7 ms·

Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize t

by nomdep 5y ago

Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?

edoceo 5y ago
For lawyers, passing the Bar and education are just one requirement. In some cases your criminal record simply classes you as not "good moral character" and you are denied admission to the Bar or school (w/o significant effort)
not2b 5y ago
The short answer is yes, the bar for a developer is much, much lower than for a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant, requiring much less training. Doesn't mean that there aren't some forms of development that require considerable skill and experience, but many positions just don't.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  The bar is lower because we don’t have formal testing like they do, e.g. the bar exam or med school.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    The parent mentioned regulated professions, but there is a flurry of roles surrounding lawyers, nurses and accountants that don't require certification. Now, I'm sure there are programs to try to help ex-convicts to get into generic company roles like assistants, data operators etc.
  - not2b 5y ago
    So, would you require someone to get formal testing before they can code a website for someone for pay? Why?
    - symlinkk 5y ago
      Possibly. It could prove that a dev knows what they’re doing. It might even eliminate the need for Leetcode style interview questions.
    - cbpowell 5y ago
      You have heard of the tech interview process, yes? :-)
  - watwut 5y ago
    The bar is lower, because we don't need such procedures for was majority of tech positions.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
you dont need a license or any degree to make a web page
k__ 5y ago
Wouldn't be bad to have more lawyers and doctors.
loteck 5y ago
Eager, but not "too." Reading this site I see very little interest from developers in professionalizing their industry. That would require standards bodies, licensing, and many other layers of management and cruft. Personally, I'd say good on developers for welcoming all comers. Hack the planet, you know?
- nomdep 5y ago
  <3
vsareto 5y ago
There's been decades to make a decent and well recognized credential like lawyers/doctors but the industry was having none of it, so I guess we are getting "commoditized".
- edoceo 5y ago
  Haha, A+ certification from the late 90s has entered the chat. MCSE anyone?
fuckthemachine 5y ago
wow, what a jerk. this is some seriously classist BS right here..
- nomdep 5y ago
  I’m ashamed that it gives that impression
asdfman123 5y ago
People who think devs can become blue collar workers don't understand that you actually have to be smart to be a good developer regardless of credentials. The only difference between a programmer and a lawyer is a lawyer can't practice law on his own and get feedback without hurting anyone, and a programmer can get feedback from his laptop.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  But you can get surprisingly far in the field without being a good programmer.
  - asdfman123 5y ago
    Incompetent people sliding by is hardly limited to programming
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      Yeah but look at the ease of breaking in + how much it pays (even in worse jobs). Its probably the best value.
      - asdfman123 5y ago
        I have no idea how someone totally incompetent could break through. Like, what do they say in the interviews? Or do they just memorize the answers?
        nicoffeine 5y ago
        > Or do they just memorize the answers Yes, and guess where they learned it from? Regurgitation and handing in "something" on time can pretty easily get you a degree, even at a top tier school. That will get you further at most organizations than a resume with completed software projects and no college degree. Once you are in, it's easy to do enough to avoid getting fired. No one wants to take the blame for a bad hire. After a few years, they're a mid-level engineer and maybe they make good looking diagrams. They answer all of their emails, they show up for the meetings that actual engineers don't want to attend. They have a purpose and fill a role, even if they still fundamentally don't understand what's going on. No matter where you go, or how high up the chain you get, they will be on every team and in every meeting. What they lack in technical understanding they cover with political and social skills. Which also means they will be your management.
geofft 5y ago
What's wrong with being a blue-collar worker / commoditizing the profession? Seems fine, in and of itself. If you mean it as a proxy for salaries going down because of competition - so many engineering orgs are understaffed, I don't think that's realistic. And tech is, as they say, eating the world. Demand for software engineers seems to be steadily growing; I'm not concerned about supply catching up, at least within my lifetime. If you're concerned about working with formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged people - that's on you, buddy. Seems great to me. (And yes, that's on most doctors, lawyers, and accountants too. The legal profession in particular, as another commenter pointed out, is awfully gatekeepy. The medical profession requires a whole bunch of formal training, which we have culturally never been excited about imposing. And so forth.)
Swizec 5y ago
> Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession? On the other hand, the USA opens around 500,000 coding jobs per year and graduates only 50,000 CS grads. Lots of room for inviting more people into the profession. I had to research this recently for my greencard application. More context with sources: https://swizec.com/blog/software-engineering-best-job/ https://swizec.com/blog/software-engineering-best-job/
subsubzero 5y ago
I don't think so, the only thing that separates lawyers/Dr's etc vs. developers is there is no requirement for a degree or certification for a developer. With the other professions there is.
endisneigh 5y ago
what's wrong with blue-collar work? tech elitism never fails to amuse me. anyway, there is a push to do the same for doctors [1] and lawyers [2], so your point is moot anyway. the problem is that with credentialed backgrounds it will never be as easy so it will always seem like tech is more accessible, which it is inherently. finally, with respect to incarceration and being a part of a profession, unfortunately many hospitals and law firms will not hire felons, which is a problem in itself, but it's a fact. so this kind of website would be difficult for those fields. so even if med school and law school respectively weren't necessary, it would still be difficult. tech companies are very liberal in this aspect, actually. [1] https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-plan-embed-racial-justice-and-advance-health-equity https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-pl... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/litigation_journal/2019-20/spring/why-diversity-matters-the-selection-and-engagement-outside-counsel-inhouse-counsels-perspective/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/l...
- nomdep 5y ago
  There is nothing wrong, except that, usually in a blue collar job, everyone is replaceable and the salaries are low to average. Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    everyone is replaceable in tech too (or basically any job for that matter).
