201–210 of 370 posts
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Name a giant in this industry, that person benefitted from a liberal arts education.
I'm sure all the gender studies classes has helped the vast majority of tech students become better developers
Of course, that's completely ignoring that there is far, far, far more to "liberal arts" than gender studies.
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Another major glaring problem that no one wants to admit is that lots of tech work requires (at the very least) college-level-IQ, which excludes the majority of the population. And the lower-IQ jobs are quickly being automated away.
That's not true. It's a common complaint among engineers that developing line-of-business or CRUD applications is tedious and not challenging enough as it doesn't require a lot of creative thinking. Truth of the matter is that most tech work doesn't involve AI, machine learning, self-driving cars or augmented reality but down-to-earth business applications. Developing those requires abstract thinking, empathy and pro…
It doesn't, but you still need "higher level" developers to cover security and concurrent/parallel/distributed problems and maybe architecture.
It's not that someone can't also learn that stuff, but exposing a product publicly without some experience in those areas is asking for trouble.
IMO, Software is resisting division of labor and work by collapsing roles into "Full stack devs" or "DevOps Engineers".
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I'm thankful I found a company like that after graduating. Seemingly the only such specimen in America today. It's a giant international consultancy company that seemingly has a questionable reputation online but it was all I could get that paid anything remotely respectable and they even do paid training. It's seems to be one of a rapidly dwindling handful of paths for new grads who are graduating and finding out th…
Yup, companies like Accenture have been doing new hire "training" programs for well over a decade. It's a great way for young college grads who didn't go to one of the elite schools that the Googles of SV recruit from to get over the "Jr. Engineer with 3 years experience" hurdle.
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You're forgetting the part about having enough money to make meaningful investments.
If you'd invested $1000 in Boeing in the early 80's, it'd be worth $200,000 today. Sounds meaningful to me.
Your point still is predicated on the "already having money" part.
I'd be more impressed if they committed to hiring employees that don't already have the skills they are looking for and doing on the job training. That would be far more effective both in terms of actual skills transfer and in terms of future career trajectory than Yet More Retraining Programs untethered from any actual employer or employment opportunities. We've been doing the latter since at least the Kennedy admin…
Usually I'd agree that on-the-job training is more beneficial than untethered training programs. However, just today I listened to the most recent Freakonomics Radio episode, which was about how Germany managed to become the economic powerhouse it is today. Most economists that were asked agreed that an essential ingredient of Germany's economic success is its unique concept of vocational training, which combines on-…
Everyone hates a cynic so bring on the downvotes: I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming. Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030. The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time. Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business…
"PERCEIVED lack"? Doesn't the fact that salaries are sky rocketing essentially disprove your point? Why are the salaries getting pushed higher and higher? Because demand for SWEs is outstripping supply. This to me looks like the same kind of privileged outlook that other professional guilds like the AMA desire. Do you want cheaper healthcare, or doctor compensation to keep going up? Hey, letting nurse practitioners t…
If you re-read my original post you will notice that I did NOT advocate for artificially restricting worker supply, or any kind of protectionism.
I merely warned that what we're seeing in tech WILL bring an end to the "high" salaries, and that those who wish to maintain their current state, should consider PERSONAL GROWTH and advancing their skillset as a means of protection.
We can debate all day about whether its a "perceived" lack, or a real lack. I whole heartedly disagree that salaries are, as you put it, "sky rocketing", especially when you account for cost of living in the areas where the "skyrocketing" is happening.
And oh, yes, how dare a doctor who spent upwards of $500,000 in medical training, and devoted years to internships, and residency, be worried about a lowered skill cap or regulatory protections (which they counted on) for entering their profession! How dare they!
Please. Of all the examples of protectionism you could have given, you chose perhaps the most acceptable and understandable. Yes, people care about their livelihood and the ability to retain efforts and investments they have made, so would you.
I'd be more impressed if they committed to hiring employees that don't already have the skills they are looking for and doing on the job training. That would be far more effective both in terms of actual skills transfer and in terms of future career trajectory than Yet More Retraining Programs untethered from any actual employer or employment opportunities. We've been doing the latter since at least the Kennedy admin…
I think retraining programs primarily help sharp, energetic folks who somehow got into a bad state (useless major, bad school, rough childhood, etc.); maybe even social connections and stability are more important than the skills they end up getting. However, those programs are IMO worthless for folks who lost a stable job and hope that Yet Another Certification Class will put them into a pipeline for a similar one. I am not sure how to help the second type.
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> I'd be more impressed if they committed to hiring employees that don't already have the skills they are looking for and doing on the job training I work for Google and I find there's already a very large amount of on the job training required due to all the powerful but complicated internal tools. My manager has told me that I should not feel pressured to contribute at all for my first 6 months and I should feel fr…
At the dawn of the computer age ATT, IBM, and other companies taught people how to program from scratch. Early on because there were no college programs to do so and later on because programs didn't graduate nearly enough people. And no one was self taught because there were no home computers. I don't see why Google couldn't do that today. I'm not saying they are morally obligated to do so. At the end of the day they…
A more reasonable path is HelpDesk / Hardware Tech -> operations software / SysOp -> software engineering
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Another major glaring problem that no one wants to admit is that lots of tech work requires (at the very least) college-level-IQ, which excludes the majority of the population. And the lower-IQ jobs are quickly being automated away.
IQ just means potential not capability. Given enought time I believe most people can be trained to do almost any job. I don't think our brain suddenly evolved in 200 years from illiterate peasants to software engineers. We just have more school time these days.