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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 plu

by 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.

by wisty 13y ago

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.