
Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Guild (2018) - bribri
https://blog.philosophicalsociety.org/2018/01/10/apprentice-journeyman-and-master-the-medieval-guild/
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Melting_Harps
I followed the apprenticeship model in one field, but was entirely
autodidactic when it came to tech as there is so much material/content online
to teach yourself if you're motivated and inclined and would prefer it
remained as such. I mainly pursued one technology only to find that I had to
learn so much more as I went deeper and it eventually snow-balled into
starting my own fintech startup and then as a bootstrapping founder working
professionally to fund the former. This was only possible because there was so
much freedom within our community and free content available.

With apprenticeships you're really at the mercy of the Master who will instill
in you their 'version' of how something must be done, whether you agree with
it or them is entirely irrelevant to the process of edification and leaves
very little room for creative problem solving and rule breaking that I think
the most important work in tech actually requires.

This rigid structure is well suited for certain crafts (like electricians or
plumbing) and perhaps some arts (culinary, masonry/architecture), but I fear
the power that FAANG already has exerted in corrupting an entire generation of
tech workers with salary and supposed _prestige_ has done enough damage
already to the World, so to have them act as gatekeepers of information seems
entirely myopic and self-serving to an already entrenched Industry.

~~~
trishankkarthik
100%

Tech companies could hire and train students straight from high school instead
of making them go through the academic priestly class, but nope, everyone
wants expensive degrees _and_ pay more for it.

~~~
red_admiral
If Google did that, then Google would also be to blame for the resulting
demographics not meeting everyone's standards for equality. It's really useful
to be able to outsource some of the filtering process.

~~~
MagnumOpus
Agreed. Any company that can pay six figure salaries for graduate wants to be
able to choose a combination of outstanding smarts and grit. Getting into an
Ivy League CS program demonstrates that - and any demographic issues are
provably due to the pipeline.

Exchanging that filter for hiring straight out of school but only taking, say,
people with top 5% of SAT results (1420) would also demonstrate it, but it
would result in even more stark over-representation of Asians (about 20% of
them meet the cutoff) and under-representation of Blacks (only 1% of them meet
the cutoff).

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dexwiz
People tout Guilds and Apprenticeships as a solution to improving quality and
filterting out subpar coworkers, but I don't think it would be any better, and
maybe worse. Obtaining membership seems like an enormous gatekeeping device,
similar to those that modern equality movements are trying to tear down. It
does widen sharing skills from father to son to a community, but there is
nothing stopping the same sort of exclusionary practices that we have problems
with today.

Apprenticeships often boil down to grunt work and "watch me do it" for the
first few years. This kind of work mode is acceptable as a teenager. But today
the apprentice level would probably be until 30 or so. This education phase is
currently owned by higher level academia. Many people choose industry over
academia to avoid a lengthy education. If industry became the same, I think
this would frustrate and burn out many people.

Those running the guild are probably not the best at a craft, just best at
politicking and with the most vested interest. Those that would run a guild
900 years ago and VPs and CSuites today.

Also tech is too new. A technology can rise and fall within a decade. This
makes lengthy learning periods impractical. We don't value consistency across
generations (in-fact this would be now considered stagnation). This also means
customers are less able to discern (or even care about) high versus low
quality products.

On the flip side, education is much more readily available. A dedicate Master
<> Apprentice relationships was key, because they were likely your only source
of learning. This is just no longer true. Today we have so many knowledge
sources that no single one gets such an illustrious title as master.

Most engineering disciplines have a professional community that requires you
to take a proficiency exam (usually on graduation) and continued education.
Companies will outright refuse to hire any candidates without the
certifications. Programming will eventually have something similar, but the
field needs to crystalize more.

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artsrc
You say "gatekeeping device" like it is negative. All companies I have worked
for have had a system of gatekeeping that includes things like university
qualifications. I don't see why this system can't be improved.

Many companies now invent their own proficiency exams. We do.

Medical graduates work in a specific setting under supervision for a period
after extensive education. I don't think the conditions of their work are
ideal, but many people make it through without burn out.

Although technologies are changing, there are some things that transcend
technology. Concepts about like documentation, naming, decomposition,
components, interfaces, concurrency, locking, algorithm efficiency, many
considerations of user experience.

