Why is it worth hiring junior talents to create your product?
Does it take more time to develop a product with juniors in the team? Not necessarily. We explain why juniors are a real asset to the future of your product. Find out what supports juniors in their early experiences and how their presence can be beneficial for an organization and product teams.
Table of contents
Who is a junior?
For us, a junior is NOT a person without any experience in product development. At Boldare, we use this term to describe someone who has already been engaged at least in one or two commercial digital projects as an active member of the development team. Juniors already have not only some theoretical knowledge about developing digital products, but some practical experience and skills as well, i.e.
- junior developers know how to write a code and designers know how to create design
- they know how to work in a team
- they’ve taken part in a code review process
- they’ve worked in a scrum framework
- they know how to implement Agile in their daily work
- they know various project methodologies
- they know how to cooperate with other specific roles within the product team
- they’ve previously cooperated with clients directly
- they know how to check product solutions with users
How do juniors benefit the team and organization?
Juniors are like a breath of fresh air for product teams. They are young and energetic, highly engaged, and enthusiastic about what they do. They often have a high level of loyalty to other team members and the overall organization. Juniors are not “spoiled” by their previous digital project experiences, so they think outside of the box, and thus they are very good problem-solvers. Besides, juniors are on track with all the newest technologies, digital tools and innovations, and they are eager to share their knowledge with older colleagues.
Naturally, juniors push mediors and seniors to teach them the profession. More experienced team members develop themselves by repeating knowledge and explaining procedures to juniors. Sometimes this even happens unconsciously. Seniors start to understand procedures even better after presenting them multiple times to juniors. All this speeds up the team’s daily work and increases efficiency.
At Boldare, we are not afraid of hiring juniors - we have noticed their potential and their impact on our organization. We consider it a long-term investment. Moreover, finding and recruiting an experienced senior requires much more resources (time and money) than finding and educating a junior specialist with little experience (but high potential!).
For young employees who do not have rich work experience, entering an organization like Boldare is a great opportunity for quick development. Their openness and eagerness to learn new skills helps them reach a higher level of seniority within just a few months. Day by day, they become more comfortable with proposing their own product solutions. At Boldare, they can develop an attitude of courage, a sense of responsibility, and a need for constant self-development. With time, they become ready to make their own product decisions.
Juniors in interdisciplinary teams
Hiring juniors is probably the best way to maintain interdisciplinarity. At Boldare, we balance the distribution of staff seniority throughout the entire organization. We aim to hold the following ratio of staff experience levels employed for dev roles:
- 35% juniors
- 40% mediors
- 25% seniors
By dev roles we mean: front-end and back-end developers, full-stack developers, DevOps, QA engineers, designers, and scrum masters. Apart from juniors, mediors and seniors, we also distinguish one more seniority level: experts. Experts are experienced seniors with a good knowledge of our organization and orientation in Boldare’s business specifics. They support product teams with their expertise when needed.
We believe that junior developers can grow faster with access to knowledge, good practices (like code reviews or design reviews) and everyday feedback from their more experienced workmates.
Recruiting juniors - the process
Verifying juniors’ competences and motivation
When recruiting juniors to Boldare, we follow quite a demanding selection process. Our recruiters are not just recruitment professionals, they are IT recruitment specialists. They know this industry and they deeply analyze each received application. After choosing the best CVs, they schedule phone interviews and conduct screenings to check candidates’ levels of motivation, openness, and cultural fit with Boldare. This stage of the recruitment process is crucial for the juniors’ future fit and cooperation with the team, the whole organization and its business partners. It verifies:
- technical competences
- tools and knowledge
- project experience
- ability to work directly with product owners and/or stakeholders
- knowledge of Scrum principles
- level of English (fluent communication in English is a key factor in direct communication between our teams and our clients’ teams)
When recruiting junior developers and automation testers, we check candidates’ ability to use certain frameworks and programming languages. Scrum masters on the other hand, need to answer some questions about Scrum and the processes that should take place in a scrum team. We often use the expertise of our in-house seniors to verify candidates’ competences. For example, we ask our senior designers to review the portfolios of junior designer applicants.
Verifying technical skills
After a phone interview, we invite selected candidates to the next stage of recruitment, the technical interview. For about 60-90 minutes they talk with our recruiter (someone from the Talent Selection team) and technical recruiters (a senior or medior working in the same role the candidate is applying for). Before taking part in recruitment, technical recruiters go through special training to know exactly what to take into account when verifying candidates’ technical skills and seniority.
During the interview, our recruiters present specific aspects of working for Boldare - they familiarize candidates with our organizational culture, values, and Boldare’s approach towards building customer relations. They aim to give candidates enough knowledge so they can make a conscious decision to join Boldare. Fitting junior candidates into Boldare’s culture is crucial here. Juniors who feel at home in our holacratic organizational structure quickly develop new soft and hard skills.
Onboarding for junior developers
A well-constructed onboarding process can significantly influence juniors’ performance and speed up their development. The sooner they feel comfortable with the new work environment, the faster they develop new competencies and acquire knowledge from their senior workmates. This is why we created a three-month onboarding process that consists of the following:
- onboarding to holacracy
- onboarding to the organization
- onboarding to frameworks
- onboarding to roles
- onboarding to the product
During onboarding, juniors get a lot of feedback from their closest co-workers. They go through feedback sessions at least three times throughout the onboarding period. They get feedback about their work, engagement, progress, etc. At the end of the process, they also go through a technical verification. It turns out that the three-month onboarding process significantly raises juniors’ technical skills, so they are better prepared for future challenges.
Juniors in the product teams
Boldare’s teams work in a very specific manner: they are self-sufficient, self-organized, and self-managed. They use the scrum framework and are highly interdisciplinary. They are capable of addressing all customers’ needs. Junior talents are integrated into those teams, so in a relatively short period of time they become mediors, and then seniors. They get all possible support from their more experienced team members, but they can also use so-called technology chapters - internal communities that gather solutions to common problems and share them with product teams in need. The technology chapters have access to almost two decades of company experience, so they know how to resolve any problematic issues.
Juniors in the organization
In holacratic organizations there are so-called circles - teams created for different purposes. At Boldare, we have one special circle dedicated to juniors working in various product roles (for example, designers, developers, testers, etc.) In this community, they can develop their skills under the constant supervision of their senior colleagues who are always ready to support them or provide necessary feedback. The circle is also a space for them to become more independent in their daily duties and to stretch their muscles proactively.
At Boldare, we apply the same hourly rate for juniors and seniors (flat rate). We think juniors’ input is worth no less than seniors’ work, and we guarantee the same high quality of product design and development - regardless of the team members’ seniority.
Does hiring juniors pay off?
We invest money and time in the recruitment, onboarding and development of juniors. Our experience shows that in a company like Boldare - with a holacratic organizational structure, and a culture of feedback and knowledge sharing - it’s absolutely worth it. Once juniors find the fertile ground for growth, and proper energy that nourishes them, they flower much sooner than anybody expects, and they often become the most loyal and effective product team members.
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