In the past, most recruiters and hiring managers used to put their focus on senior and mid-range candidates because of their obvious advantage in terms of experience and knowledge. However, nowadays, things are changing. To be more precise, companies are learning how to integrate less-experienced junior developers into their teams.
What Is a Junior Developer?
Contrary to a senior developer, a junior developer will need a supervisor who’ll be giving him almost constant guidance. Most junior developers have limited knowledge about everything, and many companies see the possibility to model the junior developers up to their needs. Without the proper guidance, the junior developer will make frequent mistakes, and sometimes technical tasks that would usually take a couple of hours per month would now take a couple of days per month.
Why Do Companies Hire Junior Developers?
Although mentoring a junior dev may seem like a difficult task, the gain, in the long run, is greater than all the stress given during the training. Most junior developers don’t know what they know or don’t know, so they will make frequent mistakes that will derail the broader team if not kept on top of them without guidance. However, if given the proper guidance, the junior developer is known to rise and quickly adapt to the team, making it a beneficial asset. Moreover, they’d be able to deliver software solutions rapidly no matter if they were relying entirely on themselves or a team. Going at this pace, the junior developer will quickly adapt, and within a few months, only the final feedback from the supervisor will be enough for the junior dev to stay on track.
On the question “why do companies hire junior developers ” the answer at the same time is both complex and simple. Well, the benefits of hiring junior talents are multiple. Let’s begin with the most important financial aspect- juniors are much cheaper than seniors and because of their inexpertise in the field can be moulded by the company’s needs. It’s vital to acknowledge that in this case, the company is not taking advantage of the junior developer but actually helping him to specialize in a single field that will both help for the junior’s personal development and the company’s development.
Other reasons why some companies may prefer junior developers over senior are:
- There are many more junior developers available over senior developers
- Sometimes the lack of experience or expertise that the junior developer has can be a positive thing because they can more easily adapt to the work environment and methodology you’ve set than a senior dev
- If you treat the junior dev right, you can get a long-term employee quite easily
- Some junior developers that are new in the work environment can more easily spot the old problem than the seniors that have been working on the specific problem since the beginning because they aren’t overflowed with the issue itself
- Some junior developers can adapt to new technologies more easily than seniors
Something that has always put the junior developers at a considerable advantage over many experienced seniors is precisely their inexperience. For example, let’s take an experienced 10+ years senior developer who knows a couple of tools, languages, and frameworks. However, he/she might not be as fond of learning new technologies because they specialize only in a certain technology and don’t really have the need to learn new stuff.
That’s why if you intend to hire Laravel developers, it’s a better option to hire a junior developer that already has some knowledge in the area than simply hiring a senior that specializes in multiple technologies but has little experience or hasn’t worked on that many Laravel projects. This would also be a financially smart decision.
Conclusion
The most crucial reason why do companies hire junior developers is because times are changing and people are expandible. However, not in the wrong meaning of expandible. If companies don’t train juniors constantly, when the last generation of juniors replace the mid-level devs and the mid-level devs replace the current seniors, the whole IT industry would be on the edge of a collapse.
That’s why hiring a junior dev is an investment that will reap some big rewards in the long run and is something that will mutually benefit the company and the employee.