seems like a chicken and egg problem
how are senior engineers supposed to be created if very few companies are willing to train junior engineers? Why aren't these companies offering paid apprenticeships if they are so desperate for workers?
how are senior engineers supposed to be created if very few companies are willing to train junior engineers? Why aren't these companies offering paid apprenticeships if they are so desperate for workers?
As a plumber, you pay your apprentice usually 60% sr/journyman salary with a 5% increase every 6 months to match the value of the skill up.
There are also industry standard, industry funded classroom settings, that teach things like building codes and industry standards and some adjacent trade craft.
Instead you just throw a Jr to an overworked mid/Sr and they can help with some design and questions and code review but that takes 10-20 hours per week so you have to pretty much have one or more per Jr. Position. Then, after 18 months when the Jr hasn't received a 15% pay raise to reflect the enormous amount of time an knowledge you've sucked out of a Sr position, they go elsewhere for a 20% raise and it looks like you've waisted your time.
In truth, it wastes the talent you've built to not be aggressively increasing their comp to match the skill increase you're providing.
Having a base of expected/certified knowledge would take a lot of that away.
I'm not really sure how you test for a base level of that, besides proven demonstration on your resume and doing semi-correlated coding quizzes.
This is why we don't have a base of expected knowledge in the field and why we do strange coding tests to try to guess if someone is competent.
The issue is that we don't quantify what hiring someone actually costs. We're willing to spend $20k on finding a candidate for 160k yet the people in the same position are sitting at 120k and getting a 3-4% raise.
The new person needs time so expect at least a month of training, yet no one quantifies that as well.
I'm fine with an annual cost of living adjustment once I get to a SR level because I'm not increasing skill at a rapid pace, I'm exercising my skill in the expected way. For a Jr path, that doesn't make sense. getting a cost of living adjustment and being twice as good as you were last year means you're a flight risk and that will cost the company more than just paying people what they are worth.
But industry standard groups, unions, people who have a vested interest in having a supply of quality labor so they can do business. Some of the classes are sponsored (especially in smaller places where there's not enough support) and in return, they get to train you on a specific product or just hang a banner and give you a 10% tools coupon.