I can't help but feel you're missing the elephant in the room: this isn't about hating interns, it's about money. Hiring an intern, even without any pay, costs a company money because it means other people are coaching the intern and thus producing less output than they would be otherwise. Right now there is little money going around in the market so companies have less space to take on interns. When money is cheaper again, expect to see more openings like that.
Wow, it’s got this bad? Seems like a race to the bottom at this point, without training youngsters how are new generations supposed to get into the industry?
That was my mindset until I started venturing and running side hustles and understood the point: money.
Understanding how a business works will help you better position yourself as an engineer. Even Posthog believes that candidates who have entrepreneurial background have higher chances at launching products.
Engineering is the only field where you can learn without having "an official job". That's why a portfolio is always asked before jumping in interviews.
> lack drive and take longer PTO and their work isn't really that adequate.
People sometimes come to realize important things when they mature. This may include insights like "there's a life happening outside work waiting to be lived". Or acquiring a better sense where it pays to spend time and energy for maximum effect and where it is wasted.
> Blaming interns or junior engineers for simple mistakes, which the senior which also should have seen.
Juniors making simple mistakes really doesn't rhyme with the rest of what you said. Are they
a) Brilliant people, able to replace seniors while being paid a pittance for working their ass off?
or
b) Actually inexperienced and still have to learn a lot until their output has the required quality?
> Not training interns or junior engineers to become senior and be given more responsibility
Any junior waiting to be taken by the hand and shown the path to greatness through careful and detailed tutoring by colleagues I can recommend only one thing: Learn to learn by yourself. Fast. Your colleagues are busy with their own work and tutoring you very often has very little bearing on their current goals, compensation or career prospects. It is thus one of these areas where they have learned not to spend much time and energy. (Though some people have strong altruistic tendencies and/or find it satisfying to mentor and teach, but that's an intrinsic motivation which is either there or it isn't. When you run into someone like that: Lucky you!)
On a more calculating note: As you have let on that you think juniors are viable replacements for senior while being cheaper, the seniors might not be very motivated to bring their replacements up to speed...
> we are all aware of the bus factor here
As an employee, that's generally not much of a concern.
> All the while where some really smart interns or junior engineers come out of prestigious institutions
I suggest you attempt to hire them. I wish you the best of luck!
> I am a senior engineering manager looking to take on interns.
Do it. It's going to be a valuable learning opportunity for everyone involved. Including you.
You hire juniors on potential, seniors to fix a gap. Right now, 90% of hiring is focused on plugging gaps in the next 6 months - that's just where we are in the cycle.
As to why we're here, I think it's obvious at this point that tech massively overhired between 2016 and 2022.
Finally, the growth areas haven't completely disappeared, they've just shifted. If you're a junior right now, you should be getting into ML or something, not webdev. Plenty of entry level roles in ML.
Blaming junior engineers and interns is bad engineering culture. I'm sorry if that's the case you are experiencing.
As for the stigma against junior engineers, from my personal experience in mostly early start ups programming boot camps really poisoned the well. A lot of us were flooded with very poor candidates that had really flashy portfolios and a ton of marketing and generally some favorable contacts and vcs promoting them. Most of them were terrible, often with extremely little passion for their craft.
There were obviously exceptions and I've worked with one that was phenomenal, but the whole schooling systems pitch to me was that it onboarded capable people that just needed an intro to the tech and systems, when in reality most were just folks with money trying to buy their way quickly into an industry that was desperate for more manpower.
I'm sorry for these bad experiences. I don't think I have seen these myself, it's either that I have been lucky, or an issue with culture where you are.
There is definitely a trend where people get titles because of their age rather than talent, motivation or passion (it's what I call having 20y experience vs. having 20x 1y of experience).
I don't think juniors are all rosy either. There's a percentage of bad people in any profession, that as I feel it is relatively stable over the years.
