Is framework knowledge essential?

Last Update: 01.05.2018. By Jens in Developers Life | Learning | Newsletter

I got a couple of responses to yesterdays email saying that framework knowledge isn’t that important and you can pick that always up on the go as a reasonably skilled dev. So, if the job required Spring Boot you could still get it without knowing Spring Boot beforehand if you are skilled enough aka a good dev.

I partly agree with that. Yet, the situation is more complex than that.

Sure. You can always learn a new skill and sometimes it is even best learned with doing in a real project where you are forced to learn quickly. However, it does take time and other devs are needed in helping you out. It’s the classical way you learn in a consultancy. They sell you as an expert and you must learn on the job without anyone noticing. Still, someone has to pay for the time and humans to train you. And here it’s getting interesting.

A big corp like Google doesn’t care about that time, humans and thus money. They can see it as an investment.

A small company or even a startup does not have the room for that. They usually need results fast. The new dev needs to be productive asap. The more you know beforehand, the better. Imagine you run a small company and hire a new dev without the framework skill and he needs weeks to speed up with the framework; besides the usual on-boarding stuff. Would you be happy with your pick? Or would you think “should better have hired one with the framework skill”?

It depends.

It depends a lot on the size of the company, what kind of work they do and learning and hiring culture in general.

But if I had to choose between two devs with almost equal skills and both fit in but one has framework advantages, there’s a high chance I’d pick the one with the framework skill.