> “Number one, my experience is that many of the most junior folks are actually the most experienced with the AI tools. So they're actually most able to get the most out of them.”
Would that experience be from cheating on their homework? Are you sure that's the skill you want to prioritize?
> “Number two, they're usually the least expensive because they're right out of college, and they generally make less. So if you're thinking about cost optimization, they're not the only people you would want to optimize around.”
Hahaha. Sounds like a threat. Additional context for this is that Amazon has a history of stack ranking and per-manager culling quotas, and not as much a reputation for caring about employees like Google did.
> “Three, at some point, that whole thing explodes on itself. If you have no talent pipeline that you're building and no junior people that you're mentoring and bringing up through the company, we often find that that's where we get some of the best ideas.”
I thought the tech industry had given up on training and investing in juniors for long-term, since (the thinking goes) most of them will job-hop in 18 months, no matter how well you nurture. Instead, most companies are hiring for the near-term productivity they can get, very transactionally.
Does AWS have good long-term retention of software engineers?
A big, and little-discussed, problem across many industries is that there is no "pipeline" inside any company. Since the 1980's, the idea that you develop your own talent has fallen by the wayside. You hire it from other companies. Inside software, the issue may be bigger, but it exists in many others as well.
Does AWS intend to have that pipeline within the company, starting with juniors, like this talk implies?
They don't, that's why their CEO needs everyone else to believe they need to keep on hiring juniors aggressively so AWS can poach them a couple years down the line if needed
if it isn't obvious already, his plan is to get other companies to train juniors so AWS can poach them when they become seniors
And only seniors! No measly mid-levels here please!
I feel the majority of junior job-hopping is due to the fact that they are often hired for really low, and then proposed just an incremental raise after two years. Instead, if they change company, then they got a big jump.
At least, that's what I saw happening here in Hong Kong for juniors I worked with, not sure for other areas.