
What if other professions hired like software development? - cratermoon
https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/what-if-other-professions-hired-like-software-development-d40d2ae256fc
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mywittyname
And if programming careers were like medicine, we'd all have to do four years
of residency working in our specialty, for 80 hours a week for half the salary
before we could be licensed to program without supervision.

If it were like civil engineering, we'd need to attend a certified program at
university, take an exam in our focus afterwards, then work under a Certified
Licensed Programmer for four years. After which, we'd have to take another
exam to get our state license that allows us to practice programming on our
own. *

Maybe we could establish a huge bureaucracy around programming, requiring a
decade of schooling and license in order to practice the art. Then we could
make these pesky interviews a bit easier!

* The first half of this is already in place. I attended a ABET CS program, and I'm sure many others have as well. ABET has a FE exam for CS/EE that we could take.

> Thanks for your interest in Bueller and Co. accounting. We love to hire the
> most passionate accountant rock stars in the industry. In advance of the
> interview, please send us links to some of the side accounting projects
> you’ve done for fun in your spare time.

Funny, when I did consulting work, I hired an accountant who did side-gigs in
addition to her full-time job.

~~~
rch
> working in our specialty, for 80 hours a week for half the salary before we
> could be licensed to program without supervision

Sounds like a startup, only there's never any supervision.

~~~
pkaye
Except working in a startup is optional.

------
lloyd-christmas
I wrote this a while back on a similar article complaining about technical
interviews:

 _Med school is difficult. An internship is difficult. A fellowship program is
difficult. Undergraduate degrees are a rubber stamp, CS included.

There are 20k oncologists across all fields of oncology within the US. That's
also about the number of engineers Google employs. Most other industries we
like to compare ourselves to are leagues above ours in individual merit. My
father is an oncologist, and I'm reasonably confident he has some familiarity
with every genitourinary oncologist in North America, Australia, and Europe.
More importantly, he's on a first name basis with all of their educators. When
he needs to hire a new doctor, he doesn't post an ad on health stack exchange.
He makes an offer to a specific individual who he already knows.

One thing that we as an industry fail to understand is that we're not special.
We desperately claw to it in these conversations. I'm willing to admit it: I'm
easily replaceable. Very few of us have any name recognition that exists in
other fields. I worked in finance for half a decade before moving to software.
When I'd go to interview, people already knew who I was because of the basic
human interaction I had as part of my job. When I walk into the door of my
next interview, the only thing people know about me is what's on my
resume/blog/stack overflow answers.

Personally, I find technical interviews to be a cheap and easy filter. You may
not always get the best person from your pool of applicants, but you get
someone that's better than most of them. The marginal benefit of one vs. the
other is rarely meaningful._

~~~
imakecomments
>Most other industries we like to compare ourselves to are leagues above ours
in individual merit.

I don't think that rings true to those with PhD degrees doing academic
research in CS.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
Definitely, but when is the last time you interviewed a PhD? If so, did you
give them technical questions? The comparison is between practitioners, not
academics.

Beyond that, other industries _DO_ use technical interviews. My entry-level
interview in finance was extremely technical, but no subsequent interviews
were technical. I just think the comparisons being drawn aren't realistic.

I work in med-tech, specifically orthopedics. I recently interviewed for a
side job to help build an application related to genomic research. The most
technical question I received (related to programming) was "do you have
experience in python", and the answer didn't even matter. Why? My boss worked
with their lead engineer, and all their researchers know my father. The human
element changes things dramatically, and that seems significantly less
prevalent in programming.

------
zjaffee
Except for the part where other professions do hire like software development
(and a lot of firms don't require take home tests). Generally jobs that
require a technical skill set and are equally high paying do focus on these
things. Consulting has case study interviews and quantitative tests, finance
firms outside of the sales heavy organizations are known for asking complex
math problems and puzzles. Hell, even accounting firms do case studies for
people with a bit of experience (something you get good at by dedicating extra
time outside of work).

In similar fields that don't do these types of challenges, they focus on
academic excellence and professional certifications. A doctor will get hired
because they came from a top residency program, a lawyer will get hired
because they made law review at a T14 school.

The only example that I can't really debunk is the civil engineering one,
although, it isn't known for being high paying and i'm not super familiar with
the industry.

~~~
_raoulcousins
Are all-day interviews typical in other professions? Honest question. I don't
think it's a good or bad thing. I appreciate meeting a lot more people when
it's a long interview, but of course it is tiring.

~~~
zjaffee
I think it very much depends, some professions have much longer interviews (at
least historically), namely where banks would do super days where you could be
having possibly 10 interviews (compared to maybe 4-5 you'd have in software).
However, the difference here is that a lot of software companies will then
later have you talk to different managers on the phone rather than knowing
which team you'd be on at the time you get the initial offer.

------
austincheney
If other professions hired like software development there would be no
licensing and no credibility. Imagine your doctor, lawyer, pilot, construction
engineer, or anybody else being hired because they had a nice resume and
nailed a 30 minute interview.

When things go bad you could try to sue them, but they will always find a way
to blame somebody else. After all there is nothing legally binding to affirm
they are competent professionals.

------
bherms
I've always explained it to friends like this:

You're a professional baseball player. The team has never seen you play, but
asks to see how many pushups you can do in a minute. Then sees how good you
are at jumping jacks. These things test your athleticism to some degree, but
really have no bearing on how good of a baseball player you are.

