7 ms·

>I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so p

>I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Outside of tech, any other white collar interview is basically a 15-60 minute coffee or lunch with the boss (the culture fit interview basically) and then, unless you showed some red flags, you get hired.

Matticus_Rex 4y ago
> Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Nearly every other industry is credentialed and a degree is enough to get hired? I don't think that matches reality at all.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  In other white collar professional jobs (not admin), esp. STEM fields, he's not wrong.
  - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
    He is wrong, actually. STEM fields are the exception. Most white-collar jobs require an undergrad degree, but the industry itself doesn't require a particular job-related credential, and the degree itself isn't enough to get a job.
    - lr4444lr 4y ago
      Uh... Law? Medicine? Accounting? Eng.? Teaching? What other job where you actually need hard technical skills equivalent to software dev is there no widely used non-commercial credentialing system?
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Outside of a relatively small percentage of professional engineer certifications, there is generally no credentialing system in engineering or the sciences outside of academic degrees--the requirements for which may be more or less rigid in a given case. While some business roles may require an MBA, this is probably less true than in the past. A given position might also give preference to some industry cert. But outside of medical, legal, and certain financial roles, you're more likely to see formal non-academic licensing for truck drivers and hairdressers than for white collar professionals.
- Victerius 4y ago
  Lawyers need to have passed the bar. Accountants need their CPA. Doctors their MD. Pharmacists their Pharm.D. Finance professionals their CFA. And so on. Software engineers making 150K with only a four year degree and some leetcode have nothing to complain about. Take homes? Whiteboards? Cry me a river. Try to pass the bar or get through residency instead.
  - jjav 4y ago
    > Try to pass the bar or get through residency instead. It would be wonderful to have an equivalente for computer science. You do it right after graduating, study for it once and you're done. Not leetcoding for 6 months every other year for life which is ridiculous waste of time.
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    Those jobs are a minority of white collar office jobs.
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    You pass the bar 1 time. Not every couple years.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > You pass the bar 1 time. Not every couple years. You maintain a current law license, which requires having passed the bar once, continuing education requirements, and the absence of professional mal-, mis-, or non-feasance sufficient to lose that license. Taken together, the requirements are ongoing, though some individual elements are one-time.
      - sarchertech 4y ago
        In my state lawyers need 15 hours per year. If they are anything like my wife’s medical continuing education credits they are super easy to get because many of the things she already has to do for work count. Not getting disbarred hardly counts as an ongoing requirement in all but the most meaningless sense of the word.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Nearly every other industry is credentialed In general, the undergrad degree is a filter. Unless someone for, say, a marketing role has a lot of experience, a BS/BA is probably a requirement and a better known school probably gives you a bit of a leg up as may a graduate degree. You're still going to have some interviews. In my experience, HR passes promising resumes through, there are 5 or so half hour interviews, and then there's a thumbs up/down by the people who did the interviews. But for most roles there's no specific non-negotiable credential like there is for an accountant or lawyer.
ipaddr 4y ago
It use to be like this in tech 10 years ago, even 5 years ago..
sarchertech 4y ago
Except they aren’t. Most working engineers don’t even bother with a PE. Think of all the marketing, sales, Human Resources jobs etc…
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  To me, PE means either pulmonary embolism or private equity (and I have a hard time trying to decide with one I'd rather have to deal with). Which is to say there are too many initialisms these days and I have no idea what you mean even in context, and I wish people would take the time to write out words.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Professional Engineer license
  - evilduck 4y ago
    PE is a long-standing title for a professional engineer which requires time on the job and another rigorous test and is common vernacular if you ever intersected with an engineering school or department in college or worked with an engineer in a professional capacity. And software “engineering” doesn’t count. Would you expect MD or CPA to be spelled out every time?
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Perhaps, but would you expect the general public to know what the initialism CCIE is, for instance? And when you say Professional Engineer, I assume it's not the kind of engineer who drives trains correct? Though I believe that is the original meaning of the word. But probably also not the kind of engineer who writes software?
      - evilduck 4y ago
        I mean, using a search engine to figure out what a CCIE was took about 10 seconds. Searching "engineer pe" and finding a contextually relevant answer wasn't any harder. Not every comment, article or book must devolve to serve the greatest common denominator.
Victerius 4y ago
This. The popularity of coding bootcamps is another factor. Software engineers don't like the concept of formal credentials. Fine. But you'll have to demonstrate your skills at one of the interview stages. Or we could create something like the American Academy of Software Engineers, or the Society of Software Engineers, or the Software Engineering Institute, which would be tasked with accrediting schools and programs, and in order to practice as a software engineer in the industry, on top of a university degree, you'll have to pass another examination from the credentialing authority to obtain a professional title like Professional Software Engineer or Chartered Software Engineer. Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview. Local governments impose licensing requirements on some professions. This is not something the professions just voluntarily impose on themselves. (If they did impose it on themselves, there might even be antitrust problems as a result.) This is mainly (or at least purportedly) for the protection of public health and safety, not to make it easier on potential employers interviewing job candidates. It actually has nothing to do with job interviews, because every such professional needs a license in order to practice their profession, even if the professional is a self-employed entrepreneur. So to be clear, when someone asks for software engineer licensing, in effect what they're asking is for local governments to regulate the ability to practice software development, even for self-employed programmers. And then you can expect a visit from the government software inspector.
  - scatters 4y ago
    Huh? Of course they impose it voluntarily on themselves, and always have (look at the medieval guilds). They might use government as a figleaf, but the instigation always comes from within the profession. After all, they're the ones who benefit from the reduction in competition.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      This is hand-waving that doesn't explain why some professions are licensed and others are not. After all, wouldn't all professions benefit from the reduction in competition? Anyway, government isn't a fig leaf, it's a cudgel. It has to be, otherwise the system would be undermined by mass defection.
alistairSH 4y ago
How do companies hire paralegals, staff accountants (no CPA), various business consultants, HR, marketing staff, etc? In my entire peer group, only the software engineers have ridiculously time-consuming take-home tests.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >How do companies hire paralegals, staff accountants (no CPA), various business consultants, HR, marketing staff, etc? Easy. They have a 15-30 minute chat over coffee or lunch, then they get hired.

