US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger)

ShaunC writes: Is there a glut of qualified American tech workers, or isn't there? Some companies like Facebook and Airbnb are now actively courting and recruiting high school students as young as 13 with promises of huge stipends and salaries. As one student put it, "It's kind of insane that you can make more than the U.S. average income in a summer." Another who attended a Facebook-sponsored trip said he'd "forego college for a full-time job" if it were offered. Is Silicon Valley taking advantage of naive young workers?

Comments

Re:Not new

[russotto]

In 1999, my company offered an 18 year old summer intern a programming job. He turned us down to attend college. Spending 4 years doing calculus and reading The Count of Monte Cristo was not going to improve his earnings potential. Spending 4 years in a real office doing real programming would have improved his earnings potential.

Short term. But when he tried to change jobs, he'd find a lot of opportunities closed to him because just about every company wants a degree. I've known a number of non-degreed programmers who have gone back to get one for that reason.

Quitting school to found a startup might make sense; at least it's honest gambling. Quitting school to take a regular job doesn't; the job or one like it will still be there when you graduate.

actors and athletes get paid at 13

[turkeydance]

why not nerds?

Re:Not new

[Austerity Empowers]

For every 1999 there's a 2001. Jobs like that tend to get either very competitive or just abandoned when the market contracts. Or they just replace you with some other youngin', since that seems to be the way that job segment is working.

Calculus + coding = Job for life, it's a combo that works really well and it's a market where age adds, rather than subtracts, value.

Re:Not new

[Kylon99]

Oh yes, definitely, very not new...

During the Industrial Revolution, factory owners were declaring that it was a waste of time for children to be going to school when they could better be spent making money mining for coal or scrubbing pots in factories. Why waste their time learning when clearly a child's life is better spent earning profits?

So...

Re:Not new

[AuMatar]

But equivalent work experience is a lot longer. I might believe that someone with no degree and a decade plus of experience is as good as someone with a degree and 3-4 years, but he'd have to prove it. I find almost nobody without at least 3 years of college has a decent grasp of the fundamentals of computer science- data structures, algorithms, critical thinking and design. The people without degrees tend to just know how to google for answers and copy the results, and god forbid you change frameworks or languages on them- they're hopeless. Its to the point that no degree and less than 6 or 7 years of experience isn't going to get an interview over a guy right out of college because the odds favor the college grad having a higher ceiling.

Re:What is the use of school to Facebook?

[ShanghaiBill]

but there's nothing even close to a ban.

The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you.