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Comment by R0b0t1 | Hacker News Reader

Any route for people lacking an undergraduate degree to turn their decade+ experience into a cert and make up for their earnings shortfall?

I keep seeing these things, but no way to increase access.

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> make up for their earnings shortfall

Get a job leveraging the decade+ experience? I've never heard of any senior level position caring about a cert.

Government jobs care about certs a lot, but I don't think most big tech companies do.

There's a lot of big boring companies that require certs. Their hiring practices may change but it's not a given.

If the cert doesn't exist (cert equivalent to a decade+ of experience in robotics) then how can a company care about it?

They care about something that's easily testable, binary, and hard to link to discrimination. So if there's no cert you just don't get hired.

Contrary to popular HN opinion, management jobs outside of big tech do not actually pay that well. I’m assuming the parent poster wants to switch career tracks entirely rather than stay within his/her currently available roles.

Can you write code? Can you manage stakeholders? Run complex projects with a moderate level of tech understanding? Can you understand a technical system and write documentation?

(Approximately) Nobody in tech cares about certificates and that goes 5x for non-technology certificates. What are skilled in doing matters way more than what paper with a stamped gold seal has your name on it.

Yes I can do all of those. In the Midwest, DC beltway, Northeast, paper is king. Much to the disbelief of HN tech enclaves that don't care about credentials are rare.

Snowden didn't have a degree and worked in DC beltway :P Anyway, most of the jobs that showed up when I googled "senior robotics engineer Virginia" don't mention a cert or degree (they ask for X-years of professional experience) or only mention a degree within a list of many desired qualifications ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=+Senior+Robotics+Engineer+vi...

Idk what to tell you, everyone seems very reticent to hire despite actual experience. In some cases it's statute preventing the hiring of people without degrees.

It's not all roses like comes up on HN frequently.

I’m in the Northeast and been hiring tech people here for decades. I’ve never seen a place where paper was king, but if paper is what’s holding you back, go get it.

Western Governors University is a place where courses are completed by taking tests. This person got their degree in 3 months. https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/cs-degree/

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