I think I mis-read Ashley's original email: he's referring to juniors with ability, but not Ruby experience, and I'm thinking of juniors who have learned Ruby and done interesting things with it in their spare time.
I also think that JavaScript-related stuff (both server and client side) has fully replaced Ruby as "the language you learn in your spare time to do interesting web things with", especially as the barrier to entry for Rails gets higher. This is, of course, not the first time this has happened: it used to be Perl. PHP, strangely, seems to be a constant, but I think that's mostly down to its amazing ease of deployment. I don't think that this is going to change, and I also don't think it's reasonable to expect companies with small development teams (ie, < 5 developers) to train up somebody who's never used Ruby before. On the other hand, bringing in a junior who's a whiz at JavaScript-related tech and teaching them Ruby... On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Ben Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > I definitely agree with Steven. I was lucky enough to discover Ruby + > Rails via a friend and ended up doing freelance and contract work while I > was at Uni, but many other students aren't in the same boat. Either they > never find out about the community (does Ruby AU do outreach to > universities?) or they don't have the time (can you imagine learning Ruby > on Rails on the side while also writing an Honours thesis and working > weekends to cover your expenses?). Big companies are very visible and they > have obvious grad programs that are easy to sign up to. > > Some of the best CS students I know have ended up in graduate roles at > Banks and Consultancy firms. Many of them would love to transition to Ruby > on Rails work, or Django work, or iOS dev or just about anything that > doesn't involve three meetings a day and a slew of bland work. But the > community just doesn't seem to want them. The silly bit is that for many of > them getting productive in a new language isn't a big deal. > > As the others have said, graduate or intern programs could definitely help > your business (and give back to the community!) > > - Ben > > On Friday, 3 May 2013 at 5:02 PM, Steven Farlie wrote: > > My anecdotal experience (as a volunteer coach/organiser in OpenTechSchool) > is that the talent base for junior programmers is incredibly broad but it > is there. There are people with programming knowledge but not domain > knowledge (e.g. Python but not web), or domain knowledge without the > platform (web but not specifically Ruby/Rails is very common). Lots of > people from the sciences (there are no jobs in science!). Aside from the > lucky few who fell into the scene outside of their studies they simply > don't know where to go. Others go through private courses like Sydney Dev > Camp or App Academy. I know there is a supply of raw talent, but it is > difficult for employers to find. Not to mention the problem of evaluating. > Picking a good hire is a lottery at the best of times. > > If anyone is musing about opening a junior role I would encourage it. It > can be immensely rewarding both for the dev and the team. Think of all > those bad habits they would never even have the chance to learn! > -- > Steven > > > On 3 May 2013 14:56, Michael Pearson <[email protected]> wrote: > > This isn't consistent with my most recent experiences recruiting: we > advertised at all levels, and received very few applications from junior > developers. You're welcome to search the list and find the job ad I posted. > > At the time, we were looking specifically at both ends of the spectrum: > either somebody shit hot to help teach us some cool new tricks (which is > what we got, in the end) or somebody fresh that who could bring in some > optimism and take some of the load off while we worked out how to fix > everything. > > It's also possible that I, being the one who posted the ad, was being > deliberately exclusionary: I only wanted juniors to apply via the mailing > list rather than via recruiters or seek. I wanted somebody who was keen > enough about Ruby to be part of the community (or at least be aware that it > exists), rather than somebody who's just graduated a Java-heavy CS degree > and will now latch on to anything that will help them make rent this month. > > So it's possible that we're not hostile towards juniors - but possibly > we're doubtful of juniors put forward via recruiters, thanks to being > burned before by resume-fiddling and other such nasty things. > > Also - do these several amazing juniors have github accounts, or other > proof of capability? Are they on this list (at least filtered for anything > with [JOB] in the title)? > > > On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Ashley Pettit > <[email protected]>wrote: > > Hi Guys, > > I've noticed a bit of a problem with the ruby community and I wanted to > voice my concerns. > > Firstly let me say the ruby community is great. Full of passionate people > who love what they do and 9 times out of 10 something built in ruby is > better than something not purely because the developers are so passionate > about creating awesome products. > > So where's the problem? > > Ruby is a language which has been embraced by start-ups and small-medium > sized businesses. It's not something the larger companies have taken to. > > Why is this a problem? > > Small-medium business do not have the time to train juniors. They want > people who are already great. They release jobs where there is an immediate > requirement. They don't hire just because there is misc development to be > done. They hire for a specific project or specific set of work. With other > languages like .NET, junior developers are able to get experience with > larger companies who run graduate programs and who can afford to train > people for future rewards. With Ruby however, this is not the case. > > Again why is this a problem? > > No company that I know is currently running ruby graduate programs, no-one > is hiring talented juniors and no-one is investing in developing people's > potential. Many really talented junior developers with < 12 months > experience are being left out in the cold unable to find work and are > forced to learn a language like .NET because they can't find ruby work. I > personally know of at least several great junior Rubists who have so much > potential yet no company will hire them as they don't have the magical 2+ > years experience to be considered a "Mid-level developer". > > I personally think that the ruby community (especially employers) needs to > support junior rubists a little more or the community will simply stagnate. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > > > -- > Michael Pearson > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- Michael Pearson -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. 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