5 ms·

'Hidden' economy in Silicon Valley built without advanced degrees

33 points by bifrost 13y ago

wisty 13y ago
Yes, there's lots of jobs in IT which require skills, not degrees. And SV requires more degrees than the US average, because the average SV programmer isn't plugging in cables, installing Windows, or fixing their company's simple PHP site. It's just the daily "education is overrated, but still useful if you pick the right degree" HN article.
- bifrost 13y ago
  I agree with the "education is overrated...article" bit, but its not wrong in its premise either. CS/etc eduction is not about "being a good programmer", and I've seen a LOT of really poor programmers come out of good schools. If you want to be educated thats one thing, but if you just wanna be a good programmer, you're probably better off doing hackbright, codecademy or something other than "school".
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  > because the average SV programmer isn't plugging in cables, installing Windows, or fixing their company's simple PHP site. A good number of programming jobs in Silicon Valley are actually closer to "fixing the company PHP site" on the complexity spectrum than many people would like to acknowledge. Just because many companies have developed a recruiting process that tests for knowledge that is most likely to come from a computer science degree doesn't mean that, at the end of the day, a good percentage of said companies generally have little more than one or more mundane CRUD applications that need to be extended and maintained.
- randomdata 13y ago
  The average SV programmer requires an education, but not necessarily a degree. The distinction is important. I feel that this "hidden economy" emerged out of basic supply and demand. When programmers are hard to find, you do not have to apply sweeping filters to cull the numbers and can evaluate each prospect on their own merits. At that stage it doesn't really matter how the education was obtained.
quanticle 13y ago
I wonder how many of these are of the "Computer Science B.Sc. or 'equivalent experience'" sort. In theory, you can get those jobs without a degree. In practice, acquiring the "equivalent experience" is nearly impossible without the degree.
- pjscott 13y ago
  Really? I'm one of those people who didn't get a CS degree, but I learned a lot of CS stuff; I learned it because it was interesting. People have put a lot of effort into making CS accessible to anybody who wants to learn. There are textbooks sitting in public libraries which can teach you, in well-written straightforward language, far more about CS than most CS graduates ever remember. There are people on the internet who know amazing things, and will share their knowledge gladly. Hell, people stick entire books online, just waiting for you to read them. It's easier to get "equivalent experience" in CS than with any degree I know of, and has been for some years now. This is a beautiful thing; let's at least acknowledge it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 13y ago
    There's equivalent experience and "equivalent experience". The latter is what HR departments actually consider valid.
    - ollysb 13y ago
      HR departments are infamously bad at hiring developers. In this case having a degree will help you get a job at a corp but that doesn't make you a good candidate (of course you might be as well, they're just not going to be able to tell the difference by your degree).
      - icebraining 13y ago
        I know, my point is that quanticle was talking about the latter, and pjscott replied with the former. You can get equivalent experience without college, but it's still hard to get what the HR departments consider "equivalent experience". The two views are not contradictory.
akiselev 13y ago
This isn't just a phenomenon within Silicon Valley. The National Association of Manufacturers research found that manufacturers in everything from aerospace to pharmaceuticals can't grow their companies because they can't find the trained workers. America has outsourced the push button jobs and now all that's left is the easy service jobs, which are too high in demand even now, and the high training/education jobs which suffer from far greater an information asymmetry about how to get into the field, get good salaries, etc.
jandrewrogers 13y ago
I did not realize this was a 'hidden' part of Silicon Valley. It is one of the unique strengths of Silicon Valley (and the tech industry at large). People both overestimate and underestimate the value of an advanced technical degree in Silicon Valley. On the overestimation side, you can work at the most extremely technical end of the spectrum without a relevant degree if you are good enough. You can be named an IBM Fellow without completing high school or do some of the most advanced theoretical computer science research without a degree. I know of several examples. The idea that a degree is required for this is nonsense even if it certainly makes it easier. Additionally many slightly more mundane jobs require a high degree of intelligence but the skill can be learned by a sufficiently motivated individual. At the same time, most people are not that good. And in those cases, a degree helps considerably. People have a tendency to overestimate their own abilities so they do not really know if they are good enough to get on without a degree until many years after they enter the workforce, at which point that knowledge is moot.
anuraj 13y ago
Education is a signal of quality, which in the absence of other credible signals is the one to fall back to. If you are an Edison or a Tesla, it may not matter to you.

