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Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

> top engineering schools

That is an elitist conceit that is irrelevant to the actual practice of engineering.

I managed in Silicon Valley for about ten years, and did the university recruiting rounds every season to find people. I probably met and sceened around five thousand university students during this period.

There really IS a difference. The quality of the candidates from top schools -> mid schools -> mediocre schools is very observable.

Engineers are not fungible.

It's only observable in right out of college. You're less likely/wouldn't notice if you had two candidates with 10 years experience. Which is why companies go for people fresh out of school. Their naiveté gets them accept lower pay and work longer hours.

It represents kind of mindset. If early on in life(13-14 when grades start to matter)you wanted to excel in education and are willing to go to a top university where you are crushed with workload, it demonstrates a sense of drive and passion. You definitely can have that same drive and passion and go to a very mediocre school, but there are less of you statistically. you may even have more self-discipline since you must go above and beyond you peers, but from a recruiters perspective, when they are looking for top applicants it becomes a statistical game really fast.

I completely agree, the guys going to top universities worked hard in school and got good grades. They were high achieving children. They're good at exams. They were probably also relatively smart, and probably also somewhat privileged.

Now, to what extent that translates to "being good at the job you're trying to fill" - that's the interesting question. It'll generally be relative to the biases of the people doing the interviewing and their personal experiences.

Right, that is why companies like google and Facebook who do a ton of research in hiring play such an emphasis on academic achievement, especially in younger employees.

I think saying that being good at achool doesn’t make you good at your job is something we say to make ourselves better.

You can’t be good at your job if and only if you do well in school, but if you do well in school, especially at tough universities, chances are you will be good at your job.

You can also gain such passion and drive, by not going to school.

Seems right for the wrong reason. Not because of the education, but the types of people who would be very enthusiastic about getting into SpaceX would be a different kind than for Tesla. I did meet a couple of early Tesla folks and they did seem to work insane hours for lower rates due to the company name.

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