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Zoho Don't Need No Stinking Ph.D. Programmers
theodp writes "When it comes to tech academic credentials, Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has The Right Stuff: a Ph.D. in EE from Princeton. But Vembu has eschewed Google's Army-of-Ph.D.s approach to software development in favor of tapping into the ranks of high school grads who would not normally go to college for Zoho. Seeing his youngest brother succeed at programming without a college degree convinced Vembu that others could follow that example with the proper training and guidance. And studying the best employees in his own company led to another epiphany: 'What if the college degree itself is not really that useful?' thought Vembu. 'What if we took kids after high school, train them ourselves?'"
Whoa. Someone with common sense. Someone in charge with common sense! I need to get some people around my workplace to read this blog entry.
While I'm sure that everyone's personal experience is different, this observation matches perfectly with what I've seen over the last 30 years or so in the field. On-the-job performance is the application of skills that are atually needed somewhere. Education in school is teaching something that may be needed at some future date. A new graduate still has to learn how to adapt their knowledge to the real world. Given what schools seem to be teaching these days, and the typical student's retention rate and enthusiasm, I'm not surprised that grads and non-grads are about equal in skill after working for awhile.
Kudos for admitting that, Vembu. I hope others follow your example.
College is a mix of vocational training (particularly important for some professions) and personal growth in the "learn to be a good citizen" sense. It's socially irresponsible to encourage people cut back on the latter, and being lax on the former results in a lot of "not seeing the big picture" kind of thing. I suppose it might be good for businesses that want to lock their employees into working for them long-term, but it's bad for society.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Any other reason? Perhaps they are a bit cheaper?
I do think he has a point that a degree in anything doesn't mean you're going to be any good, and I learned a heck of a lot of programming back in the 80's on my own, in my basement.
But, the motive here seems to be cost, not anything else.
And Zoho products show it. They are poor quality knock-offs of other, more commercially popular packages.
The are the Rodger Corman of software.
(Apologies to Mr Corman)
I admire what he is doing here. I think that any reasonably intelligent person who's willing to learn can do any job reasonably well, regardless of their background. I think too many HR idiots assume that someone gets far enough down a career path, they are incapable of doing anything else.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
That is how I learned to program. I started out at 13 with basic and have moved up. That is also how I learned about computers. 22 years later I am a full-time programmer and a Network Admin. Self taught all the way.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
The students are taught very little theory, avoiding computer science altogether.
Yes there are many things you can do in programming without a formal education, and I'm all for rewarding people who want to make an effort. But by not studying theory they are missing out on all those giants whose shoulders they could be standing on. This will lead to wasted effort as they reinvent everything from the wheel to Unix badly.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's full of self-taught, degree-free programmers who learned on the job... just like what this bozo wants. It also kills two out of every three projects that it starts. Job security is terrible. Much of the code is unmaintainable. Software engineering discipline is regarded as a waste of time for bureaucratic wusses.
Teaching people on the job means they make their costly, disastrous mistakes on the job instead of making them in college, where nobody gets hurt.
I piss off bigots.
Would Google's index (and infrastructure) be as good as it is if they relied on high schoolers?
Umm...no.
Non-cookie cutter programming requires serious, well-educated people.
This could be done right. But you will need a mix of those who know and those who dont. Like what other types of work do such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters...
When I was hired out of college my first boss pulled me to the side and said "your *REAL* study begins now, you have the theory but none of the knowhow". He was right, it was also why I got paid very little. However, as you rightly point out you can have tons of knowhow but none of the theory. Which is just as bad. You want the master/apprentice type thing going. The downside to this is you end up with much time spent teaching theory, which is good, but distracts from the tasks at hand. You do however end up with a very loyal and very competent workforce.
With almost no computer science and a disdain for math, these guys will fit right in with the majority of the programming workforce, probably on par with a technical college grad (and perhaps myself) in coding ability. However, in my experience, I have seen very little correlation between raw ability to code and the success of projects. Zoho better have some kickass business analysts and project managers for these coders.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
This actually isn't new... it's a return to the classic "apprenticeship" model. I think it's a great idea.
Consider the benefits. It's all real-world experience, learning how things actually operate and how they are actually used. The modern academia "ivory tower" model, in which people with no industry experience are teaching students only a small portion of what they need to know, isn't serving the industry particularly well. There is also the issue that college/university these days seems to be at least as much about political indoctrination as job skills, but that's another discussion.
Additionally, the instruction in the apprenticeship model is much, much more effective. The mentor-to-apprentice ratio is far better than the teacher-top-student ratio, and the instruction is always what the apprentice needs (you're not going at the least-common-denominator pace, time isn't wasted on rehashing things you already know, you can ask questions as they arise, and you can't hide what you don't know behind standardized Scan-Tron style tests). As a result, the apprentice learns much more quickly, and will become a seasoned veteran in less time.
The one hazard I see is that there is the potential to lowball the apprentices on pay. At the very least, a conventionally-trained college grad has demonstrated they have what it takes to make a four-year plan and get it done in... um... let's call it five years. They aren't going to settle for minimum wage (except in the video game industry), and they aren't going to pull down the average wage for others (again, except in the video game industry). The potential does exist for these issues arising, but it's by no means certain that they WILL arise, and if an employer gets a rep for either turning out ill-trained apprentices or for being an exploitative sweatshop that leverages the naivete of an 18-year-old (sorry, if you're 18 you're a rookie no matter who you are or what grades you got), that employer is going to get blackballed by the rest of us real quick-like.
