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Ask Slashdot: Are General Engineering Skills Undervalued In Web Development?
nerdyalien writes After reading a recent post about developer competence, I can't help but to ask the question, "Are general engineering skills undervalued in web development?" I am an EE major. The course I completed, and the professors who taught it; mainly emphasized on developing skills rather memorizing reams of facts and figures. As a result, I have acquired a multitude of skills such as analytical, research, programming, communication, project management, planning, self-learning, etc.
A little over 3 years ago, I made the fateful decision to become a web developer in a small SME in SEA. Admittedly, I have an unstructured knowledge about CS theory. Still, within a short period of time I picked up the essentials of web development craft, and delivered reliable web applications. Most of all, I made good use of my existing technical/soft skills, despite the lack of my CS pedigree.
Recently I went through a couple of job interviews in MNCs, SMEs and start-ups alike. All of them grilled my CS theory or Java knowledge. Almost no interviewer asked me about my other skills (or past experiences) that could be helpful in the developer position. In my experience, web development is a cocktail of competing programming languages, frameworks and standards. Rarely a developer gets exposed to a single technology for a substantial period to learn it inside-out. Even still, in web development world, deep in-depth knowledge in anything will be outdated in few years' time as new technologies roll out. So, what matter's today? Knowledge on a particular technology or re-usable engineering skills ?
A little over 3 years ago, I made the fateful decision to become a web developer in a small SME in SEA. Admittedly, I have an unstructured knowledge about CS theory. Still, within a short period of time I picked up the essentials of web development craft, and delivered reliable web applications. Most of all, I made good use of my existing technical/soft skills, despite the lack of my CS pedigree.
Recently I went through a couple of job interviews in MNCs, SMEs and start-ups alike. All of them grilled my CS theory or Java knowledge. Almost no interviewer asked me about my other skills (or past experiences) that could be helpful in the developer position. In my experience, web development is a cocktail of competing programming languages, frameworks and standards. Rarely a developer gets exposed to a single technology for a substantial period to learn it inside-out. Even still, in web development world, deep in-depth knowledge in anything will be outdated in few years' time as new technologies roll out. So, what matter's today? Knowledge on a particular technology or re-usable engineering skills ?
Most web sites seems to have far more engineering and art than they need, and far less UX that they should. I don't care how pretty and dynamic a site is if the user experience sucks.
Yeah, they were probably all sitting there, reading through your resume, trying to figure out just what the fuck all of the acronyms you used in it actually mean.
I mean, in a fairly short Slashdot submission summary you managed to work in these:
I'm sure that you're dropping obscure acronyms in everything else you write, in some vain attempt to seem more important than perhaps you really are.
Unless you are going to be developing a site that is directly related to an EE field (mathematics/signal analysis/electronic parts etc), why would you expect your knowledge to be any more use than say someone else's knowledge of law ? If you want topics that would be useful but aren't directly related, art/art history/graphic design/advertising all come to mind.
I know from experience my undergrad was EE and I have Professional Engineering license and it really doesn't overlap much except for problem solving skills and logical thought.
Engineering knowledge and skill is way undervalued in the current development climate. It is more about get it done fast, get it out the door. Don't make the code pretty, don't make it reusable, fix it later attitude. Patch it up, put a bandaid on it and move on to the next fire.
The only place I have seen where engineering skills are valued is where lives are at stake (nuclear reactor code, Space Shuttle) or enterprise software that has to be up 24/7 or the business fails.
Welcome to the real world.
Oh dude, you're so overqualified for anything in Web Development.
CS, CS is bogus and only really quantifies anything if you're working in Artificial intelligence or Security. The rest of the time, a CS degree is just acts as a warranty for the interviewer that you supposedly knew enough book facts to pass an exam.
Like, I kid you not, most of the crap people work on in Web Development are bloated Javascript frameworks, or bloated Ruby/PHP/Perl backends, and very few people actually know how to make efficient use of the hardware because none of them know exactly how hardware works. Hence we keep seeing further inefficiency by switches to virtual machines and "cloud" virtualize-everything.
I'll give you a very-obvious example. Lots of sites like to use WordPress. If you compare Wordpress to a flat-file (using only javascript, what was formerly known as AJAX (eg Web 2.0) using only flat files, you have 1000X the capacity on the machine with the flat files. The solution that everyone uses? Throw more hardware at it. So instead of optimizing the CMS so it generates cacheable flat files requiring 10 times less hardware, they instead buy 10 times as much hardware and virtualize it on demand.
Like I see so much waste "cloud" setups it's no wonder that cloud providers are making money hand over fist.
Php unfortunately has the most bizarest of language constructs from a language standpoint, arising into prominence only because at the time, embedding code into HTML was a new thing.
I've spent about 20 years refining my programming stereotypes. I think they fit the data pretty well now. Here's my take on you, simply because you're an EE:
* You're smart enough to pick up pretty much any CS concept, from the simple to the arcane. For the most part, only physics majors will simply be smarter than you.
* Your code will look like crap, until you put effort into writing more idiomatically and until you learn the design patterns that help programmers use to tame complexity. Your code will, generally speaking, be harder to read than that produced by CS and physics majors, until you put some work into it.
* You mentioned having only a fragmented understanding of CS theory. I think that's true for most of us (I have a PhD in CS). There's just so much of programming for which good theory has been developed: type systems, parallelism (concurrent sequential processes, deadlock rules), user interfaces (kind of), system complexity, static / dynamic analysis of code, relational algebras, parsing, the expressive power of various languages in the Chomsky hierarchy, graph theory, complexity classes, etc. A lot of these theories can be useful for solving problems, but most programmers muddle by without putting them all together and remembering their implications. Heck, most programmers probably don't know about half of the things I listed.
