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The creeping IT apocalypse

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Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#241

Post by therealdrag0 »

icedchai wrote: post #108
Ruxbin1986 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hundreds of thousands of people or System Administrators that have made life long careers out of managing networks, server farms, windows and linux systems since the early 90s. It's not fancy as software development or drives business value but work that needs to be done. The Cloud greatly diminishes and in some cases completely eliminates that work. The only thing left is actual software development.

Not really. We now call systems administrators "devops engineers" now.

When my company puts out a rec for developers we get 300 applicants. When we try to get a devops, we get 3. It's tough.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#242

Post by nradov »

eldavido wrote: post #149
geggam wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviewing college graduates is depressing. No way the current education system will create people competent enough to keep this going

Don't generalize. Are you interviewing graduates from the top 10-15 programs or lesser-tier? I think this is a big error people make. Some colleges are great. Others are horrible. It's very hard to say, "College is a waste" or "college is great".

It's not even a matter of tiers. There are plenty of great candidates coming out of lower rated schools, although the hit rate is lower.

In general interviewers just have unrealistic expectations for entry level candidates. They forget how incompetent they were at the same age. Or they have ridiculous notions that everyone should know how to write a quicksort algorithm or whatever, when some students may have focused their studies on other (but equally challenging) topics.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#243

Post by nunez »

zelon88 wrote: post #68

I keep seeing thse kinds of articles where the author has drank the Cloud kool-aid themselves, forgotten how to function without it, and insists that it's impossible to function without it. This guy even drags manufacturing into the mix, and obviously has no idea about manufacturing in the United States. Manufacturers in the USA don't make cheap coffee cups. We don't make underwear. We don't make car fenders. We make…

Good points, but there are other American-dominant industries aside from defense manufacturing, and they are definitely taking a keen interest in the cloud. Also, defense is moving to the cloud too, albeit more slowly than AirBnB, say.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#244

Post by nunez »

None of this is new. "Learn to code, or become irrelevant" has been a massive talking point for at least 10 years, maybe more, and this is only becoming more true by the day.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#245

Post by hi41 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #205
hi41 wrote: post #204

I am a developer on HP/Nonstop. Can someone please explain what automation means with respect to software. Is it bash scripts? I can see bash scripts doing routine tasks but not complicated business logic which I think can only be done by writing programs. I lost my job due to outsourcing not automation.

"I can see bash scripts doing routine tasks but not complicated business logic which I think can only be done by writing programs." Bash scripts are programs.

Bash scripts have existed since 1970s when Unix was used. That did not result in loss of jobs though.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#246

Post by wyclif »

taude wrote: post #212
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's demonstrably false. Hell you can just look to startups created by new grads and dropouts to confirm your view point is inane. Today's college grads are better equipped to do a wider breath of work than any other time in history precisely because of the efficiency gains of automation.

Sure, there's outliers. But Not all college grads are capable of operating at that level. Which is why companies have a lot of regimented hiring practices and tests to filter out all those not making the cut. I've been on the college recruiting circuit to help my company hire, and I'm often severely disappointed by a good portion of those I meet. There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I t…

There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I think they're never going to want to stick around at my place

This is the paradox of hiring today, and why tech hiring is broken. In fact, there's a story right now titled "Hiring Is Broken" on the HN front page, not far below the OP. So it's getting harder to recruit people who do make the cut technically and communications-wise, while at the same time it's getting harder to retain them because let's face it—so many startups don't have a compelling value proposition or profit model.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#247

Post by wyclif »

org3432 wrote: post #146
dleslie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is _training_; and the act of training employees has long since gone out of vogue in western markets.

I've worked in IT type jobs for over two decades, in some sense training would help, but to be frank the code and systems IT folks have built are of such low quality that it's better for everyone if they're handed over to more competent teams that can cost effectively maintain them long term.

One reason why training is out of fashion is because of poaching. Companies don't want to invest a lot of money in training their employees only to have their closest competitors become the beneficiaries. That is a myopic view, to be sure, but it's a common one.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#248

Post by org3432 »

wyclif wrote: post #247
org3432 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in IT type jobs for over two decades, in some sense training would help, but to be frank the code and systems IT folks have built are of such low quality that it's better for everyone if they're handed over to more competent teams that can cost effectively maintain them long term.

One reason why training is out of fashion is because of poaching. Companies don't want to invest a lot of money in training their employees only to have their closest competitors become the beneficiaries. That is a myopic view, to be sure, but it's a common one.

I think they do train people, it's just not formal. And the other issue is the companies have no clue what their doing most of the time anyway, so you just end up with IT people on the market will all sorts of nonsense opinions.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#249

Post by MRD85 »

taude wrote: post #212
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's demonstrably false. Hell you can just look to startups created by new grads and dropouts to confirm your view point is inane. Today's college grads are better equipped to do a wider breath of work than any other time in history precisely because of the efficiency gains of automation.

Sure, there's outliers. But Not all college grads are capable of operating at that level. Which is why companies have a lot of regimented hiring practices and tests to filter out all those not making the cut. I've been on the college recruiting circuit to help my company hire, and I'm often severely disappointed by a good portion of those I meet. There's occasionally the standout who really impresses me, but then I t…

From your perspective, what is the issue with a lot of the current college graduates? I'm a college student studying computer science, and I feel like I'd be ready to start work really soon. I'm also the sort of CS student who reads Hackernews, participates in CTFs, maintains a perfect GPA, has side projects, etc.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#250

Post by Ruxbin1986 »

dfischer wrote: post #208
munin wrote: post #5

This kind of change has also impacted me. It shows up when I'm trying to give students advice about starting their careers, and I realize that the first jobs I had (system administrator, SOC worker) have been replaced by robots. Especially in the SOC, I was a "Tier 1" analyst that would do monitoring (watching a bank of green lights waiting for one to turn red) and first level triage and analysis. This has been repla…

Education innovation is definitely a massive problem to solve. Especially because of a weird mix of control and influence Universities have between dictating k-12, expected job fulfillment vs skill, and their government sanctioned student debt vehicle unavoidable by bankruptcy. We need a more decentralized education system top-down that isn't tightly coupled to the gov.

Absolutely not. Look at colleges like Devry or University of Phoenix. Little to no regulation in curriculum, incredibly expensive, etc.
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