Matticus_Rex 4y ago

> Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Nearly every other industry is credentialed and a degree is enough to get hired? I don't think that matches reality at all.

lr4444lr 4y ago
In other white collar professional jobs (not admin), esp. STEM fields, he's not wrong.
- Matticus_Rex 4y ago
  He is wrong, actually. STEM fields are the exception. Most white-collar jobs require an undergrad degree, but the industry itself doesn't require a particular job-related credential, and the degree itself isn't enough to get a job.
  - lr4444lr 4y ago
    Uh... Law? Medicine? Accounting? Eng.? Teaching? What other job where you actually need hard technical skills equivalent to software dev is there no widely used non-commercial credentialing system?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Outside of a relatively small percentage of professional engineer certifications, there is generally no credentialing system in engineering or the sciences outside of academic degrees--the requirements for which may be more or less rigid in a given case. While some business roles may require an MBA, this is probably less true than in the past. A given position might also give preference to some industry cert. But outside of medical, legal, and certain financial roles, you're more likely to see formal non-academic licensing for truck drivers and hairdressers than for white collar professionals.
Victerius 4y ago
Lawyers need to have passed the bar. Accountants need their CPA. Doctors their MD. Pharmacists their Pharm.D. Finance professionals their CFA. And so on. Software engineers making 150K with only a four year degree and some leetcode have nothing to complain about. Take homes? Whiteboards? Cry me a river. Try to pass the bar or get through residency instead.
- jjav 4y ago
  > Try to pass the bar or get through residency instead. It would be wonderful to have an equivalente for computer science. You do it right after graduating, study for it once and you're done. Not leetcoding for 6 months every other year for life which is ridiculous waste of time.
- sarchertech 4y ago
  Those jobs are a minority of white collar office jobs.
- sarchertech 4y ago
  You pass the bar 1 time. Not every couple years.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > You pass the bar 1 time. Not every couple years. You maintain a current law license, which requires having passed the bar once, continuing education requirements, and the absence of professional mal-, mis-, or non-feasance sufficient to lose that license. Taken together, the requirements are ongoing, though some individual elements are one-time.
    - sarchertech 4y ago
      In my state lawyers need 15 hours per year. If they are anything like my wife’s medical continuing education credits they are super easy to get because many of the things she already has to do for work count. Not getting disbarred hardly counts as an ongoing requirement in all but the most meaningless sense of the word.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 4y ago
>Nearly every other industry is credentialed In general, the undergrad degree is a filter. Unless someone for, say, a marketing role has a lot of experience, a BS/BA is probably a requirement and a better known school probably gives you a bit of a leg up as may a graduate degree. You're still going to have some interviews. In my experience, HR passes promising resumes through, there are 5 or so half hour interviews, and then there's a thumbs up/down by the people who did the interviews. But for most roles there's no specific non-negotiable credential like there is for an accountant or lawyer.

