9 ms·

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let alone not having a degree.

Delmania 9y ago
There are advantages to going to college over a boot camp or self learning. In fact, CS and SE degrees are ones that pay for themselves. If you're not willing to put in the work, that tells me you won't last long at Google.
- dimman 9y ago
  Because life can't happen? I don't agree with money > people
  - Delmania 9y ago
    Where exactly did I say that was not the case? There are plenty of options for getting a college degree, and there are way to get a job at these companies with needing. However, if you're going to try to get one be sending in your resume, expect to get turned down without a degree. Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth looking into. I've worked with many college educated people who can't write good code, and I've worked with many self-taught people who really don't understand what they're doing. The best has always been a person who went to school and then continued on learning after the fact.
    - DarronWyke 9y ago
      >Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth looking into. Ugh, yes. I've worked for a leading SIM and smart card manufacturer and they required a 4-year degree to even get in the door. I interviewed countless people, including some who were able to answer some quite technical questions that others couldn't. And many of those had to get disqualified since we found out during the interview process that they didn't have a degree. There were so many degree holders there that didn't know what the hell they were doing, and it was obvious.
      - dimman 9y ago
        One doesn't prove the other, that's my point. The only thing that can be said is that a degree doesn't prove if someone fits a position or not, it only proves they've finished an education. I've also been in the field for many years and held several interviews. My takeaway, to put it a bit clumsy: "knowledge is easy to fix, mindset and experience not as easy."
        DarronWyke 9y ago
        As I told someone over Twitter the other day: mindset isn't something that can be readily taught, which is why STEM is still so in-demand with a gross labor shortage. For most people it's something you either innately have or don't have. But yeah. I was reinforcing your point, not being counter.
    - dimman 9y ago
      I was referring to "If you're not willing to put in the work...". Some people are more than willing to put in the work but there are things in life that might hinder them from doing so at the time. People take a break in their studies for (various) personal reasons and some end up working in the field despite never finishing to get a degree. "...expect to get turned down without a degree" and "...software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless ..." My point is that there's a middle way. Only looking at degress is stupid because it doesn't guarantee anything other than that they got a degree. With that in mind it doesn't make sense to instantly disqualify people without a degree either.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  I had to leave college early due to a family thing and start working to contribute. That was eighteen years ago, and I've put in so much work because I run into attitudes like yours. Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. The average developer can't even CSS, don't even play with that 'degrees are the ultimate arbiter' mess.
  - Delmania 9y ago
    > Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. This tells me you're wasting your time and potential. There are other ways to get a job.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      They didn't request it, I just didn't have any direct professional experience with React/Redux or the Python ecosystem, which are the lion's share of front-end positions in my area. I've gotten a lot of immediate 'passes' from recruiters unfortunately. Thanks for your reply though, I agree with you but then I run into reality and the need to pay bills.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >The average developer can't even CSS, What do you mean by that? How sophisticated is it to "do CSS"? When I've dealt with it, you basically look at the inspector and at your CSS libraries of preexisting classes, and basically do a combination of attaching classes and writing new ones with custom styles until you get it all to look right. What should I be looking to learn?
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      He means do it well. There's a lot to doing CSS well, and frankly I just don't have any interest in learning all the ins and outs. It's not a fun platform to work in, it's very fiddly, and it's not exactly programming either. There's an art-form to doing amazing pixel perfect web designs, and I really respect the people who are good at it. That's not me though, and it's never going to be me.
- Datenstrom 9y ago
  Being self taught I haven't learned a single thing in college. Besides networking I do not see any advantage. > If you're not willing to put in the work Why should anyone who already knows everything for a degree have to waste 4-6 years of their life?
  - Delmania 9y ago
    I'm sure you don't know everything. Looking at your profile, I see the words "technician" so I am thinking you were trained at some point.
    - Datenstrom 9y ago
      Yes the Navy "trained" me by saying "here are 20,000 pages of documentation on the E-2 Airborne Early Warning aircraft avionics, now go fix it". That has nothing to do with my CS studies, of which I have learned nothing from college and could have CLEPed a BS degree on day one if it was possible and moved on to a masters where I should have been initially placed. > I'm sure you don't know everything. I never claimed I knew everything.
      - barry-cotter 9y ago
        It was in fact possible to go straight to a Master’s in Software Engineering. Oxford’s distance Master’s will take experience in place of a degree. https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/ https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/
        klibertp 9y ago
        Is it still possible somewhere, somehow?
        barry-cotter 9y ago
        Yes, the programme is still open, and will be for tyhe foreseeable future.
- throwme211345 9y ago
  That is complete crap. Programmers have the same ladder as professional athletes. You can be amazing at 17 or 36 without collegiate training and indoctrination.
YokoZar 9y ago
The people I know who never got a CS education yet ended up programming got their break interviewing at Google. Google seems more comparatively willing to hire those without degrees since there's so much confidence in the interview process.
- test1235 9y ago
  That doesn't sound like any Google interview I've ever read about. I thought their questions were really mathematical and algorithm heavy?
  - Klockan 9y ago
    That is the point, a person who is good at mathematics and algorithms will get hired at Google even if she doesn't have a cs degree.
    - hpcjoe 9y ago
