Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

For a split second, I misread the name of the author of the article as "David Gelernter"[1] a professor of computer science at Yale who perhaps is so famous that he needs no introduction here, but on a closer reading I see that the author is Daniel Gelernter,[2] who I think must be David Gelernter's son.[3] The author Daniel is part of three generations in the Gelernter family who have thought deeply about computer science and its implications for society, so I am all for reading the article closely and grappling with its argument, and I am grateful for the submission of this article (which a friend just told me about on Facebook) here on Hacker News.

The thrust of Daniel Gelernter's argument here is that there is a shortage of programmers with a certain kind of skill set suitable for working in startups, because large businesses that grew up as successful startups have bid up the price of programmers with those skill sets. "Part of the problem is that startups have to compete with hegemons like Google and Facebook that offer extraordinary salaries for the best talent." My oldest son began working at Google a month ago, so for the last couple months family conversation has included discussion of Google's hiring process and how working for Google compares to working for other startups (my son's previous employment). The programmer job market has a lot of interesting features, but one of those features is indeed a fairly high premium on software engineers who have a love of coding (who are self-motivated, whether or not the job market rewards the motivation, in learning more and more about coding every day) and who have good problem-solving skills, a business orientation to doing work that meets customer needs and builds a profitable company, and good written and oral communication skills. There is a severe shortage at all levels of employment of software engineers who meet those other requirements.

The author's other comment to note is "The thing I don’t look for in a developer is a degree in computer science." It's empirically true that young people can get great jobs as software engineers at the most selective employers even if they don't have degrees in computer science--as long as they can handle a tough series of technical interviews. I've seen it done. Many other commenters on Hacker News have noted that software engineering, more than most occupations in the United States, has processes for finding people with actual technical skill irrespective of whether those people have college degrees. If you are looking for work, having a college degree may provide many benefits (among those the ability to gain a visa to move to another country where you would rather live), but the main thing to gain is the knowledge and experience that helps you solve actual problems in industry with code that works. Some people gain that knowledge and experience through a computer science degree program (or at least DURING a computer science degree program), but others gain it through other channels, and the smartest companies look for worker performance more than they look for degrees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-gelernter/11/a57/251

[3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023032815045792222...

Yet another example of someone mixing the concepts of scientist, engineer, and technician in the computing world.

You wouldn't hire a food scientist to control and feed the machines that produce the bread in an industrial bakery, or even to design and build that production line. Producing code is not as closely related as one might think to the science that leads to the algorithms and design patterns that underscore the languages and frameworks that enable the tools and techniques ultimately used by those who produce code.

The sooner all concerned (me, you, academics, entrepreneurs, employers) settle on a suitable terminology for what it is that computer scientists, software engineers, and developers need to learn to do what they do, the sooner we can get past this type of article.

> A junior developer fresh out of college can expect to earn around $10,000 monthly, plus benefits, a $100,000 signing bonus and $200,000 in stock options.

Maybe I'm out of touch with the realities of the world, being an ancient 31-year old PHP/Java developer who's never written a line of something cool like Go in his life, but an expectation of $10k post-tax right out of college doesn't seem like a realistic expectation for every graduate.

Of course not. He doesn't need some computer science majors. He has a little app which allows you to search your mailbox.[1] Well, actually he doesn't have an app. The site says "Coming next spring". You can "preorder" the app. So he's pre-announced a product to be written by people he hasn't hired yet.

And, of course, it's "cloud based". It sucks up all your email into their servers, where they get to look at it. Privacy policy? What privacy policy?

[1] http://dittach.com/

Wow what a ridiculous article. For starters, only an extremely small slice of fresh-out-of-college developers would get a 120k salary and 300k in bonus and options. This is still absurdly high, if it's even true (and not exaggerated for the purpose of getting an article into the WSJ). I've noticed a sharp uptick in CS grads, and it seems starting salaries are actually nosing downwards. Or at least that's the case here in Boston.

This article is nonsense, and whoever the author is, I guarantee you he has no idea what he's doing.

