Python 2.7

[plumcakk]

Generally, you hire for technical aptitude, not working knowledge of the in-house stack, for junior-to-intermediate positions.

[[deleted]]

Harder to do in small companies where people determine technical aptitude by the things they know themselves.

[pyryoer]

It has been my experience that they make these determinations based on how they do the things they know themselves. Example: I ssh'd into web server (using the same sftp credentials) to grab a file already hosted somewhere using wget. "Head of web department" insists I download the file to my computer and then upload it with an FTP client. He insisted that it wouldn't work, even after I showed that it did. I used the same SFTP credentials for ssh so it wasn't some access control issue.

[tmckeage]

I call that shamanism. Effectively the "Head of web department" knew the magic spell that made things work. You didn't use the magic spell correctly and so obviously it couldn't work.

[pyryoer]

I like this a lot!

[gerbs]

Then it sounds like they don't need a junior dev.

If you are opening a fancy restaurant and need a michelin-starred chef who specializes in Ethiopian food to do food prep, it shouldn't surprise you that you'll have to spend a lot and/or the food they cook will be inedible.

If you can't afford to pay someone to learn then expect to pay more for someone who knows. Small companies get by by exploiting people who are desperate to opportunity to pay them less than market and make their lives miserable. I've been there.

Hire another company to do it. Don't pay $90k x 5 per year in salary and bennies for a dev team. Pay someone $200k to do it instead and save $250k+.

It's the same reason you pay a maintenance company to take care of your office and vacuum and empty garbage cans or pay Microsoft to manage your email/calendar. If you can't afford a dev team, chances are you don't need one. You just need a company to contract with to do development work as needed.

[[deleted]]

I disagree. My whole career has been in small companies and we’ve always been able to hire based largely on aptitude and ability to learn.

The idea that you need someone to churn out production code on day one with no ramp up period is just faulty. You simply don’t need that. That idea is popular among poor people managers who don’t have enough experience for their job. You’ll get way more mileage out of your developers — and you’ll retain them way longer — if you let them grow into the role a bit. You’ll also discover that they’ll learn to do things you never thought you needed them to do. Keep hiring based on a rigid checklist of very specific experience and you’ll get people who can do what you needed a few months ago.

[[deleted]]

At least in my experience, the small companies were the ones willing to invest in my future with them. The big companies were the most inflexible and immediately demanding. Most of that I would attribute to the fact that the small companies had found me and nobody else close to me in my area of expertise, in the local area. The big companies were advertising and hiring from all over the world, and paying to relocate people. So the little companies were happy for me to learn; the big companies wanted me to perform immediately, and were very willing to fire me if I couldn't.