      Not true. I've got a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, am very math heavy, created a number of algos for my work over the last 25+ years (in physics sim, bioinformatics, systems management/orchestration, etc.), run sessions at an ACM conference, yadda yadda yadda. Two google interviews, and nothing. From what I hear from other people I consider way smarter than I, they also got nothing. Google has a much copied process, but as a creator of something of huge value notes: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 Mebbe their filter isn't quite as good as they think it is. Talking to a number of absolutely brilliant engineers who didn't get hired, it likely has nothing whatsoever to do with talent, algo knowledge, mathematics, etc. There are other factors. Being an above 40 guy probably didn't help me, google and others seem to have lots of trouble with ageism. Dan's article was not specifically about being the "top", rather, what does the "top" mean in context, and how do people judge. What is the opportunity cost of doing this? As he points out, as I point out, it can be very high. The smartest programmer I met in my first decade of work, was a person who had a high school diploma. No college degree. The guy was brilliant, personable, humble. He is quite successful now, and still doesn't have degrees. Chances are, he doesn't have formal education around the math/algos, but has picked up everything he knows. At the end of the day, hiring is something of a crap-shoot. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, either negative or positive. You are after passion, intelligence, fit, experience if it exists (re-inventing wheels can be time consuming/expensive if you are forced to do it, and getting a guide who has been down that path can save you making some mistakes/time/money). I know people are telling themselves that google has a good process, but honestly, it looks like it enforces homogeneity more than it brings in needed talent. I am not sure this is a good thing. Poor replication of their processes is rampant throughout the industry. I am not convinced this leads to positive outcomes.
CydeWeys 9y ago
Most of my SWE coworkers at Google did not graduate from a "top college". Not sure where you're getting this impression from. There simply aren't enough annual graduates of the top programs to fully populate all tech companies, and there are plenty of people from other schools (like me) who also do well.
- falcolas 9y ago
  It is, however, a filter that will be applied against applicants, and from what I've heard, it's more than enough to trigger the "we'd rather have false negatives than false positives" filter if you're not in the lucky minority. Even if it's never used as a filter by Google, their hiring practices just don't apply to the rest of the industry - Google can afford to pass on 99.9% of the high quality talent that applies. Other firms who try this are only crippling themselves.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    I strongly disagree. Most of my coworkers are not from "top colleges". Neither are most of the people I interview. Even for Google, it is tough getting interviewees who do very well. Given that, it'd be ludicrous to discard most interviewees out of the bat because they didn't come from a "top school". The interview questions and relevant job experience are the true hiring bar. Possession of a relevant degree, and the granting institution for said degree, is far down the list.
- heedlessly2 9y ago
  does University of Michigan count as a top college? It's not an ivy league or stanford/mit/caltech
matwood 9y ago
I didn’t graduate from a top college and google has pinged me numerous times to interview. I always turn them down because I like my company and do not want to move. I may also fail the google interview, but they certainly talk to me.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I didn't graduate from college, period, yet recruiters talk to me. It's funny how quickly they backpedal their interview offers when I mention that, however.
  - justin66 9y ago
    Yeah, it costs them nothing to send an automated form letter out or make a cold call without researching your background for five seconds.
alexasmyths 9y ago
"Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees" I don't think it's 'unreasonable' at all to put strong emphasis on education. Surely, at the end of the day it's possible to be great without it, but having a good education is pretty strongly correlating factor with so many things. 'Being cool', I don't think is correlated with much at all. Unless it's super consumer facing and inner culture is gong to have to match outer culture on some level.
- zentiggr 9y ago
  Touched my first computer almost exactly 40 years ago. I can troubleshoot most hw/os issues with one ear and eyeball tied behind my back. Can program decently in many general domains. Never went past my associate's because the work was more compelling. Knowing how many PhD's never work in their field, and how many Master's get earned and laid aside, I can't agree with you at all. I think you might be imagining that correlation.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    " I think you might be imagining that correlation." If you think the entire Silicon Valley is missed this, because it's not 'my' correlation. People who study CS are probably more likely to better at CS that those who have not. It doesn't prove or mean anything in general, and your personal situation is not relevant: of course there are tons of 'non-degreed' great techies out there. Nobody is denying that. I've hired a lot of people and there's no doubt that you get better luck with degreed than non - and even school rankings matter. In Canada, for example, you get consistently strong tech recruits out of U Waterloo. Impressively so. Not always but usually. Other schools in the region - much more hit and miss. I don't think this is controversial.
psyc 9y ago
When Microsoft hired me in 2006 they didn’t even ask about my lack of degree. I’ve also interviewed at Google and Amazon. Amazon didn’t ask either. Google probably asked, but it didn’t disqualify me.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Do you think the difference now is that the market is more saturated with developers since it started to become a little more of a hot-ticket, and carries less of the old 'nerd' stigma? Also, I'm curious about how you managed to even get your foot in the door at such large organizations and not just get swept out in a filter at the gate. I'm assuming of course that such large companies employ some kind of application tracking system (which may be in error).
  - mark-r 9y ago
    Large companies need a constant supply of new talent, so they develop multiple filters that work in parallel. Being cut by one filter doesn't mean you won't be grabbed by another.
  - psyc 9y ago
    I never perceived there to be any degree filter at the BigCos, or less so than at narrower software companies. In house recruiters from every big5 have contacted me regularly through LinkedIn for as long as I can remember, and still do.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      I guess that's one reason to keep my profile up-to-date, then.
scientistem 9y ago
This is completely false. I have no degree, and it’s not super difficult to get through the interview stage at google (depends on what part of the stack you’re aimed at, though). People went out of their way to say the degree has negligible weight. YMMV. Personally I see people as their own greatest barrier for these sorts of things without firm evidence to the contrary.
morgante 9y ago
Google didn't ask about my degree until I already had interviewed and passed the hiring committee. It's far from a requirement.

