5 ms·

The acid test for me: Will they hire software engineers who don't have degrees? I've worked with quite a few people who didn't bother to finish college, or nev

• pmorici 12y ago
  The question isn't whether they will hire them. They most definitely would. The question is will they pay them equally. Government pay standards are typically based on degree. At heavily tech oriented government organizations they have different pay scales for people with CS/Math/EE degrees than people w/o them. Also having worked in government before, not the White House, they didn't expect the engineers to wear suits. Shorts and sandals were acceptable.
• blutoot 12y ago
  Getting one degree in engineering increases the likelihood that the person will be higher than average in her software engineering skills. When you have 1000s of applicants and your approach to everything is fairly conservative compared to the private sector, you won't go out on a limb and hire a dropout unless that dropout has a stellar portfolio of some extraordinary work. And it's the dropout's responsibility to get that work noticed in the marketplace.
  • mahyarm 12y ago
    Usually for software engineers, you are not getting 1000s of applicants unless you have 1000s of positions. It's folly to use cheap filters such as a degree at that point. Especially if your an unattractive employer such as the government.
• kohanz 12y ago
  I know you re-stated it, but I disagree with the first statement. I believe there is a correlation. The strength of the correlation can be debated, but in my experience, a degree is a positive signal when hiring someone to be part of a software engineering team. Note that I didn't just say software engineer. In my book, technical skills are only part of the equation, but the ability to communicate well, operate well within a team, etc. are also very important and in my experience, going to school helps prepare people for this kind of work. In the end, a degree or lack thereof only becomes a significant signal if there isn't enough real-world experience on the resume.
  • k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> going to school helps prepare people for this kind of work Is there some specific teamwork that goes on in a CS degree? Can't teamwork skills be picked up in the previous 14 years of schooling?
    • andylei 12y ago
      kohanz is not saying that college is the only way someone can learn teamwork, or that college is a prerequisite to teamwork skills, but merely that college is positively correlated to such skills.
      • walshemj 12y ago
        You get a degree on your own merits at passing exams its not a team thing.
        • mpyne 12y ago
          That wasn't the case in my CS undergrad.
        • kohanz 12y ago
          Exams made up part of our marks, but projects factored in as well. One could certainly achieve a passing grade while being a terrible team-player, but it generally was not a successful strategy.
        • wlievens 12y ago
          Wasn't the case for me. We had several courses that were team efforts, and the typical method was to determine a shared team score, and then let individual scores deviate by a small margin (+- 2/20 at most) from that, based on the professor's appreciation of your individual contribution in the team.
        • dwild 12y ago
          I'm currently getting a software engineering degree and I got multiple class where we had 50% of graded teamwork and you needed to pass them to be able to pass the class. Even if you got 100% in your exam, if you failed your teamwork, then you fail the class.
• vampirechicken 12y ago
  The degree is, in the face of people's stunning inability to judge others, a prima facie way to decide whether a person is capable of setting a long term goal and seeing it through to completion. It can, for less savory reasons, be used to pre-screen people who fit in demographics that do not have high graduation rates.
  • aridiculous 12y ago
    All I can say is that I didn't 'set a long term goal' going into college. I just did what I was told and eventually picked a major, riding it out as the path of least resistance to graduation. Let me put it this way: given my cultural upbringing and inset fears at the time, it would have been harder to drop out of school than to stay in school. Pretty sure that holds for many college graduates. I'm not against screening for college grads as a policy, though I think that it could limit you from finding amazing underrated candidates. I just think that popular argument about 'seeing out a long term goal' is simply not true a lot of the time, though I benefit a lot from it.
    • skwirl 12y ago
      You did, though. Whether or not you completed that goal because "it was easier to complete it than to not complete it because of my cultural upbringing" or because you had to push yourself and struggle every day doesn't really matter all that much to a company who wants to hire you. If you're going to complete a project to avoid a sense of guilt about not completing it rather than to achieve a sense of pride for completing it, it's all the same to your employer. If you're preprogrammed for success by your parents and it comes naturally, that doesn't make success illegitimate. Just count your blessings.
  • Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    It may be prima facie, but it's also completely subjective. There are a plethora of reasons a person might not complete a degree that have nothing to do with his ability to commit, complete long term goals, or anything else. Using a degree in such a manner is an indicator to me that the person doing it is either incapable of engaging in critical thinking, or else is too lazy or indifferent to do so on this matter. In that regard, a person using such a filter is itself a (negative) filter, for me, with regard to whether I want to work with them.
• andersonvom 12y ago
  I would say there is a correlation, which is not to say it is causation. I'd venture to say that going to school and getting a degree in CS would increase the likelihood of one becoming a better engineer. That is not to say everybody that has a degree is a great engineer or the other way around. So, in a sense, it makes sense to take that into consideration when hiring someone, but much like everything else in an interview process, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
• haberman 12y ago
  > There doesn't seem to be a correlation between "great engineer" and "got a BS in CS" -- let me re-state that; you can be a great engineer without the paper, or a lousy one with the degree. What you said after "let me re-state that" is not a restatement. The first statement (there doesn't seem to be a correlation) is much stronger.
  • walshemj 12y ago
    They said "great" not average ones who do 8 hours a day cut and pasting into the latest a greatest trendy framework or language with out understanding the real problem
• Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  I agree with the weaker proposition that the correlation between "having a degree" and quality of engineering is not always clear, and may not be the best (or even most important) factor in determining whether to hire. However, in my experience generally people who obtain a college degree are more well-rounded than people who don't. A consequence of this is that such people, again in general, tend to be able to think about problems in a more mature, broader, and deeper sense than those who don't "finish" (or complete most of) a degree. This has nothing to do with whether the software industry is a meritocracy or not, or whether a dress code has anything to do with whether it's a meritocracy or not. My opinion: almost no job in this industry--or any other--is completely, or even mostly, meritocratic.
• ianstallings 12y ago
  A lot of government IT positions will allow you to substitute experience for a degree (according to USAjobs.gov). I do agree though, although I'd say it's very positive thing going to a place like MIT, it really doesn't impact my decisions for hiring. I'd rather hear about your real story. When did you find out you wanted to code? How did you truly learn? What hurdles did you overcome? What kind of things have you actually done? Even college grads are expected to have some kind of experiences that relate to the job.
• ap22213 12y ago
  I've met many self-taught programmers, and they were great to work with. Some were extremely productive and knew the inside and outside of certain languages and libraries. However, they still wrote code that nested 5 loops, or put data in arrays when they needed a linked list, or invented complex algorithms to solve something that a simple graph would do, or didn't understand the basics of linear algebra, number theory, and statistics. Degrees in CS can be extremely valuable.
  • matthewowen 12y ago
    But you could say exactly the same thing about many programmers who do have CS degrees too, right?
    • ap22213 12y ago
      I don't know. If you have a CS degree, you will at least have passing familiarity with these things. Seeing them in practice or discussing them will at least stimulate some old memory synapses. Whereas, in contrast, someone without a CS degree usually would have to start at point zero. I guess it depends on the sub-specialty of programming though.
• dsg42 12y ago
  All this statement proves is that you don't know what a "great engineer" looks like. Do you think any of the kernel developers at Microsoft, Apple, or Google don't have hardcore degrees? They all do, and there's a reason for it. In addition, it's hilarious that you point this out specifically for a job at the White House. There are so many non-engineering factors that go into succeeding at such a job, most of which are learned in college. In summary, while I would never make such a degree an absolute requirement, I would be shocked to find someone who could work at the US Digital Service who doesn't have a college degree.
  • koverstreet 12y ago
    Hah, no. Hardcore kernel engineer here, formerly of Google, you're flat out incorrect.