Getting Into the "Big Bad Industry"

Typedef

Aside :

Troj mentioned pints.

/finds book on formal logic & a bottle of wine.

Redoxan: Let me put this another way.

You say you are a Senior Programmer, so, lets just say you have five years of SQL development under your belt.

You go for a job as a Senior Programmer
You say to the interviewer
"I have five years of commercial SQL development experience".

on the other hand a grad comes along and says.

"I just finished my MA and studied commercial database design".

The job entails programming in the banking industry.

Which candidate has the more practicle and relevant experience here and which one would you hire?

GreeBo

Originally posted by dazberry
are you of the opinion that anyone who writes software without a qualification is a software writer, whereby anyone with a qualification (preferably a degree I assume) is at least a software programmer (or better)? Regardless of experience.

D.

Well now we are getting into nomenclature (sweet, I always wanted to use that word in a sentence).
In my head, remembering where I was and what I knew before my "professional career" started I would say I was someone who wrote software, I could write code that pretty much did what I wanted it to do.
Things like aggregation and encapsulation were just long words that I couldnt spell.
I name people by there job titles I guess.
Am I wrong?
Who is right?
<desperatley trying to avoid getting into a conversation about Grads thinking they are the dogs repductive organs.
coz a mate of mine knows a guy with a 1.1 and hes ****.....>:dunno:

GreeBo

Originally posted by Typedef

Which candidate has the more practicle and relevant experience here and which one would you hire?

How is this related to a guy who has no experience and no degree asking for help?

Once more.
For someone who has neither, I think that getting a degree will serve them better.


To answer your question...

If I have a degree and 5 years experience and there is a grad with a relevant degree, the choice is obvious; me.

However, I would question what sort of experience the first 2-3 of my 5 years would have been like, had I no degree.

Does that answer your question?

GreeBo

Originally posted by Typedef
on the other hand a grad comes along and says.

"I just finished my MA and studied commercial database design".

and, just for the sake of arguing, what would you do if the MA grad tells you that he spends his spare time desiging online stores, for example?

OR;
two guys with 5 years experience, one has an MA, who do you choose?

<hmmm I feel like I should be in a bus that cant go below 50.....>;)

Hobbes

What an excellent example of why some people should not join a debating society.

I believe they teach in debating classes not to attack the speaker only the argument.

Most companies who are not **** take people on for more than just "writing code". You might as well hire a Golem if that's all you want.

Depends a lot on the company and what they do. The main reason a lot of work these days is going to India/China is because all they need is code monkeys. Not someone who can design, but someone who can follow one. It does not require any skill to do that, and when you only need that you can pretty much exploit your workers to do this.

I have over 16 years experience in software development. (from microprocessors up to Web Services apps in various parts of the industry). Without a degree. All self taught, and I can tell you now that being a Grad, like work experience means nothing of note after a few years in this field (except that you can put up with crap). The same goes for work experience. In this field it is continual learning, so after 3 to 5 years a lot of what you know already becomes obsolete.

Now like I said I have met grads who shouldn't be in their field they are qualified for, and I have met people with no qualifications who are absolute geniuses. So I do not base skill on a persons qualifications, but on what they are actually capable of doing. Normally most people who quote off their qualifications tend to do so in self defence to create a skill powerbase. Everyone I know who is excellent at what they do and have Masters/Degrees/PhD don't slap them on their name because quite simply they don't have to.

GreeBo

Originally posted by Hobbes

Depends a lot on the company and what they do. The main reason a lot of work these days is going to India/China is because all they need is code monkeys. Not someone who can design, but someone who can follow one. It does not require any skill to do that, and when you only need that you can pretty much exploit your workers to do this.

I would say, quite confidently, that the guy who started this thread, is NOT looking to work in an
offshoring joint in India.
Also, as a grad, you should expect to be a bit of a code-monkey, no one is going to trust you to do the whole thing. You are there to learn, and as you learn they get you to do the more menial programming tasks. I dont see anything wrong with this.

Originally posted by Hobbes

I have over 16 years experience in software development. (from microprocessors up to Web Services apps in various parts of the industry). Without a degree. All self taught, and I can tell you now that being a Grad, like work experience means nothing of note after a few years in this field (except that you can put up with crap). The same goes for work experience. In this field it is continual learning, so after 3 to 5 years a lot of what you know already becomes obsolete.

I would argue that 16 years ago, the market was a very differnent place, where guys who were self taught were the norm and were saught after. In my opinion, nowadays things are very different. From personal experience I know that if I advertised for a Java position tomorrow, I would literally get maybe 100 applicants cv's in the post.

Originally posted by Hobbes

Now like I said I have met grads who shouldn't be in their field they are qualified for, and I have met people with no qualifications who are absolute geniuses. So I do not base skill on a persons qualifications, but on what they are actually capable of doing. Normally most people who quote off their qualifications tend to do so in self defence to create a skill powerbase. Everyone I know who is excellent at what they do and have Masters/Degrees/PhD don't slap them on their name because quite simply they don't have to.

But they would advertise the fact that they had them if they were going for a job (assuming that they did not know you, the interviewer)

To sum up, the job market and the calibre of employee are vastly changed from what they were 16 years ago. Yes you can have grads who dont know squat, but you can also have Americans who are intelligent and people called Paddy who dont go into pubs.
Dont generalise, it makes you seem like you should be on an 98Fm talk show.

