4 ms·

Do medical doctors face this? Their work is confidential as well - patient data is highly confidential.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Medical doctors have licenses which include exams and all sort of other barriers before they’re a ‘real’ independent doctor.
- adamhp 5y ago
  I'd be curious to hear peoples thoughts if they would subject themselves to this sort of professional board and licensing for software. There's clearly a pre-determined set of information and skills that are fundamental enough to be tested, but it is also fairly creative and subjective at the end of the day.
  - rhacker 5y ago
    With medicine there are probably like 4 ways to treat a bullet wound. If you go too far outside of that you're probably not a good doctor. With software you can write a TODO app with a million lines of code or 7.
    - dleslie 5y ago
      ... Every serious trauma is unique and challenging in its own way.
  - hkt 5y ago
    Realistically, I think I'd not be allowed to practice with that kind of system. I suspect there's an entire class of programmer (maybe this is the dev vs eng distinction the article refers to) which would be excluded by a system like this. Fundamentally though I think that system of high priests and laypeople who are barely allowed to code at all can't be sustained. I strongly suspect all professions will eventually require a little programming, and certification will be hard for those cases.
  - smolder 5y ago
    I would likely take issue with whatever criteria people chose for judging someone's software engineering ability. Creating the best performing system is rarely anyone's goal (not that performance should be discounted,) they want to make something with the hard to quantify qualities of robustness, scalability, maintainability and expandability, to different degrees. They also often want to use languages or frameworks (or supporting software like databases) based on what boils down to fashion. Often the most desirable quality for candidates is an ability to learn and leverage new tools, given varied and shifting standards of good design, which again is hard to quantify.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Given the amount of people with CS degrees who fail the most basic interviews, it would be hard to set something good up. I assume universities are trying to solve the same problems as the hypothetical board setting up this test. That, and the field moving so quickly and being so broad. I interview for ML. I assume interviews for front end are extremely different.
  - wheelinsupial 5y ago
    Disclaimer: I’m educated as a technologist not an engineer in Canada. This exists in Canada for some areas of software development that falls under the requirements of being a licensed software engineer. Many people, including CS graduates in Canada, think it’s ridiculous. The requirement for certification is pretty strict in that you need a computer engineering undergrad degree or a degree in software engineering from an accredited program. This is probably how most people would be accredited, but there are some other ways too. All of them, as far as I can gather, require formal educational credentials. You then need to go through a formal apprenticeship while working under someone who is licensed. It’s probably an 8 year process in total. Further to that, there is a limitation on what you can practice. There are different disciplines (e.g., mechanical, civil, electrical) and there are fields and scopes of practice within each of those disciplines. What this results in is someone who is licensed in, for example, embedded systems wouldn’t then be able to go and work on websites or back end databases. The field is further divided into technologists and technicians that require less education than engineers and have much less autonomy and scope of authority.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't mean they're a good doctor. Most of us have had experiences with bad doctors. The exams they took could have been decades ago, but what does that tell us about how they've performed recently?
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Bad doctor is relative. I expect that most doctors who have pass through that gauntlet can pass the doctor equivalent of fizzbuzz, which already is a lot different than our industry.
    - dopylitty 5y ago
      A doctor equivalent of fizzbuzz could be “what do you prescribe for a viral infection with no indication of a secondary infection” and from what I’ve heard there are a lot of doctors failing that one during the COVID pandemic by prescribing antibiotics.
      - sjburt 5y ago
        They are highly effective at making patients stop begging for antibiotics they don't need. Patient satisfaction with their doctor has nothing to do with medical outcomes.
      - cratermoon 5y ago
        > prescribing antibiotics. I'd hire that one over anyone pushing horse de-wormer, anti-malarial drugs, or homeopathic remedies.
        rsynnott 5y ago
        Well, it's less dangerous than the first two, generally, but roughly equivalent to the third, for covid.
  - Ginden 5y ago
    It's quite hard to be really bad physician - because Pareto principle applies to medicine. As far as I remember, 5 autoimmune diseases (of >120 described; ~4%) make up for 80% of total autoimmune diseases. My relative did research on kidney diseases and results were similar.
jaaron 5y ago
No. As a software engineer for 20+ years, I've talked with my sister, who is an ER doctor about this often. Most folks outside of engineering think our interview processes are crazy. Keep in mind, there's significantly more training that goes into the medical field, so there's more emphasis on the institutions. Where did you go to school? What hospitals or facilities did you work with? Your resume and references speak more strongly. Other hurdles in software engineering hiring: - It's both a technical and (often) a creative field. - Most work requires teams to complete and there's very little insight into who contributed what into a project. - You don't have many of the signals from other fields, such as published papers, law cases, or hard numbers such as sales, certifications, etc. Long story short: we don't have good mechanisms within companies to measure engineering productivity, let alone measure programmers outside of an institution. I'm reminded of Steve McConnell's intro to "Software Estimation": "Meanwhile, the typical software organization is not struggling to improve its estimates from +/-10% to +/-5% accuracy. The typical software organization is struggling to avoid estimates that are incorrect by 100% or more."
- bonesinger 5y ago
  One key difference is licensing. As a physician you have to take the USMLE Step 1,2,3 and then potentially other board certifications. We engineers don't have any of that.
  - Bilal_io 5y ago
    I imagine that amazon would still grill you in an interview even if you have one of their advance AWS certificates. I know those certificates are not the same, but I don't think it's about certifications.
  - jaaron 5y ago
    Yes and depending on the field, you may have to do mandatory additional certification and training throughout your career. We have certs in software engineering, but in my experience, they've largely failed as an indicator of qualifications. Some hiring managers see them as nice to have, but I've also met hiring managers who are actively skeptical of certifications. We also don't have differentiation of software levels or skills. If you're a programmer, you could, in theory, go program anything from web to AI to robotics. You don't have to be certified to work in nearly any industry. And we don't have formal hierarchy of skilled work, such as EMTs, nurses and doctors. We're a relatively young industry that just hasn't worked things out yet and, to be honest, in the United States, there isn't pressure by employers to get our act together. The engineers themselves are in charge often and we're skeptical of boards and authority. We have too many stories of folks making it big with no formal education. Those with the money aren't demanding change because the current system "works." It's possible software engineering will someday evolve into a boring respectable profession, but right now it's still a creative field of fads, trends, rock stars and super stars (let alone ninjas and wizards).
908B64B197 5y ago
No, but they have a legalized cartel to make sure there's never an over-supply (that would lower the price for the consumer, we don't want that!) that also gatekeep credentialing. Meanwhile in Software there are initiatives for "Gender X of Minority Y can Code" and "Everyone can be an Engineer after 3 months of BootCamp".

