3 ms·

The Wright brothers never had a pilots license.

by azemetre 5y ago

whimsicalism 5y ago
The Wright brothers weren't trying to get hired by large, inefficient at hiring, aeronautics firms.
- azemetre 5y ago
  The idea is that if you don't need a license or a degree to work in new fields. Software engineering is full of new fields in their infancy. To say you only need a certain background to work is horribly misguided. You can be productive in many fields with a wide array of knowledge and education. I'm not saying a frontend developer can write novel ML algorithms, but surely they can contribute in other capacities (like creating interfaces to work with the novel ML algorithms, which is meaningful in itself and requires new UX paradigms surely).
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    You're completely misinterpreting my point, and perhaps conflating is and ought. In the industry, your educational background does matter, especially for the type of firm that asks leetcode questions. I was not saying you need a certain background to be able to be productive in tech, that is a strawman. But I would defend that your educational background is a signal (very far from a perfect one) at how productive you would be at knowledge work.
scrtlyCool 5y ago
if they had to pilot modern aircrafts with much more complicated controls, carrying hundreds of passengers they would definitely be required to have one
fragmede 5y ago
No, but they did own a successful bike shop for the better part of a decade. Don't buy the narrative that the first airplane only cost $28,000 so someone with the same grit as the Wright brothers could have achieved that first flight. Or do, but do be careful not to draw unrealistic conclusions. If you have a decade of industry experience, no one cares that you went to some no-name college. It's pretty easy to get callbacks as a senior software developer. But don't mistake that for meaning that educational background is irrelevant. It's far harder to get callbacks if your resume has a bootcamp for education, and no experience. Throw in a felony criminal record, and the job you'll get a Lyft is fixing bicycles for $17/hr. Which isn't a bad job, actually, but it's a far cry from $200k/yr. Meanwhile, someone at an internship at Google or Facebook while working on two degrees from MIT will be making the equivalent to $100k before ever graduating. Experience matters far more than education, and the software industry isn't some egalitarian ideal, no matter how many millionaires were minted in the 90's and 2000's, and continue to get minted. The argument that someone could go make their own app and sidestep the need to get a pilot's license is a poor one. If you look at all the shovelware, spyware, and straight up scams on both Apple and Google's app stores, it's clear that there's more to being a successful app developer than writing a good app, and the exceptions there (like Christian Selig) are akin to literal rock stars. Good for them and all, but the rock star's backup singers' names and stories get lost to history, nor do they get the same fame or fortune. It's like when exceptional black, women candidates are held up as an example of equality. The exceptional candidate isn't the one to ask about, truly exceptional people always bubble up. Where do the average, or lower-than-average candidates (with reasonable educations) end up? How many don't even make it into the field, in a failure-to-launch scenario because they never get that first break that you did? The Wright brothers never had a pilots license, but who here's heard about Charlie Taylor, their machinist?

The Wright brothers never had a pilots license.

whimsicalism 5y ago

The Wright brothers weren't trying to get hired by large, inefficient at hiring, aeronautics firms.

azemetre 5y ago
The idea is that if you don't need a license or a degree to work in new fields. Software engineering is full of new fields in their infancy. To say you only need a certain background to work is horribly misguided. You can be productive in many fields with a wide array of knowledge and education. I'm not saying a frontend developer can write novel ML algorithms, but surely they can contribute in other capacities (like creating interfaces to work with the novel ML algorithms, which is meaningful in itself and requires new UX paradigms surely).
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  You're completely misinterpreting my point, and perhaps conflating is and ought. In the industry, your educational background does matter, especially for the type of firm that asks leetcode questions. I was not saying you need a certain background to be able to be productive in tech, that is a strawman. But I would defend that your educational background is a signal (very far from a perfect one) at how productive you would be at knowledge work.

scrtlyCool 5y ago

if they had to pilot modern aircrafts with much more complicated controls, carrying hundreds of passengers they would definitely be required to have one

fragmede 5y ago

No, but they did own a successful bike shop for the better part of a decade. Don't buy the narrative that the first airplane only cost $28,000 so someone with the same grit as the Wright brothers could have achieved that first flight. Or do, but do be careful not to draw unrealistic conclusions. If you have a decade of industry experience, no one cares that you went to some no-name college. It's pretty easy to get callbacks as a senior software developer. But don't mistake that for meaning that educational background is irrelevant. It's far harder to get callbacks if your resume has a bootcamp for education, and no experience. Throw in a felony criminal record, and the job you'll get a Lyft is fixing bicycles for $17/hr. Which isn't a bad job, actually, but it's a far cry from $200k/yr. Meanwhile, someone at an internship at Google or Facebook while working on two degrees from MIT will be making the equivalent to $100k before ever graduating. Experience matters far more than education, and the software industry isn't some egalitarian ideal, no matter how many millionaires were minted in the 90's and 2000's, and continue to get minted. The argument that someone could go make their own app and sidestep the need to get a pilot's license is a poor one. If you look at all the shovelware, spyware, and straight up scams on both Apple and Google's app stores, it's clear that there's more to being a successful app developer than writing a good app, and the exceptions there (like Christian Selig) are akin to literal rock stars. Good for them and all, but the rock star's backup singers' names and stories get lost to history, nor do they get the same fame or fortune. It's like when exceptional black, women candidates are held up as an example of equality. The exceptional candidate isn't the one to ask about, truly exceptional people always bubble up. Where do the average, or lower-than-average candidates (with reasonable educations) end up? How many don't even make it into the field, in a failure-to-launch scenario because they never get that first break that you did? The Wright brothers never had a pilots license, but who here's heard about Charlie Taylor, their machinist?