  - auslegung 5y ago
    > Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years Caveat: I'm in the USA, so what I'm about to say may only apply here. I don't know the market for software engineers outside the USA. In 10 years, you and I will have 10 more years of experience than we do now. We will probably be twice as valuable to a company. Anyone who joins the field today will forever be behind us in years of experience. Years of experience means nothing if the experience isn't valuable, so we need to continue improving. That's a good thing. I don't know the exact distribution, but not everyone who joins the field today will even be able to compete with us for jobs in 10 years. I'm just guessing here, but I think the majority of people, or at least a very large minority, don't make it to senior level. Some quit and change careers, others don't want to or can't get there. I'm in no way concerned about job security in 10 years. I see AI being a larger threat to our jobs than other developers. But I doubt it will be a threat to my career. I have about 30 years left, and each year I have more experience than before. So AI would have to overtake me at some point in the next 30 years, and in the meantime also overtake /lots/ of others. The software engineering field would be fairly decimated by AI before it took my job.
zarkov99 5y ago
Why would that bother you? If they can do the job then why not? Lawyers, doctors and accountants have deep certification moats protecting them, perhaps appropriately, but software development is still relatively free from credentialism.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
paxys 5y ago
Blue-collar literally means manual labor. So no, developers are by definition not blue collar. There aren't similar programs for other professions you listed because (1) all of them are highly regulated and have significant education requirements as well as additional certifications/licenses/board approvals, and (2) tech is in general more progressive and liberal when it comes to social issues. For the last part, I feel like tech has actually proven that you don't need to artificially gatekeep your profession in order to make your members more valuable. If tech was commoditized then wages would be coming down, but in reality it's the opposite.
PedroBatista 5y ago
They always were, it's just they got fooled by the free snacks and occasional ballpit. The fact "no one " get hired past 40 is another indication. Blue-collar worker means labor ( both skilled and unskilled ), but deep down they are nothing more than a cog in the machine ( just look at any Jira board ). Lawyers, doctors or accountants are valued as they grow old. Programmers? apart from the anecdotes they are mostly viewed as tired beasts of burden. Our industry is infantile and as long as there's fresh meat coming-in in droves it will never change and that's one of the main reasons you are a blue-collar worker. The golden watch is the promise of fuck-you-money. How many workers get golden watches these days?
cletus 5y ago
This comment just doesn't sit right with me. Obviously there's the issue that it reeks of tech elitism but there's more to it than that. Like not everyone needs to pass a FAANG hiring crap shoot. You can give someone useful skills with which they can earn a living. As for accountants, well there are levels here too. Bookkeeping being one entry-level route. "Accountant" also means many things, like it's often conflated with "consultant" in, say, a Big Four (is it still Big Four?) case. Lawyers actually do have a path to practice law without getting a law degree via a sort of apprenticeship program. It's not often used but it does exist. And then there's doctors. If you ignore college and just focus on medical school plus required on-the-job training (ie residency program, possibly a fellowship), it can take 6-12 years to fully train a doctor. Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage. But the US criminal "justice" system is really a human rights abomination for all the well-documented reasons (eg incarceration rate, racial bias, institutional rape, unjustifiably long sentences for possession of substances that are now legal in ~15 states, etc) but the big one is scarlet letter cruelty that most Americans seem to be OK with. I am of course talking about the nefarious "are you a felon?" question on job and other applications. I'm of the view that once someone has served their time, you should no longer hold it over their head such that they can't get many jobs, rent an apartment, etc. We should all be concerned about that if we care at all about recidivism. Unfortunately many Americans take a purely punitive view.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  >Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage Kids arent chopping organs out in a garage because thats a future serial killer. Kids make make medical breakthroughs all the time. https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/health/8-whiz-kids-future-medicine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/health/8-whiz-kids-future-med... Don't sell yourself short. I was a premed and comp sci dual degree. Computer Science was way more challenging than the pre med stuff.
- 5y ago
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I don’t understand how including people who’ve been incarcerated commodifies the profession. But I also continue to identify as a worker and have solidarity with my fellow workers, so I’m probably not your intended audience.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
"Developer" is not a profession.
dynamite-ready 5y ago
I think about that a lot. It's interesting though, that you make the suggestion with a reference to three professions which require a certain level of security clearance, and an adherence to a legally upheld standard, in order to hold practice.
klik99 5y ago
Someone who fixes cars isn't the same as someone who builds prototypes, despite the fact they both know their way around engine parts. Lumping all developers into the same category is just as ridiculous. There are blue collar development jobs, doesn't mean all developers are blue-collar workers. The equivalent for doctors would be nursing programs, and I'm pretty sure there are similar programs for nurses - like developers, there are a lack of nurses right now.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Good lord this hurts to see. Writing html and css isn't surgery or arguing a case in court. However many similar programs exist for paralegals and accountants. I don't think there are a lot of jail to rocket science programs but coding isnt rocket science. Is scaling a high performance financial platform that needs to have .000001 downtime simple? No. Is this program trying to train anyone to do that? No. There are plenty, and I'd argue the majority, of software jobs that are pretty simple and can be picked up by most folks with average intelligence and interested/effort. Aren't we too eager to gatekeep the profession?
scottie-atl 5y ago
I would love to become a doctor, I was an EMT before I was incarcerated. No medical institution would ever take on the liability of hiring me. Legal is very much the same way, the board can deny you licensure based on your "moral character."

