if people go to university and actually study and work hard to get a degree, it should be normal they don’t have to go through this bullshit.
i don't see how any of the above indirectly causes prevention of organization of a union.
If it required you to get a degree to get a tech job, far fewer people would be available. Far fewer people would be able to transition from low paid jobs to a higher paid job such as tech.
Making a specialized, technical field into a commodity is actually a global gain - even if those who used to enjoy a highly paid position gets their advantage lost because of such commoditization. Either they specialize into something that is even more valuable, or be lost amongst the commodity. Imagine if, during the iron age, the blacksmiths prevented the commoditization of industrial production.
the reason that tech prep and tech programs and STEM are promoted, and kids are sold on “learn to code”, is to LOWER THE COST OF DEVELOPMENT.
you say it like it's a bad thing.
Lowering the cost of _anything_ is good for society overall. It makes this resource more affordable for all entities requiring such resources, and it increases total output.
Doctors today costs too much, because there's a lobby group called the AMA that restricts entrants (rightly or wrongly). i would argue that it's better to have lower cost, because this service is valuable to people, and if the cost matches the value (or exceed the value), then some people will miss out on being able to utilize this resource.
There are many flaws in this argument: - what about people without degrees but skills, do they deserve such a job? - Is university free? If not, do poor people deserve such a job?
Finally, we are not talking about the average SE job. We are talking about the top 10% of the jobs where competition is fierce. People at this level, as in any domain, are willing to compete fiercely. Should the marathon been shortened to 10k so that people who can't train can compete?
What about people with actual problem solving and engineering skills, who worked hard to teach themselves, but are bad in test situations?
Some people cope well with tests. Others don't. Neither tells me ANYTHING about how well they will do as engineers.
> People at this level, as in any domain, are willing to compete fiercely.
But the competition is about "who's the best engineer", not "who was best at memorizing leetcode questions".
Personally, I wish there was a guaranteed pathway from a degree into an apprenticeship with the same pay and benefits as any other employee. If America wanted to grow and maintain its global economic power, it would guarantee a highly compensated job for every college graduate.
Just because people are willing to compete fiercely doesn't mean they have to. You sound like a crab in a bucket[0], when the reality is that the bucket doesn't need to exist.
>if people go to university and actually study and work hard to get a degree, it should be normal they don’t have to go through this bullshit.
There’s a significant number of candidates, who despite their CS degrees and fancy GPAs, can’t solve basic programming problems. And then there are the senior or principal engineer candidates who can talk a big game but can’t write fizz buzz.
Frankly, you can call it bullshit, but hiring unqualified people, coaching them, and eventually letting them them go is expensive. It’s not just expensive for the company, but it has a personal toll on the candidate, their manager (if they’re sincere), and the team.
Tech interview loops aren’t a perfect solution. We still let go of people who get through these loops. People try to study specific questions and anticipate the same or similar question in their own interview. Or other times, people get hired because the hiring manager is just bringing in “talent” from their previous company to expand their empire and get their promotion. Yeah… there’s corruption in every system.
> it has indirectly prevented knowledge workers from organizing.
I have literally no idea how unions are relevant or how tech interviews encourage or discourage unions.
The problem is, I am not trying to hire people to write FizzBuzz.
If I am looking for someone to compose a concerto for violin and lyra from scratch, but the question I ask them to determine their qualifications is: "Here is a whiteboard and a pen but you don't get a ruler, draw me a pentatonic scale freehanded in 30 seconds or less, and I will evaluate how similar it is to the picture here in this book on musical theory.", how nice will the resulting concerto sound?