So today i was on stackoverflow trying to figure out a solution to a materialize CSS problem when i saw a job posting by a company in Netherlands looking for a junior developer. Here is the job posting

From the job posting you could see that all they needed was someone who could write HTMl/CSS and Javascript. Also, by indicating that the experience level is ‘student/Junior” they were insinuating that they are ready to offer a lot of hand holding for the job. Well here is the job description.

Seriously!, two years experience and a masters in computer science to write HTML/CSS?, WTF!!. If a junior developer that is only writing HTML/CSS and other front end code requires masters degree, i bet the backend engineers are all PHD grads at the level of Alan Turing and Jon Vonneuman.

This behaviour is common in the software industries as a whole not just this company. Junior developers positions is deliberately being killed by HR Department and senior software engineers.

Senior software engineers these days thinks that all that is to it is the solving of complex problem and churn out very very efficient code and that is it. A senior software engineer some 15–10 years ago knows that the position “senior software engineer” is a lowkey teaching position. You guide these junior developers till they can fly on their own. The senior software engineers of today were guided by those good senior software engineers back then.

The problem with this whole eradication of the junior developer is anchored on the fact that it creates a talent gap in the software industry as a whole. These junior developers sits there,unemployed and with no clear direction on how to drive their career while the senior one are getting old. And you know software is one industry where the old ones fade out pretty fast. Can you see the pattern and the void it will create?.

If the junior developers are not getting jobs , how can they become senior developers one day. People in the software world learn a lot when they have a job to motivate and put pressure on them. I can’t think of any senior software engineer that got to that level without a job. So if you are not giving the junior ones job, soon we won’t have senior ones. Please, do not kill the junior developer, it will kill us all.