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"Poor coding skill accounts for perhaps 80% of the industry no-hires. Well...that's not exactly fair. Poor coding skill under pressure." I have a PhD, and by n

by timr 13y ago

"Poor coding skill accounts for perhaps 80% of the industry no-hires. Well...that's not exactly fair. Poor coding skill under pressure." I have a PhD, and by now I think it's safe to say that I'm a productive programmer, but it was hard to get (back) into the industry. I've experienced the bias against PhD-holding coders firsthand. The interesting thing is that I've now also been on the interviewer side of this equation more than a few times, and I know that a lot of programmers have a huge inferiority complex that really gets revved up when they hear that a candidate has a PhD. I've seen the hiring bar shift dramatically higher for a candidate simply because interviewers on the loop knew about the advanced degree. Given that most companies have virtually no interviewer training, and even fewer checks or balances on the attitudes and predispositions of their interviewers, I suspect that this latter problem is a far more parsimonious explanation for the hiring gap for PhDs than is the presumption that >80% of doctoral graduates can't write code.

eruditely 13y ago
Maybe you really are that bad, but if you honestly aren't then how horrible
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
IanCal 13y ago
> I suspect that this latter problem is a far more parsimonious explanation for the hiring gap for PhDs than is the presumption that >80% of doctoral graduates can't write code. Combined with the terrible quality of candidates I've had apply, ">80% can't code" is probably valid over a random sample. If you add in some confirmation bias you'd probably explain a lot. However, I'd also add that I'm not shocked at the idea there are a lot of people who are great at academic research but terrible production coders.
- timr 13y ago
  "Combined with the terrible quality of candidates I've had apply, '>80% can't code' is probably valid over a random sample." The average applicant can't code, but that's true across the board. Yet there's a strong and systematic bias against people specifically with doctoral degrees. There's something else going on, and IMO, it isn't explained by chance. "I'm not shocked at the idea there are a lot of people who are great at academic research but terrible production coders." Why? Isn't this just a gentle way of saying that you have a bias? There's no fundamental reason that you should expect that a PhD (especially in CS) would be less able to write code than any other randomly selected applicant. More likely is that most interviewers don't have any idea what goes on inside a PhD program, and bring some very weird, negative ideas to the interview room about what the degree implies.
  - IanCal 13y ago
    > The average applicant can't code, but that's true across the board. That's exactly what I said, and was the point I was making. Combine this with confirmation bias and you're likely to see the result we do. > Why? Isn't this just a gentle way of saying that you have a bias? Academic research and production code have different, conflicting, requirements. That there are people good at one rather than the other is not surprising. I know people who are fantastic researchers, but their code should never go into a production system. I know people who write beautiful code, but they'd never have something good enough for academia. > There's no fundamental reason that you should expect that a PhD (especially in CS) would be less able to write code than any other randomly selected applicant. A PhD versus a coder straight out of university, or a PhD versus someone who has 3 years experience writing production code?
    - timr 13y ago
      "Academic research and production code have different, conflicting, requirements." Have you ever actually produced any academic research code? Because my direct experience with the matter says that you're wrong. I've seen plenty of "academic projects" that had far wider distribution, bigger teams and more complexity than your average "production code" (most of which is never used by anyone). "I know people who are fantastic researchers, but their code should never go into a production system. I know people who write beautiful code, but they'd never have something good enough for academia." I know a great many people in industry who micro-optimize for beauty and who go off on architecture astronautic expeditions with no provocation, so what's your point? Are you generalizing to all academics? I can tell you for a fact that "academics" as a group don't care more or less about beautiful code than anyone else, and that research is just another kind of production system. You pretty clearly have a bias that "academia" is this ivory tower place where nobody gets anything done, and that's a stereotype, not reality.

by timr 13y ago

eruditely 13y ago

Maybe you really are that bad, but if you honestly aren't then how horrible

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

IanCal 13y ago

> I suspect that this latter problem is a far more parsimonious explanation for the hiring gap for PhDs than is the presumption that >80% of doctoral graduates can't write code. Combined with the terrible quality of candidates I've had apply, ">80% can't code" is probably valid over a random sample. If you add in some confirmation bias you'd probably explain a lot. However, I'd also add that I'm not shocked at the idea there are a lot of people who are great at academic research but terrible production coders.

timr 13y ago
"Combined with the terrible quality of candidates I've had apply, '>80% can't code' is probably valid over a random sample." The average applicant can't code, but that's true across the board. Yet there's a strong and systematic bias against people specifically with doctoral degrees. There's something else going on, and IMO, it isn't explained by chance. "I'm not shocked at the idea there are a lot of people who are great at academic research but terrible production coders." Why? Isn't this just a gentle way of saying that you have a bias? There's no fundamental reason that you should expect that a PhD (especially in CS) would be less able to write code than any other randomly selected applicant. More likely is that most interviewers don't have any idea what goes on inside a PhD program, and bring some very weird, negative ideas to the interview room about what the degree implies.
- IanCal 13y ago
  > The average applicant can't code, but that's true across the board. That's exactly what I said, and was the point I was making. Combine this with confirmation bias and you're likely to see the result we do. > Why? Isn't this just a gentle way of saying that you have a bias? Academic research and production code have different, conflicting, requirements. That there are people good at one rather than the other is not surprising. I know people who are fantastic researchers, but their code should never go into a production system. I know people who write beautiful code, but they'd never have something good enough for academia. > There's no fundamental reason that you should expect that a PhD (especially in CS) would be less able to write code than any other randomly selected applicant. A PhD versus a coder straight out of university, or a PhD versus someone who has 3 years experience writing production code?
  - timr 13y ago
    "Academic research and production code have different, conflicting, requirements." Have you ever actually produced any academic research code? Because my direct experience with the matter says that you're wrong. I've seen plenty of "academic projects" that had far wider distribution, bigger teams and more complexity than your average "production code" (most of which is never used by anyone). "I know people who are fantastic researchers, but their code should never go into a production system. I know people who write beautiful code, but they'd never have something good enough for academia." I know a great many people in industry who micro-optimize for beauty and who go off on architecture astronautic expeditions with no provocation, so what's your point? Are you generalizing to all academics? I can tell you for a fact that "academics" as a group don't care more or less about beautiful code than anyone else, and that research is just another kind of production system. You pretty clearly have a bias that "academia" is this ivory tower place where nobody gets anything done, and that's a stereotype, not reality.