Medical doctors have licenses which include exams and all sort of other barriers before they’re a ‘real’ independent doctor.

adamhp 5y ago
I'd be curious to hear peoples thoughts if they would subject themselves to this sort of professional board and licensing for software. There's clearly a pre-determined set of information and skills that are fundamental enough to be tested, but it is also fairly creative and subjective at the end of the day.
- rhacker 5y ago
  With medicine there are probably like 4 ways to treat a bullet wound. If you go too far outside of that you're probably not a good doctor. With software you can write a TODO app with a million lines of code or 7.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    ... Every serious trauma is unique and challenging in its own way.
- hkt 5y ago
  Realistically, I think I'd not be allowed to practice with that kind of system. I suspect there's an entire class of programmer (maybe this is the dev vs eng distinction the article refers to) which would be excluded by a system like this. Fundamentally though I think that system of high priests and laypeople who are barely allowed to code at all can't be sustained. I strongly suspect all professions will eventually require a little programming, and certification will be hard for those cases.
- smolder 5y ago
  I would likely take issue with whatever criteria people chose for judging someone's software engineering ability. Creating the best performing system is rarely anyone's goal (not that performance should be discounted,) they want to make something with the hard to quantify qualities of robustness, scalability, maintainability and expandability, to different degrees. They also often want to use languages or frameworks (or supporting software like databases) based on what boils down to fashion. Often the most desirable quality for candidates is an ability to learn and leverage new tools, given varied and shifting standards of good design, which again is hard to quantify.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Given the amount of people with CS degrees who fail the most basic interviews, it would be hard to set something good up. I assume universities are trying to solve the same problems as the hypothetical board setting up this test. That, and the field moving so quickly and being so broad. I interview for ML. I assume interviews for front end are extremely different.
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I’m educated as a technologist not an engineer in Canada. This exists in Canada for some areas of software development that falls under the requirements of being a licensed software engineer. Many people, including CS graduates in Canada, think it’s ridiculous. The requirement for certification is pretty strict in that you need a computer engineering undergrad degree or a degree in software engineering from an accredited program. This is probably how most people would be accredited, but there are some other ways too. All of them, as far as I can gather, require formal educational credentials. You then need to go through a formal apprenticeship while working under someone who is licensed. It’s probably an 8 year process in total. Further to that, there is a limitation on what you can practice. There are different disciplines (e.g., mechanical, civil, electrical) and there are fields and scopes of practice within each of those disciplines. What this results in is someone who is licensed in, for example, embedded systems wouldn’t then be able to go and work on websites or back end databases. The field is further divided into technologists and technicians that require less education than engineers and have much less autonomy and scope of authority.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
Sure, but that doesn't mean they're a good doctor. Most of us have had experiences with bad doctors. The exams they took could have been decades ago, but what does that tell us about how they've performed recently?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Bad doctor is relative. I expect that most doctors who have pass through that gauntlet can pass the doctor equivalent of fizzbuzz, which already is a lot different than our industry.
  - dopylitty 5y ago
    A doctor equivalent of fizzbuzz could be “what do you prescribe for a viral infection with no indication of a secondary infection” and from what I’ve heard there are a lot of doctors failing that one during the COVID pandemic by prescribing antibiotics.
    - sjburt 5y ago
      They are highly effective at making patients stop begging for antibiotics they don't need. Patient satisfaction with their doctor has nothing to do with medical outcomes.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      > prescribing antibiotics. I'd hire that one over anyone pushing horse de-wormer, anti-malarial drugs, or homeopathic remedies.
      - rsynnott 5y ago
        Well, it's less dangerous than the first two, generally, but roughly equivalent to the third, for covid.
- Ginden 5y ago
  It's quite hard to be really bad physician - because Pareto principle applies to medicine. As far as I remember, 5 autoimmune diseases (of >120 described; ~4%) make up for 80% of total autoimmune diseases. My relative did research on kidney diseases and results were similar.