by nomdep 5y ago

Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?

edoceo 5y ago

For lawyers, passing the Bar and education are just one requirement. In some cases your criminal record simply classes you as not "good moral character" and you are denied admission to the Bar or school (w/o significant effort)

not2b 5y ago

The short answer is yes, the bar for a developer is much, much lower than for a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant, requiring much less training. Doesn't mean that there aren't some forms of development that require considerable skill and experience, but many positions just don't.

symlinkk 5y ago
The bar is lower because we don’t have formal testing like they do, e.g. the bar exam or med school.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  The parent mentioned regulated professions, but there is a flurry of roles surrounding lawyers, nurses and accountants that don't require certification. Now, I'm sure there are programs to try to help ex-convicts to get into generic company roles like assistants, data operators etc.
- not2b 5y ago
  So, would you require someone to get formal testing before they can code a website for someone for pay? Why?
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    Possibly. It could prove that a dev knows what they’re doing. It might even eliminate the need for Leetcode style interview questions.
  - cbpowell 5y ago
    You have heard of the tech interview process, yes? :-)
- watwut 5y ago
  The bar is lower, because we don't need such procedures for was majority of tech positions.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

you dont need a license or any degree to make a web page

k__ 5y ago

Wouldn't be bad to have more lawyers and doctors.

loteck 5y ago

Eager, but not "too." Reading this site I see very little interest from developers in professionalizing their industry. That would require standards bodies, licensing, and many other layers of management and cruft. Personally, I'd say good on developers for welcoming all comers. Hack the planet, you know?

nomdep 5y ago
<3

vsareto 5y ago

There's been decades to make a decent and well recognized credential like lawyers/doctors but the industry was having none of it, so I guess we are getting "commoditized".

edoceo 5y ago
Haha, A+ certification from the late 90s has entered the chat. MCSE anyone?

fuckthemachine 5y ago

wow, what a jerk. this is some seriously classist BS right here..

nomdep 5y ago
I’m ashamed that it gives that impression

asdfman123 5y ago

People who think devs can become blue collar workers don't understand that you actually have to be smart to be a good developer regardless of credentials. The only difference between a programmer and a lawyer is a lawyer can't practice law on his own and get feedback without hurting anyone, and a programmer can get feedback from his laptop.

