this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
140 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37708 readers
35 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's wild that people are still pushing the paper ceiling like this. I've been working in my industry for 11+ years, progressing from engineer to tech lead to architect, with several (very) large-scale, public projects successfully under my belt.
I don't have any degree.
Requiring a comp sci degree is a terrific way to filter out people who had to actually learn their shit and prove their worth, instead of relying on a name on a piece of paper to get them a job interview.
I'm facing this as well across the board, not just where a CS degree is expected. I started off in CS, then a year in discovered I liked working at my school paper enough to drop out after hitting managing ed and having no one left to learn from because the J-school had been gutted in the '80s ... in 2000.
So, no degree. Which now means no job. Not even interviews. I never had any pure development titles that AI would pick up on, so the coding I've done also doesn't count. Your basic bottom-of-the-barrel "and then we were able to lay off half the team" automation that then got me pushed out for providing a useful but unrequested solution that made me a threat.
I determine my needs and then choose my tools, so sure, I'll get back up to speed in Python for a visualization project, but I'm not going to spend a couple of weeks trying to retain things with zero goal.
I saw a job posting for Senior Software Engineer position at a large tech company (not Big Tech, but high profile and widely known) which required candidates to have “an excellent academic track record, including in high school.” A lot of these requirements feel deliberately arbitrary, and like an effort to thin the herd rather than filter for good candidates.
Don't like hiring pregnant women? "Your academic track record doesn't reflect the standards of excellence that we expect our candidates to display."
Don't like hiring minorities? "Your academic track record doesn't reflect the standards of excellence that we expect our candidates to display."
Don't like hiring people with natural hairstyles, religious garb, or other 'unprofessional' but protected appearances? "Your academic track record doesn't reflect the standards of excellence that we expect our candidates to display."