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A union doesn't have to be "workers for company X employees". It can be "web developers union" or similar - this is how the trades organize (see the pipefitters

A union doesn't have to be "workers for company X employees". It can be "web developers union" or similar - this is how the trades organize (see the pipefitters, and IBEW for some examples). Neat thing about this type of organizing is that the union provides training and standardization paths. Both of those make moving between jobs easier. They can also provide a standardized way of differentiating employee levels (e.g. union sets the standards for what a jr, sr, or whatever is). I'm not sure if that is good or not in tech, but it is a possiblility - and it's something that would definitely help employers too: rather than each company having to test each potential employee, a union certified X dev will have a certain skillset. Yes some X devs will be better than others, we're talking about humans here, but the minimum bars can be defined and the whole hiring process can become easier and more efficient. Theres some interesting compensation challenges to get the idea of unionization more accepted in tech tho: stock based compensation and bonuses can get really tricky - something that I suspect is the real reason unions don't catch on more in tech.

whoisthemachine 2y ago
I quite like the idea of a trade union or accreditation board for SWE. The idea that we all work by a shared set of standards and terminology is appealing.
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  Sounds like a group that captures credentialing in the industry and then winds up using it to push their own flawed ideology on the entire industry. Because who else would actually be interested in being part of such a board. No thank you.
  - whoisthemachine 2y ago
    Civil, mechanical, electrical, and most other engineering disciplines have an accreditation board. I don't think they are pushing a "flawed" ideology in those disciplines. At least I don't see civil engineers constantly questioning why they would do load modeling for a bridge, like SWE's constantly question the value of unit testing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET
    - rockemsockem 2y ago
      Yeah and what are the numbers on how many employed engineers hold that accreditation? Just because it exists doesn't mean it's used. I know for a fact that aerospace, electrical, and mechanical engineers working on designing rockets, nuclear reactors, space capsules, and electric charging infrastructure do not need this credential. And so most of them do not have it.
      - whoisthemachine 2y ago
        If they have an undergrad degree in any of those disciplines then their college has ABET accreditation.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
        IDK why, but I totally mixed up ABET with the professional engineering credentials where individuals get accredited as opposed to curriculums. I'm not sure ABET is the most relevant here? What would making CS programs accredited change?
        whoisthemachine 2y ago
        Consistent educational standards leads to a common shared understanding of what knowledge and training your engineering colleagues have. This also makes it easier right off the bat for an employer to know what a "junior" engineer is - and leads to more consistent experience levels afterwards. And you didn't quite mix it up, a degree from an ABET accredited school is required to get your professional engineering certification, which is often required in cases where engineering designs carry legal liability.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
        I think there's still a lot of inconsistency and judgement that happens for gauging whether someone is junior and for what skills they might have. Many software engineers don't have CS degrees at all and even more have ones from different countries. I am unable to find concrete numbers on this, but I would bet that the majority of employed engineers in the US do not carry a professional engineering certification.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    It could be as simple as you only need to take the Leetcode exam once every ten years instead of every time you switch jobs.
    - rockemsockem 2y ago
      I don't trust a credentialing board to vet my coworkers for me. EDIT: i.e. I'm still going to want to interview them and have them prove to me that they can write code.
      - Apocryphon 2y ago
        And yet, that's what we do with CoderPad, Leetcode, Karat, etc. Yes, of course you should still interview them afterwards, I'm sure that's what credentialed professions do as well. My point is just to have the Leetcode portion be done once rather than for every company's interview.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
        No, but that's what I'm saying though. I don't trust someone else, especially some credentialing body to administer leetcode style questions. I'm still going to want to have a candidate prove they can actually write code.
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        Maybe you can ask them domain-specific questions more relevant to the actual position you’re hiring them for? System design? Pair programming session? Debug a code sample? Present a solution for a home coding assignment? Anyway, many companies are outsourcing phone screens now to services such as Karat, where Kiwi contractor engineers provide 24/7 interview availability. Yet those interviews cannot be transferred from company to prospective Karat-using company. So you get the worst of all worlds.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
- logicchains 2y ago
  If it existed then we'd legally be forced to write awful enterprise-style OO-heavy Java, because that's what all the "software engineering" courses at university taught as best practice.
legitster 2y ago
> It can be "web developers union" or similar - this is how the trades organize (see the pipefitters, and IBEW for some examples). This is also how unions exist in most of the rest of the world as well. We take it for granted how weird the US labor recognition process is. Most other countries following a long history of craft unionism. But in the US the laws were crystalized during a time of active conflict between traditional craft unions and socialist-inspired "industrial" unions. So all of the principles of the NLRB are this weird set of dated compromises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_federation_competition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_federation_competition_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft_unionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft_unionism
Terr_ 2y ago
> something that I suspect is the real reason unions don't catch on more in tech. I think a bigger issue is the difficulty of measuring correctness and quantity of individual output. For a classic-style of union in manufacturing, the standardized widgets coming off an assembly line mean it's easier to determine which workers are being fired for actual-cause, versus the ones who need to be protected by the union because it's a kind of employer retaliation or stealth-downsizing.
- sophacles 2y ago
  An awful lot of unions exist in spaces where "compare the widget to the template" is an impossibility. Some examples: SAE standardizes the labor cost for a given task, although an individual mechanic may go faster and slower than the proscribed hours. The same mechanaic will have different times for multiple instances of the same task based on details of the job. Police unions effectively require arbitration on an employee by employee basis, since police work is so highly situationally dependent. Creative unions like SAG and screewriters guild often don't have the notion of measuring quality of output. They exist to ensure various workplace rules (safety, breaks, sane environment, etc) and minimum compensation standards are followed. The union is not a template of how to be an assembly line worker - its a way to equalize the power between an employer and employees. The specifics of how one union negotiates its collective bargain don't dictate what a union for an entirely different group of people will negotiate.
  - pcthrowaway 2y ago
    > Police unions effectively require arbitration on an employee by employee basis, since police work is so highly situationally dependent. Are police unions real unions? Or just a vehicle for them to further avoid accountability for their wrongdoings?

