> But the biggest problem is this: academics are afraid of anyone who hasn't demonstrated commitment to their system by earning a Ph.D, writing a thesis, and ac

> But the biggest problem is this: academics are afraid of anyone who hasn't demonstrated commitment to their system by earning a Ph.D, writing a thesis, and accepting terrible wages and living conditions for a number of years as junior or adjunct faculty. So the number of 50 year old software engineers who decide to semi-retire and take up an academic position is effectively zero. A few thoughts: 1. Many schools who are willing to give up on the "traditional" job candidate profile are still have a very hard time hiring. I know this from many, many conversations with department and search committee chairs and lower-ranked places. 2. Hiring non-phds isn't always an option for higher-ranked (and especially mid-ranked) institutions. It'd be great if Google only used the data they collect in ways that enhance their users' experience. But it's unreasonable to expect an ad company to not use their data assets to sell ads. There's something analogous going on with hiring non-phd faculty to teach -- institutions involved in a rankings war should only care about maximizing educational outcomes, but we live in the real world and metrics do matter. 3. Most importantly, maybe these places are right to be skeptical! Engineering isn't teaching, and many of those who can do, cannot teach. I've seen a lot of situations where semi-retired industry folks don't take teaching seriously. The permeated anecdotes from industry are valuable, but not valuable enough to compensate for poorly structured courses or failing to explain tree rotations in an intelligible way. It doesn't help that teaching loads demand a 40 hour week, but teaching salaries only pay for 15-20 hours of even semi-retired engineering time.