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The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

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Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#51

Post by nitrogen »

ap22213 wrote: post #35
ovatsug25 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care in the US blows through cash and often gets poorer results. Regulation does not a great industry make.

I'm not a proponent of blind regulation, and actually, I prefer less regulation, generally. But, do you have evidence to back up your implicit claim that less regulation yields better results? I ask that with complete curiosity and humility - my perception is of experts telling me for decades that awesomeness is attainable with more deregulation. And, when awesome doesn't come, they say that it's because we didn't de…

There are scenarios in game theory (which I have not studied myself, only read about indirectly) that regularly occur in the market, that can only be solved by regulation enforced by a non-participant. Many of those scenarios relate to externalized costs (e.g. pollution) and information asymmetries.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#52

Post by nemo »

hackits wrote: post #45
nemo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care in countries that have the best results are also heavily regulated. Regulations can be very beneficial, but only if they're well developed and well protected from regulatory capture.

Citation?

For what?

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#53

Post by ubernostrum »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

I find it amusing that you liked an article which argued against "X years' experience" as a way to define a senior developer, but your disagreement is that you want to insist on "X years' experience" as a definition.

And as others have pointed out, it's not "technical ability" that is being devalued; more likely it's that a particular subset of technical knowledge is devalued -- perhaps appropriately for the situation -- but it just happens to be a subset that you personally feel is extremely important (and I might well disagree with you on whether that subset, or any specific subset, is actually essential).

And that's without getting into the irony of how much we as an industry approve of successful high school or college dropouts who learn to code well without completing a formal CS degree, but then turn around and, frankly, shit on the idea of actually hiring any such people because it'd require lowering our technical standards.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#54

Post by careersuicide »

uola wrote: post #29
careersuicide wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I hope that that regulation never happens. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. The biggest reason I became a programmer, besides the fact that I really enjoy programming, is that there was no one to tell me I couldn't become one. Growing up I wanted to be all sorts of things only to find out there were entrenched gatekeepers and a multitude of of barriers to each profession. For whatever reason jumpin…

The alternative solution is what we have today when large tech companies prefer to hire people from high status schools.

Yeah, but part of my point, which I suppose I could have made more explicit, was that I don't have to work for a large tech company. Or any company at all. I can, if I really want to, strike out on my own and do it myself. That's how I got started getting paid to program. That path isn't for everyone, but I think that it's possible at all is a wonderful thing. I get a sinking feeling in my gut when I even contemplate a future where doing so just isn't a real option in the same way that one can't just become a doctor by obsessively practicing medicine on their own every night in their free time. I know I'm not the only one who got into programming that way and I think it would be really sad to close that avenue off for potential future programmers.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#56

Post by mpeg »

ilaksh wrote: post #44

Its really mainly a rationalization for paying some people more than others. Or just a way of rating some developers as being more valuable. If it were popular to use Programmer I, Programmer II, and Programmer III, then they would call it that. By the way, going to a lot of conferences or having a lot of Twitter followers does not make you more 'senior' than me. It might make it easier for you to negotiate a 'senior…

They do, in lots of companies, have "Software Developer I", "II", "III" ...

Or MTS/SMTS/LMTS/PMTS with a gazillion different levels for each

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#57

Post by lliamander »

ubernostrum wrote: post #53
jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

I find it amusing that you liked an article which argued against "X years' experience" as a way to define a senior developer, but your disagreement is that you want to insist on "X years' experience" as a definition. And as others have pointed out, it's not "technical ability" that is being devalued; more likely it's that a particular subset of technical knowledge is devalued -- perhaps appropriately for the situatio…

I can't speak for the parent comment, but I will say that while there are plenty of developers with "X years experience" who are not operating at a senior level, it is unrealistic to expect that someone will be operating at senior level without those years of experience.

I liked their ideas around direction given vs. direction required. I liked their distrust of the notion of "cultural fit". I liked that they identified leadership and connectedness as distinct skills, and that a senior developer has both technical skills and at least one of the other two (leadership or connectedness).

But true technical expertise requires the ability to make holistic, contextual decisions. That kind of stuff takes experience shipping multiple products, full-stack exposure to at least one or two mature software stacks, and awareness of the historical context of how technology has changed. That is, it's not so much about "years of experience" as it is "diversity and quality of experiences".

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#58

Post by 33W »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

The article says that someone considered Senior in the other two areas, once reaching a mid-level of technical competence, would be considered senior overall.

To bring the idea into a couple of the other fields you mention, consider:

A lawyer, just out of law school but with 10 years of software experience and recent work in patent submission.

A doctor, just out of medical school but with 10 years experience as a registered nurse.

An engineer, just out of college but with 10 years in construction, specifically welding structural beams and overseeing other welders.

The one that I have personal experience with is the military. Soldiers respect as senior their peers with significant outside experience, even if the regulations do not allow them to be promoted officially.

You can also consider, among officers, the brand new 2LT who was enlisted for many years prior. While they are a 2LT just as any butterbar, they are respected beyond their rank.

I don't think that the article is claiming that everyone 2 years out of a code bootcamp can be considered a senior developer, but that there are exceptional individuals who can.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#59

Post by hinkley »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

At most of the places I've worked, I've been able to easily get consensus on the assertion that if a person can't explain what they're thinking to you then you won't be able to correct them if they're wrong.

You'd rather have an honest disagreement than have someone bumbling around the code quietly (and possibly quickly) making a mess that nobody notices until the debt is piled so high it blots out the sun.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#60

Post by merreborn »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

Our company recently ran most of us through interview/hiring training. One of the core messages of this training was "hire for soft skills; technical skills can be trained"

This included a slide with a hypothetical "candidate A" who had no technical experience, but great communication skills, and "candidate B" who had extensive technical experience but no "soft skills". Who do you hire for a hypothetical technical role? "Candidate A" was presented to us as the correct answer.

Nevermind the fact that our company has never historically demonstrated the ability to technically train an employee...

So, yes. Devaluing technical skill appears to be all the rage in HR these days.

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