When it comes to disdain, I don't know what you experienced so its hard to answer in a specific wat. One thing I have verified is that shit rolls down: The higher you are in the hierarchy, the easiest it is to just pass on the stuff you don't want to handle or the blame downward. Likely, in larger organizations where politics matter more for your career than skills or accomplishments, it is more important to show yourself up than being helpful down. It's kind of like when you're in line: you only see other people's back. For sure that can fill like disdain, because it is, but I would think it's not necessarily targeted at juniors, but more of a "normal" up to down relationship in places that evolved so, where people in power have little incentive to change the game that got them where they are. Best is to stay away from these, unless you are either good at or enjoy this game.
So my advice would be that it's probably local to where you work, and to find somewhere that isn't like that.
Six years ago you were a student applying for your first job and now you're a "senior engineering manager"? You barely have enough experience to be a senior engineer. What a joke. Nice post.
I run a startup, we're moving fast and growing fast. If you aren't already one of the best in the world, we don't have time to train you up or guide you.
We are all swamped with work, and the team moves together well because we can all depend on our teammates to get things done at a world class level.
No space or time for juniors. Stakes are too high.
> No space or time for juniors. Stakes are too high.
High stakes doing what? Are you working on something important like global communications networks critical to space flight operations or something like safety-critical systems that will save lives?
High stakes keeping up with organic growth. Doesn't matter what. The business would be a lot less successful and growing a lot slower if juniors were around, even if they paid us to be there.
you know, in 2014 i did mentor 10 people (newbies, either from college, or switching professions) into software domain, in Ericsson/Ireland, for few months. It was great fun, and they are all seniors now - about half still in Ericsson.
BUT.. ever since then i have been looking for another gig like that, to no avail.
Esp. recently, it seems the "new" idea is that programmers grow on trees anyway.
Go figure..
> BUT.. ever since then i have been looking for another gig like that, to no avail.
I just mentor people whether the larger org wants me to or not. I'm running a programming class for my colleagues whose backgrounds are weak. Either fresh out of college and never worked on anything big, or worked as engineers but never developers. It's very common in aerospace for EEs to end up as developers despite their lack of knowledge around programming and CS.
I just slotted out 1 hour every two weeks and invited people. Now I've got some of them writing tools on their own where they previously would have needed more assistance. Ths is the first time I've done classes rather than more one-on-one style, but regardless of the style, if a manager complains I just ignore it. What are they going to do? Fire me for building up the team and making everyone more competent, capable, and independent?
That mentoring gig shaped my python-essentials-course - about 4-7 sessions, with them homework exercises - which i have been teaching to various people since then (about ~80ppl so far, in maybe 15 points in time). Only 2-3 times did i manage to sell it and get some money. All others has been either for near-free, or within the company i have been working in - for free as well. Not even kudos from management or whatever. Once even got a warning "not to waste people's time".
You know, if someone does something anyway because s/he loves it, why pay for that? "Long term" answer is - because you want that to be available again, but IMO "long term" has fallen out-of-fashion, in software making, or even in general.
And this is what it is all about as they are now seniors, I'm sure startups are now vying for their experience. (even though they probably cannot afford them anyway)
A lot of times junior engineer positions are simply stepping stones to better positions at other companies. Junior engineers take a lot more time and investment before they become positive EV for the team. In tech especially people job hop frequently, which means that the average EV for a junior engineer can be very low or even negative.
As phrased it's not really a fair question. It starts from an assumption that there is hate and disdain for juniors without evidence, and then proceeds to hate on senior engineers for things like, you know, having health issues or taking vacations they're entitled to per their contracts.
If he doesn't want people to take PTO, don't give them PTO. If he wants to discriminate because of health issues, he should probably get a good lawyer.
I didn't flag this, but it's so poorly written that it's not surprising.
OP writes in response to one of the comments: "I'm sorry for climbing up the ranks quickly and successfully convincing my boss for a raise and a promotion."
Gives me the impression that senior engineers resent OP's career progression at his workplace. Hence OP's disdain for not getting enough respect.
Maybe they resent him, but he seems too unpleasant to resent. He frames taking long PTO (presumably contractually permitted) as a bad thing, if I had a manager like that I wouldn't resent them, but I wouldn't respect them either.
