Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do?

ramoneThePoolGuy writes: We are looking to fill a senior developer/architect position in our firm. I am disappointed with the applicants thus far, and quite frankly it has me worried about the quality of developers/engineers available to us. For instance, today I asked an engineer with 20+ years of experience to describe to me the basic process of public/private key encryption. This engineer had no clue. I asked another applicant a similar question: "Suppose you wanted to send me a file with very sensitive information, how would you encrypt it in such a way that I would decrypt it?" The person started off by asking me if it was an excel file, a PDF, etc. In general, I'm finding that an overwhelming number of developers I've interviewed have poor understanding of key concepts, especially when it comes to securing data. Are other firms experiencing this same dilemma in finding qualified applicants? (Quite frankly it scares me that some of these developers are building sites that need to be secure)"

Comments

Re:It's a vast field....

[Java Pimp]

This. As someone who has 16 years under my belt I'm finding it more and more difficult to branch into areas which I've had little experience because to justify my salary I'm expected to already be an expert. Which is a shame because I have at least another 20 years of new technologies to learn before I retire.