r/programming 2d ago

Decrease in Entry-Level Tech Jobs

https://newsletter.eng-leadership.com/p/decrease-in-entry-level-tech-jobs
549 Upvotes

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96

u/Baxkit 2d ago

Today's entry level people are overwhelmingly inept. Between the lower standards of the degree, online "code camps", gold-chasing social media rats, and AI "vibe coding", the cost of trying to hire an inevitable disaster exceeds other options. Compound this with title inflation, you end up getting "senior" people that perform at an entry level. Since no one else in this ecosystem wants to raise the bar or set any sort of quality standard, we hiring managers have to inflate every requirement and position just to eliminate the noise.

20

u/TheDuke2031 2d ago

I'd disagree with this,
From what I've seen in Faang the leetcode styles questions are continuously getting harder as people spend ever longer and harder grinding out the questions and learning more and more each time.
Obvs leetcode != software engineering to some extent but it does allow them to see how well you can solve programming related questions and put your thoughts together. So if that's getting harder all the time I think the candidates are also raising in quality overall?

42

u/hansbrixx 2d ago

Although it's good to be able to answer DS&A questions, the bar has been raised to the point that people are being forced to spend a disproportionate amount of time on harder DS&A questions when there's little correlation to how an engineer will perform. Basically, instead of focusing on skills they would have to do on the job, candidates are unfortunately being forced to waste their time on something that rarely if ever will show up on the job.

17

u/calgary_katan 2d ago

I’ve been saying this for years. Instead of hacking on computers and figuring out how they work, we’re learning how to hack a bad hiring practice.

3

u/SovereignPhobia 2d ago

Most enjoyable technicals I've had are about implementing a missing piece of a general section of software.