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Most job posts are careful to list CS degree "or equivalent experience".

• rhizome 9y ago
  That's boilerplate for positions that can't legally require a degree. They'll still ask and filter on CS questions.
  • rboyd 9y ago
    Yes, and when you answer them correctly you get the offer. It's only getting easier for autodidacts in this industry, with OCW, Stanford Online, Udacity, etc. The degree itself is a pretty terrible filter unless it comes from one of a very select few schools. If you're not admitted to one of the best schools you're arguably better off going it alone these days.
    • lsc 9y ago
      >If you're not admitted to one of the best schools you're arguably better off going it alone these days. Just a note to people making this decision now. I did pretty well without a degree, but my dad and my stepdad both worked in this industry. This is true of most of the people I know who work in the field without a degree. If you don't already have good industry contacts? breaking in without a degree can be difficult. On the other hand, there's no harm in trying to get a job, and if you can't, calling it a gap year and heading to college... I'm just sayin' - especially if you don't have family contacts to smooth the way, I wouldn't poo-poo the idea of college. I personally want to go to college now (for other reasons) and I'm kind of pissed at younger me for not taking high school seriously, meaning I've got to spend two years in a community college first, if I want to get into an exclusive school.
  • randomdata 9y ago
    Mind you, if you've spent much time developing software to have the experience they seek, you soon start to learn those CS concepts naturally anyway. Really, all they are filtering against is people who are bad at interviewing and maybe they'll catch the odd person who does not even know how to turn a computer on but wanted to see if they could get the job anyway.
  • lsc 9y ago
    > That's boilerplate for positions that can't legally require a degree. They'll still ask and filter on CS questions. I don't have a degree, I haven't had a job that didn't either straight require a college degree or require a college degree "or equivalent experience" - I've been mostly employed for 20 years now; I'm sure there were a lot of places where my resume went in the bin because there was no 'education' section, but there are plenty of places where it did not. Sure, sure, they ask CS questions, but... I can handle most of the CS questions even though I have approximately an 8th grade math education, according to khan academy (I recently took the GRE; 95th percentile verbal, 45th percentile quantitative, so I guess that's '8th grade for people who are good at math') - I'm not saying I'm good at the CS stuff, but I can code up a reasonable linked list, and can code up a bubble sort and a quicksort and tell you when to use which. Point being, you can learn the CS stuff without college without too much sweat. CS, as tested in interviews, is way easier, say, than a community college calculus class.
    • rhizome 9y ago
      Have you ever been paid to write a linked list or bubble sort?
      • lsc 9y ago
        Linked list, yes. It is hard to write anything in c without doing a linked list. You aren't a real Unix sysadmin if you don't have at least really basic c skills. Bubble sort, no. The libraries are enough better than I am to put up with the libraries, and in my space, if it matters, you use a database anyhow.
        • rhizome 9y ago
          So to circle back to my point, writing C has a specific need for linked list questions, but many, many more interviews raise the topic than just those for C writers.
          • lsc 9y ago
            Sure, it's a ritual that doesn't directly relate to the work required, like all interviews. Evaluating someone before you hire them is hard - Being interviewed and getting hired, in my experience, is way easier than interviewing, and making a good decision. I'm just saying that learning the algorithms question for a interview isn't exactly electrical engineering, if you know what I mean. Programming algorithms is way easier, as far as I can tell, than the rest of engineering in that it's largely just a step-by-step process; there's some logic involved, but these are all things that can be done by a person who hasn't passed an undergrad algebra course or equivalent test. Every time I go to an interview? When I'm done, I write down all the questions I got wrong. I mean, not the exact questions, but the concepts that are asked about. For a certain place and time? often the questions are super similar even when you are interviewing at different companies. More than once, I fail one interview and the same question gets asked on the very next interview. Well, I looked it up, and I got the job. Point being? every time an interviewer asks you about something you don't know, you spend time researching it. You figure out what is the right answer (test on your next interview) and then you add that answer to your spaced repetition setup. Yes, there are some positions that really do require a degree (either for the work, or for the "culture fit" or prejudice or whatever) But asking algorithms questions at the interview definitely is not the same thing as requiring a degree. Really, you can think of this as the sort of social ritual I imagine is required of people working outside of tech. memorize bubble sort? or how to match the right kind of uncomfortable shoes with the right sort of impractical pants? I've made my choice. ''