~~~
chrismcb
That's basically how the NFL coonbine works

------
iamcasen
This writeup made me chuckle, because we've all had to jump through those
hoops in our career. The fact of the matter is, that most of those other
professional industries have such a higher bar to getting hired. So much
dedication, years of work, and trying your damnedest just to meat the right
person who can make your career.

The same is also true for good software jobs, but at least we have the option
to dance like a monkey for the chance to get a job. I prefer that to the
reality of having to know someone to even get my resume looked at.

------
deedubaya
I have done my share of software-hiring and have been hired plenty of times
too.

It's double-sided for a candidate to complain about whiteboard examples, code
tests, and code samples in the same breath. You're essentially saying, "Pay me
a higher than average salary, with no evidence that I can actually do my job".
Pick two, but not all three.

I think whiteboard interviews suck.

I think code tests can often be heavy-handed.

I think providing code-samples, from a side project or something you spend an
hour on JUST to use for applying to jobs, is completely justifiable.

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blunte
These are great, but she totally missed the opportunity to list about 20
skills that were important to have for the job. Those skills would encompass
upper management, project management, deep technical expertise, willingness to
be hands on and work as much as necessary at times, and possibly also cover
some support shifts.

~~~
cratermoon
> upper management ... also cover some support shifts

So true.

------
mistercow
I see two problems with the implied argument here. The first is that other
industries would probably very much like to do these kinds of things, if it
weren't impractical to do so. The relevant difference is in fact that these
practices are practical for software whereas they aren't for civil engineering
and law.

The second is that software development may be unusual in that it's very easy
to phrase what are essentially IQ test questions as "coding" questions, even
though the code part is secondary. Arguably, the smarter thing would just be
to give an actual IQ test, but I think people are squeamish about that idea,
so coding questions can be used as a proxy.

------
matchagaucho
All examples are _credentialed_ professionals; and more than a degree.

Offering my clients $1M+ in E&O insurance and proof of industry certifications
are the nearest equivalents to a Lawyer demonstrating they've passed the bar
(that I can think of).

------
cgore
_Thanks for your interest in Bueller and Co. accounting. We love to hire the
most passionate accountant rock stars in the industry. In advance of the
interview, please send us links to some of the side accounting projects you’ve
done for fun in your spare time._

But the difference is, good programmers actually _LIKE_ to code. Even in our
spare time. For fun. A better analogy is a graphic artist. "Show us some of
your oil paintings/charcoal sketches/etc." They won't be doing any oil
paintings at work, but they probably paint/sketch/etc. for fun. At least the
good ones.

~~~
cratermoon
No, no we don't. Not all of us. Generalizing like that is why software
development hiring often goes off the rails. Every shop looks for beer & pizza
loving, video game-playing, hobby-programming guys who dabble in maker
projects and there's a whole world of people out there who are top-notch
programmers but have families, non-technical hobbies, and just in general have
lives different from the stereotypical brogrammer culture.

Personally, I program a little bit for my own purposes, but nothing more
complicated than simple custom script-like utilities to automate things I do
all the time. Sometimes I'll put a little time into creating a toy project to
learn a new technology, but otherwise I really like to go home and not think
about programming for a while. I like to give my brain different things to do
to keep it challenged but not bored.

Step out of the bubble/box sometime, meet people different from yourself.

~~~
sushid
Maybe they're trying to hire people with some intersection between work and
passion. If I had two similarly qualified candidates but one has a huge
interest in coding on the side, I'd be inclined to pick her over the other one
if I were a hiring manager.

And to be fair, I've had many ask me for side projects and whatnot (with me
providing nothing) and have still received offers from them after an
interview. Sometimes, these things are just nice to haves. From a recruiter's
perspective, why not ask?

No one said anything about a brogramming culture but you seem very incensed.
Step down from the soap box and take a breath or two.

~~~
UncleMeat
One can be passionate at work without enjoying coding on their free time.

~~~
sushid
That's fair, but a hiring manager might be more easily able to see this
overlap if you have some recent side projects.

And again, I'm not even the type to code for fun at home (at least not since
my first two years out of college). My significant other never codes for fun
but is probably one of the most talented programmers I know. I'm just stating
some reasons why one might ask this as an interviewer.

The absence of side projects doesn't indicate a lack of passion but the
opposite of this is mostly true.

