8 ms·

Skill trumping credentials and connections has not been my experience in a 35 year career. The gatekeeping by recruiters and HR departments is extreme - until

by dajtxx 4y ago

Skill trumping credentials and connections has not been my experience in a 35 year career. The gatekeeping by recruiters and HR departments is extreme - until I got my CS degree a couple of years ago I could not get interviews anywhere, despite the fact I'd never been sacked from a job and was always one of the best coders in my teams with the broadest range of experience. I lucked out many years ago on getting an interesting job but that job went through a series of acquisitions and after a while I kept trying to get out but couldn't get interviewed anywhere. Then I finally get a degree and get a job made with a contact while doing that and all of a sudden a few years later I can at least get to the first round of interviews. Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves. Software developers are essentially the blue collar workers of the 21st century. We are the modern fitters and turners. Highly skilled in some cases, but not valued.

junofan 4y ago
I would not call a degree requirement extreme gatekeeping.
- mxkopy 4y ago
  When your hire can prove your algorithm runs in O(1) amortized time but has trouble setting up ssh and always commits to master, and you turn down a candidate who got stumped on rederiving Bellman-Ford but maintains several projects, I'd say that's gatekeeping
  - jefftk 4y ago
    dajtxx claimed 'extreme' gatekeeping while describing some employers having either a degree requirement or higher standards for employees without degrees. In the US, to the extent that this is 'extreme' it's in the 'less gatekeeping' direction. (I agree that there's some gatekeeping, and I'd rather see the industry pay less attention to degrees.)
rnk 4y ago
I humbly disagree with some aspects of your comment. I think software engineers are highly paid, almost the lowest paid devs in the country are decently paid. Companies are just looking for a simple filter and a degree is an easy one. With my degree I actually did learn theory and did learn to program in several languages and did learn how to work in groups. But that's not universally true of course. And there's plenty of self-taught people. I have known a few people who got started without a degree as engineers doing software and it was really hard until they had an extensive resume. After they have a resume it doesn't matter. I just see it as a lazy, easy filter. The reason I don't see us as fitters and turners is because there's so much demand for our resources and you can become wealthy. My wife has a master's degree in library science and this isn't open to her. She's national board certified and I probably started out at more than she'll ever make.
twblalock 4y ago
I got into tech without a CS degree and I know a lot of other people who have. If you had trouble getting your foot in the door, it's probably because of something else. > Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves. That's just not true. Interchangeable cogs in a machine don't get paid several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you want to see what being interchangeable really looks like, work in the food service industry.
- dajtxx 4y ago
  I've been a developer full time for 35 years, since I was 16 years old. I've led teams, I've been a systems architect, I've never been fired. I can program in Java, C/C++, Python, COBOL, asm of various flavours. I've written crypto software, ERP systems, remote sensing systems, BI systems, dev tools. I have never got paid close to several hundred thousand dollars a year, and I have always had trouble getting through the HR degree filter until the last couple of years when I finally got my CS degree. You could be right, the problem is me. I don't have enough contacts due to 15 years of fully remote work and spending too much time at my previous job, and I don't want to flog myself any more because I'm in my 50s. But I am certain my career has suffered greatly by not having that piece of paper 'proving' to HR I know what I'm doing. And yes, I am bitter about it ;)

by dajtxx 4y ago

junofan 4y ago

I would not call a degree requirement extreme gatekeeping.

mxkopy 4y ago
When your hire can prove your algorithm runs in O(1) amortized time but has trouble setting up ssh and always commits to master, and you turn down a candidate who got stumped on rederiving Bellman-Ford but maintains several projects, I'd say that's gatekeeping
- jefftk 4y ago
  dajtxx claimed 'extreme' gatekeeping while describing some employers having either a degree requirement or higher standards for employees without degrees. In the US, to the extent that this is 'extreme' it's in the 'less gatekeeping' direction. (I agree that there's some gatekeeping, and I'd rather see the industry pay less attention to degrees.)

rnk 4y ago

I humbly disagree with some aspects of your comment. I think software engineers are highly paid, almost the lowest paid devs in the country are decently paid. Companies are just looking for a simple filter and a degree is an easy one. With my degree I actually did learn theory and did learn to program in several languages and did learn how to work in groups. But that's not universally true of course. And there's plenty of self-taught people. I have known a few people who got started without a degree as engineers doing software and it was really hard until they had an extensive resume. After they have a resume it doesn't matter. I just see it as a lazy, easy filter. The reason I don't see us as fitters and turners is because there's so much demand for our resources and you can become wealthy. My wife has a master's degree in library science and this isn't open to her. She's national board certified and I probably started out at more than she'll ever make.

twblalock 4y ago

I got into tech without a CS degree and I know a lot of other people who have. If you had trouble getting your foot in the door, it's probably because of something else. > Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves. That's just not true. Interchangeable cogs in a machine don't get paid several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you want to see what being interchangeable really looks like, work in the food service industry.

dajtxx 4y ago
I've been a developer full time for 35 years, since I was 16 years old. I've led teams, I've been a systems architect, I've never been fired. I can program in Java, C/C++, Python, COBOL, asm of various flavours. I've written crypto software, ERP systems, remote sensing systems, BI systems, dev tools. I have never got paid close to several hundred thousand dollars a year, and I have always had trouble getting through the HR degree filter until the last couple of years when I finally got my CS degree. You could be right, the problem is me. I don't have enough contacts due to 15 years of fully remote work and spending too much time at my previous job, and I don't want to flog myself any more because I'm in my 50s. But I am certain my career has suffered greatly by not having that piece of paper 'proving' to HR I know what I'm doing. And yes, I am bitter about it ;)