Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

I think an interesting follow-up discussion/blog post would be - okay getting a job in tech may suck... but doesn't getting a job outside of tech suck even harder?

In other words, if you were starting college today, would you still do tech? Is it still better than getting any other job for equivalent pay bands?

Specifically comparing early career job seekers:

* Easier/harder to get $50-100K tech job versus $50-100K job in other fields?

* Easier/harder to get $100-150K tech job versus $100-150K job in other fields?

* Easier/harder to get $150-200K tech job versus $150-200K job in other fields?

Other fields are things like marketing, accounting, law, medical, biotech. A quant/finance job is probably CS or CS adjacent these days so its basically a tech job.

My take is that by the time you get above $130K there probably is not any other field outside of tech where this is possible unless there is some very unique skill.

And instead of annoying but somewhat objective leetcode/live coding whiteboard interviews; hiring is way more subjective, credential based, network based and gate kept.

I would be interested in seeing how many tech jobs within two standard deviations of the mean pay above $130k, especially once you start adjusting for cost of living.

Getting a job in medicine is usually somewhat more straightforward with less BS about skills tests, at least for the common specialties. Most organizations have shortages of physicians and other high-level practitioners so they can't afford to turn away qualified candidates unless there are major red flags.

Of course medicine has other downsides as a career field which makes it maybe not a great choice unless you really love it.

You can't really be making this comparison, though? Getting an MD and residency and rotations means you're in your thirties before you get your first real job. At least in the US. It's wildly more difficult.

Most people in medicine are not MDS.

Why not?

The MD cert and residency are the entire reason doctors don't have to deal with the same interview bullshit ("now please demonstrate an open-heart surgery on this patient over in room 103, and talk me through it as you go"). There are multiple gates you have to pass before you become hireable:

1. Be in about the top quintile of your undergraduate class.

2. Have good MCAT scores.

3. Get accepted to a med school.

4. Not fail out of med school, which includes what is effectively an apprenticeship while being supervised by an experienced practitioner.

4. Be accepted to residency.

5. Not fuck up your residency.

6. Apply for your license.

7. Not become uninsurable for malpractice.

Almost all of the bozos have been eliminated by the time you get to step 6. That is what makes hiring a doctor easier: you mostly just need to check "is this person's license real?" and "are there any red flags since licensure?" When checking references, you mostly rely on other people who also have a medical license.

In the software world, we have no equivalent to all that. Literally anyone can call themself a software engineer. There are no licenses, no tests, no (required) degrees. There's no apprenticeship. There are no lasting career consequences to fucking up a project. When checking references, you have no way to know that those people are real (unless they are in your network).

That's why we need skills and knowledge tests when hiring for software roles. Sure, it's nice that you can walk into a software job without the 10-15 years of formal process, but the flip side is all the annoying process around hiring.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

I agree with absolutely everything you wrote. And so I don't complain about hiring loops, and instead just prep for interviews. It's absolutely worth the tradeoff.

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