Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

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ChrisMarshallNY

> I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts.

Shirley, you jest.

Doctors are asked to perform "demo surgeries," all the time.

Lawyers are asked to argue "demo cases" in court all the time.

Social workers are expected to help patients through trauma, in "demo therapy sessions," all the time.

CEOs are asked to do "demo IPOs," all the time.

CPAs are asked to do "demo audits," all the time.

In case no one realizes, that was all a joke. Of course, none of these happen, IRL.

I can see people with no track record (like just coming out of school), needing to do this kind of thing, but, once we have some accomplishments under our belts, we can have some track record.

Some of us may even have significant portfolios. Mine is so complete, that you can easily tell what I can (and can't) do, without ever even contacting me.

Designers live and die by their portfolios. Any first-time designer is expected to have a portfolio to show the prospective employer. Once the designer has been working for a while, they can point to their track record.

Doctors, lawyers and CPAs are instructive examples, as they have far stricter credentialing than software engineers. Doctors probably being the most strict, lawyers next, then CPAs. Particularly with doctors, the total amount is tightly controlled by the number of seats in medical schools.

My fiancee is a high school guidance counselor, and she essentially did a demo session with some current students during her interview.

I don't like the situation we are in, but I think your examples actually help illustrate why things are the way they are: we don't have a gating mechanism into our field. Most of your other examples do.

Teachers often need to present sample lesson plans, or do sample class presentations, but these are not really analogous to the "Draw the Pirate" tests that programmers are given. They are usually real-world demonstrations.

Teachers also have fairly strict licensing and educational requirements (and get paid squat).

I know a lot of finance people. These are not the most stable or reliable people on Earth, but they have to pass their Series 7s, in order to work. They tend to be kind of a scruffy lot, otherwise, but they make a lot of money.

>They are usually real-world demonstrations.

To the degree that it's a reasonable thing to ask in terms of time, it's hard to argue against asking someone to demonstrate something that they'll actually be doing on the job. Certainly I don't think, in all but the most extreme cases, that anyone would argue that there don't need to be auditions for actors or musicians.

When I was an IT industry analyst, we did ask for writing samples. At least one of the big firms did require at least some candidates to prepare a presentation on a topic and deliver it. (This is an example of a sub-industry that has very few formal requirements and people come from all manner of different backgrounds.)

My view actually is that most of the world is actually really bad at hiring, and we spend lots of time complaining about the tech world doing it but that's because the tech world tries a lot harder.

This is anecdata, but based on talking to my wife and friends who work in other industries most recruitment is pot luck. They interview the candidate for 1 hour, maybe 2, don't have any consistency in what they're asking and no standard criteria for 'good enough'. It's all subjective and down to the interviewer (maybe two of them if you're lucky). You then get stuck with a proportion of your staff who are dead weight.

I'm not sure of the reasons why the technology sector cares more. Possibly because the difference between "good" and "bad" is much bigger - maybe not the mythical 10x, but more than the difference between one accountant and another. Or maybe it's just that these are all newer companies who don't have the older ideas holding them back and have discovered a better way to be profitable.

Lots of industries have licensing requirements. My friends that are all of the above (except CEOs), need to have licenses (and often, specific schooling). They work hard for these licenses, and generally have to pass lots of difficult tests. They usually also have to keep working to stay current.

The mere thought of doing that, in the tech world, though, brings about collective apoplexy. I'm not especially a fan of how licenses can be used to protect incumbents, and bar entry to otherwise highly capable people. They do, however, go a long ways towards ensuring that a building doesn't fall down, the first time a hot rod drives by.

But hiring always has been "pot luck." Been that way, for -literally- thousands of years. That's why hiring good managers has always been important, and there's really no way to test for that. For whatever reason, we seem to think we get to play by different rules.

" good managers has always been important, and there's really no way to test for that. For whatever reason, we seem to think we get to play by different rules."

I presume one reason may be because tech industry may be a bit insular, and full of people who enjoy creating complex models of the world - trying to find a perfect technological solution to everything (when they should just try to find a good hiring manager in stead).

The software engineering profession is moving at light speed compared to any of those other careers. It is specific to us and not engineering as a whole too - as you point out, structural engineering does have qualifications required (chartered status).

Medicine does move on, but a lot of what a doctor needs to do doesn't. And the bits that do are actually a problem with there not being a good way of ensuring that doctors use up to date techniques.

The difference is that structural engineers and doctors are safeguarding safety, and (most) software engineers aren't. If someone suggested people should need chartered status to work on medical device software I don't think that would be as controversial, and will get progressively less so as the discipline is less brand new and progress slows down a bit.

But I think anyone that handles PID should be held to account, as to what happens to that data. We have been doing a terrible job of that.

Many apps that I encounter, are pretty much bald-faced, unapologetic, data harvesters. That’s clearly their main purpose, and their stated purpose is really just the lure on an anglerfish.

“Move fast and break things” sounds good, until you realize that said “things” may be people’s lives.

This is absolutely true, but it's a function of the business, not the individual engineer. It's not just about engineering at all - one of the biggest GDPR fines was to H&M for some internal data that managers were keeping on some employees.

Our profession has no code of ethics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics

I don't know why it's not in that article but, e.g. from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics

The role of a programmer is really weird in the sense that the complexity of tasks you are expected to do is in no way limited by your job title or domain.

I presume technology sector pays more attention because the task of programmer is ill defined, and that it's quite hard to define exactly what you are looking for based on external standards.

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