Okay thank you, makes sense. I am however been thinking that there are rarely any junior jobs. I guess that boils down to capitalism. It probably isn't worth hiring unless people are at a certain level.
Recruitment is pretty binary in that sense and given the nature of our work, I don't blame them either.
I have never personally observed this. And every time I’ve seen an individual claim such things when thinking of themselves there were glaring red flags.
honestly the "start your own business" trope is irresponsibly bad advice:
- people seeking jobs often dont have disposable income especially those fresh out of school or minimal YOE
- tremendous time and energy for a low probability outcome
- many do not have the aptitude for running a business which require a high degree of planning and execution, soft skills
I know this is a startup focused website so its natural to suggest go out and build an app or raise money but the selection/survival bias is often not considered.
The vast majority of people will either need to switch careers or industries altogether. The fact is LLM code generation has eaten those junior/intermediate roles and soon the same will happen to senior developers as well.
What we are seeing is the same thing blue collar jobs experienced in the 90s where their jobs were outsourced/automated to labour markets in authoritarian countries except this time its outsourcing to a small group of corporations.
I wouldn't say starting your own business is bad advice, I think it's a great idea as those who do it gain experience running a business, risk, capital allocation, etc.
Sure AI is coming for some jobs, but I would say it is ideal to start young, make mistakes quickly, learn adapt etc, rather than don't do a business, start a family and you cannot take any risks, after all I am talking about highly ambitious and smart juniors so it is a path they can take if they want to.
I will happily and gladly hire anyone who is better than me! Most good people I know are similar. It takes a special kind of a petty person to feel threatened by someone else being good.
If this happens to you, consider it dodging a bullet. I've had the chance to work with and help manage some extremely bright junior folks, and a good team knows it's a privilege to help them grow and reap the fruits of their talent.
I’ve not personally witnessed a hatred of juniors. But the market is flooded with solid senior talent that it’s put the squeeze on junior roles. Which has some very bad long term consequences.
Mentoring and leveling up juniors is expensive and time consuming. And you really need to build a team and work environment that supports them. When teams are under the gun to deliver it’s a very easy thing to drop the ball on.
I haven't seen any hatred or disdain for juniors per se, but I've definitely heard flat out "We're not interested in hiring any juniors". Or the juniors that are hired are tossed in the deep end and expected to perform on par with a mature team. The subtext is their business/tech is so complex that they can't afford to train someone. It's incredibly short-sighted and unsustainable but lots of managers don't care about investing anything for the long term.
> All the while where some really smart interns or junior engineers come out of prestigious institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc), with a stunning body of work and can absolutely run rings around engineers that are called 'senior' in title only and don't have a body of work to show when they leave.
I've hired interns and juniors at my past three positions, from various educational backgrounds including ivy leagues and ivy-adjacent schools (UCLA, CMU, for instance) over the course of the last ~5 years, and I'll give an opposing anecdote.
A lot of people who attend elite institutions are able to do so because they've been groomed from a very young age to have a given trajectory in life. Their entire existence and sense of self-worth seem to be predicted by "prestige" and being better than someone else.
This typically translates into someone who is very difficult to work with, especially when it comes to interns.
The "I'm clearly better than you because I attend $school" attitude, typically coupled with real-world industry naiveté leads to a real "I'm gonna change the world because I'm so special" Spongebob-esque archetype of person. Insufferable to work with, impossible to manage, always off spinning their wheels on something not at all aligned to what the business really needs. Ignore direction, ignore technical architecture, because they assume they know better.
I've also found that they don't really care all that much about their internships, because in their mind's eye, they're the "main character" and they're surely going to move on to something great because they'll be a $school alumnus.
They also tend to not be particularly well-rounded individuals. No hobbies, varying degrees of social ineptitude, anti-social competitive behaviors due to where they attend school.
I really could not care less about a "body of work", I care that you have some aptitude, passion, and are bearable to be around for >= 40 hours/week.
I get your point about senior engineers, a lot of people tend to mentally clock out and settle into their ways, no longer wanting to go above and beyond, typically because they have families, friends, hobbies, and no longer want to participate in a game where there are no winners.
