17

Just hired an entry level developer in my company. Just graduated. He doesn't know what is code debugging, does not know difference between IDE and text editor like atom.
He doesn't know what is Bootstrap and git.

Gave him a task in AngularJS 1. Gave him 3 weeks and a half time. Read data from webservice, show them in table, filter, sorting and show details per record (which is easy in AngularJS. I got the same task years ago and finished in 2 days after I finished my AngularJS 1 tutorials). He did not finish any of those.

I know I'm judging but come on. What have you done these three years university? Only partying? Have not bothered reading something online? FOR THREE YEARS?

P.S. I have learned everything myself. Coding, debugging, structuring etc. I've had the bad luck that my 2 first bosses and team leader used to tell me "Do not ask anyone for help here in the office. Google is your best friend." And he encourage all developers not to help each other.

Ad I am writing this, I told him to download and install PyCharm and get back to me. It's been one hour and I have not heard anything from him. 1 Hour to download and install something. Imagine how long will it take to do a task.
Even my girlfriend (Yes, I have one), who dislikes computers can do this.

That's why I'm so frustrated.

I am thinking of firing him. Or should I give him more time?
I mean, if he can not do a simple task only by showing data in a table (which he can find them on Google, worst case scenario, how can he do more complex code, structuring it, etc ?)

Comments
  • 10
    Mate, when I read your first paragraph I was going to ask you to give him more time and help him out even, because I remember my first internship I knew nothing, and a month later I could call myself a developer.

    However, after reading all the other paragraphs; you should fucking fire him.

    I mean, seriously. With this much time and someone as lenient as you, he should be able to do so much more.

    In fact, I believe he needs to be fired to know that he needs to change.
  • 10
    How's his attitude tho? Is he open to learning? Is he enthusiastic about developing? If yes, give him time and help him along. If no... you probablly have to fire him

    Who knows, maybe his teachers sucked or he had personal life issues or any number of other shit that has held him back. Give him a chance if he seems willing to learn
  • 2
    I agree for fire.
  • 2
    What if he is reading this rant ? 😋
  • 4
    @ViRaS You think he know what devRant is? When he does not know what bootstrap is. I would not be surprised if he calls HTML programming language.
  • 2
    @Froot He is quiet guy. I told him that if he needs something during development, some help, he can send me a message. He asked for my help only once.
  • 7
    Maybe he doesn't know what is going on try to have a one on one chat with him and see what is going through his head... It's probably lack of self confidence
  • 11
    @aldoblack I had a similar case here.
    It seemed the he was resistent to learning. At least he was sometimes asking for stuff.
    But after he asked me the fourth time the same thing about something absolutely basic (and since I´m not really a patient person, hell knows why I´m responsible for those guys) I told someone else to show him.
    But I thought to myself, maybe he still just need´s more time.

    After about half a year he still couldn´t do anything that was in any way important.
    But I still didn´t want to just throw him out.
    So I had a talk with him.
    Main question of the talk simply was, if he thinks he´s got the right job here.
    And that if he wants to stay that we expect something to change. Because currently he´s not doing anything productive.

    A month later he quit and it seems he has changed profession completely.
    I should have that talk with him a lot sooner.

    So I´d say you need a talk with him to find out.
  • 5
    I agree with the above dude. A talk is in place. I can get having a hard time with Angular.....for like 4 hours...but 3 weeks to do something that basic and not having it done? An hour installing pycharm? A talk is required because I get the feeling that he does not care about the job. Shit can be really toxic.
  • 4
    I have compassion for you.

    Being forced to learn everything by yourself is a sad story, but it kinda worked good for you.

    But thats not the way for everyone.

    I prefered learning from other developers, especially from their experiences, something where google is no replacement for.

    So a guided introduction to Git and stuff could improve the skillset for your new developer.
  • 5
    My question is why was he hired? He should have been screened out in the first 10 minutes of the interview.
  • 1
    @aldoblack True
    @ryanmhoffman Very True
  • 3
    In my call, as mentioned by others have 1 on 1. And may be tell him if he doesn't do it in another week, he will be fired. And then just check how he works. Generally, if he is introvert, it takes time to talk and ask doubts. Try to make him comfortable with you and if that fails, you got your last option -> 🔥
    It took me 3 months to come up with a really solid knowledge of tools and codebase my team was using during my internship.
Add Comment