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Comment by VirusNewbie | Hacker News Reader

> We need a ton more electricians but it's nearly impossible to get into schools. Or you need union apprenticeships and their are not enough slots.

This got solved in tech 20 years ago. You don't look at credentials and instead design a very arduous interviewing process that selects for both high IQ and people who are willing to study/work at it.

Then you provide lots of training. 20 years ago at Google (or Apple etc) there were tons of well educated non CS hires who were given good training and became exceptional software engineers.

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Google spends a shitton on their employees. A large majority of that is on training. And of that, a large amount of that is because what you know about computers from the outside world isn't useful at Google. At the lowest level, Google's computers are still the same as everyone else's, but because of all the layers of automation that have been built up around them, you need to learn all the Google systems on how you interact with them, especially at Google scale. Some of that training is applicable elsewhere, but the trope in our industry is (and I'm as guilty of this as the next Xoogler, try as I might to not do this) "well at Google we did..." and for it to not be useful in the current job's context because the current job isn't Google and doesn't have that kind of resources or culture.

Their "solution" rides on an unfathomably large tsunami of money. Which is great for them (and by extension, my bank account while I was there), but how do we accomplish that when there isn't one?

>but how do we accomplish that when there isn't one?

I worked for a small (~300 engineers) well run org in Verizon before I went to Google, and I was surprised at how well their training was, even with smaller budgets, and a tier below compensation wise and interviewing rigor.

This org supported being deliberate about hires, getting people who were experts and liked coaching/training along with those who were newbies with aptitude and desire. There was good documentation, good shared culture, and lots of safeguards like linting, excessive testing, example projects, if not quite the full fledged codelabs google has.

But part of it, both for Verizon and Google, was signaling that "good people work here and are well rewarded" (comparatively).

Hire, then train them for a long period of time? That is an apprenticeship. It's what they do in the trades already. There aren't enough slots (union or not).

e.g. http://www.calapprenticeship.org/programs/electrician_appren...

You need a diploma, a smattering of algebra, a driver's license, and the physical ability to do the work. Everything else you will be taught on the job, while being paid.

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