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Ask HN: What should a software engineer know upon graduating in 2024?

3 points by ofou 4y ago

mixmastamyk 4y ago
In short: 0. CS fundamentals & how to program 1. Project Management basics 2. Unix admin basics 3. Networking 4. Git/lab/hub 5. Writing & People skills Maybe Docker as well, depending on where you'd like to work. We could quibble over the details, but I think this is a good foundation to get hired today. Although it will be difficult until the the economy stabilizes. I've done some writing on the subject at greater length, but haven't quite finished: https://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.io/pro_soft_dev/ https://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.io/pro_soft_dev/
- ofou 4y ago
  Not AI?
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Is that a field you are interested in? Then by all means. I don’t see it as a req for most jobs however.
    - ofou 4y ago
      I actually think WILL be a requisite for most SWE jobs in the near future.
      - mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Would you happen to be confusing SE with CS? This is a common mistake, explained at the intro of my link above. Vast majority of SE jobs are company CRUD jobs and managers, a few on the side embedded or graphics. Very, very few jobs are "CS research scientists" pushing boundaries. If you mean "learn to use" AI tools, well log on and it takes 15 mins to get started and practice here and there. Never seen anyone tout their "wolfram-alpha using skills" previously—it's just not a big flex or deep moat. Learning to use git properly is more difficult than chatgpt I'd say. All things data-engineering is the big one I forgot and a huge field. Stepping back, as a new SE you'll want to be familiar with hype cycles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle I remember when Java was going to marginalize everything else, and later when self-driving cars were 5 years away. Neither happened. Bitcoin? Nope. Only thing that sorta did was the Web displacing Microsoft, but only after later mobile/cloud waves hit. Didn't significantly hurt them and happened in a very different way than originally forseen—which was that Netscape and Sun were going to make the the client OS irrelevant.
ssss11 4y ago
I would argue you should get up to speed on AI as your future career may be somewhat impacted by it, and if not, many others in the corporate world will be.

3 points by ofou 4y ago

In short: 0. CS fundamentals & how to program 1. Project Management basics 2. Unix admin basics 3. Networking 4. Git/lab/hub 5. Writing & People skills Maybe Docker as well, depending on where you'd like to work. We could quibble over the details, but I think this is a good foundation to get hired today. Although it will be difficult until the the economy stabilizes. I've done some writing on the subject at greater length, but haven't quite finished: https://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.io/pro_soft_dev/ https://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.io/pro_soft_dev/

ofou 4y ago
Not AI?
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Is that a field you are interested in? Then by all means. I don’t see it as a req for most jobs however.
  - ofou 4y ago
    I actually think WILL be a requisite for most SWE jobs in the near future.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      Would you happen to be confusing SE with CS? This is a common mistake, explained at the intro of my link above. Vast majority of SE jobs are company CRUD jobs and managers, a few on the side embedded or graphics. Very, very few jobs are "CS research scientists" pushing boundaries. If you mean "learn to use" AI tools, well log on and it takes 15 mins to get started and practice here and there. Never seen anyone tout their "wolfram-alpha using skills" previously—it's just not a big flex or deep moat. Learning to use git properly is more difficult than chatgpt I'd say. All things data-engineering is the big one I forgot and a huge field. Stepping back, as a new SE you'll want to be familiar with hype cycles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle I remember when Java was going to marginalize everything else, and later when self-driving cars were 5 years away. Neither happened. Bitcoin? Nope. Only thing that sorta did was the Web displacing Microsoft, but only after later mobile/cloud waves hit. Didn't significantly hurt them and happened in a very different way than originally forseen—which was that Netscape and Sun were going to make the the client OS irrelevant.

ssss11 4y ago

I would argue you should get up to speed on AI as your future career may be somewhat impacted by it, and if not, many others in the corporate world will be.