Are companies hiring differently, or are we just defining the terms differently?
"Junior developer" used to refer to someone who can program but who doesn't have a lot of practical experience.
Today "junior developer" refers to someone who can't program but who has a CS degree or went to a bootcamp, and there are more of those today as a proportion of the talent pool than there have ever been.
I think this failure of academic institutions to teach practical skills is diluting the talent pool, causing companies to favor more experienced engineers because they've been getting burned and don't trust their own (or academic institutions') ability to determine in advance whether a candidate will be a productive programmer or not.
As far as I know, academic education is not meant to deliver practical skills, but rather theory and deeper understanding. CS degree is not a programming degree but the equivalent of theoretical physics.
It's become an unfortunate trend that the academy has somehow become stuck with the role of doing vocational education, rather than research and theory.
"Junior developer" used to refer to someone who can program but who doesn't have a lot of practical experience.
Today "junior developer" refers to someone who can't program but who has a CS degree or went to a bootcamp, and there are more of those today as a proportion of the talent pool than there have ever been.
I think this failure of academic institutions to teach practical skills is diluting the talent pool, causing companies to favor more experienced engineers because they've been getting burned and don't trust their own (or academic institutions') ability to determine in advance whether a candidate will be a productive programmer or not.