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I want to ask just to ensure I'm not getting an unrepresentive sample; is it just me or are college educated developers often complete walkovers? I've been in

I want to ask just to ensure I'm not getting an unrepresentive sample; is it just me or are college educated developers often complete walkovers? I've been in quite a few orgs now (and always the only self-taught) where business run roughshod over dev and people are seemingly unwilling to stand up for the big picture even just stand up for basic best practice. The absolute insanity of code I've seen, all maintained by degree educated engineers who don't seem to care that much about the long-term future of what they work on. I'm starting to wonder if academia also teaches compliance to hierarchy as part of the process. I worked in a department of a fortune 500 org with a unsecured server where everyone was told to log in over http using basic with their org creds (i.e. the creds that give you access to everything in the org and are effectively your corporate identity) everyone merrily did this without question, except me. Granted, it was on the internal network but they had that setup for YEARS, with a privilege escalation just out there waiting to be discovered. I had a workaround but that expired due to some network changes, so it came to a head, they refused to allow me to install a cert myself and then I was the only one putting my foot down about it. I got put on disciplinery and was then forced to reach out to the Corpo HQ security team (who did side with me) and then got shit-canned internally by my department as a result. I still cannot fathom how people in more senior positions than me, with apparently better educations than me, square that one in their head, like I was the problem. To me, its like the technological equivalent of not wearing pants, and it just baffles me that my demand to wear pants was framed as the problem.

IceDane 1y ago
I think all this focus on degrees in your response as well as the others is misguided. I think the real problem is just that they don't give a shit. Giving a shit is the first step towards becoming competent. This isn't really surprising and can hardly be unique to our industry. I think you can ask anyone in any industry if they have to deal with chronically incompetent colleagues who, despite of all external indicators (degree, education, background, etc) saying they shouldn't, still just suck at their job. They will all reply that of course they have to deal with such people. For a lot of people, this industry is just a job like any other. They and their brain clock out at 5 immediately and do not think about programming or software engineering at all until the moment they are forced to. And obviously, that's fine. I can't rewire their brain. I just wish I didn't have to work with them.
- Quarrelsome 1y ago
  I agree and I don't mean to discriminate, its just one particular unique demographic I have and I'm likely over fitting it as a lens. I've worked with plenty of degree educated engineers who are extremely competent but it just bugs me that they all seem to fold in an instant when encountering resistence up the chain. Perhaps it is simply survivorship bias.
codingdave 1y ago
wat. no. Higher education teaches you critical thought and how to engage deeply in analysis, dialogue and discussion. If your coworkers with degrees are not doing so, it means they are simply there to do the work and get a paycheck. Odds are, it is a signal that they are more engaged with the rest of their life than they are with their day jobs... so while you see their lack of caring as a lack of competence, odds are you can instead take it at face value -- they just don't care. Now, that is still be a legit complaint against them, but it is not a flaw created by having an education.
- Quarrelsome 1y ago
  sure but I've seen degree educated people engage deeply in analysis, dialogue and discussion and then proceed to do wrong-headed, deceitful, cruel and even stupid things. I half wonder if an aspect of it is some ritualistic process to lull oneself into a false sense of security. I'm probably not describing higher education, but there's a thing, a sort of blithe unquestioning sleepwalking that I struggle to adequetely describe. Thinking back to early on in my career, there was one place I worked that was a complete mess, its pertinent because the first time I applied I was rejected immediately because of the lack of degree but the second time they interviewed me and I joined. A representative example of the mess: They did waterfall and they'd analysed, discussed and dialogued about a "transaction service", they produced beautiful documents and UML. But it was garbage, it wasn't transactional, it slowly wrote to an xml file, in-situ over the course of an hour long workflow and had an unparsable xml file with a handle open for 99.9% of its lifecyle. This was an embedded environment for industry and the reality of power management and pre-smartphone battery tech resulted in crippling "corruption" issues that were obvious at the design phase which I had to fix later on (but even then, I wasn't allowed to radically alter "the design"). I had as much luck convincing them to use sqlite as intermediary and then producing xml at the end, as I did the other guys installing a cert on their server. What am I describing here exactly? Normalcy bias? Just "bad" devs, idk? I've spent my entire career grappling with senior staff ignoring the valid concerns I raise and end up feeling like I'm the problem because I'm the only one stepping out of line to demand better, with zero support from my peers. Tbf the guy at that place at least admitted later on that "yeah sorry for not taking your advice, I always seem to regret ignoring it about six months later".

IceDane 1y ago

I think all this focus on degrees in your response as well as the others is misguided. I think the real problem is just that they don't give a shit. Giving a shit is the first step towards becoming competent. This isn't really surprising and can hardly be unique to our industry. I think you can ask anyone in any industry if they have to deal with chronically incompetent colleagues who, despite of all external indicators (degree, education, background, etc) saying they shouldn't, still just suck at their job. They will all reply that of course they have to deal with such people. For a lot of people, this industry is just a job like any other. They and their brain clock out at 5 immediately and do not think about programming or software engineering at all until the moment they are forced to. And obviously, that's fine. I can't rewire their brain. I just wish I didn't have to work with them.

Quarrelsome 1y ago
I agree and I don't mean to discriminate, its just one particular unique demographic I have and I'm likely over fitting it as a lens. I've worked with plenty of degree educated engineers who are extremely competent but it just bugs me that they all seem to fold in an instant when encountering resistence up the chain. Perhaps it is simply survivorship bias.

codingdave 1y ago

wat. no. Higher education teaches you critical thought and how to engage deeply in analysis, dialogue and discussion. If your coworkers with degrees are not doing so, it means they are simply there to do the work and get a paycheck. Odds are, it is a signal that they are more engaged with the rest of their life than they are with their day jobs... so while you see their lack of caring as a lack of competence, odds are you can instead take it at face value -- they just don't care. Now, that is still be a legit complaint against them, but it is not a flaw created by having an education.

Quarrelsome 1y ago
sure but I've seen degree educated people engage deeply in analysis, dialogue and discussion and then proceed to do wrong-headed, deceitful, cruel and even stupid things. I half wonder if an aspect of it is some ritualistic process to lull oneself into a false sense of security. I'm probably not describing higher education, but there's a thing, a sort of blithe unquestioning sleepwalking that I struggle to adequetely describe. Thinking back to early on in my career, there was one place I worked that was a complete mess, its pertinent because the first time I applied I was rejected immediately because of the lack of degree but the second time they interviewed me and I joined. A representative example of the mess: They did waterfall and they'd analysed, discussed and dialogued about a "transaction service", they produced beautiful documents and UML. But it was garbage, it wasn't transactional, it slowly wrote to an xml file, in-situ over the course of an hour long workflow and had an unparsable xml file with a handle open for 99.9% of its lifecyle. This was an embedded environment for industry and the reality of power management and pre-smartphone battery tech resulted in crippling "corruption" issues that were obvious at the design phase which I had to fix later on (but even then, I wasn't allowed to radically alter "the design"). I had as much luck convincing them to use sqlite as intermediary and then producing xml at the end, as I did the other guys installing a cert on their server. What am I describing here exactly? Normalcy bias? Just "bad" devs, idk? I've spent my entire career grappling with senior staff ignoring the valid concerns I raise and end up feeling like I'm the problem because I'm the only one stepping out of line to demand better, with zero support from my peers. Tbf the guy at that place at least admitted later on that "yeah sorry for not taking your advice, I always seem to regret ignoring it about six months later".