Hacker News Reader

Comment by freyir | Hacker News Reader

Throughout most of my career, my PhD has felt like a liability. Especially when I've sought out a non-research-oriented position. Employers seem skeptical that I might rather spend my day coding a product I believe in, rather than solving esoteric research problems.

In the case of many PhD degrees, you devote yourself to studying a niche topic in great depth for several years. In the end, employers might see that you wrote a paper like "Electron vortex beams with high quanta of orbital angular momentum" (picking some academic paper at random), and have a tough time connecting that to their day-to-day needs. So I understand why employers have been cautious.

Not to mention, a non-negligible number of PhDs are incompetent at doing anything hands-on. And even when it comes to research, many are experts at coming up with overcomplicated solutions to non-existent problems.

View on HN

You're talking to the wrong people. Get out of any job that doesn't appreciate what you have. Many companies, especially the big ones, are crazy about getting PhDs to do work that requires a lot of analytical thinking, instead of simply writing the next CRUD app in javascript.

The point of the article is that companies, especially the big ones, shouldn't be so eager to hire people with PhDs.

> Throughout most of my career, my PhD has felt like a liability. Especially when I've sought out a non-research-oriented position. Employers seem skeptical that I might rather spend my day coding a product I believe in, rather than solving esoteric research problems.

I've had this as well along with comments like "academics are bad at X", "academics tend to write code in way Y", "academics can only write prototypes and not production code", "I'm self-taught and never saw the point of University because..." etc.

Generalisations like this are really dumb.

+1 on that. I have a PhD, and whenever I join a new workplace I feel like building credibility is an uphill battle where I fight against the ghost of some guy who worked there before who had a PhD and who fit the stereotype of the dysfunctional academic.

I wish that, just because I can do one type of thing well, people wouldn't jump to the conclusion that I can't also do another type of thing well. As in: Just because I understand math, please don't jump to the conclusion that I don't understand databases and can't write clean code. Just because I can see the "right way" to solve a problem, doesn't mean I can't also appreciate arguments in favor of the cost-efficient way of solving 20% of a problem if it gives you 80% of the benefit. etc. etc.

I feel it mostly comes from insecurity rather than from experience working with academics. Someone feels threatened by someone else having a credential they don't have so they put that person down in some way to make themselves feel better

e.g. "I didn't see the point in going to university because it's all theory and I think practice is more important", "those who can't do, teach".

> I wish that, just because I can do one type of thing well, people wouldn't jump to the conclusion that I can't also do another type of thing well. As in: Just because I understand math, please don't jump to the conclusion that I don't understand databases and can't write clean code. Just because I can see the "right way" to solve a problem, doesn't mean I can't also appreciate arguments in favor of the cost-efficient way of solving 20% of a problem if it gives you 80% of the benefit. etc. etc.

Yeah, it's a combination of insecurity, cliched thinking and gatekeeping. It's quite feasible to get to expert level at many things.

It depends on your PhD as well. Some involve no programming, some just quick prototypes, some more complex projects etc. Generalising how all PhD students must be is stupid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com