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let alone not having a degree.

Delmania 9y ago

There are advantages to going to college over a boot camp or self learning. In fact, CS and SE degrees are ones that pay for themselves. If you're not willing to put in the work, that tells me you won't last long at Google.

dimman 9y ago
Because life can't happen? I don't agree with money > people
- Delmania 9y ago
  Where exactly did I say that was not the case? There are plenty of options for getting a college degree, and there are way to get a job at these companies with needing. However, if you're going to try to get one be sending in your resume, expect to get turned down without a degree. Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth looking into. I've worked with many college educated people who can't write good code, and I've worked with many self-taught people who really don't understand what they're doing. The best has always been a person who went to school and then continued on learning after the fact.
  - DarronWyke 9y ago
    >Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth looking into. Ugh, yes. I've worked for a leading SIM and smart card manufacturer and they required a 4-year degree to even get in the door. I interviewed countless people, including some who were able to answer some quite technical questions that others couldn't. And many of those had to get disqualified since we found out during the interview process that they didn't have a degree. There were so many degree holders there that didn't know what the hell they were doing, and it was obvious.
    - dimman 9y ago
      One doesn't prove the other, that's my point. The only thing that can be said is that a degree doesn't prove if someone fits a position or not, it only proves they've finished an education. I've also been in the field for many years and held several interviews. My takeaway, to put it a bit clumsy: "knowledge is easy to fix, mindset and experience not as easy."
      - DarronWyke 9y ago
        As I told someone over Twitter the other day: mindset isn't something that can be readily taught, which is why STEM is still so in-demand with a gross labor shortage. For most people it's something you either innately have or don't have. But yeah. I was reinforcing your point, not being counter.
  - dimman 9y ago
    I was referring to "If you're not willing to put in the work...". Some people are more than willing to put in the work but there are things in life that might hinder them from doing so at the time. People take a break in their studies for (various) personal reasons and some end up working in the field despite never finishing to get a degree. "...expect to get turned down without a degree" and "...software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless ..." My point is that there's a middle way. Only looking at degress is stupid because it doesn't guarantee anything other than that they got a degree. With that in mind it doesn't make sense to instantly disqualify people without a degree either.
wavefunction 9y ago
I had to leave college early due to a family thing and start working to contribute. That was eighteen years ago, and I've put in so much work because I run into attitudes like yours. Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. The average developer can't even CSS, don't even play with that 'degrees are the ultimate arbiter' mess.
- Delmania 9y ago
  > Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. This tells me you're wasting your time and potential. There are other ways to get a job.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    They didn't request it, I just didn't have any direct professional experience with React/Redux or the Python ecosystem, which are the lion's share of front-end positions in my area. I've gotten a lot of immediate 'passes' from recruiters unfortunately. Thanks for your reply though, I agree with you but then I run into reality and the need to pay bills.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >The average developer can't even CSS, What do you mean by that? How sophisticated is it to "do CSS"? When I've dealt with it, you basically look at the inspector and at your CSS libraries of preexisting classes, and basically do a combination of attaching classes and writing new ones with custom styles until you get it all to look right. What should I be looking to learn?
