This question was asked by someone on the Slack channel. Here were some of the responses:
Sky uses its own grad scheme instead. Very occasionally they hire juniors. Whether they “should be” or not isn’t really for me to answer
in previous companies, it’s pretty much always been lack of bandwidth for mentorship, “we need people who can hit the ground running”, and not being good enough at chunking out junior level work in a way that provides growth and support
That argument always annoys me as i suspect its less true than people think it is. I think some people think juniors are a drain on resource but they fundamentally are another hand at the coal face
i definitely think more companies should hire juniors, but i also know a lot of companies where being a junior is actively miserable
Here was my response:
“I think it largely depends on whether the company has a budget for a junior or not.. If the budget is enough to hire a mid to senior, they would like opt for that option instead of bringing on a junior. If the budget isn’t enough to get a senior or mid level developer then maybe thats when they’d consider it?”
Someone responded:
Mid/Senior devs were once junior devs that were given the chance to grow and learn. They won’t be around forever and if companies don’t allow for new juniors to follow the same path, at some point there’ll be a lack of mid/senior devs as well as juniors with experience.
My response to this:
“When this happens, that is when companies will start hiring juniors. The market will adapt based on supply and demand”
“I agree that companies can benefit from graduate schemes and/or entry-level developer roles. But the question is how much of a cost will this be? How much productivity can the junior bring? When someone joins a company, senior or not, how long for that person getting up to speed, is a big factor. Not to mention requiring the time of existing developers to assist thus also adding to the cost.”
“The best thing for a junior is getting their foot through the door in order to gain things that are of greater value than salary (that this stage of their career) such as the work experience, learning from seniors (like a mentor), building a good network, references etc.”
“And so I think that as a junior, aim to get the best salary/benefits you can but also acknowledge that it could be a lot lower that you might hope for (for now). Do this for 6 -12 months, build the experience and knowledge required to justify a higher salary and work up the ‘ladder’ as it were or move on to the next company (which btw can be a salary increase of up to 25% at the early stages).”
Summary
I think that suggesting that companies ‘should’ be hiring juniors is a bit of wishful thinking. As mentioned before, junior salaries can be quite high depending where you live. According to a survey of graduating annual salaries at Makers, it averages at £30k, I’m assuming that most of these are juniors as they have just graduated.
£30k starting salary is quite decent, arguably too high for this skill level. On indeed.co.uk, some actual mid-level positions in London are £30k-£40k. The question is whether a junior can provide £30k worth of productivity annually?
I’ve written a post previously about a related topic: To Hire a Junior Vs Senior Developer which outlines (my opinion) the differences between juniors and seniors and which would be logically the better choice given you have the budget for only one.
At the end of the day, salaries should mostly be dictated by what amount of productivity an employer can bring. The more junior you are, the less productivity you can bring when compared to mid-senior level developers, but this can be offset by accepting a lower salary. So the answer to the titled question would depend on whether it is more expensive to hire said junior.
So in conclusion, as per my response: If you’re a junior-level developer, consider taking a low salary because in my opinion, the best thing for a junior, is getting their foot through the door first in order to gain things that are of greater value than salary.