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Take recruiting for example, would that really allow you to have a more technical conversation with a prospective employee? If they are any sort of engineer the

Take recruiting for example, would that really allow you to have a more technical conversation with a prospective employee? If they are any sort of engineer they'll run circles around you in every sense, so what's the benefit here? I'd love to see the data breakdown of how/why this benefits certain jobs or teams.

tkxxx7 10y ago
I definitely think the knowledge would help, especially given the rigor in a course like this one - it's basically a part-time coding bootcamp - but I don't know if that much is necessary. As a recruiter I think it'd allow you to get a sense of the degree of nuance involved in replying to technical questions. You'd have a better idea of how to ask for details from a resume and maybe jot down some notes, even if you might not grasp the full scope. You could even ask them to help bridge the knowledge gap a little, and get an idea of how they interact with non-engineers. Anecdote, my girlfriend worked for a staffing agency and just hearing me talk about work helped her see tech resumes a bit more clearly.
- BWStearns 10y ago
  Definitely agree. At the trivial level it could cut down on the Java/JavaScript equivalency, and at the higher level is that visibility into how they conduct engineer/non-technical interaction you mentioned (although at that point I don't think the full meaning of non-technical is a fair label).
shostack 10y ago
I can speak from a marketing perspective. For context, I myself am somewhat technical (enough to be dangerous, but hopefully know when I'm at risk of being dangerous) and work closely with many incredibly talented engineers. . To be successful in digital marketing these days, you absolutely need some of these skills. Knowing how marketing analytics and tracking work at a technical level opens up valuable new ideas to me as a marketer. These are critical things in an age where something like audience data can easily be a double (or even triple) digit growth driver. So knowing how and when to collect it, pipe it to the various places it needs to live, common pitfalls, and how to best act on it enables me to accomplish things those who are less technical may not be aware or capable of. It also enables me to have both business and technical conversations with everyone involved in the process. This means less friction, more easily built consensus, and more successful outcomes. Life gets a lot easier when you can translate business needs to technical logic. Plus, if it comes down to it, I can roll up my sleeves and be a direct contributor when needed for many common marketing chores like: adding new tags to the site, dealing with event data, coding emails, tweaking the code of marketing assets, and troubleshooting tracking. I am versatile and can be a one-man-show for essentially any area of marketing at this point. For many of these tasks, the level of development experience needed is relatively low when you have appropriate guard rails and guidance. So if people get slammed, I am not overly dependent on my teammates for many areas core to my responsibilities, and can thus be more self-sufficient while enabling them to focus on much more technically difficult challenges. Plus, let's face it--not too many engineers get excited about setting up yet another tracking tag, so win-win right? Last but certainly not least is the personal side. Working on a daily basis with engineers has let me grow my knowledge of various back and front-end things. This in turn has helped uncover a buried interest in wanting to get more technical in general. I've been reading Code[1] because I'm now genuinely interested in learning how computers work from first principles. As someone who grew up playing D&D and too many RPGs, it is just amazingly cool and mind-blowing how we are able to harness electricity to perform modern day magic. So I think there's something to be said for kindling new interests and growth in people--I wish more companies did things like this. [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44882.Code http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44882.Code

tkxxx7 10y ago

I definitely think the knowledge would help, especially given the rigor in a course like this one - it's basically a part-time coding bootcamp - but I don't know if that much is necessary. As a recruiter I think it'd allow you to get a sense of the degree of nuance involved in replying to technical questions. You'd have a better idea of how to ask for details from a resume and maybe jot down some notes, even if you might not grasp the full scope. You could even ask them to help bridge the knowledge gap a little, and get an idea of how they interact with non-engineers. Anecdote, my girlfriend worked for a staffing agency and just hearing me talk about work helped her see tech resumes a bit more clearly.

BWStearns 10y ago
Definitely agree. At the trivial level it could cut down on the Java/JavaScript equivalency, and at the higher level is that visibility into how they conduct engineer/non-technical interaction you mentioned (although at that point I don't think the full meaning of non-technical is a fair label).

shostack 10y ago

I can speak from a marketing perspective. For context, I myself am somewhat technical (enough to be dangerous, but hopefully know when I'm at risk of being dangerous) and work closely with many incredibly talented engineers. . To be successful in digital marketing these days, you absolutely need some of these skills. Knowing how marketing analytics and tracking work at a technical level opens up valuable new ideas to me as a marketer. These are critical things in an age where something like audience data can easily be a double (or even triple) digit growth driver. So knowing how and when to collect it, pipe it to the various places it needs to live, common pitfalls, and how to best act on it enables me to accomplish things those who are less technical may not be aware or capable of. It also enables me to have both business and technical conversations with everyone involved in the process. This means less friction, more easily built consensus, and more successful outcomes. Life gets a lot easier when you can translate business needs to technical logic. Plus, if it comes down to it, I can roll up my sleeves and be a direct contributor when needed for many common marketing chores like: adding new tags to the site, dealing with event data, coding emails, tweaking the code of marketing assets, and troubleshooting tracking. I am versatile and can be a one-man-show for essentially any area of marketing at this point. For many of these tasks, the level of development experience needed is relatively low when you have appropriate guard rails and guidance. So if people get slammed, I am not overly dependent on my teammates for many areas core to my responsibilities, and can thus be more self-sufficient while enabling them to focus on much more technically difficult challenges. Plus, let's face it--not too many engineers get excited about setting up yet another tracking tag, so win-win right? Last but certainly not least is the personal side. Working on a daily basis with engineers has let me grow my knowledge of various back and front-end things. This in turn has helped uncover a buried interest in wanting to get more technical in general. I've been reading Code[1] because I'm now genuinely interested in learning how computers work from first principles. As someone who grew up playing D&D and too many RPGs, it is just amazingly cool and mind-blowing how we are able to harness electricity to perform modern day magic. So I think there's something to be said for kindling new interests and growth in people--I wish more companies did things like this. [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44882.Code http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44882.Code