I do hope Zoho's approach succeeds and gains traction.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
After some 15 years in the industry one thing is amazingly clear; Formal computer science education is more of a warning sign then a merit badge.
The vast majority of people I've worked with that actually had a CS degree have been inept to put it kindly. Regardless of experience, if they went to college for computers chances are good they have trouble wiping their own ass. While I've worked with a few very notable exceptions, the rule still firmly stands. Maybe it's because I'm a product of the dot.com boom, but most people that get a CS degree did it purely for the money and not at all because they had a talent or interest in computers.
The one unifying trait in good, practical computer professionals is an aptitude for music. Pretty much all played an instrument and most still regularly do. Any college degree they have tends to be in something random that interested them, like sociology, if they have a degree at all.
My
How about looking tech schools not dropping resumes from people who when to them they tech stuff that uses in the real work places vs the big schools that some are more about sports then classes also they have less filler classes that have little to no use in the work place that most IP people / codes are in.
How about hiring people who can construct sentences that make some fucking sense?
Good god man, this is the Internet in 2010 not a telegram in 1910. There isn't an extra charge for punctuation.
That's not true. A degree is a requirement for access to lots of different kinds of high-paying jobs, if only because the HR manager has a degree and decides on wages.
Whether a degree is actually useful in day-to-day work, well there I might agree with you.
and hiring manager....
Two stories:
The first one is about a supervisor I had who felt one must have a college degree to program device drivers. He blew off a really brilliant (I've never worked with a guy since who was that smart - even the PhDs at IBM) guy because he had only a HS diploma.
Second - a bit longer:
There's a company in SE Florida that needed someone to test circuit boards. A two year technical degree was all that was needed: plug board in, read test equipment, note failure.
When they were looking for someone, an EE shows up. They hired him. This guy then takes advantage of the tuition reimbursement and gets a MS EE. He leaves for greener pastures and maybe to actually use his education. Now, they list his job. Guess what? Requirements for thejob: MS EE. A test job. All because this guy got one on the job. They're reasoning? Well, because he got one he must have needed one.
It wouldn't have surprised me if they were one of the companies that said "We can't get any qualified Americans" and eventually hired a H1-b.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
who finished the story still thinking "What the fuck is Zoho?"
Hiring coders out of high school may very well work for some projects, and those kids may be happy to have a "real job". But in the long run the joke will be on them. Unless they plan to spend the rest of their life in that company (unlikely, as they seem intent on using a cheap supply of fresh young kids) they will find that most projects do appreciate (and need) a bit more education. Back to school for them, and not at the time when it's most convenient - it's hard to go back.
On the specific issue of coding vs. education. 20 years ago I started working as a software developer full time before I had any education above high school. I did some useful things that seemed "cool" then and worked out well enough for my employers. 20 years forward and two masters degrees later (Comp. Eng and Comp.Sc./Infosec) I can see that I am by far a better engineer (and coder too, but that's almost secondary), in part due to all the experience and in part due to education. I would have never been able to do what I do now without additional years of studying.
YMMV
In my experience commercial software programming productivity is greatly hampered by the successful completion of a PhD. To complete a PhD you need to convince a committee of professors that you have done unique work in your field. You do this by publishing research and collating it into a dissertation. The type of software required to obtain research results for publication in most fields is completely different then what I need my programmers to deliver for me to ship a marketable product on time and on cost. PhDs often don't get things like O(n^2) algs should NEVER appear in commercial code because they will always blow up, and that not anticipating invalid input and just crashing isn't allowed. Both of these practices are just fine in research code. You may need a couple pointy heads around to make sure you are applying the best solution to your problem at hand, but give me anyone with a BS and demonstrated skills over a PhD any day for writing production code. (I want the BS/BA because it shows me you can complete something and can deal with crap you don't like because I'm paying you to do it).
"This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it." -- HAL
He'd better learn. On some occasion in the future, he'll need to interface with someone else's code.
Except you don't understand that there was a meritocracy based selection process which acted to dampen out the negative aspects of a free for all system.
This is pretty much what a lot of us in the U.S. do not understand, and which is at the root of the matter when it comes to personal student loan debts. Couple that with this pedestrian, quasi-ludite fear of tax-based services (ZOMG, the gubermenmnt took mah money!), and you can see why many of us fail to understand that.
We have a culture that
Put all that together and you can see how we are the way we are. We do have a measure of belief in self-reliance and independence. The idea of depending on a government-sponsored program is abhorrent. We stupidly equate government programs with hand-outs. Ergo people don't have qualms in getting in debt for getting an education.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that:
We don't provide our youth with a chance to explore a vocational trade. Then boom, they are out of HS and we expect them to work as adults. But they have no skills and nobody wants them except as hamburger flippers. The only way out is to get a 4-year college degree, even if that is not what is in their hearts and would be much better off learning a trade.
A fine merit-based, government-paid college education system coupled with equally funded vocational training and a society that appreciates and nurtures the later is what we need.
Unfortunately, that would require a cultural change of a great magnitude. It ain't gonna happen in my lifetime, I'm sure of it.