On the Job Apprenticeship

apotheon on 2006-01-01T03:27:50

I wonder why nobody hires people these days with the intention of giving them scutwork to do and, thereby, helping them gain further skill in the task. Right about now, my dream job title might be "Perl Flunky I".

Nobody's soliciting resumes for that, though.

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Pay...

Alias on 2006-01-01T09:58:36

I guess one big problem is pay... a lot of the Perl places that might be interested in hiring a flunky aren't necesarily able to financially do so for anything more than shit wages...

And then of course, as soon as the person is decent, they are going to dissapear off to some other job.

Or at least, that's the impression I've got from a number of different places.

Another group tend to hire as soon as they need the talent, and they need people that can hit the ground running.

Of course, that's why Open Source software is such a great thing.

It gives people like yourself a good way to get involved with some projects with much better developers, get some exposure, and show that you are at least smart enough to learn on the job.

Your experience on the open source projects help you land the paid job...

And if you don't DO any coding at home, as a junior coder, are you really going to be that good? Will you actually have a love of the work.

Anyways, there's a couple of thoughts...

Adam K

Re:Pay...

sigzero on 2006-01-01T23:18:40

If I could do it "part time" but with a mentor, I would do it without pay. The best way to learn is by doing and having someone there supervising doesn't hurt either.

Right now I use Perl on anything I can at work and I read read read.

Re:Pay...

apotheon on 2006-01-02T13:37:11

I agree with your points, and have seen similar reasons arise for the trends I've noticed. On the other hand. . . .

The problem, to some extent, seems to be that employers seem to get themselves into a rigidly imposed rut of sorts with regards to how they view their employees. If you (for some definition of "you" that is equivalent to "most employers") hire someone apprentice-level for crap wages, you expect to be able to pay crap wages forever, and later express surprise when the former apprentices go somewhere else for a job. The way professional apprenticeship (as opposed to open-source apprenticeship and the like) actually works when done well involves the job and the apprentice evolving together. Businesses whose internal structures are too bureaucratic, on the other hand, generally fail utterly to be able to adopt organic growth models. Either you're Software Engineer I or you're Software Engineer II, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

Bah, humbug.