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Agreed. Speaking as someone who has hired hundreds of software engineers, I can tell you that having a degree at all tells me a lot about your work ethic. Sure,

Agreed. Speaking as someone who has hired hundreds of software engineers, I can tell you that having a degree at all tells me a lot about your work ethic. Sure, I'd prefer a comp sci background, but your degree is nearly as good. It's an indicator of how you think. You know what other degree I see a LOT of in SWE? Music. I've hired countless music majors.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I have the opposite experience, almost. I've hired and trained lots of people with CS degrees who think they know everything and barely know the basics. I massively prefer people who flunked university and just got a job writing code because they could. University no longer trains people to think, instead it's about jumping through hoops and dealing with pointless administrative bullshit [0]. source: I have a Master's degree. And yes, even better are the people who wrote code as a hobby, and then decided to switch career to become professional developers. Some of the best coders I know are in that category (though the best coder I ever hired taught herself to code while getting off heroin in a Glasgow slum). [0] Ok, so yes if you're hiring for a large corporate I can see how this would appeal.
- sarusso 5y ago
  Wow. Pretty strong opinions here. Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. Instead, leaving for writing code just because you can tells me that you took the short path, and that your missing basics (the real ones, which teaches you University) will knock at your door some day. My 2 cents.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    > Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. Not completing a degree doesn't mean you can't so this statement doesn't tell us all that much.
    - sarusso 5y ago
      Not sure. As I said in the other reply, if you don't finish it, provided that you don't face major practical or financial issues, to me it is a red flag on being able to commit and bring something to conclusion.
      - cinntaile 5y ago
        As it stands it's a theory of yours. Now you need some actual data to back it up. It's a bit dangerous to reach conclusions based on a hunch, you might be biased after all.
        sarusso 5y ago
        I am definitely biased by my values, and I value finishing something once you started. Always ;) Then yes, I might be of course proven wrong, I just gave my 2 cents on what not finishing a degree tells me, including my bias. Then you could be a false negative, in the sense that you might have not finished your degree but be able to commit 100% on other things. However, as we all know, spotting false negatives is very hard and who hires don't like these bets if not in very particular circumstances, as it is going to be their fault if the person is then not a false negative but a true one. With or without backup data. I think is no coincidence that as far as I can see the OP basically got the "finish your degree" as first and foremost comment. Don't take me wrong: I have been a false negative and an outlier my entire life, now I love it, but in the early days I really wished someone told me what I am saying now.
        cinntaile 5y ago
        > Then you could be a false negative, in the sense that you might have not finished your degree but be able to commit 100% on other things. I'm not projecting my own experiences on others, I just take issue with your claim. Studying and working are very different beasts, I think it's very much possible for people to not finish degrees yet be really good employees that finish their tasks as agreed upon. The incentive structure is so different that the two can hardly be compared. Not finishing your degree, ignoring personal/financial issues, tells us nothing about their work performance. > However, as we all know, spotting false negatives is very hard and who hires don't like these bets if not in very particular circumstances, as it is going to be their fault if the person is then not a false negative but a true one. Yes that's hard but that's a very different issue from your original claim. It's a good reason for a recruiter to go for the person with the degree instead of the person without the degree, but that still doesn't mean that the person without the degree can't commit and finish their work. > I think is no coincidence that as far as I can see the OP basically got the "finish your degree" as first and foremost comment. He has 3-4 months left of a 5 year education, of course people will recommend him to finish his degree. There is very little opportunity cost downside.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. So does a lot of other valuable and still relevant lived experiences, and they come without the price tag. But we all already know that.
    - sarusso 5y ago
      Sure, if you include the price in the equation then this makes things different, you are right. I got biased by the nearly free University we get in Europe. However, if you start something, I think that it is a good attitude to finish it, provided that you don't face major practical/financial issues along the way.
