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I think the difference is that at medium-large companies there are plenty of technical career paths that don't require a person to actually code - business anal
by bhousel 12y ago
I think the difference is that at medium-large companies there are plenty of technical career paths that don't require a person to actually code - business analyst, QA, documentation, compliance, project manager, etc.
So people at a place like Raytheon who simply can't code (or don't like to code) end up doing something else that they are better suited for.
Early stage tech startups just don't have a bunch of ancillary positions like that. Founders and early hires had either better be great at code or great at biz dev.
Also it's worth mentioning that it's not just a tech/engineering phenomenon. It's very common for people in other professional fields (law, medicine, etc) to get a little ways into their career and realize that the job is not at all what they expected or wanted or are suited for, and there are alternate career paths there as well.
- omegaham 12y agoThis is a great point. Again, we're getting a weird look at things because we're posting on Hacker News, not Defense Contractor News or Accountant News. Software companies are definitely a significant group, but there are lots of companies whose programming division is just a small part of what they do. They're big enough that they need their own programmers and can't outsource it to someone, but they have all sorts of other stuff they're working on. If you can't code, you're probably still useful for other stuff. Businesses love to take people they already know and find better roles for them. It's way better than firing badly utilized talent and having to interview for some other candidate with that skillset. I wouldn't go so far as to say, "There are no incompetent employees," as there are definitely worthless people in the workforce. But it's not as clear as a lot of people might think.