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    He means do it well. There's a lot to doing CSS well, and frankly I just don't have any interest in learning all the ins and outs. It's not a fun platform to work in, it's very fiddly, and it's not exactly programming either. There's an art-form to doing amazing pixel perfect web designs, and I really respect the people who are good at it. That's not me though, and it's never going to be me.
Datenstrom 9y ago
Being self taught I haven't learned a single thing in college. Besides networking I do not see any advantage. > If you're not willing to put in the work Why should anyone who already knows everything for a degree have to waste 4-6 years of their life?
- Delmania 9y ago
  I'm sure you don't know everything. Looking at your profile, I see the words "technician" so I am thinking you were trained at some point.
  - Datenstrom 9y ago
    Yes the Navy "trained" me by saying "here are 20,000 pages of documentation on the E-2 Airborne Early Warning aircraft avionics, now go fix it". That has nothing to do with my CS studies, of which I have learned nothing from college and could have CLEPed a BS degree on day one if it was possible and moved on to a masters where I should have been initially placed. > I'm sure you don't know everything. I never claimed I knew everything.
    - barry-cotter 9y ago
      It was in fact possible to go straight to a Master’s in Software Engineering. Oxford’s distance Master’s will take experience in place of a degree. https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/ https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/
      - klibertp 9y ago
        Is it still possible somewhere, somehow?
        barry-cotter 9y ago
        Yes, the programme is still open, and will be for tyhe foreseeable future.
throwme211345 9y ago
That is complete crap. Programmers have the same ladder as professional athletes. You can be amazing at 17 or 36 without collegiate training and indoctrination.

YokoZar 9y ago

The people I know who never got a CS education yet ended up programming got their break interviewing at Google. Google seems more comparatively willing to hire those without degrees since there's so much confidence in the interview process.

test1235 9y ago
That doesn't sound like any Google interview I've ever read about. I thought their questions were really mathematical and algorithm heavy?
- Klockan 9y ago
  That is the point, a person who is good at mathematics and algorithms will get hired at Google even if she doesn't have a cs degree.
  - hpcjoe 9y ago
    Not true. I've got a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, am very math heavy, created a number of algos for my work over the last 25+ years (in physics sim, bioinformatics, systems management/orchestration, etc.), run sessions at an ACM conference, yadda yadda yadda. Two google interviews, and nothing. From what I hear from other people I consider way smarter than I, they also got nothing. Google has a much copied process, but as a creator of something of huge value notes: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 Mebbe their filter isn't quite as good as they think it is. Talking to a number of absolutely brilliant engineers who didn't get hired, it likely has nothing whatsoever to do with talent, algo knowledge, mathematics, etc. There are other factors. Being an above 40 guy probably didn't help me, google and others seem to have lots of trouble with ageism. Dan's article was not specifically about being the "top", rather, what does the "top" mean in context, and how do people judge. What is the opportunity cost of doing this? As he points out, as I point out, it can be very high. The smartest programmer I met in my first decade of work, was a person who had a high school diploma. No college degree. The guy was brilliant, personable, humble. He is quite successful now, and still doesn't have degrees. Chances are, he doesn't have formal education around the math/algos, but has picked up everything he knows. At the end of the day, hiring is something of a crap-shoot. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, either negative or positive. You are after passion, intelligence, fit, experience if it exists (re-inventing wheels can be time consuming/expensive if you are forced to do it, and getting a guide who has been down that path can save you making some mistakes/time/money). I know people are telling themselves that google has a good process, but honestly, it looks like it enforces homogeneity more than it brings in needed talent. I am not sure this is a good thing. Poor replication of their processes is rampant throughout the industry. I am not convinced this leads to positive outcomes.

