to add to this, id like standardization of qualification and competencies - kind of like a license so I don’t have to “demonstrate” myself during interviews.
I hate being in a candidate pool that all have a degree and experience, we all go through a grueling interview process on college basics, and the “best one gets picked.” Company says “our interview process works great, look at the great candidates we hire.” like, duh, your candidate pool was already full of qualified engineers with degrees/experience, what did you expect to happen?
I’m betting you aren’t involved in hiring? The number of engineers I’ve interviewed with graduate degrees from top universities who are fundamentally unable to actually write production quality code is mind-boggling. I would NEVER hire somebody without doing some panel with coding, architecture/systems design, and behavioral/social interviews.
This. I’ve had someone in my team that was completely self-taught with no relevant education that was a great dev.
I’ve also interviewed someone that supposedly had a master degree and a couple of certificates and couldn’t remember how to create a loop during the interview.
I don’t know how you could properly implement “standardization of qualification and competencies” without just min-maxing it in a way that favors academics
good question. Software and computer practices are changing much faster than other fields but with time, pillars are being better and better defined. Production quality code, CI/CD, DevOps, etc…
Civil engieers have a successful licensure process established. See my comment regarding that.
But an approach where a candidate would spend time under a “licensed professional software eng” would favor practical work experience over academic.
As a counter balance to that though, interviewers need to understand what they are hiring for and tailor the questions asked to those requirements.
For example, there is genuinely very little coding required of an SRE these days but EVERY job interview wants you to do some leetcode style algorithm design… Since containers took over, the times I have used anything beyond relatively unremarkable bash scripts is exceptionally small. It’s extremely unlikely that I will be responsible for a task that is so dependent on performance that I need to design a perfect O(1) algorithm. On terraform though, I’m a fucking surgeon.
SRE specifically should HEAVILY focus on system design and almost all other things should have much much less priority… I’ve failed plenty of skill assessments just because of the code though.
Programming should be more like other trades, apprentice for a year or two before getting journeymen status, then work up to master status. Pay and job changing becomes more fair, and we get some reasonable fucking hours and rules to keep us from making overworked mistakes.
Companies know what they’re getting asked on the programmer’s level (specific experience will still matter, but baseline will be much more standard).
And workers get experience and learn from the gray beards instead of chatgpting their way into a job they don’t understand.
the trades is a great example of having to work under a professional. Other engineering disciplines also have successful licensure processes. See my comment regarding that.
There are parallels to be drawn between licensed professionals (like doctors, CPAs, lawyers, civil engineers) that they all have time under a professional and the professional then signs off and bears some responsibility vouching for a trainee.
to add to this, id like standardization of qualification and competencies - kind of like a license so I don’t have to “demonstrate” myself during interviews.
I hate being in a candidate pool that all have a degree and experience, we all go through a grueling interview process on college basics, and the “best one gets picked.” Company says “our interview process works great, look at the great candidates we hire.” like, duh, your candidate pool was already full of qualified engineers with degrees/experience, what did you expect to happen?
I’m betting you aren’t involved in hiring? The number of engineers I’ve interviewed with graduate degrees from top universities who are fundamentally unable to actually write production quality code is mind-boggling. I would NEVER hire somebody without doing some panel with coding, architecture/systems design, and behavioral/social interviews.
This. I’ve had someone in my team that was completely self-taught with no relevant education that was a great dev.
I’ve also interviewed someone that supposedly had a master degree and a couple of certificates and couldn’t remember how to create a loop during the interview.
I don’t know how you could properly implement “standardization of qualification and competencies” without just min-maxing it in a way that favors academics
good question. Software and computer practices are changing much faster than other fields but with time, pillars are being better and better defined. Production quality code, CI/CD, DevOps, etc…
Civil engieers have a successful licensure process established. See my comment regarding that.
But an approach where a candidate would spend time under a “licensed professional software eng” would favor practical work experience over academic.
As a counter balance to that though, interviewers need to understand what they are hiring for and tailor the questions asked to those requirements.
For example, there is genuinely very little coding required of an SRE these days but EVERY job interview wants you to do some leetcode style algorithm design… Since containers took over, the times I have used anything beyond relatively unremarkable bash scripts is exceptionally small. It’s extremely unlikely that I will be responsible for a task that is so dependent on performance that I need to design a perfect O(1) algorithm. On terraform though, I’m a fucking surgeon.
SRE specifically should HEAVILY focus on system design and almost all other things should have much much less priority… I’ve failed plenty of skill assessments just because of the code though.
Programming should be more like other trades, apprentice for a year or two before getting journeymen status, then work up to master status. Pay and job changing becomes more fair, and we get some reasonable fucking hours and rules to keep us from making overworked mistakes.
Companies know what they’re getting asked on the programmer’s level (specific experience will still matter, but baseline will be much more standard).
And workers get experience and learn from the gray beards instead of chatgpting their way into a job they don’t understand.
the trades is a great example of having to work under a professional. Other engineering disciplines also have successful licensure processes. See my comment regarding that.
There are parallels to be drawn between licensed professionals (like doctors, CPAs, lawyers, civil engineers) that they all have time under a professional and the professional then signs off and bears some responsibility vouching for a trainee.