I'm in medical device software. I'm mid-way through my career (15+ years). I've been on my current codebase (which is 20+ years old) for 5 years. I work with a coworker who's been with this code base for 20 years, but is 45 years into his career. I push back hard when it's suggested that we bring on a fresh college grad (who wasn't even born when this codebase was initiated) and it's suggested to give him/her one of the harder tasks with no supervision. Management: "They have a degree in computer science, why wouldn't that be enough qualification?" Me:"For the same reason you don't name a recent MBA graduate CEO of our fortune 500 company".
Note: I'm all for hiring recent college grads, but they need to be paired with a senior dev, and management needs to understand that you're not speeding up the project this month. Ideally, you're investing in the robustness of your team. The challenge I face is that so many junior engineers are job hopping the first ~5 years. That's not a smear on them. It's good for them. But it's not great for me...
Note: I'm all for hiring recent college grads, but they need to be paired with a senior dev, and management needs to understand that you're not speeding up the project this month. Ideally, you're investing in the robustness of your team. The challenge I face is that so many junior engineers are job hopping the first ~5 years. That's not a smear on them. It's good for them. But it's not great for me...
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