      - dvtrn 5y ago
        However, if you start something, I think that it is a good attitude to finish it I 100% agree with this. I've just got a bit (maybe a lot) of chagrin towards the sometimes strident mentality that college is the only meaningful way an individual can prove they possess such a capable characteristic, or that completing college is an indicator that such a person will retain such a characteristic throughout their careers/lives. It's useful as a snapshot of an individual's educational accomplishments for sure, and more power to them for that accomplishment, but I will always have a bit of reticence about the application of "has degree" past that.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I don't want developers who continue doing something even when it's blatantly the wrong thing to be doing. Flunking out of university is not the "short path". It's the hard path. Getting a degree is not difficult, or even hard work. It's the easy choice - the thing everyone expects you to do. I don't want people who follow orders and do what they're told. I want people who are prepared to make hard decisions, take the less-travelled path, do what they feel is right and not just what everyone else tells them is right. I want someone who can actually code, and not someone who has a certificate that says they can code. My 2 cents.
    - sarusso 5y ago
      I think we are just talking about two different things, and that you have in mind "coders" and "developers", not software engineers or data scientists. But the OP was talking about the latter, not the first, where I can to some extent agree with you. I saw it many times: javascript kids or self-taught backend Python "engineers" falling extremely short when it came to scalability, algorithmic complexity, or just abstracting concepts. Similarly, I saw several self-claimed "data scientists" not even knowing what a non gaussian error distribution means. Not knowing this stuff jeopardise your work and the projects you are working in. Then, if you are telling me that your interview process should spot these shortcomings at the same level a university degree can, then to me this sounds a bit unrealistic. However, if you need someone that can write code to pass the unit-tests that some one else wrote without taking any architectural decision, than OK I can agree with you, but it does not sound much of an appealing career path IMO.
- orzig 5y ago
  To provide a third vote: My midsized company barely considers people without degrees, even if they have extensive technical work experience. Example: I had to battle hard to get somebody considered for an entry-level non-technical role, and they ended up being rapidly promoted within engineering once they got past the recruiting screens.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I feel your pain. I've fought against this before. I think it's because of the salary level - like HR/management cannot get their heads around paying someone who doesn't have a degree the kind of salary that developers get these days.
  - Gwarzo 5y ago
    This is my current difficulty - I work as a neteng for a large MSP in my area. I quit university after my 2nd semester co-op during undergrad (to work at my current firm), I have since been promoted four times and now work as a senior engineer (though I cannot technically use this title). Trying to move firms now after working for 5 years, It is incredibly difficult for other firms to accept that I've been working in the field successfully given that I do not have a completed degree. On one hand, I have skill now that I could have never earned in school - on another hand I may have gimped my ability to move deep into the upper half of the first six figures salary.
    - saalweachter 5y ago
      Hmmm, have you had a lot of coworkers move through over the last five years? Following one of them to a new place is probably the easiest way to change jobs and build your resume.
- whoknew1122 5y ago
  Sure universities train people how to think. But they're in the liberal arts, which is why OP finds some many SWEs with music majors. STEM is very transactional. Liberal Arts is more about teaching you how to think and communicate. The problem is too many tech bros have been pissing on liberal arts for 30 years. And now people are looking around and saying 'we have too many tech bros'. My college years were spent reading various viewpoints, bringing them together, and synthesizing them into a coherent narrative. This turns out to be very helpful when it comes to solving problems and analyzing security incidents. I've found it more useful than that semester of C+ the new hires took for their CompSci degree.
  - wheelinsupial 5y ago
    > STEM is very transactional. Liberal Arts is more about teaching you how to think and communicate. Are you able to elaborate on what you mean by these statements? What does being able to think mean and how would one be able to demonstrate that? Do you think the only way to learn this is in the liberal arts? > too many tech bros have been pissing on liberal arts for 30 years. Your comment seems to be pissing on STEM. Am I completely misreading what you're saying? STEM and the vocational or mechanical arts have been pissed on by the liberal arts for a lot longer than the last 30 years.
- nikhilsimha 5y ago
  > the best coder I ever hired taught herself to code while getting off heroin in a Glasgow slum Those words bust the biggest bias I realized I had/have - against addicts. Thank you very much!