But a clocked-out senior engineer who does the bare minimum, but understands how the business works will still be an order of magnitude more valuable than some $school intern.
> Of course, everyone is different, but I don't get the obsession with not giving very bright and talented juniors a chance even though they are more likely to be cheaper than seniors.
Unless you're working at some cutting-edge startup, businesses don't value merit, really, they care that you understand process, business needs, and the quickest path to execution to ensure continuous revenue.
Interns can be great, or horrendous, and I've personally found there to be an inverse correlation to how good the school they attended is to how useful they actually are in real industry terms. It's simply a trial period for both parties with the ideal outcome being they become a full-time hire once they finish their degree.
When money is tight, as it is now, there's simply no point in taking on individuals who will effectively be a burden for potentially months before delivering any real value.
Regarding your bus factor comment, businesses hedge that senior+ engineers will not be willing to shoulder the risk of job hopping in a shoddy economy, so there's really no concern from that angle of needing to "backfill" with junior engineers who will grow.
This will all get better when money begins flowing more freely again. Just a function of time.
> ...senior engineer who ... understands how the business works will still be an order of magnitude more valuable than some $school intern.
The essential value of domain knowledge and experience are under-estimated by educators. The ability to produce leet-code is no substitute for years of experience at the coalface. In my experience, 90% of established business systems coding is to handling exceptions and special cases. No programming course can prepare you for that.
I can't help but feel you're missing the elephant in the room: this isn't about hating interns, it's about money. Hiring an intern, even without any pay, costs a company money because it means other people are coaching the intern and thus producing less output than they would be otherwise. Right now there is little money going around in the market so companies have less space to take on interns. When money is cheaper again, expect to see more openings like that.
Wow, it’s got this bad? Seems like a race to the bottom at this point, without training youngsters how are new generations supposed to get into the industry?
That was my mindset until I started venturing and running side hustles and understood the point: money.
Understanding how a business works will help you better position yourself as an engineer. Even Posthog believes that candidates who have entrepreneurial background have higher chances at launching products.
Engineering is the only field where you can learn without having "an official job". That's why a portfolio is always asked before jumping in interviews.
Same way as the generations did before interns became a thing, perhaps.
An intern program is a recruiting pipeline, plain and simple. If you're cutting back, that'll be an early thing to go.
Plus, if you believe in AI-driven coding, the intern-quality code is just a few prompts away. So become a senior prompter.
I can imagine that training only leads to bearing fruit in other companies if the junior/intern decides to leave.
> lack drive and take longer PTO and their work isn't really that adequate.
People sometimes come to realize important things when they mature. This may include insights like "there's a life happening outside work waiting to be lived". Or acquiring a better sense where it pays to spend time and energy for maximum effect and where it is wasted.
> Blaming interns or junior engineers for simple mistakes, which the senior which also should have seen.
Juniors making simple mistakes really doesn't rhyme with the rest of what you said. Are they
a) Brilliant people, able to replace seniors while being paid a pittance for working their ass off?
or
b) Actually inexperienced and still have to learn a lot until their output has the required quality?
> Not training interns or junior engineers to become senior and be given more responsibility
Any junior waiting to be taken by the hand and shown the path to greatness through careful and detailed tutoring by colleagues I can recommend only one thing: Learn to learn by yourself. Fast. Your colleagues are busy with their own work and tutoring you very often has very little bearing on their current goals, compensation or career prospects. It is thus one of these areas where they have learned not to spend much time and energy. (Though some people have strong altruistic tendencies and/or find it satisfying to mentor and teach, but that's an intrinsic motivation which is either there or it isn't. When you run into someone like that: Lucky you!)
On a more calculating note: As you have let on that you think juniors are viable replacements for senior while being cheaper, the seniors might not be very motivated to bring their replacements up to speed...
> we are all aware of the bus factor here
As an employee, that's generally not much of a concern.
> All the while where some really smart interns or junior engineers come out of prestigious institutions
I suggest you attempt to hire them. I wish you the best of luck!
> I am a senior engineering manager looking to take on interns.
Do it. It's going to be a valuable learning opportunity for everyone involved. Including you.