"Yewwww dont know maeeeee!"

muffen

I think that it has pretty much been established that a degree can help, especially in the beginning, and then it's all up to you and your skills... Hence, finish the degree if you can, and if you dropped out, well, there's a good chance you'll be fine anyways...

I guess I shouldn't say I dropped out.. I kinda just never started a degree... I've been in this field for over 5 years and my salary is well over average... so I did just fine without a degree...
I also have a friend who has a degree... he's been in the field for over 8 years and has a salary a bit over mine (brilliant guy).
Myself and my friend used to spend a lot of time (generally nights) programming random things, trying to figure out how different things worked etc... and we both ended up doing fairly alright.

I also have friends who have degrees and have been unemployed for several years ... they tend to spend their days applying for jobs, watching TV and playing games...
Similarly, I have friends who, like myself, never went to Uni... who have been unemployed for years... and they spend their days playing games and watching TV...

Anyone see a patter here?

So, I'm sure everyone can agree (well, I hope we can) that it is easier to get the first job with a degree, most companies do not care about the degree if you have sufficient experience to "cover" it with, and in the end you will do fine if you are a hardworking person, and if you sit on your arse all day long you'll do crap, with or without a degree...

Is there anything left to argue about?

GreeBo

I think that it has pretty much been established that a degree can help, especially in the beginning, and then it's all up to you and your skills...

And so the circle is complete.
This has been my point since day 1. Despite nameless otheres trying to turn it into a grad bashing thread I think we may have reached closure.

In my opinion, unless HaVoC has more questions, feel free to close this thread.

dazberry

Originally posted by redoxan

In my head, remembering where I was and what I knew before my "professional career" started I would say I was someone who wrote software, I could write code that pretty much did what I wanted it to do.
Things like aggregation and encapsulation were just long words that I couldnt spell.
I name people by there job titles I guess.
Am I wrong?
Who is right?

Yeah I know what your saying and I can see the direction you going in here. Its not wrong, but people reach different places at different times, via different means.

I was a "coding" teen, there were a group of us, and competitively I think we came on very quickly, we actually became very technically. Ok, what we wrote was sh1t, but I suspect a lot better than most 16 year olds.

But eventually I went to college, the coding was a joke and everything else was a subject. Regardless of the merits of some things, most subjects bore little resembelence to my perception of what I wanted to do. SAD was sad in that it was attempting (badly) to formalise an ability that I had, but with no reference to what I did. SE was worse, and tbh I never got it. In retrospect I still can't understand how SE can be thought without reference to actually writing code. These I guess were tied together finally in 4th year - if you actually made the connection, but I didn't do 4th year.

So I went out working and coded like a monkey. Worked for a couple of years in sh1t jobs, eventually got a good one. Worked there for a while, improved the trade. But, as happens, moved on.

... and then in my 4th job, I worked for a small "information engineering" consultancy. I still do work for them from time to time, but it was the best learning experience I've ever had. What it did was:

1. Formalised my software engineering approach, which was there, but had been a bit adhoc.
2. Tightened my analysis skills, in that it made me look more at why and how I should approach a project.
3. Tightened up my database normalisation, which I did learn in college, but this was really the first time I'd got to apply it realistically on large databases.
4. It got me looking into the flow of business processes and exceptions there in, and how that could be implemented in a software system.
5. Supply all of the above, with reference to the bottom line (cost).
6. Supply all of the above, while working with a client that has no understanding of - well - anything.
7. Whether I agree or not, if they want it done a certain way, they are paying me to do it, and that is the way it will be done.

I'm still learning, technology, methodologies, businesses, and tbh the day I can't learn anymore is the day I don't belong in this industry.

Now, my take on this is that some people will never get it, regardless of their background. Some will. Those that do, will get there within their own resources, abilities, and in their own time. From that point of view, I personally would not write off anyone because they didn't have a computing degree.

My 2.6 (rounding error ) cents.

D.

GreeBo

Originally posted by dazberry
1. Formalised my software engineering approach, which was there, but had been a bit adhoc.
2. Tightened my analysis skills, in that it made me look more at why and how I should approach a project.
3. Tightened up my database normalisation, which I did learn in college, but this was really the first time I'd got to apply it realistically on large databases.
4. It got me looking into the flow of business processes and exceptions there in, and how that could be implemented in a software system.
5. Supply all of the above, with reference to the bottom line (cost).
6. Supply all of the above, while working with a client that has no understanding of - well - anything.
7. Whether I agree or not, if they want it done a certain way, they are paying me to do it, and that is the way it will be done.

Not trying to be a piss-ant here, but I think I covered at least 5 of your 7 things in 4th year.....:ninja:

some people will never get it, regardless of their background. Some will. Those that do, will get there within their own resources, abilities, and in their own time

I totally agree, but I think those do do get it, will get there quicker with a degree.;)

dazberry

Originally posted by redoxan
Not trying to be a piss-ant here, but I think I covered at least 5 of your 7 things in 4th year.....:ninja:

LOL - only 5? most of the graduates I've met would claim at least 6, only the cocky ones would go for the full 7. Of course there's also the concept that everyone is promoted to their own level of incompetence. I’d hate to think you reached that in 4th year ww).

I totally agree, but I think those do do get it, will get there quicker with a degree.;)

Possibly. Hard for me to say tho'., notably since so many graduates from my year didn't go into programming. But I'm sure they had their reasons .

D.