Because most software engineers aren't very good.
...and they do not want to be better.
Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
91–100 of 105 posts
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#92The article starts with the primary assumption that programming is a commodity skill, then is astounded when the world doesn't back up his theory. Not exactly going to learn a lot like that.
Why programming isn't a commodity skill? Or will become such commodity soon? Programming is like a house builder. Yes there are better and more experienced builders, but most of them can build a house top to bottom with no problem.
If only. Aside from very, very standard patterns, software development is like building a totally different house each time, and builders tend to have a bear of a time when things deviate from accepted patterns. There is an immense range of productivity and quality among developers, and you can't make up for having less skilled developers by hiring more of them.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#93I think there may be a glut of potentially good software engineers. In fact, I know several high-IQ programmers who are skilled, but sadly, probably unemployable. I think the problem seems to be (at least) four-fold. 1. They don't have the prerequisite cultural background. 2. They are self-motivated to pursue their own creativity but less interested in others'. 3. They don't have a fondness for excess money. 4. They…
Building "business-scale" software is almost always a team effort. It doesn't matter how brilliant someone is if they can't work well with their team; in fact it's generally a recipe for disaster. 2 and 4 here are deal breakers for any decent software team.
The ability to "disagree and commit" is crucial for members of any team that want to both express creativity, but deliver results.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as the only person in my office who was a degree in CS (one has a geology degree, the other dropped out half-way through his graphic design degree, both make more than I do), no, you don't need a degree to get a job as a software engineer. The job I had previously wasn't altogether different, either. I think less than half of us had degrees in CS.
At least that leaves me with a spark of hope, but it's still quite discouraging that you could be the best programmer in your entire school, and still not be admitted for a CS degree. It kinda defeats the whole point of school, degree, job.
If schools judged CS applicants by their ability to program, I'd agree, but they don't. They judge them based upon their likelihood to succeed in the program (amongst other things, like building a diverse student body or whatever). That is, they judge them by their ability to be a good student. If all of the evidence goes to show that a prospect is a terrible student, why would a University accept them knowing that they are likely to fail?
Now, your friends may be more than capable at succeeding in university, and if a school only took the time to get to know them, they might see that, but, on paper, they look the same as someone who likely couldn't succeed in school (because they haven't, really, up to that point).
That all sounds all horrible about universities, disregarding these capable students because of an inability to really get to know prospects, but that's not on them. If you want to get into a good school, try harder.
As far as it defeating the point of getting an education, I'd wholly agree that college is not a worthwhile pursuit for a future-SE if your only reason for going is to get a job. You'll spend a lot of time in college learning skills that are not directly applicable to your future employment. You could arguably get to a point where you're good enough to hire more efficiently by skipping school. Whether or not it's worth passing on the things you really won't experience outside of school in exchange for a more efficient route to money is really up to you.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#951) I'd imagine programming ability is fairly correlated with IQ, which puts a limit on the percentage of the population that has the requisite analytical skills to be effective programmers. 2) Programming is as much about communication as it is about writing code. People have this idea that you can reduce a program to a precise set of specifications that can be formulated by non-programmers and shipped off to China t…
"People have this idea that you can reduce a program to a precise set of specifications that can be formulated by non-programmers and shipped off to China to be coded up."
Yup... If this was actually possible, we could just write software to do it and not need programmers at all.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that I disagree with you, but have you looked at a typical architect's salary and job prospects?
It seems there's a lot more demand for different types of software than there is for different types of houses.
Especially since most of the house design is now done by software.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why programming isn't a commodity skill? Or will become such commodity soon? Programming is like a house builder. Yes there are better and more experienced builders, but most of them can build a house top to bottom with no problem.
Programming is not like building houses. The computers on which the software runs are the "house builders"-- the parts of the system doing the repetitive work. Programmers are the architects and civil engineers who are tasked with inventing new types of houses every time.
To add on to your point - you can program anything with little to no startup costs anymore, whereas you can't build anything architecture wise without large amounts of money.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#98I am left to wonder how everyone could have been so wrong in predicting that the world would be glutted with good programmers and sysadmins by now
I stopped reading the article at this point. Seriously. I've been programming for nearly 30 years and in that time no one ever thought there was a risk of our having a glut of good programmers. Ever.
Hell, finding good talent back then was much more difficult than it is now. So stop your whining.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
"if you are buying the servers from scratch and hire a first rate web dev, shouldn't cost more than 10-20k$" this number is just as absurd as the $327 million.
At $125/hour and $5000 for servers, $10-20k could be spent up in a couple weeks or so. That seems pretty reasonable, and certainly not as absurd as $327 million, which would amount to about 1200 years of FTE effort.
If you were the government or a big company with a reputation would you call up 1 guy and say "you've got a few weeks and 120/hr, make a site and well run it in our data enter"?
Think of all the things that can go wrong! Security, PII, etc.
Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see your point but I think "forgo" is a strong word. I have made and will continue to make a great salary with great benefits and be able to choose companies based on cultural fit. That's something that I would never give up for an extra 50k a year.
Yes, but you're also hanging around on HN. :) I'm thinking more of the other guy, who was just as smart as you but perhaps not in love with tech, and had to decide if he wants to give up 50K to be an engineer. (I think you're referring to choosing between engineering jobs - I meant choosing between career paths.) Also: it's sad that beyond the comp issue, they're often sacrificing prestige, at least in the US. It's j…
I've been doing this a while, and have found that prestige from non techis, for us engineers, is based on the company we work for. Tell someone you're an engineer at google or facebook and you get the prestige. Tell them you're a programmer at some startup they've never heard of and their like "yeah, whatever".
I think a lot of it has to do with people overusing the term "engineer". I know people with that work for the phone company that have lower skill jobs but still get the title "network engineer" or some such. Normal people can't distinguish between this and the hard profession.