You hire juniors on potential, seniors to fix a gap. Right now, 90% of hiring is focused on plugging gaps in the next 6 months - that's just where we are in the cycle.
As to why we're here, I think it's obvious at this point that tech massively overhired between 2016 and 2022.
Finally, the growth areas haven't completely disappeared, they've just shifted. If you're a junior right now, you should be getting into ML or something, not webdev. Plenty of entry level roles in ML.
Blaming junior engineers and interns is bad engineering culture. I'm sorry if that's the case you are experiencing.
As for the stigma against junior engineers, from my personal experience in mostly early start ups programming boot camps really poisoned the well. A lot of us were flooded with very poor candidates that had really flashy portfolios and a ton of marketing and generally some favorable contacts and vcs promoting them. Most of them were terrible, often with extremely little passion for their craft.
There were obviously exceptions and I've worked with one that was phenomenal, but the whole schooling systems pitch to me was that it onboarded capable people that just needed an intro to the tech and systems, when in reality most were just folks with money trying to buy their way quickly into an industry that was desperate for more manpower.
I'm sorry for these bad experiences. I don't think I have seen these myself, it's either that I have been lucky, or an issue with culture where you are.
There is definitely a trend where people get titles because of their age rather than talent, motivation or passion (it's what I call having 20y experience vs. having 20x 1y of experience).
I don't think juniors are all rosy either. There's a percentage of bad people in any profession, that as I feel it is relatively stable over the years.
When it comes to disdain, I don't know what you experienced so its hard to answer in a specific wat. One thing I have verified is that shit rolls down: The higher you are in the hierarchy, the easiest it is to just pass on the stuff you don't want to handle or the blame downward. Likely, in larger organizations where politics matter more for your career than skills or accomplishments, it is more important to show yourself up than being helpful down. It's kind of like when you're in line: you only see other people's back. For sure that can fill like disdain, because it is, but I would think it's not necessarily targeted at juniors, but more of a "normal" up to down relationship in places that evolved so, where people in power have little incentive to change the game that got them where they are. Best is to stay away from these, unless you are either good at or enjoy this game.
So my advice would be that it's probably local to where you work, and to find somewhere that isn't like that.
Six years ago you were a student applying for your first job and now you're a "senior engineering manager"? You barely have enough experience to be a senior engineer. What a joke. Nice post.
I'm sorry for climbing up the ranks quickly and successfully convincing my boss for a raise and a promotion.
He who dares and all that.
No. You're still a cub.
I run a startup, we're moving fast and growing fast. If you aren't already one of the best in the world, we don't have time to train you up or guide you.
We are all swamped with work, and the team moves together well because we can all depend on our teammates to get things done at a world class level.
No space or time for juniors. Stakes are too high.
Moving fast is a euphemism for don’t know what you’re doing.
All startups operate in unknown territory. If you know what you are doing, you're in an already established industry.
Such short term thinking is the sign of the greatest wisdom.
We aren't building the next generation we're building a successful statup.
> No space or time for juniors. Stakes are too high.
High stakes doing what? Are you working on something important like global communications networks critical to space flight operations or something like safety-critical systems that will save lives?
High stakes keeping up with organic growth. Doesn't matter what. The business would be a lot less successful and growing a lot slower if juniors were around, even if they paid us to be there.
> High stakes doing what?
Like most grifters: AI
No, it's not an AI company.
you know, in 2014 i did mentor 10 people (newbies, either from college, or switching professions) into software domain, in Ericsson/Ireland, for few months. It was great fun, and they are all seniors now - about half still in Ericsson.
BUT.. ever since then i have been looking for another gig like that, to no avail.
Esp. recently, it seems the "new" idea is that programmers grow on trees anyway. Go figure..
> BUT.. ever since then i have been looking for another gig like that, to no avail.
I just mentor people whether the larger org wants me to or not. I'm running a programming class for my colleagues whose backgrounds are weak. Either fresh out of college and never worked on anything big, or worked as engineers but never developers. It's very common in aerospace for EEs to end up as developers despite their lack of knowledge around programming and CS.
