171–180 of 292 posts
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And it would be much better, we would stop having pseudo-"engineers".
Quite, we should also eliminate nurses. The minimum qualification to work in healthcare should be a medical degree, just like we shouldn’t allow any car that’s worse in an accident than a Tesla on the road.
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I think the OP is implying through that this is creeping into top American university curricula. Having a Stanford degree in Comp. Sci. should correlate with interviewing success at relevant job openings for new graduates. This kind of "teaching to the test" and time spent on "job preparedness" is typical of community colleges and trade schools. They serve an important function, but it's distinct from the mission of…
This comment reeks of elitism. In my experience, new grads from top American universities are incredibly intelligent, but their community college and trade school counterparts score much higher on job preparedness, an incredibly marketable and bankable skill. As someone with a top American university degree, I’d have loved a course in job preparedness, and have learned a ton from coworkers who have succeeded as Softw…
Job preparedness training is looked down upon within universities because it's the banal economy poking its nose where it doesn't belong. The industry or a professional association can and should develop job-preparedness-focused training programs to augment (as in law and medicine) or even replace (as in HVAC repair and precision machining) CS undergrad. Nothing wrong with that. They just don't belong in academic departments. Those are for something else, and industry's training needs shouldn't be subsidized.
An employer should value a relevant trade school degree more than it values a Bachelor's, unless it turns out that well-rounded intellectuals with exposure to the underlying discipline perform better than those with direct training in the relevant activities.
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The funny thing is that software engineering does this while also complaining of labor shortages . Or, if we're being a bit more honest, it's not funny, it's cynically self-serving.
I'd be willing to take either side of a debate for "is there a shortage of people who, when given tight specifications for a piece of software (write a function that takes X as input and provides Y as output) that enumerates all of the corner conditions can produce a program in a language that they are familiar with." At the same time, the "person who can work with the business user on the software, think about the a…
Why would culture developed skills that make you rewarded less?
The ability to teach juniors is not searched for nor rewarded either, where social skills are even sometimes treated as something that makes you less good as programmer.
As crazy as these interviews are they have to be working right? Some people must be passing these things otherwise there would be a lot of unfilled positions. So much for there being a staffing shortage in our field. These types of interviews imply there is a much higher bar that exists to weed out all the chaff due to oversupply or companies won't settle for anything less than the most academically best people.
The point is - there are a lot of unfilled positions. Companies notoriously complain for not being able to find "good" software specialists, because... people with minimal clue on how to judge relevant skills introduce increasingly more cut-throat filters and processalize everything.
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> FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry. This is simply wrong. I suppose if you've spent your whole life as a developer, it may seem like it would be done likewise other industries, but it's not the case. Typically, how you might "prepare" for interviews in other industries is...learning about your potential employer. And maybe reviewing your accomplishments. That's it. And…
Typically, how you might "prepare" for interviews in other industries is...learning about your potential employer. It has always shocked me that people don't instinctively think that doing this is an absolute necessity for every single job interview. I have very often been met with a totally blank look when I've asked candidates what they think it is the company I'm interviewing them for does, even when phrased as ni…
Not so much hard, more that it sounds like a complete waste of time and could be signaling to people that this is one more non-technical/HR interview they have to get through before getting to talk to people they'd be working with and who can fill them in on details specific to their prospective job or team. Whatever you're trying to figure out with that question, there's gotta be a better way to probe that, that doesn't make it look like you're wasting the available time.
This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
The idea of having a whole class on how to solve interview whiteboard problems (a skill that is, at least where I work, not very relevant to doing your job) is terrifying.
This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
The idea of having a whole class on how to solve interview whiteboard problems (a skill that is, at least where I work, not very relevant to doing your job) is terrifying.
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Software engineering does not consist of preparing for and then giving short/intense performances. Plenty of fields do - performing arts, film, trading, etc. all involve some form of short, intense, expensive activity to which you show up prepared and work in a burst of superhuman activity. But software isn’t like that at all - you get a problem and you dig into it, mull it over, research, etc. at your leisure until…
This is true if you have very junior level responsibility, but as soon as you need to take any kind of leadership role others will be looking to you to contribute in a manner that is not ad hoc. Also, you mention research. Research and preparation are synonymous.
This is wrong. If I want to handle a problem by researching it, I have a goal in mind ("solve problem X"), and I'll look for things that will help with it.
Interview preparation specifically avoids that approach. Instead, you're supposed to become familiar with every possible problem, in case it comes up during the interview. Most of them, obviously, won't, and from a "research" perspective that means that nearly 100% of the time you spent in preparation was wasted.
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Quite, we should also eliminate nurses. The minimum qualification to work in healthcare should be a medical degree, just like we shouldn’t allow any car that’s worse in an accident than a Tesla on the road.
Most European countries require a 4 year degree for nurses, where the first two years are kind of shared with medical degree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software engineering does not consist of preparing for and then giving short/intense performances. Plenty of fields do - performing arts, film, trading, etc. all involve some form of short, intense, expensive activity to which you show up prepared and work in a burst of superhuman activity. But software isn’t like that at all - you get a problem and you dig into it, mull it over, research, etc. at your leisure until…
This is true if you have very junior level responsibility, but as soon as you need to take any kind of leadership role others will be looking to you to contribute in a manner that is not ad hoc. Also, you mention research. Research and preparation are synonymous.
If you're writing software under the kind of time pressure where consulting reference material is unacceptable, something is deeply wrong. Most software engineers, most of the time, should be able to research topics as they come up rather than prepare (beyond the standard preparation in college).
Making long-term plans, building consensus around them, etc. is important, but is nothing like practicing for whiteboard interviews.