not_wyoming

Post: Car strikes, kills pedestrian at crosswalk

Top post: Title is clickbait, driver didn't kill pedestrian on purpose.

Pedestrian: <is dead>

> the vast majority of people who work in offices just push papers, go to meetings and other mindless bs

I know this to be true for many working in software engineering. Conversely,

> writing code is way more than reading and implementing syntax, it's actually making the design work or solving very tricky bugs.

This can be true but is not always true. I think you were right when you said

> take any given <sales|tech|branding|marketing|HR> idea you want, it doesn't "just work", the devil is in the details

:)

I don't think this is true. Most of the doctors and lawyers I know work at big firms with a publicly reviewable presence, but there's no practical way to review individuals at those firms.

I don't agree that those other professions aren't creative. If anything, the ambiguity behind what constitutes a successful brand design or convincing a client to buy your product seems to require more abstract knowledge to me (as a software engineer) than the ability to read and implement syntax.

I've never heard of a civil engineer being asked to design a blueprint in Autodesk with a more senior engineer watching them, or an accountant asked to calculate a department's P&L given 90 minutes and a folder full of Excel files. It might happen, but I suspect it's uncommon.

You're right about exams, but that's a one time thing. New lawyers, doctors, and CPAs have to demonstrate textbook mastery to pass a handful of exams once in their career. Engineers are expected to demonstrate textbook mastery for every job they apply to _for their entire career_ (and often multiple times per application!)

It's also worth noting that engineers have standardized exams and certifications, like CompTIA or AWS Certs, but for whatever reason those credentials do not seem to carry much weight. I've never heard of those replacing technical evaluations, just used to enhance a resume.

This explanation works for entry-level candidates but fails to explain why senior candidates are often expected to do similar exercises _in addition to_ any work experience they have.

New lawyers, doctors, and CPAs have to demonstrate textbook mastery to pass a handful of exams once in their career. Engineers are expected to demonstrate textbook mastery for every job they apply to _for their entire career_ (and often multiple times per application!)

That’s true for other roles, like an MBA grad that can discuss financial principles but can’t navigate Quickbooks or use Excel.

From my admittedly limited understanding, many of those openings are filled based on resume and verbal interviews with little or no quantitative evaluation of skills.

Yes and no! I was just rejected from a job because I used Python's heap functions and the interviewer didn't know what those were or how they worked.

It's not the first time either, once got rejected for using namedtuples!

> From the employer side of things it only makes sense to get a feeling for someone's abilities other than an impression based on words alone.

I'd like to believe this is true, but it fails to explain why candidates for other business functions don't receive the same scrutiny.

I'm not aware of analogous evaluations to get hired to other business roles (e.g. marketer candidates aren't asked to demonstrate a working knowledge of the Google ads dashboard, accountants aren't expected to clean up a fake P&L on their own time for review by hiring managers, etc).

I could be wrong and always welcome correction, but from anecdotal experience talking to friends and work colleagues, the bar for SWE hiring is much, much higher, even controlling for compensation.

Those schools have not always charged $50k - that's a recent political choice. I'd point to student loan policy as the main driver [0].

Many bootcamps require full-time attendance, and many universities have part-time options. Further, community colleges are an option if the only goal is skill acquisition. Those programs take less time and are cheaper.

0 - John Oliver is not the primary driver of my thinking, but he did an interesting and engaging segment if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2_0WC7UfU

Yes. Most states have a system where students attend school, receive an education, and pay the school back using a portion of their income after graduation.

They're often referred to as "public schools", and ISAs are often called "taxes".

+1 to this. I attended RC in winter of '18. It wasn't the best fit for my personal learning style, but it's an incredible program for the right person.

I highly, highly recommend it to anyone considering going there. Some of the kindest and smartest people you'll meet.

/Years/ ago, I tweeted something about how companies like Uber and Lambda were privatizing public services. ISAs specifically seem like a privatization of taxes.

Austen Allred quote-tweeted me to his gazillion followers and caused a big pile-on about how awful and wrong and anti-progress I was.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Non-competes, like so many other workplace rules, only apply below the C-suite

The government can also force companies to hand over data. Better that the data is never consolidated in the first place.

It's possible to admire the impact of Musk's products while also scrutinizing the things he says on Twitter