I just slotted out 1 hour every two weeks and invited people. Now I've got some of them writing tools on their own where they previously would have needed more assistance. Ths is the first time I've done classes rather than more one-on-one style, but regardless of the style, if a manager complains I just ignore it. What are they going to do? Fire me for building up the team and making everyone more competent, capable, and independent?
That mentoring gig shaped my python-essentials-course - about 4-7 sessions, with them homework exercises - which i have been teaching to various people since then (about ~80ppl so far, in maybe 15 points in time). Only 2-3 times did i manage to sell it and get some money. All others has been either for near-free, or within the company i have been working in - for free as well. Not even kudos from management or whatever. Once even got a warning "not to waste people's time".
You know, if someone does something anyway because s/he loves it, why pay for that? "Long term" answer is - because you want that to be available again, but IMO "long term" has fallen out-of-fashion, in software making, or even in general.
ah. have fun
My respect to you. Mentorship of others and seeing them thrive is a great feeling of success.
And this is what it is all about as they are now seniors, I'm sure startups are now vying for their experience. (even though they probably cannot afford them anyway)
But great job!
A lot of times junior engineer positions are simply stepping stones to better positions at other companies. Junior engineers take a lot more time and investment before they become positive EV for the team. In tech especially people job hop frequently, which means that the average EV for a junior engineer can be very low or even negative.
Why would it be flagged? Yes I have not seen any junior positions in a long while TBH.
Isn't it a fair question?
As phrased it's not really a fair question. It starts from an assumption that there is hate and disdain for juniors without evidence, and then proceeds to hate on senior engineers for things like, you know, having health issues or taking vacations they're entitled to per their contracts.
If he doesn't want people to take PTO, don't give them PTO. If he wants to discriminate because of health issues, he should probably get a good lawyer.
I didn't flag this, but it's so poorly written that it's not surprising.
OP writes in response to one of the comments: "I'm sorry for climbing up the ranks quickly and successfully convincing my boss for a raise and a promotion."
Gives me the impression that senior engineers resent OP's career progression at his workplace. Hence OP's disdain for not getting enough respect.
Maybe they resent him, but he seems too unpleasant to resent. He frames taking long PTO (presumably contractually permitted) as a bad thing, if I had a manager like that I wouldn't resent them, but I wouldn't respect them either.
Okay thank you, makes sense. I am however been thinking that there are rarely any junior jobs. I guess that boils down to capitalism. It probably isn't worth hiring unless people are at a certain level.
Recruitment is pretty binary in that sense and given the nature of our work, I don't blame them either.
I’ve learned that in a job interview if you are too impressive relative to the team they don’t hire you. Seems no one wants to hire their replacement.
Starting your own business is hard, but it is the next best option if you haven’t found the right place to work.
I have never personally observed this. And every time I’ve seen an individual claim such things when thinking of themselves there were glaring red flags.
honestly the "start your own business" trope is irresponsibly bad advice:
- people seeking jobs often dont have disposable income especially those fresh out of school or minimal YOE
- tremendous time and energy for a low probability outcome
- many do not have the aptitude for running a business which require a high degree of planning and execution, soft skills
I know this is a startup focused website so its natural to suggest go out and build an app or raise money but the selection/survival bias is often not considered.
The vast majority of people will either need to switch careers or industries altogether. The fact is LLM code generation has eaten those junior/intermediate roles and soon the same will happen to senior developers as well.
What we are seeing is the same thing blue collar jobs experienced in the 90s where their jobs were outsourced/automated to labour markets in authoritarian countries except this time its outsourcing to a small group of corporations.
I wouldn't say starting your own business is bad advice, I think it's a great idea as those who do it gain experience running a business, risk, capital allocation, etc.
Sure AI is coming for some jobs, but I would say it is ideal to start young, make mistakes quickly, learn adapt etc, rather than don't do a business, start a family and you cannot take any risks, after all I am talking about highly ambitious and smart juniors so it is a path they can take if they want to.
I will happily and gladly hire anyone who is better than me! Most good people I know are similar. It takes a special kind of a petty person to feel threatened by someone else being good.
