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Comment by johnnyanmac | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like something many technical professions have to deal with. Even with all the licenses and certs in the world, very few lawyers or doctors are just walking in and learning the process in a week. Other types of engineering need to understand the pipeline in another firm compared to their old one. A firefighter needs time to mesh with the team and figure out what equipment and tools are available here.

But then again, I bet most of those also aren't trying to rely on AI to find talent.

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I can't speak about lawyers, but you're definitely wrong about doctors (have a couple in my family). They can and do travel to completely new hospital systems and are expected to do their normal job immediately (and they do).

Even within tech, I think the ramp-up time is faster for literally everyone else besides software engineers, just because the underlying technology can vary so much more (and its more important to be understood at an intimate level of detail) than for other roles.

My girlfriend is an Orthopaedic Surgeon. Great when I've got a broken arm, or need shelves putting up. I wouldn't let her anywhere near my heart or brain. Medicine is super specialised.

I hear you on geography though. Luckily the human body doesn't change too much between locations.

I think the point was that an orthopaedic surgeon can change hospitals and immediately get to work doing orthopaedic surgery. Sure, there might be some difference in how to clock in or who to report to, but they aren't suddenly working with a different type of human. Their job will remain constant despite changing environs, whereas moving between software companies could have you learning entirely different stacks that affect your process in fundamental ways.

I'm not going to speak with authority on medicine, but my understanding is that residency takes some time if you leave your area, and there are various state compliances to keep in mind. So it doesn't sound like you can just grab any doctor and get them to work after a week.

>because the underlying technology can vary so much more (and its more important to be understood at an intimate level of detail) than for other roles.

If most jobs needed intimate knowledge of the language and constructs and weren't just CRUD apps built upon 3 frameworks, I'd almost agree with you. There are definitely roles that need that expertise, but I'd bet a yoke with a solid SWE fundamentals and comletetence in one language can ramp up for another stack relatively quickly. Nat least, no clowwr than any other engineering profession. Companies simply either oversell the work they need done or oversell how urgent the work is (compared to working the existing staff overtime).

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