CydeWeys 9y ago

Most of my SWE coworkers at Google did not graduate from a "top college". Not sure where you're getting this impression from. There simply aren't enough annual graduates of the top programs to fully populate all tech companies, and there are plenty of people from other schools (like me) who also do well.

falcolas 9y ago
It is, however, a filter that will be applied against applicants, and from what I've heard, it's more than enough to trigger the "we'd rather have false negatives than false positives" filter if you're not in the lucky minority. Even if it's never used as a filter by Google, their hiring practices just don't apply to the rest of the industry - Google can afford to pass on 99.9% of the high quality talent that applies. Other firms who try this are only crippling themselves.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  I strongly disagree. Most of my coworkers are not from "top colleges". Neither are most of the people I interview. Even for Google, it is tough getting interviewees who do very well. Given that, it'd be ludicrous to discard most interviewees out of the bat because they didn't come from a "top school". The interview questions and relevant job experience are the true hiring bar. Possession of a relevant degree, and the granting institution for said degree, is far down the list.
heedlessly2 9y ago
does University of Michigan count as a top college? It's not an ivy league or stanford/mit/caltech

matwood 9y ago

I didn’t graduate from a top college and google has pinged me numerous times to interview. I always turn them down because I like my company and do not want to move. I may also fail the google interview, but they certainly talk to me.

falcolas 9y ago
I didn't graduate from college, period, yet recruiters talk to me. It's funny how quickly they backpedal their interview offers when I mention that, however.
- justin66 9y ago
  Yeah, it costs them nothing to send an automated form letter out or make a cold call without researching your background for five seconds.

alexasmyths 9y ago

"Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees" I don't think it's 'unreasonable' at all to put strong emphasis on education. Surely, at the end of the day it's possible to be great without it, but having a good education is pretty strongly correlating factor with so many things. 'Being cool', I don't think is correlated with much at all. Unless it's super consumer facing and inner culture is gong to have to match outer culture on some level.

zentiggr 9y ago
Touched my first computer almost exactly 40 years ago. I can troubleshoot most hw/os issues with one ear and eyeball tied behind my back. Can program decently in many general domains. Never went past my associate's because the work was more compelling. Knowing how many PhD's never work in their field, and how many Master's get earned and laid aside, I can't agree with you at all. I think you might be imagining that correlation.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  " I think you might be imagining that correlation." If you think the entire Silicon Valley is missed this, because it's not 'my' correlation. People who study CS are probably more likely to better at CS that those who have not. It doesn't prove or mean anything in general, and your personal situation is not relevant: of course there are tons of 'non-degreed' great techies out there. Nobody is denying that. I've hired a lot of people and there's no doubt that you get better luck with degreed than non - and even school rankings matter. In Canada, for example, you get consistently strong tech recruits out of U Waterloo. Impressively so. Not always but usually. Other schools in the region - much more hit and miss. I don't think this is controversial.

psyc 9y ago

When Microsoft hired me in 2006 they didn’t even ask about my lack of degree. I’ve also interviewed at Google and Amazon. Amazon didn’t ask either. Google probably asked, but it didn’t disqualify me.

52-6F-62 9y ago
Do you think the difference now is that the market is more saturated with developers since it started to become a little more of a hot-ticket, and carries less of the old 'nerd' stigma? Also, I'm curious about how you managed to even get your foot in the door at such large organizations and not just get swept out in a filter at the gate. I'm assuming of course that such large companies employ some kind of application tracking system (which may be in error).
- mark-r 9y ago
  Large companies need a constant supply of new talent, so they develop multiple filters that work in parallel. Being cut by one filter doesn't mean you won't be grabbed by another.
- psyc 9y ago
  I never perceived there to be any degree filter at the BigCos, or less so than at narrower software companies. In house recruiters from every big5 have contacted me regularly through LinkedIn for as long as I can remember, and still do.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    I guess that's one reason to keep my profile up-to-date, then.

scientistem 9y ago

This is completely false. I have no degree, and it’s not super difficult to get through the interview stage at google (depends on what part of the stack you’re aimed at, though). People went out of their way to say the degree has negligible weight. YMMV. Personally I see people as their own greatest barrier for these sorts of things without firm evidence to the contrary.

morgante 9y ago

Google didn't ask about my degree until I already had interviewed and passed the hiring committee. It's far from a requirement.