I'm currently teaching a class on databases to 10 junior engineers at a medium size org (~130 engineers). It's a huge amount of work but wonderfully fun and rew

I'm currently teaching a class on databases to 10 junior engineers at a medium size org (~130 engineers). It's a huge amount of work but wonderfully fun and rewarding. The class is an even mix of CS grads and engineers from nontraditional backgrounds (mostly bootcamps). I myself trained in applied math and am a self-taught engineer who had a few good mentors along the way. Having a CS degree perhaps helps a little for general background, but not every CS major has taken a db class and even then, they won't have learned many useful practical skills, like analyzing and fixing a slow production query. And conversely the folks who have been through bootcamps (that we have hired!) are all very self-directed and highly motivated to learn. So I'm not sure that the difference is quite as clear cut as you make it out to be. I do completely agree with you that this is important, and that it's very hard to get companies to devote resources to it. Taking 6-8 hours a week out of a senior engineer's time to prepare and teach an effective class is a big ask; I had a lot of support from management to do this but I think that might be a rare luxury at other companies. It's just sad that the tech industry doesn't invest more in high-quality structured teaching, when it could so clearly deliver benefits in terms of growing skills for engineers from both CS and non CS backgrounds. Assuming that they'll somehow learn everything they need without structure or direction might work in a few cases, but in general it's a poor long term strategy for both companies and the industry as a whole.