the_only_law 5y ago
But you can get surprisingly far in the field without being a good programmer.
- asdfman123 5y ago
  Incompetent people sliding by is hardly limited to programming
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    Yeah but look at the ease of breaking in + how much it pays (even in worse jobs). Its probably the best value.
    - asdfman123 5y ago
      I have no idea how someone totally incompetent could break through. Like, what do they say in the interviews? Or do they just memorize the answers?
      - nicoffeine 5y ago
        > Or do they just memorize the answers Yes, and guess where they learned it from? Regurgitation and handing in "something" on time can pretty easily get you a degree, even at a top tier school. That will get you further at most organizations than a resume with completed software projects and no college degree. Once you are in, it's easy to do enough to avoid getting fired. No one wants to take the blame for a bad hire. After a few years, they're a mid-level engineer and maybe they make good looking diagrams. They answer all of their emails, they show up for the meetings that actual engineers don't want to attend. They have a purpose and fill a role, even if they still fundamentally don't understand what's going on. No matter where you go, or how high up the chain you get, they will be on every team and in every meeting. What they lack in technical understanding they cover with political and social skills. Which also means they will be your management.

geofft 5y ago

What's wrong with being a blue-collar worker / commoditizing the profession? Seems fine, in and of itself. If you mean it as a proxy for salaries going down because of competition - so many engineering orgs are understaffed, I don't think that's realistic. And tech is, as they say, eating the world. Demand for software engineers seems to be steadily growing; I'm not concerned about supply catching up, at least within my lifetime. If you're concerned about working with formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged people - that's on you, buddy. Seems great to me. (And yes, that's on most doctors, lawyers, and accountants too. The legal profession in particular, as another commenter pointed out, is awfully gatekeepy. The medical profession requires a whole bunch of formal training, which we have culturally never been excited about imposing. And so forth.)

Swizec 5y ago

> Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession? On the other hand, the USA opens around 500,000 coding jobs per year and graduates only 50,000 CS grads. Lots of room for inviting more people into the profession. I had to research this recently for my greencard application. More context with sources: https://swizec.com/blog/software-engineering-best-job/ https://swizec.com/blog/software-engineering-best-job/

subsubzero 5y ago

I don't think so, the only thing that separates lawyers/Dr's etc vs. developers is there is no requirement for a degree or certification for a developer. With the other professions there is.

endisneigh 5y ago

what's wrong with blue-collar work? tech elitism never fails to amuse me. anyway, there is a push to do the same for doctors [1] and lawyers [2], so your point is moot anyway. the problem is that with credentialed backgrounds it will never be as easy so it will always seem like tech is more accessible, which it is inherently. finally, with respect to incarceration and being a part of a profession, unfortunately many hospitals and law firms will not hire felons, which is a problem in itself, but it's a fact. so this kind of website would be difficult for those fields. so even if med school and law school respectively weren't necessary, it would still be difficult. tech companies are very liberal in this aspect, actually. [1] https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-plan-embed-racial-justice-and-advance-health-equity https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-pl... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/litigation_journal/2019-20/spring/why-diversity-matters-the-selection-and-engagement-outside-counsel-inhouse-counsels-perspective/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/l...

nomdep 5y ago
There is nothing wrong, except that, usually in a blue collar job, everyone is replaceable and the salaries are low to average. Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years
- endisneigh 5y ago
  everyone is replaceable in tech too (or basically any job for that matter).
- auslegung 5y ago
  > Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years Caveat: I'm in the USA, so what I'm about to say may only apply here. I don't know the market for software engineers outside the USA. In 10 years, you and I will have 10 more years of experience than we do now. We will probably be twice as valuable to a company. Anyone who joins the field today will forever be behind us in years of experience. Years of experience means nothing if the experience isn't valuable, so we need to continue improving. That's a good thing. I don't know the exact distribution, but not everyone who joins the field today will even be able to compete with us for jobs in 10 years. I'm just guessing here, but I think the majority of people, or at least a very large minority, don't make it to senior level. Some quit and change careers, others don't want to or can't get there. I'm in no way concerned about job security in 10 years. I see AI being a larger threat to our jobs than other developers. But I doubt it will be a threat to my career. I have about 30 years left, and each year I have more experience than before. So AI would have to overtake me at some point in the next 30 years, and in the meantime also overtake /lots/ of others. The software engineering field would be fairly decimated by AI before it took my job.

