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This guy's getting shredded-- and unfairly so-- here, and Porsche is the wrong metaphor (he's more like a high-end supercomputer; almost no one has any use for

This guy's getting shredded-- and unfairly so-- here, and Porsche is the wrong metaphor (he's more like a high-end supercomputer; almost no one has any use for more than an iPad these days). However, he's dead right about one thing, and it will affect everyone here who is serious about programming. As you get better, the jobs available to you get better, but the job searches get a lot harder. PhD programs exacerbate the problem. You get better fast (faster than people do on typical early-20s grunt work) and by 27, you're already at that level of skill that starts to complicate job searches. (Again, jobs available are better; but 3-5 month searches are common.) In addition, you haven't learned the judgment-of-character skills that most people pick up in entry-level hell; whereas most people, by the time they get good enough that it starts to actually cost them job prospects, have learned those skills.

tezka 13y ago
you and others are ignoring the fact that the guy has been rejected more than a dozen times at technical interviews. He has demonstrated an inability to pass what's the bare minimum: basic programming, algorithms and data structure. If someone with a PhD cannot re-master this material (which he/she has supposedly learned in undergrad) within few weeks of preparation, no matter how fancy the PhD research is, then that in itself is telling about his/her commitment, drive or competence. These claims sound like saying oh I am a best seller novelist yet having forgotten (and unwilling or unable to revisit) the alphabet. At the end of the day, there is no evidence that PhDs have a hard time getting interviews (the author got 20 or so), and if they really ace the interviews, heck even do reasonably well, they will have no problems getting hired. A PhD degree by itself will not get them hired, but it will not jeopardize their chance either, provided that they do well in the interview.

tezka 13y ago

you and others are ignoring the fact that the guy has been rejected more than a dozen times at technical interviews. He has demonstrated an inability to pass what's the bare minimum: basic programming, algorithms and data structure. If someone with a PhD cannot re-master this material (which he/she has supposedly learned in undergrad) within few weeks of preparation, no matter how fancy the PhD research is, then that in itself is telling about his/her commitment, drive or competence. These claims sound like saying oh I am a best seller novelist yet having forgotten (and unwilling or unable to revisit) the alphabet. At the end of the day, there is no evidence that PhDs have a hard time getting interviews (the author got 20 or so), and if they really ace the interviews, heck even do reasonably well, they will have no problems getting hired. A PhD degree by itself will not get them hired, but it will not jeopardize their chance either, provided that they do well in the interview.