DEV Community

Ken Darling
Ken Darling

Posted on

Help! Hiring a Jr Dev

Hi All, We just got the green light to go a head and start the process to hire a jr dev for the team? Currently I am the only developer on the team, and I am going to be leaned on heavily on the interview process.

I want to make sure that I vet the person properly. This is all new to me any help and or pointers are greatly appreciated.

Top comments (7)

Collapse
 
lbayliss profile image
Luke Bayliss

Focus more on enthusiasm. I’ve always found that the best junior devs are the ones with the greatest enthusiasm for the work. They’re the ones who won’t get discouraged when they’re presented with a challenge.

Collapse
 
anpos231 profile image
anpos231 • Edited

Exactly this. Remember that you are hiring Jr. Developer not an Intermediate Developer, he probably doesn't know much, what is important is the willingness to learn.

Ask about hobbies, involvement in dev communities like dev.to, freecodecamp, etc...

And most importantly, make sure you hire a nice guy, you don't want to work with an asshole.

Collapse
 
vitalcog profile image
Chad Windham

If you are in fact hiring a "jr" developer, you should absolutely expect to spend time training them...

Collapse
 
shushugah profile image
shushugah

Technical expectations of junior Devs should be lower. As others stated, enthusiasm and interested to learn is more important. The question is not what they know, but what can they learn?

There are several reasons to hire junior devs.

  • If no one hires them, then junior devs will not ever become intermediate or senior devs.
  • Perk of teaching a junior dev is their questions will help you write code more clearly.
  • Junior devs can learn a lot and accomplish tasks you may find repetitive or boring, yet bring value
 
guruguy00 profile image
Ken Darling

I am trying to hash out expectations from management on what they want from the new role as well as myself with training said new person.

Thread Thread
 
vitalcog profile image
Chad Windham

If you are that worried about a deadline you don't want a real "jr dev". You want a "dev". I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just clarifying what I believe should be a company's or team's attitude towards hiring a "jr" developer. You are describing basic on-boarding of bringing somebody on. That is the same from jr all the way to senior. If you don't have time to "teach" somebody because you are worried about a deadline, then you aren't looking at a "jr" dev to begin with.

Collapse
 
th3n00bc0d3r profile image
Muhammad

so what are you exactly looking for to be done?