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> I've never been in one of these businesses, but I bet if a hospital interviews a doctor, they can at least count on basic knowledge of anatomy, and if a law f
by majormajor 3y ago
> I've never been in one of these businesses, but I bet if a hospital interviews a doctor, they can at least count on basic knowledge of anatomy, and if a law firm interviews a lawyer, they can assume the person has read a law book. We have no such guarantees in software.
If the cost of those guarantees is formal specialized training costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'll stick with the world of phone screens - speaking as someone who's been both rejected-after-phone-screen and rejected others after a phone screen.
- ryandrake 3y agoI used to feel the same way, and yes, reliance on credentials and formal training often serves the credentialing and training industries. But, I don't think our industry's current 'free for all' ultimately serves anyone. We should consider an inexpensive, very basic "programmer's bar exam" to establish a (admittedly very low) proficiency baseline. I'm not asking for a test that gatekeeps software engineering only to people who can write a compiler. I'm asking for a reliable document that says this person can write a loop and a conditional statement and can reason about how it works. Is this a lot to ask for?