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SE is fluff, students need to learn the hard stuff and learn practical skills on their own. Students are hired based on theoretical knowledge and basic coding a

SE is fluff, students need to learn the hard stuff and learn practical skills on their own. Students are hired based on theoretical knowledge and basic coding ability anyways, not practical skills. I sat in several classes learning about the development lifecycle and it was a waste of time and money. A class where students sat on LeetCode would be much more productive and lead to better jobs.

scarface74 7y ago
And this is what we call HN Silicon Valley thinking. The average corporate job doesn’t care about “the hard stuff” and “theoretical coding skills”. They are going to bypass the person who knows theory and hire someone with practical skills that can hit the ground running. Why waste money hiring you when they can hire a recent immigrant or a boot camp grad who did learn practical skills for the same amount of money - and no that’s not meant to be an insult. When I just need to hire someone to whip out a few pages in React + [c#/WebAPI || Node+Express || Python + Django], I don’t care about your leetCode abilities. I have never in my life said “Thank God we hired someone who can reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard”.
- Kephael 7y ago
  Bootcamp grads aren't going to be able to answer my interview questions. If you can't invert a binary tree, you won't make it to the onsites, let alone pass an interview. I don't think the average CS grad can actually code and I don't want to hire them either.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Well fortunately, unless you are interviewing for one of five or six tech companies. Your company is not that special and probably not paying more than average. No I’m not going to spend months studying leetCode and reading “Cracking the Code” instead of just calling my carefully curated network of contacts that are itching to either hire me (former managers who have moved on to other companies) or refer me. I’m no special snowflake. Anyone with 10+ years of experience, a decent network, can competently talk about architecture, and who knows how to answer soft skill questions can have multiple offers quickly. To be blunt, there are more of you - companies looking to pay quite well for seasoned software engineers/architects with practical skills than there are of me - people who have those skills. Statistically, I can find a job a lot more quickly that pays well than you could find someone who has practical experience and who is looking for a job.
    - Kephael 7y ago
      I work at one of those five or six companies but even companies outside of FAANG in SFBA, SEA, and NYC ask these questions. 10 YOE at FAANG can get you in the ballpark of 500K TC, you aren't getting that at random companies and your experience at random companies will not be valued by FAANG.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        I’m also not getting my 5 bedroom 3.5 bath 3000 square foot house in the burbs with a great school system for $350K. So there is that..... Besides I know from all of the recruiters contacting me from FB and a friends experience, if you learn enough “leetCode” they don’t care what company you come from. They are hiring kids straight from college. But as soon as they said it requires relocation to the west coast I deleted it. Now on the other hand, Amazon hires AWS SA’s, TAM’s, etc without requiring relocation as long as you can travel frequently.

scarface74 7y ago

And this is what we call HN Silicon Valley thinking. The average corporate job doesn’t care about “the hard stuff” and “theoretical coding skills”. They are going to bypass the person who knows theory and hire someone with practical skills that can hit the ground running. Why waste money hiring you when they can hire a recent immigrant or a boot camp grad who did learn practical skills for the same amount of money - and no that’s not meant to be an insult. When I just need to hire someone to whip out a few pages in React + [c#/WebAPI || Node+Express || Python + Django], I don’t care about your leetCode abilities. I have never in my life said “Thank God we hired someone who can reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard”.

Kephael 7y ago
Bootcamp grads aren't going to be able to answer my interview questions. If you can't invert a binary tree, you won't make it to the onsites, let alone pass an interview. I don't think the average CS grad can actually code and I don't want to hire them either.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Well fortunately, unless you are interviewing for one of five or six tech companies. Your company is not that special and probably not paying more than average. No I’m not going to spend months studying leetCode and reading “Cracking the Code” instead of just calling my carefully curated network of contacts that are itching to either hire me (former managers who have moved on to other companies) or refer me. I’m no special snowflake. Anyone with 10+ years of experience, a decent network, can competently talk about architecture, and who knows how to answer soft skill questions can have multiple offers quickly. To be blunt, there are more of you - companies looking to pay quite well for seasoned software engineers/architects with practical skills than there are of me - people who have those skills. Statistically, I can find a job a lot more quickly that pays well than you could find someone who has practical experience and who is looking for a job.
  - Kephael 7y ago
    I work at one of those five or six companies but even companies outside of FAANG in SFBA, SEA, and NYC ask these questions. 10 YOE at FAANG can get you in the ballpark of 500K TC, you aren't getting that at random companies and your experience at random companies will not be valued by FAANG.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I’m also not getting my 5 bedroom 3.5 bath 3000 square foot house in the burbs with a great school system for $350K. So there is that..... Besides I know from all of the recruiters contacting me from FB and a friends experience, if you learn enough “leetCode” they don’t care what company you come from. They are hiring kids straight from college. But as soon as they said it requires relocation to the west coast I deleted it. Now on the other hand, Amazon hires AWS SA’s, TAM’s, etc without requiring relocation as long as you can travel frequently.