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Given there is variation of skill at anything, there will be variation of skill at self-teaching. Not all self-teaching is created equal. If you’re not good at

by mlthoughts2018 7y ago

Given there is variation of skill at anything, there will be variation of skill at self-teaching. Not all self-teaching is created equal. If you’re not good at self-teaching, then you get a bad teacher every single time. Colleges diversify this risk. A few teachers might be bad, a few will have their back to the gigantic lecture hall the whole time, etc. But averaged over all your classes, most of them are actually pretty good, and many TAs, tutoring center employees, classmates, etc., can help a ton. Plus you’ll practice and improve self-teaching the whole time. Like it or not, college can command a high price for this standardization and diversification of teaching quality risk. It confers a status credential. Meanwhile, if I see you are self-taught in a complex engineering discipline, so what? If you also have job experience already to back it up, then ok. If you’re asking me to be the first one to take a gamble on whether your particular instance of self-teaching led you to sufficient competency, no thanks, I don’t have time to take that risk.

hogFeast 7y ago
If you can't tell whether someone else is skilled or not, you aren't competent enough to be making decisions.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  Well, asking CS trivia isn’t going to tell you they have skills to do the job. What do you propose? In my decade+ of experience building engineering teams, the only useful signal has been probing technical details of education and past work experience. If a candidate has neither, they simply cannot emit any signal you could possibly use to decide if they can do the job. Quizzing them on sorting algorithms or devops buzzwords is not going to tell you anything.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    ...where did I suggest that you should be quizzing people on trivia? If you need to work out whether someone can do something, ask them to do it. Talk to them about things they have done as a first step. Don't overthink it. Where I am, no-one asks DS&A questions. Managers still manage to fuck it up by focusing too much on inane questions - a propensity which seems to be inherent to human existence - and discounting just sitting down, asking someone to do something, and then getting them to explain why they did it that way.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      > “If you need to work out whether someone can do something, ask them to do it. Talk to them about things they have done as a first step. Don't overthink it.” I agree very much. It’s why I would be substantially less likely to hire someone for a software engineering job if they don’t either have (a) a somewhat standard bachelor’s degree in a related discipline and communicate clearly about knowledge gained through coursework or (b) previous work experience already delivering software engineering solutions. If instead they have self-taught academic certification and no professional software experience, it’s too unlikely they can do the job when I ask them about doing it, regardless of their ability to talk about CS topics traditionally associated with tech interviewing.
woat 7y ago
If the self-taught candidate can pass an interview screen at the same level of a new grad, then how does hiring the former become more riskier than the latter?
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  Passing trivia interview screens is useless, can’t tell you anything useful. You have to dig recursively into technical details about past experience or projects, and for university new grads this would be their education work. What will the self-taught candidate do at this point?
  - woat 7y ago
    I would hope they demonstrated competency for the position. I'm sure there are other avenues other than education work that hold the same weight.
  - flukus 7y ago
    > What will the self-taught candidate do at this point? Generally self taught people will have built something. I'd generally consider that the definition of self taught and would not include people that have only done self directed learning.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      That would be fine, but I think it’s weird that you’re trying to make the phrase “self-taught” stretch to include also building something. I think it’s far more common for people to believe taking a self-directed online course and getting a certificate entitles them to equal consideration for a job as someone who put in 4 years of a structured university program.
      - flukus 7y ago
        Maybe I'm out of touch with how it's used today, but self taught used to be someone that built things, W3schools was the closest thing to online courses years ago. If so I'd argue the modern usage is wrong though, a self taught mechanic is someone that tinkers with cars, a self taught electrician is someone there own cables, a self taught sysadmin typically fell into the role by doing stuff, a self taught investor has invested money. So I see know reason why a self taught developer shouldn't be someone that's built software.

hogFeast 7y ago

If you can't tell whether someone else is skilled or not, you aren't competent enough to be making decisions.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
Well, asking CS trivia isn’t going to tell you they have skills to do the job. What do you propose? In my decade+ of experience building engineering teams, the only useful signal has been probing technical details of education and past work experience. If a candidate has neither, they simply cannot emit any signal you could possibly use to decide if they can do the job. Quizzing them on sorting algorithms or devops buzzwords is not going to tell you anything.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  ...where did I suggest that you should be quizzing people on trivia? If you need to work out whether someone can do something, ask them to do it. Talk to them about things they have done as a first step. Don't overthink it. Where I am, no-one asks DS&A questions. Managers still manage to fuck it up by focusing too much on inane questions - a propensity which seems to be inherent to human existence - and discounting just sitting down, asking someone to do something, and then getting them to explain why they did it that way.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    > “If you need to work out whether someone can do something, ask them to do it. Talk to them about things they have done as a first step. Don't overthink it.” I agree very much. It’s why I would be substantially less likely to hire someone for a software engineering job if they don’t either have (a) a somewhat standard bachelor’s degree in a related discipline and communicate clearly about knowledge gained through coursework or (b) previous work experience already delivering software engineering solutions. If instead they have self-taught academic certification and no professional software experience, it’s too unlikely they can do the job when I ask them about doing it, regardless of their ability to talk about CS topics traditionally associated with tech interviewing.

woat 7y ago

If the self-taught candidate can pass an interview screen at the same level of a new grad, then how does hiring the former become more riskier than the latter?

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
Passing trivia interview screens is useless, can’t tell you anything useful. You have to dig recursively into technical details about past experience or projects, and for university new grads this would be their education work. What will the self-taught candidate do at this point?
- woat 7y ago
  I would hope they demonstrated competency for the position. I'm sure there are other avenues other than education work that hold the same weight.
- flukus 7y ago
  > What will the self-taught candidate do at this point? Generally self taught people will have built something. I'd generally consider that the definition of self taught and would not include people that have only done self directed learning.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    That would be fine, but I think it’s weird that you’re trying to make the phrase “self-taught” stretch to include also building something. I think it’s far more common for people to believe taking a self-directed online course and getting a certificate entitles them to equal consideration for a job as someone who put in 4 years of a structured university program.
    - flukus 7y ago
      Maybe I'm out of touch with how it's used today, but self taught used to be someone that built things, W3schools was the closest thing to online courses years ago. If so I'd argue the modern usage is wrong though, a self taught mechanic is someone that tinkers with cars, a self taught electrician is someone there own cables, a self taught sysadmin typically fell into the role by doing stuff, a self taught investor has invested money. So I see know reason why a self taught developer shouldn't be someone that's built software.