Google, Apple and others no longer require employees to have a college degree | Hacker News Reader

Google, Apple and others no longer require employees to have a college degree

cnbc.com

33 pointswongma19 comments

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I'm pretty sure that Google never did.

Disclaimer: I work for Google and have had coworkers without degrees.

Neither has Apple, so I don't know what this story is going on about.

The web form to apply used to require it (2008, if I remember correctly).

Of course, there are people who got in without having to go through the front door like that.

More than 1 in 10, iirc.

Ah, that's good.

I have a degree in an unrelated field and it's nice to know there isn't a true cap to self-taught development.

Still, going back to school for CS is on my "someday" list.

Nice to know. Although I don’t think this increases my chances much of getting hired. I failed my Facebook interview pretty miserably.

keep trying, especially other companies

Thanks!

It’s all a matter of practice.

(I say this without ever passing one)

Um...some of these jobs... how the hell do you become a Pharmacist..without a college degree? I didn't know you could become a self-taught pharmacist...

Good.

One is not always required.

Given the current cost and state of education, it is rational to expect people to persue alternatives.

Good grief. This comment is its own rebuttal.

Lol. I've known plenty of well-educated engineers who couldn't spell worth a damn.

May be English was not their native language? I also know some people who are extremely smart but have poor English skills.

That just begs the question if they were really all that "well-educated".

I use mobile a lot. Voice to text very frequently.

Having conversations here, elsewhere, is not worth the same level of investment as other writing can be.

In casual conversation, content, the ideas, intent are primary. Those have very high value. Minor gaffes, grammar and other bits?

Near zero.

Not everyone can roll that way.

Oh well. I won't tell anyone what to do, but will suggest the idea of taking conversational writing differently than formal writing will yield dividends.

Has for me.

In this case, a greater cost is now present in the form of a meta discussion that does not add any real value otherwise.

Inefficient, and can be offputting.

I advise you to take care, and take it easy where you can. Bet your ass I am.

> In casual conversation, content, the ideas, intent are primary. Those have very high value. Minor gaffes, grammar and other bits?

Try to explain this to a compiler. ;)

Totally. Maybe one day when we get real AI, we can do just that.

now if we can make hiring questions based on e.g. engineering or user experience and not "did you study CS?" or "can you remember algos?", maybe we can get somewhere towards building interesting and diverse teams instead of the usual overengineered codebase and underdeveloped everything else (processes, UX, accessibility, customer interactions, monitoring/metrics).

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