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I said she was a great coder. I didn't say she was trustworthy. She eventually left the industry to go be pretty at gamblers in a casino where she could earn a lot more money for a lot less effort. My co-manager's blatant sexism also contributed to this. I often wonder whether she got back into coding, but lost touch years ago (this was pre-LinkedIn obviously). "Never trust a junkie" is still very good advice. Talent at coding doesn't automatically come with the personality or the temperament to be a good career software dev.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

I have the opposite experience, almost. I've hired and trained lots of people with CS degrees who think they know everything and barely know the basics. I massively prefer people who flunked university and just got a job writing code because they could. University no longer trains people to think, instead it's about jumping through hoops and dealing with pointless administrative bullshit [0]. source: I have a Master's degree. And yes, even better are the people who wrote code as a hobby, and then decided to switch career to become professional developers. Some of the best coders I know are in that category (though the best coder I ever hired taught herself to code while getting off heroin in a Glasgow slum). [0] Ok, so yes if you're hiring for a large corporate I can see how this would appeal.

sarusso 5y ago
Wow. Pretty strong opinions here. Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. Instead, leaving for writing code just because you can tells me that you took the short path, and that your missing basics (the real ones, which teaches you University) will knock at your door some day. My 2 cents.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. Not completing a degree doesn't mean you can't so this statement doesn't tell us all that much.
  - sarusso 5y ago
    Not sure. As I said in the other reply, if you don't finish it, provided that you don't face major practical or financial issues, to me it is a red flag on being able to commit and bring something to conclusion.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      As it stands it's a theory of yours. Now you need some actual data to back it up. It's a bit dangerous to reach conclusions based on a hunch, you might be biased after all.
      - sarusso 5y ago
        I am definitely biased by my values, and I value finishing something once you started. Always ;) Then yes, I might be of course proven wrong, I just gave my 2 cents on what not finishing a degree tells me, including my bias. Then you could be a false negative, in the sense that you might have not finished your degree but be able to commit 100% on other things. However, as we all know, spotting false negatives is very hard and who hires don't like these bets if not in very particular circumstances, as it is going to be their fault if the person is then not a false negative but a true one. With or without backup data. I think is no coincidence that as far as I can see the OP basically got the "finish your degree" as first and foremost comment. Don't take me wrong: I have been a false negative and an outlier my entire life, now I love it, but in the early days I really wished someone told me what I am saying now.
        cinntaile 5y ago
        > Then you could be a false negative, in the sense that you might have not finished your degree but be able to commit 100% on other things. I'm not projecting my own experiences on others, I just take issue with your claim. Studying and working are very different beasts, I think it's very much possible for people to not finish degrees yet be really good employees that finish their tasks as agreed upon. The incentive structure is so different that the two can hardly be compared. Not finishing your degree, ignoring personal/financial issues, tells us nothing about their work performance. > However, as we all know, spotting false negatives is very hard and who hires don't like these bets if not in very particular circumstances, as it is going to be their fault if the person is then not a false negative but a true one. Yes that's hard but that's a very different issue from your original claim. It's a good reason for a recruiter to go for the person with the degree instead of the person without the degree, but that still doesn't mean that the person without the degree can't commit and finish their work. > I think is no coincidence that as far as I can see the OP basically got the "finish your degree" as first and foremost comment. He has 3-4 months left of a 5 year education, of course people will recommend him to finish his degree. There is very little opportunity cost downside.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  Completing a degree means you can commit and deliver, IMO. So does a lot of other valuable and still relevant lived experiences, and they come without the price tag. But we all already know that.
  - sarusso 5y ago
    Sure, if you include the price in the equation then this makes things different, you are right. I got biased by the nearly free University we get in Europe. However, if you start something, I think that it is a good attitude to finish it, provided that you don't face major practical/financial issues along the way.