ipaddr 4y ago

It use to be like this in tech 10 years ago, even 5 years ago..

sarchertech 4y ago

Except they aren’t. Most working engineers don’t even bother with a PE. Think of all the marketing, sales, Human Resources jobs etc…

hotpotamus 4y ago
To me, PE means either pulmonary embolism or private equity (and I have a hard time trying to decide with one I'd rather have to deal with). Which is to say there are too many initialisms these days and I have no idea what you mean even in context, and I wish people would take the time to write out words.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Professional Engineer license
- evilduck 4y ago
  PE is a long-standing title for a professional engineer which requires time on the job and another rigorous test and is common vernacular if you ever intersected with an engineering school or department in college or worked with an engineer in a professional capacity. And software “engineering” doesn’t count. Would you expect MD or CPA to be spelled out every time?
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Perhaps, but would you expect the general public to know what the initialism CCIE is, for instance? And when you say Professional Engineer, I assume it's not the kind of engineer who drives trains correct? Though I believe that is the original meaning of the word. But probably also not the kind of engineer who writes software?
    - evilduck 4y ago
      I mean, using a search engine to figure out what a CCIE was took about 10 seconds. Searching "engineer pe" and finding a contextually relevant answer wasn't any harder. Not every comment, article or book must devolve to serve the greatest common denominator.

Victerius 4y ago

This. The popularity of coding bootcamps is another factor. Software engineers don't like the concept of formal credentials. Fine. But you'll have to demonstrate your skills at one of the interview stages. Or we could create something like the American Academy of Software Engineers, or the Society of Software Engineers, or the Software Engineering Institute, which would be tasked with accrediting schools and programs, and in order to practice as a software engineer in the industry, on top of a university degree, you'll have to pass another examination from the credentialing authority to obtain a professional title like Professional Software Engineer or Chartered Software Engineer. Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview.

lapcat 4y ago
> Other professions gatekeep before you can take the interview. Local governments impose licensing requirements on some professions. This is not something the professions just voluntarily impose on themselves. (If they did impose it on themselves, there might even be antitrust problems as a result.) This is mainly (or at least purportedly) for the protection of public health and safety, not to make it easier on potential employers interviewing job candidates. It actually has nothing to do with job interviews, because every such professional needs a license in order to practice their profession, even if the professional is a self-employed entrepreneur. So to be clear, when someone asks for software engineer licensing, in effect what they're asking is for local governments to regulate the ability to practice software development, even for self-employed programmers. And then you can expect a visit from the government software inspector.
- scatters 4y ago
  Huh? Of course they impose it voluntarily on themselves, and always have (look at the medieval guilds). They might use government as a figleaf, but the instigation always comes from within the profession. After all, they're the ones who benefit from the reduction in competition.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    This is hand-waving that doesn't explain why some professions are licensed and others are not. After all, wouldn't all professions benefit from the reduction in competition? Anyway, government isn't a fig leaf, it's a cudgel. It has to be, otherwise the system would be undermined by mass defection.

alistairSH 4y ago

How do companies hire paralegals, staff accountants (no CPA), various business consultants, HR, marketing staff, etc? In my entire peer group, only the software engineers have ridiculously time-consuming take-home tests.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>How do companies hire paralegals, staff accountants (no CPA), various business consultants, HR, marketing staff, etc? Easy. They have a 15-30 minute chat over coffee or lunch, then they get hired.