~~~
mr_toad
> Many companies now invent their own proficiency exams. We do.

Companies are not doing it to artificially restrict supply. They have no
incentive to raise the cost of labour.

(On the other hand, the process could be captured by incumbent employees who
do have that incentive).

~~~
jrott
(On the other hand, the process could be captured by incumbent employees who
do have that incentive).

That seems to be way more common than most people want to admit. So many
software engineering interviews have very little to do with the job. Worse of
course is when there is no process and it seems like the whole thing is just
designed to get the hiring manager friends hired.

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friendlybus
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in
some contrivance to raise prices. —Adam Smith, observation on urban guilds,
1776

Are we out of imaginative new ideas for organizing society?

We have the ability to organize a social heirarchy more generally across the
public thanks to computers. The necessity for highly specialized
master/apprentice guilds looks limited to a few areas.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
> diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or
> in some contrivance to raise prices._

I.e. a case of a phase-locked loop. I think viewing it like this can help spot
other such loops in the society.

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bob1029
I understand there are some difficulties with this ideology in terms of
technology companies and onboarding, but I have also seen the potential
benefits of such an approach without explicitly attempting to engage it.

We have hired entry-level engineers that went from supporting basic production
issues to writing low-level parts of the platform within 2-3 years. At no
point was I consciously aware of any explicit knowledge transfer occurring,
but somehow these individuals are able to pick up a tremendous amount of
capability via proximity to the day-to-day process. One day it clicked for me
that a pull request I was reviewing for one of these individuals was something
that I would expect to see from a highly-skilled developer on the team.
Seemingly overnight, we converted a QA/Support engineer who chases down basic
null refs into a proper developer, and all it required was exposing them to
the full depth of the process every day.

Perhaps the master/apprentice game doesn't make sense in terms of on-boarding.
But, I see massive amounts of value in exposing willing employees to
increasingly-difficult problems on a daily basis. Make your most junior
employee install the same tools and work through the same processes that your
most senior employees do. There is no reason you cannot ramp someone from zero
to hero in a few years with passive exposure to your business processes.

I find that this model of constant exposure combined with probationary
employment strategies provides an excellent blended approach for ramping in
new talent that would otherwise be filtered out by your typical big corp HR
department. Just because someone doesn't have a computer science degree or got
burned by our incredibly shitty legal system doesn't mean they aren't willing
to bust their ass and try to prove something to the world. I would like to
give as many people a chance as possible at this. Programming is an art and no
one policy is going to be the best. The more perspectives we have the better.

~~~
imtringued
I don't think it has to be codified, just recognized. Too many people in this
submission read into the article and assume that the guild is a gatekeeper
whose primary interest is keeping trade secrets. It's the opposite in reality.
The entire idea behind a guild is that you give young people with zero skills
an opportunity to learn the craft. Right now the American system is the
opposite. People have to take care of their own education before they can get
the job by going to university. There are jobs where this makes a lot of sense
and there are jobs where its just pointless busywork.

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blakesterz
This history is interesting to read. The last place I worked had trade unions
(electrical, mechanical) and still used those terms. There's a huge difference
between a master electrician and an apprentice.

~~~
agumonkey
Care to tell us more ?

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cassepipe
"Thus, craft guilds provided the goods and merchants fed the need: the
beginning of real capitalism." Good piece but please allow me to nitpick : Not
blaming the author because it is a very common and well established narrative
that capitalism arose from the development of a merchant class but Ellen
Meiksins Wood makes a pretty good case for an agrarian origin to capitalism in
The Origin of Capitalism. She argues that the roots are instead a combination
land rental and the reliance on waged labour IIRC. If the subject is of
interest to you I recommend you check it out.

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aspaceman
Codify similar structures for programmers and engineers and we will reap the
benefits. Organize.