    - dvtrn 5y ago
      However, if you start something, I think that it is a good attitude to finish it I 100% agree with this. I've just got a bit (maybe a lot) of chagrin towards the sometimes strident mentality that college is the only meaningful way an individual can prove they possess such a capable characteristic, or that completing college is an indicator that such a person will retain such a characteristic throughout their careers/lives. It's useful as a snapshot of an individual's educational accomplishments for sure, and more power to them for that accomplishment, but I will always have a bit of reticence about the application of "has degree" past that.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I don't want developers who continue doing something even when it's blatantly the wrong thing to be doing. Flunking out of university is not the "short path". It's the hard path. Getting a degree is not difficult, or even hard work. It's the easy choice - the thing everyone expects you to do. I don't want people who follow orders and do what they're told. I want people who are prepared to make hard decisions, take the less-travelled path, do what they feel is right and not just what everyone else tells them is right. I want someone who can actually code, and not someone who has a certificate that says they can code. My 2 cents.
  - sarusso 5y ago
    I think we are just talking about two different things, and that you have in mind "coders" and "developers", not software engineers or data scientists. But the OP was talking about the latter, not the first, where I can to some extent agree with you. I saw it many times: javascript kids or self-taught backend Python "engineers" falling extremely short when it came to scalability, algorithmic complexity, or just abstracting concepts. Similarly, I saw several self-claimed "data scientists" not even knowing what a non gaussian error distribution means. Not knowing this stuff jeopardise your work and the projects you are working in. Then, if you are telling me that your interview process should spot these shortcomings at the same level a university degree can, then to me this sounds a bit unrealistic. However, if you need someone that can write code to pass the unit-tests that some one else wrote without taking any architectural decision, than OK I can agree with you, but it does not sound much of an appealing career path IMO.
orzig 5y ago
To provide a third vote: My midsized company barely considers people without degrees, even if they have extensive technical work experience. Example: I had to battle hard to get somebody considered for an entry-level non-technical role, and they ended up being rapidly promoted within engineering once they got past the recruiting screens.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I feel your pain. I've fought against this before. I think it's because of the salary level - like HR/management cannot get their heads around paying someone who doesn't have a degree the kind of salary that developers get these days.
- Gwarzo 5y ago
  This is my current difficulty - I work as a neteng for a large MSP in my area. I quit university after my 2nd semester co-op during undergrad (to work at my current firm), I have since been promoted four times and now work as a senior engineer (though I cannot technically use this title). Trying to move firms now after working for 5 years, It is incredibly difficult for other firms to accept that I've been working in the field successfully given that I do not have a completed degree. On one hand, I have skill now that I could have never earned in school - on another hand I may have gimped my ability to move deep into the upper half of the first six figures salary.
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    Hmmm, have you had a lot of coworkers move through over the last five years? Following one of them to a new place is probably the easiest way to change jobs and build your resume.
whoknew1122 5y ago
Sure universities train people how to think. But they're in the liberal arts, which is why OP finds some many SWEs with music majors. STEM is very transactional. Liberal Arts is more about teaching you how to think and communicate. The problem is too many tech bros have been pissing on liberal arts for 30 years. And now people are looking around and saying 'we have too many tech bros'. My college years were spent reading various viewpoints, bringing them together, and synthesizing them into a coherent narrative. This turns out to be very helpful when it comes to solving problems and analyzing security incidents. I've found it more useful than that semester of C+ the new hires took for their CompSci degree.
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  > STEM is very transactional. Liberal Arts is more about teaching you how to think and communicate. Are you able to elaborate on what you mean by these statements? What does being able to think mean and how would one be able to demonstrate that? Do you think the only way to learn this is in the liberal arts? > too many tech bros have been pissing on liberal arts for 30 years. Your comment seems to be pissing on STEM. Am I completely misreading what you're saying? STEM and the vocational or mechanical arts have been pissed on by the liberal arts for a lot longer than the last 30 years.
nikhilsimha 5y ago
> the best coder I ever hired taught herself to code while getting off heroin in a Glasgow slum Those words bust the biggest bias I realized I had/have - against addicts. Thank you very much!
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I said she was a great coder. I didn't say she was trustworthy. She eventually left the industry to go be pretty at gamblers in a casino where she could earn a lot more money for a lot less effort. My co-manager's blatant sexism also contributed to this. I often wonder whether she got back into coding, but lost touch years ago (this was pre-LinkedIn obviously). "Never trust a junkie" is still very good advice. Talent at coding doesn't automatically come with the personality or the temperament to be a good career software dev.