whoisthemachine 2y ago

I quite like the idea of a trade union or accreditation board for SWE. The idea that we all work by a shared set of standards and terminology is appealing.

rockemsockem 2y ago
Sounds like a group that captures credentialing in the industry and then winds up using it to push their own flawed ideology on the entire industry. Because who else would actually be interested in being part of such a board. No thank you.
- whoisthemachine 2y ago
  Civil, mechanical, electrical, and most other engineering disciplines have an accreditation board. I don't think they are pushing a "flawed" ideology in those disciplines. At least I don't see civil engineers constantly questioning why they would do load modeling for a bridge, like SWE's constantly question the value of unit testing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET
  - rockemsockem 2y ago
    Yeah and what are the numbers on how many employed engineers hold that accreditation? Just because it exists doesn't mean it's used. I know for a fact that aerospace, electrical, and mechanical engineers working on designing rockets, nuclear reactors, space capsules, and electric charging infrastructure do not need this credential. And so most of them do not have it.
    - whoisthemachine 2y ago
      If they have an undergrad degree in any of those disciplines then their college has ABET accreditation.
      - rockemsockem 2y ago
        IDK why, but I totally mixed up ABET with the professional engineering credentials where individuals get accredited as opposed to curriculums. I'm not sure ABET is the most relevant here? What would making CS programs accredited change?
        whoisthemachine 2y ago
        Consistent educational standards leads to a common shared understanding of what knowledge and training your engineering colleagues have. This also makes it easier right off the bat for an employer to know what a "junior" engineer is - and leads to more consistent experience levels afterwards. And you didn't quite mix it up, a degree from an ABET accredited school is required to get your professional engineering certification, which is often required in cases where engineering designs carry legal liability.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
        I think there's still a lot of inconsistency and judgement that happens for gauging whether someone is junior and for what skills they might have. Many software engineers don't have CS degrees at all and even more have ones from different countries. I am unable to find concrete numbers on this, but I would bet that the majority of employed engineers in the US do not carry a professional engineering certification.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  It could be as simple as you only need to take the Leetcode exam once every ten years instead of every time you switch jobs.
  - rockemsockem 2y ago
    I don't trust a credentialing board to vet my coworkers for me. EDIT: i.e. I'm still going to want to interview them and have them prove to me that they can write code.
    - Apocryphon 2y ago
      And yet, that's what we do with CoderPad, Leetcode, Karat, etc. Yes, of course you should still interview them afterwards, I'm sure that's what credentialed professions do as well. My point is just to have the Leetcode portion be done once rather than for every company's interview.
      - rockemsockem 2y ago
        No, but that's what I'm saying though. I don't trust someone else, especially some credentialing body to administer leetcode style questions. I'm still going to want to have a candidate prove they can actually write code.
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        Maybe you can ask them domain-specific questions more relevant to the actual position you’re hiring them for? System design? Pair programming session? Debug a code sample? Present a solution for a home coding assignment? Anyway, many companies are outsourcing phone screens now to services such as Karat, where Kiwi contractor engineers provide 24/7 interview availability. Yet those interviews cannot be transferred from company to prospective Karat-using company. So you get the worst of all worlds.
        rockemsockem 2y ago
logicchains 2y ago
If it existed then we'd legally be forced to write awful enterprise-style OO-heavy Java, because that's what all the "software engineering" courses at university taught as best practice.

legitster 2y ago

> It can be "web developers union" or similar - this is how the trades organize (see the pipefitters, and IBEW for some examples). This is also how unions exist in most of the rest of the world as well. We take it for granted how weird the US labor recognition process is. Most other countries following a long history of craft unionism. But in the US the laws were crystalized during a time of active conflict between traditional craft unions and socialist-inspired "industrial" unions. So all of the principles of the NLRB are this weird set of dated compromises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_federation_competition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_federation_competition_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft_unionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft_unionism

Terr_ 2y ago

> something that I suspect is the real reason unions don't catch on more in tech. I think a bigger issue is the difficulty of measuring correctness and quantity of individual output. For a classic-style of union in manufacturing, the standardized widgets coming off an assembly line mean it's easier to determine which workers are being fired for actual-cause, versus the ones who need to be protected by the union because it's a kind of employer retaliation or stealth-downsizing.

sophacles 2y ago
An awful lot of unions exist in spaces where "compare the widget to the template" is an impossibility. Some examples: SAE standardizes the labor cost for a given task, although an individual mechanic may go faster and slower than the proscribed hours. The same mechanaic will have different times for multiple instances of the same task based on details of the job. Police unions effectively require arbitration on an employee by employee basis, since police work is so highly situationally dependent. Creative unions like SAG and screewriters guild often don't have the notion of measuring quality of output. They exist to ensure various workplace rules (safety, breaks, sane environment, etc) and minimum compensation standards are followed. The union is not a template of how to be an assembly line worker - its a way to equalize the power between an employer and employees. The specifics of how one union negotiates its collective bargain don't dictate what a union for an entirely different group of people will negotiate.
- pcthrowaway 2y ago
  > Police unions effectively require arbitration on an employee by employee basis, since police work is so highly situationally dependent. Are police unions real unions? Or just a vehicle for them to further avoid accountability for their wrongdoings?