jaaron 5y ago

No. As a software engineer for 20+ years, I've talked with my sister, who is an ER doctor about this often. Most folks outside of engineering think our interview processes are crazy. Keep in mind, there's significantly more training that goes into the medical field, so there's more emphasis on the institutions. Where did you go to school? What hospitals or facilities did you work with? Your resume and references speak more strongly. Other hurdles in software engineering hiring: - It's both a technical and (often) a creative field. - Most work requires teams to complete and there's very little insight into who contributed what into a project. - You don't have many of the signals from other fields, such as published papers, law cases, or hard numbers such as sales, certifications, etc. Long story short: we don't have good mechanisms within companies to measure engineering productivity, let alone measure programmers outside of an institution. I'm reminded of Steve McConnell's intro to "Software Estimation": "Meanwhile, the typical software organization is not struggling to improve its estimates from +/-10% to +/-5% accuracy. The typical software organization is struggling to avoid estimates that are incorrect by 100% or more."

bonesinger 5y ago
One key difference is licensing. As a physician you have to take the USMLE Step 1,2,3 and then potentially other board certifications. We engineers don't have any of that.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  I imagine that amazon would still grill you in an interview even if you have one of their advance AWS certificates. I know those certificates are not the same, but I don't think it's about certifications.
- jaaron 5y ago
  Yes and depending on the field, you may have to do mandatory additional certification and training throughout your career. We have certs in software engineering, but in my experience, they've largely failed as an indicator of qualifications. Some hiring managers see them as nice to have, but I've also met hiring managers who are actively skeptical of certifications. We also don't have differentiation of software levels or skills. If you're a programmer, you could, in theory, go program anything from web to AI to robotics. You don't have to be certified to work in nearly any industry. And we don't have formal hierarchy of skilled work, such as EMTs, nurses and doctors. We're a relatively young industry that just hasn't worked things out yet and, to be honest, in the United States, there isn't pressure by employers to get our act together. The engineers themselves are in charge often and we're skeptical of boards and authority. We have too many stories of folks making it big with no formal education. Those with the money aren't demanding change because the current system "works." It's possible software engineering will someday evolve into a boring respectable profession, but right now it's still a creative field of fads, trends, rock stars and super stars (let alone ninjas and wizards).

908B64B197 5y ago

No, but they have a legalized cartel to make sure there's never an over-supply (that would lower the price for the consumer, we don't want that!) that also gatekeep credentialing. Meanwhile in Software there are initiatives for "Gender X of Minority Y can Code" and "Everyone can be an Engineer after 3 months of BootCamp".