Junior Developers Shouldn’t Need to Survive the Bench
Some years ago, I worked for one of the major IT consulting firms. A big one. No, not IBM.
You’ve forced it out of me
I worked for another consultancy “like” IBM.
It’s not an experience I would recommend.
I don’t actually feel that 100% of the blame should be laid at the company’s door in this case.
I think one thing caused a poor experience. One thing that I really hated as a junior developer. One thing that I’m astonished about is still part of our industry.
It’s the bench
The Bench
I’m serious. I thought The Bench would be something consigned to the past, like Dvorak keyboards or VIM.
Essentially the bench is the pool of employees who are not currently assigned to a billable project. Although they are not able to generate revenue in their current position the company requires a certain number of available employees in order to bid for work. Since employees on The Bench do not have to work between assignments they are often able to learn new skills for future projects.
Which makes sense for experienced employees, but for junior?
My Time On The Bench
I joined at a tricky time. There were a number of red projects and the company wished to cut costs which resulted in an empty stationary cabinet and many sad faces around the office.
After joining, I sat. I applied for jobs. I sat.
I remember I did try to kick off internal projects. As a junior employee, I remembered that nobody seemed to care. I applied for every possible job, but nobody seemed to care after internal rejection, came another internal rejection and another.
I thought, for basic junior coders this type of thing would stop happening.
Looks like no.
Employees' Perspectives on The Bench
There are some traditional advantages and disadvantages arguments about the bench.
Some employees even appreciate being on the bench and having time to learn skills that might increase their market value in the future. This seldom applies to juniors.
A junior might be soon out of university and therefore used to periods of study.
There is a difference, and that is the amount of support that employees can expect. If you give a Junior Bench Warmer no support, their output is going to be limited shall we say.
Junior Bench Warmers
When I sat on the bench I had no support at all. Yes, I had a machine to work on however that could only run Chrome running fans on climate change mode.
The constant rejection over months didn’t do my ego any good. Sitting with others on The Bench didn’t do my technical skills any good. The whole thing turned out over a year or two to be a waste of time.
No, I wasn’t on The Bench for a year or two. But it took too long to get real work and work experience done
To be honest, at my nascent technical skill level, I felt not wanted.
Practically forced out of the company, if you ask me
That sounds like hyperbole and perhaps is. What I’ll tell you is that I didn’t work for a consultancy for some years afterwards and had no wish to.
I practically thought about leaving the industry
Junior Bench Warmers: The Next Level
Things have changed, and after this amount of time, I would hope that would be the case. Then Deloitte decided to give us a free junior developer at work.
The support we offered them basically was 0. They followed some tutorials provided by the consultancy and sat for a few months.
They never raised a single PR
Even better (worse) one day they simply disappeared. I would have thought that they are still alive but essentially they *went* with no goodbye or really anything.
I think the handover represents their full value to the project, TBH