zarkov99 5y ago

Why would that bother you? If they can do the job then why not? Lawyers, doctors and accountants have deep certification moats protecting them, perhaps appropriately, but software development is still relatively free from credentialism.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

paxys 5y ago

Blue-collar literally means manual labor. So no, developers are by definition not blue collar. There aren't similar programs for other professions you listed because (1) all of them are highly regulated and have significant education requirements as well as additional certifications/licenses/board approvals, and (2) tech is in general more progressive and liberal when it comes to social issues. For the last part, I feel like tech has actually proven that you don't need to artificially gatekeep your profession in order to make your members more valuable. If tech was commoditized then wages would be coming down, but in reality it's the opposite.

PedroBatista 5y ago

They always were, it's just they got fooled by the free snacks and occasional ballpit. The fact "no one " get hired past 40 is another indication. Blue-collar worker means labor ( both skilled and unskilled ), but deep down they are nothing more than a cog in the machine ( just look at any Jira board ). Lawyers, doctors or accountants are valued as they grow old. Programmers? apart from the anecdotes they are mostly viewed as tired beasts of burden. Our industry is infantile and as long as there's fresh meat coming-in in droves it will never change and that's one of the main reasons you are a blue-collar worker. The golden watch is the promise of fuck-you-money. How many workers get golden watches these days?

cletus 5y ago

This comment just doesn't sit right with me. Obviously there's the issue that it reeks of tech elitism but there's more to it than that. Like not everyone needs to pass a FAANG hiring crap shoot. You can give someone useful skills with which they can earn a living. As for accountants, well there are levels here too. Bookkeeping being one entry-level route. "Accountant" also means many things, like it's often conflated with "consultant" in, say, a Big Four (is it still Big Four?) case. Lawyers actually do have a path to practice law without getting a law degree via a sort of apprenticeship program. It's not often used but it does exist. And then there's doctors. If you ignore college and just focus on medical school plus required on-the-job training (ie residency program, possibly a fellowship), it can take 6-12 years to fully train a doctor. Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage. But the US criminal "justice" system is really a human rights abomination for all the well-documented reasons (eg incarceration rate, racial bias, institutional rape, unjustifiably long sentences for possession of substances that are now legal in ~15 states, etc) but the big one is scarlet letter cruelty that most Americans seem to be OK with. I am of course talking about the nefarious "are you a felon?" question on job and other applications. I'm of the view that once someone has served their time, you should no longer hold it over their head such that they can't get many jobs, rent an apartment, etc. We should all be concerned about that if we care at all about recidivism. Unfortunately many Americans take a purely punitive view.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
>Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage Kids arent chopping organs out in a garage because thats a future serial killer. Kids make make medical breakthroughs all the time. https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/health/8-whiz-kids-future-medicine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/health/8-whiz-kids-future-med... Don't sell yourself short. I was a premed and comp sci dual degree. Computer Science was way more challenging than the pre med stuff.
5y ago

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I don’t understand how including people who’ve been incarcerated commodifies the profession. But I also continue to identify as a worker and have solidarity with my fellow workers, so I’m probably not your intended audience.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

"Developer" is not a profession.

dynamite-ready 5y ago

I think about that a lot. It's interesting though, that you make the suggestion with a reference to three professions which require a certain level of security clearance, and an adherence to a legally upheld standard, in order to hold practice.

klik99 5y ago

Someone who fixes cars isn't the same as someone who builds prototypes, despite the fact they both know their way around engine parts. Lumping all developers into the same category is just as ridiculous. There are blue collar development jobs, doesn't mean all developers are blue-collar workers. The equivalent for doctors would be nursing programs, and I'm pretty sure there are similar programs for nurses - like developers, there are a lack of nurses right now.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Good lord this hurts to see. Writing html and css isn't surgery or arguing a case in court. However many similar programs exist for paralegals and accountants. I don't think there are a lot of jail to rocket science programs but coding isnt rocket science. Is scaling a high performance financial platform that needs to have .000001 downtime simple? No. Is this program trying to train anyone to do that? No. There are plenty, and I'd argue the majority, of software jobs that are pretty simple and can be picked up by most folks with average intelligence and interested/effort. Aren't we too eager to gatekeep the profession?

scottie-atl 5y ago

I would love to become a doctor, I was an EMT before I was incarcerated. No medical institution would ever take on the liability of hiring me. Legal is very much the same way, the board can deny you licensure based on your "moral character."