I think that getting a good junior engineer experience is rare and hard unless you start and land in the exact right place. If you attend Stanford or Harvard and your CS professor is a friend of someone VP-level in your company, then you'll still be "junior"-- at market-fair entry-level rates-- but you're going to be groomed to grow quickly and have a lot of freedom to travel the organization as you look for a fit that matches your talents and will enable you to rise quickly. If you're anyone else, your junior programmer years are every-person-for-him/herself and unless you fight hard (and job hop) you will get stuck doing the dreck that no one wants to do, that you don't learn from, and that shits all over your career.
At Google, if you attended Stanford and landed in the Mt. View office (the office being more important than the school) there was, even when I was there, a decent chance of getting a legit SWE-2/SWE-3 experience that would train you to make more of yourself, and make promotions (up to Staff) basically ensured so you could focus your energy on actually learning and becoming a great engineer.
Yeah, I agree with you. My career started at MSFT long ago and gained good experience quickly...so if you happen to land at a top tech company, you'll get the right experience. I think this goes for almost any high-end career, too.
But as it is now, I see a lot of companies seeking Junior-level positions, but with big expectations and knowledge requirements. Everything except wanting to pay a proper salary.
At Google, if you attended Stanford and landed in the Mt. View office (the office being more important than the school) there was, even when I was there, a decent chance of getting a legit SWE-2/SWE-3 experience that would train you to make more of yourself, and make promotions (up to Staff) basically ensured so you could focus your energy on actually learning and becoming a great engineer.