Comment by jaaron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaaron | Hacker News Reader

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No.

As a software engineer for 20+ years, I've talked with my sister, who is an ER doctor about this often. Most folks outside of engineering think our interview processes are crazy.

Keep in mind, there's significantly more training that goes into the medical field, so there's more emphasis on the institutions. Where did you go to school? What hospitals or facilities did you work with? Your resume and references speak more strongly.

Other hurdles in software engineering hiring:

- It's both a technical and (often) a creative field.

- Most work requires teams to complete and there's very little insight into who contributed what into a project.

- You don't have many of the signals from other fields, such as published papers, law cases, or hard numbers such as sales, certifications, etc.

Long story short: we don't have good mechanisms within companies to measure engineering productivity, let alone measure programmers outside of an institution.

I'm reminded of Steve McConnell's intro to "Software Estimation":

"Meanwhile, the typical software organization is not struggling to improve its estimates from +/-10% to +/-5% accuracy. The typical software organization is struggling to avoid estimates that are incorrect by 100% or more."

> Most folks outside of engineering think our interview processes are crazy.

They do, but not for the reason you think.

A hospital administrator would be mad to hire some rando from the street who calls himself a doctor, who has no formal schooling in medicine, a dropped two-year degree in chemistry, but who reads a few medical blogs, on nothing more than 'They have four years experience working at a startup and a good reference and they can answer some second-year whiteboard questions about the lymphatic system.' [1]

Other professionals front-load the interviewing effort into a rigorous schooling, testing, and accreditation process, that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life. Meanwhile, software engineers grouse about whiteboard interviews.

[1] Despite the highly dramatized performance by Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, that's not generally how doctors get hired.

One key difference is licensing. As a physician you have to take the USMLE Step 1,2,3 and then potentially other board certifications. We engineers don't have any of that.

I imagine that amazon would still grill you in an interview even if you have one of their advance AWS certificates. I know those certificates are not the same, but I don't think it's about certifications.

Yes and depending on the field, you may have to do mandatory additional certification and training throughout your career.

We have certs in software engineering, but in my experience, they've largely failed as an indicator of qualifications. Some hiring managers see them as nice to have, but I've also met hiring managers who are actively skeptical of certifications.

We also don't have differentiation of software levels or skills. If you're a programmer, you could, in theory, go program anything from web to AI to robotics. You don't have to be certified to work in nearly any industry. And we don't have formal hierarchy of skilled work, such as EMTs, nurses and doctors.

We're a relatively young industry that just hasn't worked things out yet and, to be honest, in the United States, there isn't pressure by employers to get our act together. The engineers themselves are in charge often and we're skeptical of boards and authority. We have too many stories of folks making it big with no formal education. Those with the money aren't demanding change because the current system "works."

It's possible software engineering will someday evolve into a boring respectable profession, but right now it's still a creative field of fads, trends, rock stars and super stars (let alone ninjas and wizards).

> Some hiring managers see them as nice to have, but I've also met hiring managers who are actively skeptical of certifications.

To me they are a red flag. Someone couldn't get a good job in a bull market straight out of undergrad and felt the need to get additional training...

> We also don't have differentiation of software levels or skills. If you're a programmer, you could, in theory, go program anything from web to AI to robotics. You don't have to be certified to work in nearly any industry. And we don't have formal hierarchy of skilled work, such as EMTs, nurses and doctors.

It still exists, it's just that it's informal.

FYI 'real' engineering (electrical, mechanical, civil etc. ) do have certification exams in USA and many other countries

Can you imagine?

Hi I'm Ed Barns I'm here for the interview of ER Physician.

QUICK Put on your scrubs we've got a patient here with a bone dangling out of his arm.

No you don't understand I'm just here to interview.

THIS IS THE INTERVIEW HURRY UP.

You should write for Grey's Anatomy. That sounds like one of their ridiculous plot lines.

Some nursing boards pretty much have this; you get to a room with a medical actor that's behaving like a patient with X issue and you have to handle the situation.

It's also a big part of residency (having to treat patients with diminishing supervision from senior doctors). So it's not that far fetched.

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