If this happens to you, consider it dodging a bullet. I've had the chance to work with and help manage some extremely bright junior folks, and a good team knows it's a privilege to help them grow and reap the fruits of their talent.
I’ve not personally witnessed a hatred of juniors. But the market is flooded with solid senior talent that it’s put the squeeze on junior roles. Which has some very bad long term consequences.
Mentoring and leveling up juniors is expensive and time consuming. And you really need to build a team and work environment that supports them. When teams are under the gun to deliver it’s a very easy thing to drop the ball on.
It sounds like you have a dim view of your seniors.
Why not fire them before they leave anyway, and replace them with your cheaper smarter harder-working juniors?
I haven't seen any hatred or disdain for juniors per se, but I've definitely heard flat out "We're not interested in hiring any juniors". Or the juniors that are hired are tossed in the deep end and expected to perform on par with a mature team. The subtext is their business/tech is so complex that they can't afford to train someone. It's incredibly short-sighted and unsustainable but lots of managers don't care about investing anything for the long term.
> All the while where some really smart interns or junior engineers come out of prestigious institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc), with a stunning body of work and can absolutely run rings around engineers that are called 'senior' in title only and don't have a body of work to show when they leave.
I've hired interns and juniors at my past three positions, from various educational backgrounds including ivy leagues and ivy-adjacent schools (UCLA, CMU, for instance) over the course of the last ~5 years, and I'll give an opposing anecdote.
A lot of people who attend elite institutions are able to do so because they've been groomed from a very young age to have a given trajectory in life. Their entire existence and sense of self-worth seem to be predicted by "prestige" and being better than someone else.
This typically translates into someone who is very difficult to work with, especially when it comes to interns.
The "I'm clearly better than you because I attend $school" attitude, typically coupled with real-world industry naiveté leads to a real "I'm gonna change the world because I'm so special" Spongebob-esque archetype of person. Insufferable to work with, impossible to manage, always off spinning their wheels on something not at all aligned to what the business really needs. Ignore direction, ignore technical architecture, because they assume they know better.
I've also found that they don't really care all that much about their internships, because in their mind's eye, they're the "main character" and they're surely going to move on to something great because they'll be a $school alumnus.
They also tend to not be particularly well-rounded individuals. No hobbies, varying degrees of social ineptitude, anti-social competitive behaviors due to where they attend school.
I really could not care less about a "body of work", I care that you have some aptitude, passion, and are bearable to be around for >= 40 hours/week.
I get your point about senior engineers, a lot of people tend to mentally clock out and settle into their ways, no longer wanting to go above and beyond, typically because they have families, friends, hobbies, and no longer want to participate in a game where there are no winners.
But a clocked-out senior engineer who does the bare minimum, but understands how the business works will still be an order of magnitude more valuable than some $school intern.
> Of course, everyone is different, but I don't get the obsession with not giving very bright and talented juniors a chance even though they are more likely to be cheaper than seniors.
Unless you're working at some cutting-edge startup, businesses don't value merit, really, they care that you understand process, business needs, and the quickest path to execution to ensure continuous revenue.
Interns can be great, or horrendous, and I've personally found there to be an inverse correlation to how good the school they attended is to how useful they actually are in real industry terms. It's simply a trial period for both parties with the ideal outcome being they become a full-time hire once they finish their degree.
When money is tight, as it is now, there's simply no point in taking on individuals who will effectively be a burden for potentially months before delivering any real value.
Regarding your bus factor comment, businesses hedge that senior+ engineers will not be willing to shoulder the risk of job hopping in a shoddy economy, so there's really no concern from that angle of needing to "backfill" with junior engineers who will grow.
This will all get better when money begins flowing more freely again. Just a function of time.
> ...senior engineer who ... understands how the business works will still be an order of magnitude more valuable than some $school intern.
The essential value of domain knowledge and experience are under-estimated by educators. The ability to produce leet-code is no substitute for years of experience at the coalface. In my experience, 90% of established business systems coding is to handling exceptions and special cases. No programming course can prepare you for that.