Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#51

Post by codesushi42 » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #49

codesushi42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I have worked at both startups and FAANGs. There are developers with CS degrees who are clearly worse than those without. But I could always tell who did not have a CS degree, based on poor understanding of things like running time analysis, good systems design, more complex algorithms etc. The best developers always had at least a CS undergrad. Though there are clearly diminishing returns with going above tha…

Many people with CS degrees don't understand those topics and many people without a CS degree do. So I don't buy this.

Well, that's what I said.

But non CS folk never did understand, in my > 10 year experience.

Of course there will always be exceptions. John Carmack is one of the greatest programmers of all time, and he never went to college. To be fair, he did excel a lot further under the mentorship of Michael Abrash, who was a researcher in 3d graphics.

But for your average Joe schmoe, this is likely not to be the case.

Would I not hire someone on the basis of no CS degree? No.

Would I be more skeptical? Absolutely.

Would I consider them for a senior advisor role? Probably not.

Unless it's from another technical field (math, physics). Even then, I don't know, it depends on the role. I've seen a lot of shit code from people who were mathematically brilliant.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#52

Post by wvenable » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #36

I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…

As a hiring manager, I fully agree. All our job postings say "CS degree required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't matter.

It matter a lot more for juniors who lack any sort of experience. I think it make good sense for young people to get a degree but it makes less sense for seasoned professionals to go back and get one.

If you don't have a degree but have experience, don't let the degree requirement stop you from applying.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#53

Post by busterarm » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #36

I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…

> I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable.

I don't know. I have to say "me too" here and I've encountered enough of us over the years that I think it's just a big lie. There are a certain number of high paying companies that perhaps overvalue a college education and algorithmic competence.

But overall I think about half of the colleagues I've worked with either had no degrees or had degrees that didn't do them any favors in this career. Our career paths are certainly replicable.

In fact, I'm always impressed by the people I meet that don't have the education but have incredibly strong CS fundamentals.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#54

Post by asdf21 » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #52

zzzeek wrote: post #36

I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…

As a hiring manager, I fully agree. All our job postings say "CS degree required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't matter. It matter a lot more for juniors who lack any sort of experience. I think it make good sense for young people to get a degree but it makes less sense for seasoned professionals to go back and get one. If you don't have a degree but have experience, don't let the…

>If you don't have a degree but have experience, don't let the degree requirement stop you from applying.

Then don't list it as a requirement..?

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#55

Post by bdcravens » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #31

I've worked with a bunch of people who don't have degrees. At the more junior level, you can tell the difference, because while they tend to be really smart and can pick things up quickly, they have funny holes in their knowledge -- CS theory that you'd only pick up from a CS textbook, stuff like Big O notation or A* search (ok maybe that one is a bit more common now, but in the early 00s you didn't really learn that…

I think you're less likely to run into those issues if all you're doing is building web apps and the like.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#56

Post by mnm1 » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #10

mnm1 wrote: post #5

This only matters for one's first job, if that. Afterwards it's irrelevant. Regardless of what the job description says, it's never mattered in my experience working at well over a dozen companies in the last twelve years or so.

How many companies that got your resume didn’t interview you? How many companies did you interview with but not get hired? Of those companies you worked for, what was your total compensation vs. your coworkers who had degrees?

How am I supposed to know those numbers? I'm getting paid towards the top of the median range in what I do, working remotely, often less than 40 hours a week. Hard to get something better than that. The point of my post was that not having a CS degree shouldn't discourage anyone from applying for jobs that claim to need one. I've had well over a hundred interviews in my life in person, over a dozen jobs in the past twelve years, and never has it come up. Not at faang, not at startups, not anywhere.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#57

Post by martinbooth » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

danielvinson wrote: post #38

rezz wrote: post #21

Is this actually a problem still? I haven’t hopped around as much as most SWEs I suppose, but I’ve never faced an issue not having a degree in any of my previous hiring processes. I work at a large bank and we don’t screen candidates for degrees.

I’m a college dropout and have about 8 years of experience as a developer. I’ve been interviewing a lot lately at mostly startups (7 onsites in the last month). Every single place except for one asked me about college or why I dropped out. One place asked me incredibly difficult whiteboard problems which appeared to be to filter out people without CS degrees (very specific algorithms to implement which I’ve never hea…

I think the interviewer may have been a bit standoffish because he/she was expecting you to work out how to reverse a linked list rather than memorizing the algorithm.

My CS degree only taught me what a linked list is, not how to reverse one.

It's not a great question to ask because it's such a common one and many people will have learned an algorithm from a text book, but if you haven't memorized the solution it's simple enough to understand the requirements yet difficult enough to work out that you can get a good amount of insight into how a job applicant can solve rather than memorize problems.

After all, being able to separate candidates who can solve unseen problems from those who can't is one of the goals of interviews

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#58

Post by codingdave » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #5

This only matters for one's first job, if that. Afterwards it's irrelevant. Regardless of what the job description says, it's never mattered in my experience working at well over a dozen companies in the last twelve years or so.

> working at well over a dozen companies in the last twelve years or so.

That is the one legit reason I've ever heard for a degree -- To know that people are able and willing to stick with a multi-year effort. Moving every year or two when getting rolling with your career is one thing. More than one job per year for over a decade is something else entirely. It doesn't mean I would throw out your resume, but it does mean I would only consider you as a contractor, not a perm employee.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#59

Post by sixstringtheory » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

fiatjaf wrote: post #11

If you're going to hire a developer for their first job, don't think twice. Developers without degrees are better than developers with degress in 100% of the cases. If they don't have a degree that means they've learned something without being forced to, they love the subject and are genuinely interested.

What about people like me who taught themselves to code long before they even knew CS was a thing? All I knew is that my family had a computer and I had somehow peeked behind the GUI veil when I discovered DOS. I wound up researching in a CS program because I found it interesting and just kept wanting more.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#60

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #52

zzzeek wrote: post #36

I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…

As a hiring manager, I fully agree. All our job postings say "CS degree required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't matter. It matter a lot more for juniors who lack any sort of experience. I think it make good sense for young people to get a degree but it makes less sense for seasoned professionals to go back and get one. If you don't have a degree but have experience, don't let the…

> All our job postings say "CS degree required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't matter.

So, you lie about your actual requirements (how hard is it to add the classic “or equivalent experience” qualification?) and expect potential applicants to intuit your hidden meaning?