to do that work itself.  If it is unwilling or unable, then so am I.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fn-mote</author><text>My conclusion from your story is that you needed to cut your losses earlier.&lt;p&gt;Put them in a situation where they need to produce a result, give them support, but if they need hand holding give them that feedback: you need to be independent on this or you will not be retained.&lt;p&gt;It sucks, but one or two experiences writing code for a junior dev and then seeing they do not even move on from there was enough. You can have the same kind of issues with crappy “senior” colleagues too, though…&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you don’t have the right kind of task for an “advanced beginner” (so to speak), that is a problem on the management end.&lt;p&gt;Bringing up junior colleagues is a fraught business, but when it succeeds you get a LOT of results out of it.&lt;p&gt;In the end, I try to keep in mind that it is all about money and time. From an individual project point of view, though, it can be very satisfying.</text></comment>
<story><title>Talent Search versus Talent Development (2019) [pdf]</title><url>https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/201909/rnoti-p1471.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cheema33</author><text>During the past 5 years I spent untold hours helping 3 junior devs level up in a very supporting and encouraging environment.  In the end, it did not work.  The devs were not self driven or motivated enough to make a difference.  They would make small incremental improvements, but nothing that allowed them to work on a task independently.  They have up too quickly when they ran into a difficult situation or immediately wanted to jump to a subpar solution.&lt;p&gt;We had to let them go.  Then we hired an experienced dev who was self driven and the difference is night and day.  The senior dev costs slightly more than the junior dev.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think I will ever try the &amp;quot;talent development&amp;quot; approach again.  The talent needs to do that work itself.  If it is unwilling or unable, then so am I.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>0xC5</author><text>From that experience, it makes total sense that you wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to work with juniors like that again.&lt;p&gt;But I have the complete opposite experience. I&amp;#x27;m a junior dev working on an embedded linux system, and some associated test applications. I have an extremely good mentor&amp;#x2F;boss who&amp;#x27;s helping me develop skills for those environments, and other associated skills that are absolutely invaluable to my career.&lt;p&gt;Now the difference of course is I am highly motivated. I love the work I do, and because it&amp;#x27;s so enjoyable and fun, I absolutely take a lot of my personal time to play around with work-related or at least work-adjacent projects.&lt;p&gt;My worry is that when I do eventually move to my next company&amp;#x2F;product, Ill be assigned to a manager that has had too many poor experiences with unmotivated juniors, and is unwilling to share their experience with me (in a cooperative manner, not just a one-sided relationship of course).</text></comment>