I think it's tough for a lot of companies. Unless they're in a position where they don't need to worry too much about getting a new hire up to speed, they're going to prefer someone that already has experience figuring out a completely new codebase, following standards, etc.
Plus with so much competition out there where experienced devs might be willing to take a paycut just to afford rent or put food on the table, deck is stacked against juniors.
It is definitely tough. However, there are a lot of jobs out there. I'm actually surprised to hear you say experienced devs are taking paycuts. Is this a COVID thing? My husband is a senior dev and has never had trouble finding work. And he went from new dev to senior in under 5 yrs.
The worst example I saw was a contract gig with Apple. Recruiters hit me up for months because it required not only senior level Drupal architecture experience (with Drupal 9, which was just released last month), but senior level technical writing chops. After lockdowns, they expect the contractor to relocate to the Bay Area. And they're only willing to pay at least $40k less than EITHER a Drupal architect OR a senior technical writer (let alone both) could net, in a market that doesn't have an insanely high cost of living, in a salaried full time position rather than a contract that could be yanked at any time (which you would expect to pay even more because of the lack of security).
Each time I wasted my time hearing them out, I laughed at them for the rate.
I'd prefer a junior dev I can mold than a senior dev who's likely to jump ship when a better offer comes along, who's likely to be disgruntled about the pay cut at the very least.
But that's me. A lot of people don't factor in that you get what you pay for.
Also, the amount of handholding you need to do says a lot about your architectural decisions. Whenever I hear about something in a stack that sounds like it adds a lot of complexity, I immediately question it.
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I think it's tough for a lot of companies. Unless they're in a position where they don't need to worry too much about getting a new hire up to speed, they're going to prefer someone that already has experience figuring out a completely new codebase, following standards, etc.
Plus with so much competition out there where experienced devs might be willing to take a paycut just to afford rent or put food on the table, deck is stacked against juniors.
It is definitely tough. However, there are a lot of jobs out there. I'm actually surprised to hear you say experienced devs are taking paycuts. Is this a COVID thing? My husband is a senior dev and has never had trouble finding work. And he went from new dev to senior in under 5 yrs.
Friend took a paycut at a new place after getting let go cause previous company got hit hard. Probably not the norm though.
The worst example I saw was a contract gig with Apple. Recruiters hit me up for months because it required not only senior level Drupal architecture experience (with Drupal 9, which was just released last month), but senior level technical writing chops. After lockdowns, they expect the contractor to relocate to the Bay Area. And they're only willing to pay at least $40k less than EITHER a Drupal architect OR a senior technical writer (let alone both) could net, in a market that doesn't have an insanely high cost of living, in a salaried full time position rather than a contract that could be yanked at any time (which you would expect to pay even more because of the lack of security).
Each time I wasted my time hearing them out, I laughed at them for the rate.
I'd prefer a junior dev I can mold than a senior dev who's likely to jump ship when a better offer comes along, who's likely to be disgruntled about the pay cut at the very least.
But that's me. A lot of people don't factor in that you get what you pay for.
Also, the amount of handholding you need to do says a lot about your architectural decisions. Whenever I hear about something in a stack that sounds like it adds a lot of complexity, I immediately question it.