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Comment by brtkdotse | Hacker News Reader

No kidding. Unless you’re in a “tech for tech’s sake” kind of job, you need to get up to speed on the problem domain and the business. That usually takes _at least_ 18 months and if people bounce just as they’re getting proficient you’re throwing money into a black hole.

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Alternately, the software industry could go the way of the electrical and mechanical engineering industries and just not hire people unless they already possess relevant domain knowledge. It was a bit of a shock to me when I transitioned from EE that I could get hired in this industry with little to no domain knowledge on what I was being hired to do.

I do wonder if this will happen. I reckon there will be some sort of catastrophic programming error which brings in a level of certification akin to other engineering disciplines. I've seen jobs advertised nearby for a nuclear defence company that have the same requirements as a web dev agency.

So, kind of like a software bug that causes 1 or 2 planes to crash, killing all on-board?

Or killed a bunch of people undergoing radiotherapy, or exploded an Arianne rocket, or required years of remiedial work before 1st of Jan 2000 ... the list goes on and on.

I was thinking something more extreme, although I wonder if that software bug had caused a plane or two to crash into a US city would there have been more of a response.

You mean like a company on this list?

https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/nuclear-weapon-producers/

(It seems to be an activist site, but it's what shows up when you search for producers of of nuclear weapons.)

Most of these companies are huge. They may be looking for someone to maintain their canteens' web site. Or something else not very exciting.

The only question is whether you will be hired on those requirements alone.

Learning is a prerequisite, jobs pivot, things change

Maybe in another hundred years things'll settle down

> you need to get up to speed on the problem domain and the business. That usually takes _at least_ 18 months

I have always wondered about this as businesses do not seem to care. Everyone knows devs are getting large raises to move but what business is working to counteract the problem? Not many.

Domain knowledge seems to not have much value as far as the people signing your paychecks are concerned.

This also depends on the company and in the same time it depends on the people applying for the job. I wouldn't feel any motivation if I would just go to company X because of their great technology, but the business is something that says nothing to me, and same goes the other way. That's until somebody pays you more than enough to drop the idealism. :)

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