For those that don't want to register, just delete the http://url and then search for the rest. Click the link from Google or whatever and the page will load without the register popup.

SEO baby.

It's interesting how the author laments that CS graduates are not up to date with the latest technologies, while admitting himself that the technologies "change every 10 minutes". By this logic, students starting a CS education should have no idea what they just signed up for, since the up to date courses desired by industry do not even exist yet - heck, the technology does not exist yet.

That said, I personally know several academics who argue that it is simply not a university's responsibility to follow the demands of industry. While a bit extreme, I see the point they are trying to make.

College/University software tracks are very poor in teaching you how to develop SaaS type programs. A bachelor's for CompSci will introduce you to different types of programming, the majority of which you will never use in professional development.

There is a real disconnect between the skills taught in college to the skills needed in the work environment. If you're going to college to learn coding so you can get a job, then you're being done a disservice by being taught things you'll never need.

I wonder how effective these "hacker" schools are. The ones I investigated didn't seem interested in best practices, it was a real focus on getting code on the screen. That can be a hugely damaging mindset working on large, complicated software.

The fact that he first dismisses coding bootcamps and then concludes by describing what sounds like a bootcamp as the solution, makes his entire argument hard to take seriously.

What the author is saying rings true. I've been interested in electronics since I was in Kindergarten. I worked as a EE without a BSEE for 30 years after working as an Electronics Technician right out of high school. I did get a Bachelors in Computer Science at 10 years in with the help of tuition assistance from the company I was working for at the time.

I enjoy building hardware using microcontrollers and FPGA's. and have several open source projects on Github.

Companies put too much emphasis on credentials, and not enough emphasis on recruiting and mentoring people who build electronics and programming for fun. It is these people who build things which change the world.

A computer science degree in "iPhone or Android development" isn't a degree in computer science. I've work with people ranging from self-taught dropout coders to CS and CompE PhDs, and I would say that the very best of the bunch had solid backgrounds in computing fundamentals and theory. Personally I favor CompE's with a love of both coding and embedded. Working within a constrained environment close to or at the bare metal gives people an understanding of how real computer architectures and software interact, how code will perform, and how to write simple clean code that executes on features without succumbing to enterprise-grade bloat. If you can find a candidate like this, snap them up and give them a leadership position.

I think he's making the common mistake University is not there to teach specific skills but to teach you the broad elements of a field.

That's why other engineering disciplines have CPD and it takes several years to get to full chartered status.

So the germ of a good idea in the article is that there's a distinction between Computer Science and the techniques used in the actual production of software (call it Software Engineering, but obviously that's an overused term).

I think you can make a very solid argument that universities would do well to offer a Software Engineering track alongside CS, one that focuses less on formal mathematical analyses of algorithms and reticulating splines, and more on practical concerns of software teams -- different approaches to the SDLC, ways to work in a team, how to evolve existing code without breaking things.

But the argument he actually makes -- that universities should be teaching "iPhone or Android development" and spend multiple semesters on that... yeah, no. If you want a trade school that's narrowly focused on teaching people a job skill that's in demand this very second, I'd argue you're misguided, but whatever; either way, it's not what universities do and shouldn't be. The point of a university is to teach you things that won't be worthless a few years after you graduate.

"A serious alternative to the $100,000 four-year college degree wouldn’t even need to be accredited—it would merely need to teach students the skills that startups are desperate for, and that universities couldn’t care less about."

- because everyone should be training to work for a startup?

- why not hire passionate people and train them if university trains them badly? Sounds like people are trying to find perfect developers and of course the competition for those is huge.

CS and SD aren't the same subject, though it would be great if CS degrees had a "intro to software development" class required in the first year or two.

It would teach things such things as the SDLC, waterfall/agile, a dvcs, code maintainability, a documentation system, working with others, writing tests, qa, project management, etc, etc.

Computer Science teaches useful stuff that helps with problem solving. It's not useful APIs or revision control. Those things you can learn on your first job.

The article is paywalled and i can't read it.