
Why You Need a Degree to Work for BigCo (2013) - bloomca
http://braythwayt.com/homoiconic/2013/12/28/why-you-need-a-degree-to-work-for-bigco.html
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imbeel
I've worked for BigCo and startups, and don't have a degree. It has never been
an issue, anywhere I've worked, ever. I've asked. They don't care. The only
time it would matter is if it was a legal requirement for professional
engineering (anything involving safety).

Yes, BigCo wants to hire middle of the spectrum folks who live in the suburbs
and do a decent job for a fair wage. But they also want to (and do) hire
hackers.

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brailsafe
It can be tricky to work at BigCo as a hacker among middle spectrum folks.
They want people to slot right in.

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Delmania
I usually advise hackers to work in a BigCo at least once. I think it's really
important from the perspective of learning how to manage your manager an how
to interact with people who aren't as excited by technology as you are.

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brailsafe
I can definitely see why you'd recommend it. I suppose mileage will vary
though.

In my experience, things worked out moderately well for a little while, and
then burned me out, leaving me unable to find my way back into a lucrative gig
to this day. I don't regret it, but regret not leaving earlier.

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patientplatypus
Lame.

What happens when you're over thirty and want to marry and have kids? Are you
then not cool because you need/want to have a stable home? Are you not enough
of a hacker, not 1337 enough, because you want to work for a company that
might be around in 3 months?

It never ceases to amaze me how many people, who consider themselves very
smart no less, by default consider anyone even five to ten years older than
them complete fools for making choices that would be irrational to a 20 year
old. Got news for you, you'll grow up one day, if you're lucky.

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braythwayt
The author, who speaks of himself in the third person, was a parent and in his
forties when he wrote that.

Perhaps the article is not a comment on whether making conservative life
choices is or isn't cool. Perhaps the article is not a comment on whether a
degree in CS does or doesn't provide personal edification or improves your
programming.

Perhaps the article is nothing more than what it claims to be: A comment on
why a certain type of conservative company requires a degree, and _their_
opinion of people who embrace or eschew conservative life choices.

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Retric
Large companies employ many people without degrees, it's really front line
managers that handle those requirements. Further, while self taught
programmers are often very good they tend to be weaker _at working with other
developers on large scale projects._ So, many managers have examples of both
and still prefer people with degrees for most projects.

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dorfsmay
Do they teach how to work with other developers on large scale projects in CS
degrees? Or is the problem that people without those degrees can't get hired
BG big corps with large scale projects and can therefore never get the
experience?

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Retric
It's a set of skills that's indirectly taught in many CS programs. You can
debate the relative importance of for example a shared vocabulary, but it's
clearly useful.

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bootsz
This reminds me a lot of a book I read a while ago called "Disciplined Minds"
by Jeff Schmidt. It focuses on the sociological aspects of hiring practices &
performance evaluation measures in the knowledge economy. It's a rather
obscure book but I found it fascinating.

Basically, one of the central conclusions is that many of the metrics by which
knowledge workers are evaluated are really less about measuring actual
technical competence or domain knowledge and much more about detecting the
propensity for conformity and obedience.

Maybe that's not too surprising for some, but what's even more interesting is
that this can often be the case _without the evaluators /managers/people in
power even being aware of it_. In many cases they genuinely believe they are
evaluating for domain mastery / technical skill, but are fooled by the hidden
signal that correlates to what they see as "desirable" outcomes.

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mc32
Do we know that people with degrees conform at greater rates than people
without degrees?

Is an uneducated blue collar worker, for example less likely to conform to
authority than a person with a degree or advanced degree?

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braythwayt
I think we have to ask that question _in the context of a job where degrees
are the norm_ (whether justified or not).

It could be, for example, that a person with a degree working nights as a
security guard is less likely to conform, while a person without a degree who
gets a job that traditionally requires a degree is less likely to conform.

Maybe it's all about being "intentionally different."

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braythwayt
Author here. This originally appeared in 2005, when I blogged on a different
platform.

~~~
inteleng
Did you change the layout since the original publication? The quotation marks
at the beginning of every other paragraph are vaguely confusing.

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jakecopp
> Because quite honestly? I’d read your business plan any day. Your résumé
> would look better on top of a funding proposal, than under a cover letter.

Wow, what a way to sum up such an topic! Thanks.

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plafl
I think the reason big companies will ask more often for a degree is that they
are more risk averse. More exactly the people working there are more risk
averse and hiring someone without a degree would require some explanation
since it's not common practice. Also people sometimes need to hire for roles
they don't know much about and having a degree provides some kind of assurance
about the candidate's knowledge. It's true you can be better at doing your
work without a degree but the article makes it sound like it's a bonus, which
is not, at least to my eyes. BigCo doesn't care that you are going to stay
there for years, most probably it would prefer higher rotation rates.

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Delmania
Well, I sometimes wonder about this. I have a Master's Degree in Computer
Science from RIT, and I despise working at BigCos. I spent a decade doing "cog
development" and I learned I hated it. It was boring, stifling, draining, and
unfulfilling. Perhaps the 2 most exciting times in my career were when I was
working for 2 startups, when we were building news systems, putting in our own
processes, and solving interesting problems.

I will admit I could do more on the side in terms of blogging, working on open
source projects, and learning new skills, but I do have a family I need to
raise and house to repair and improve. It's something I am working on.

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badrabbit
This really makes you ask 'What on earth am I doing with my life?'. The
article is well said ,they want you to be too scared to leave,much like a well
cared for house slave would. They even trick you into believing "benefits" are
a valid form of compensation.

That being said,not all corps are like that. Some take in people like me with
no college education(hah!) And give us opportunities to prove ourselves.

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minhaz23
May I ask what field you are in and how you managed to get your foot in the
door without a college educations?

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badrabbit
Would love to answer,however not in a public forum like this. I can say that I
paid my dues and had people take a chance on me.

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gaius
What college proves is that you have the ability to think and execute on at
least a 4-year horizon. Modern day devs where a "framework" is obsolete in 2
years when a new fashion comes along, will obviously not see the value.

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RightMillennial
Aren't most of these modern day developers 4-year Computer Science graduates
though? They seem awfully short sighted to me by following every latest fad.

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fuzzfactor
Some businesses are based primarily on credentials, others on performance.

With a broad spectrum in between, this can make it difficult for an outsider
to know where they would stand or even if they could be allowed into the
organization.

The bigger the business, the more it can get by on credentials alone, or
sometimes on the parasitic action of the credentialed on the true domain
performers.

Especially "institutions" which became "too big to fail" before anybody living
was even born.

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abc_lisper
Very well said!