33 points by bifrost 13y ago

wisty 13y ago

Yes, there's lots of jobs in IT which require skills, not degrees. And SV requires more degrees than the US average, because the average SV programmer isn't plugging in cables, installing Windows, or fixing their company's simple PHP site. It's just the daily "education is overrated, but still useful if you pick the right degree" HN article.

bifrost 13y ago
I agree with the "education is overrated...article" bit, but its not wrong in its premise either. CS/etc eduction is not about "being a good programmer", and I've seen a LOT of really poor programmers come out of good schools. If you want to be educated thats one thing, but if you just wanna be a good programmer, you're probably better off doing hackbright, codecademy or something other than "school".
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
> because the average SV programmer isn't plugging in cables, installing Windows, or fixing their company's simple PHP site. A good number of programming jobs in Silicon Valley are actually closer to "fixing the company PHP site" on the complexity spectrum than many people would like to acknowledge. Just because many companies have developed a recruiting process that tests for knowledge that is most likely to come from a computer science degree doesn't mean that, at the end of the day, a good percentage of said companies generally have little more than one or more mundane CRUD applications that need to be extended and maintained.
randomdata 13y ago
The average SV programmer requires an education, but not necessarily a degree. The distinction is important. I feel that this "hidden economy" emerged out of basic supply and demand. When programmers are hard to find, you do not have to apply sweeping filters to cull the numbers and can evaluate each prospect on their own merits. At that stage it doesn't really matter how the education was obtained.

quanticle 13y ago

I wonder how many of these are of the "Computer Science B.Sc. or 'equivalent experience'" sort. In theory, you can get those jobs without a degree. In practice, acquiring the "equivalent experience" is nearly impossible without the degree.

pjscott 13y ago
Really? I'm one of those people who didn't get a CS degree, but I learned a lot of CS stuff; I learned it because it was interesting. People have put a lot of effort into making CS accessible to anybody who wants to learn. There are textbooks sitting in public libraries which can teach you, in well-written straightforward language, far more about CS than most CS graduates ever remember. There are people on the internet who know amazing things, and will share their knowledge gladly. Hell, people stick entire books online, just waiting for you to read them. It's easier to get "equivalent experience" in CS than with any degree I know of, and has been for some years now. This is a beautiful thing; let's at least acknowledge it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 13y ago
  There's equivalent experience and "equivalent experience". The latter is what HR departments actually consider valid.
  - ollysb 13y ago
    HR departments are infamously bad at hiring developers. In this case having a degree will help you get a job at a corp but that doesn't make you a good candidate (of course you might be as well, they're just not going to be able to tell the difference by your degree).
    - icebraining 13y ago
      I know, my point is that quanticle was talking about the latter, and pjscott replied with the former. You can get equivalent experience without college, but it's still hard to get what the HR departments consider "equivalent experience". The two views are not contradictory.

akiselev 13y ago

This isn't just a phenomenon within Silicon Valley. The National Association of Manufacturers research found that manufacturers in everything from aerospace to pharmaceuticals can't grow their companies because they can't find the trained workers. America has outsourced the push button jobs and now all that's left is the easy service jobs, which are too high in demand even now, and the high training/education jobs which suffer from far greater an information asymmetry about how to get into the field, get good salaries, etc.

jandrewrogers 13y ago

I did not realize this was a 'hidden' part of Silicon Valley. It is one of the unique strengths of Silicon Valley (and the tech industry at large). People both overestimate and underestimate the value of an advanced technical degree in Silicon Valley. On the overestimation side, you can work at the most extremely technical end of the spectrum without a relevant degree if you are good enough. You can be named an IBM Fellow without completing high school or do some of the most advanced theoretical computer science research without a degree. I know of several examples. The idea that a degree is required for this is nonsense even if it certainly makes it easier. Additionally many slightly more mundane jobs require a high degree of intelligence but the skill can be learned by a sufficiently motivated individual. At the same time, most people are not that good. And in those cases, a degree helps considerably. People have a tendency to overestimate their own abilities so they do not really know if they are good enough to get on without a degree until many years after they enter the workforce, at which point that knowledge is moot.

anuraj 13y ago

Education is a signal of quality, which in the absence of other credible signals is the one to fall back to. If you are an Edison or a Tesla, it may not matter to you.