So I wouldn't feel too anxious about that, especially w.r.t. web programming. But it can be very satisfying to to learn more about them, and may in some cases let you solve some problems that other's can't. If you want to get better at some of the brainier stuff, I'd suggest getting a master's degree in CS from a decent school. But that my be overkill for bog-standard web development, I'm not sure.
The coding may not have been what they were evaluating. You failed because you thought the test was beneath you. Bad attitude cannot be corrected!
HR wants 10 years experience in something that was invented 5 years ago.
If you have bigger-picture skills, you might be tempted to think for yourself.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Like most engineers, you're under the impression that your "magic ring" should automatically be given respect. Your whole post just screams "prima donna", and THAT'S your problem in interviews.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Since I don't know much more about IT than the average human resources guy, maybe my experience can be useful.
I taught myself how to write spreadsheets, and wrote a lot of them for my own personal use.
Then I talked to a guy who had been an engineer and programmer, and came into corporations to teach other people how to use spreadsheets.
He made the point that, when he wrote a spreadsheet, he included error-checking routines, such as calculating things in different ways, that would catch obvious mistakes in the spreadsheet.
For example, in a checkbook program, he would calculate the balance on each line by adding the debits or subtracting the credits from the previous line, as I did, and get a running balance.
Then he would separately total the columns and get the balance by taking the difference between the totals.
They should be the same. But if you made a mistake, they might not be.
People have made a lot of expensive mistakes by calculating the total of a bid but getting the range wrong.
This is a deliberately stupid example, but it's stupid enough that it was news to me (because I was self-taught), and it's stupid enough for an HR guy to understand.
I would suggest that you think up a few examples of how your general engineering and EE skills gave you insights that helped you write a better program, examples with obvious utility, examples that are simple enough for an HR guy to understand.
Since the HR guy may not even understand programming, you can give him a quick course in programming, which will demonstrate your educational skills as well.
It is true, my post isn't shit.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Well, you apply for web monkey work, they're going to see if you have the essentials. If you don't, forget about the "nice to haves".
Let's reverse the scenario - a web monkey who applies for an engineering job because he's worked as a web monkey at his previous job - an electrical engineering contractor - and has picked up some of the basics over the years. He'd be shown the door pretty quickly.
I tried for several years to teach an engineering friend how to code. The problem is that he couldn't get into the minutiae. The mindset is simply not the same.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I think instead of asking if it is really necessary to know CS theory and/or Java, you should just learn them for your next interview. Too many people have this "I can learn it easily" attitude and think it is enough, but that does not mean shit to an interviewer. Companies want people who can hit the ground running (i.e. people who already know their shit). You might as well prove that you "can learn it easily" by actually learning it.
The difference is that electrical, mechanical, civil engineers, et al, all have governing bodies and licensing requirements. What drives us engineers insane is that some people are allowed to call themselves engineers, when they are not. They don't have the training, oversight, etc. It's not just professional hubris or exclusionism, it's about diluting the respect and reliability of our profession -- and in some cases, even public safety.
Try being a nurse, nutritionist, radiological technician, etc, and calling yourself a doctor. It won't fly.
There are a lot of places like that. They all think they're the greatest places on earth to work too and getting a job there makes you an "elite" dev. Working 80 hours a week to make somebody else rich? Fuck that.
Me, I'm just a programmer - thank you very much. I am not an engineer because I do not have an engineering degree, the experience or the exams that says I am.
I actually feel the same way. I've got a few decades of professional coding experience, and would like to think I don't completely suck at it, but I much prefer the title "programmer", "developer", or even "analyst". The title "engineer" implies training and responsibilities that the vast majority of code monkeys like me don't have.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
As someone else with a Physics degree, Engineering Physics, its not just the math that gives you the edge over the CS guys, but the lack of arrogance.
I have worked with many CS guys would couldn't code for shit because they never bothered to actually learn the language they're coding in, because according to them it's all just syntax. And the ones with the masters in CS are some of the worst developers I've seen.
Physics is a humbling degree to get because once you get it you realize that you're only scratching the surface and that leads to a similar approach to other areas as well.
I met a retired, highly successful CEO when he was about 70. The two quotes I remember from him are: "Hey, wanna go to the bar and pick up some babes." and "Hiring people was the hardest part of the business, if I succeeded 50% of the time in picking a person who didn't make things worse than they already are, I considered myself to be doing well."
Personally, I've "picked" about a dozen people out of the hiring pool, some with a little more pressure to "fill the positions yesterday" than others. People are consistently surprising, often better used for something other than what they were hired for. If you can recognize that, and work people into roles where they contribute the best, that is the true skill of management.
As for getting your foot in the door - it sucks, there's just not another word for it. Before the internet, it was about personal contacts and first impressions. Now, your hiring gauntlet is crammed full of so much noise that it is amazing that anybody gets found. I was "panned" for a gig that I am supremely qualified to do, 2 decades of experience doing exactly what they want and rave reviews from everybody I've ever worked with, people taking me to lunch 3 months after I leave a job trying to get me to come back. These people made up their mind about me based on 5 minutes of poor audio quality phone interview. The job is programming, not verbal knowledge regurgitation based on garbled descriptions - but, that's their hiring criteria, and I suppose they communicate with their people through crappy phone lines all the time, so it is an important skill, for them.
Keep looking, don't be afraid to take an offer and then move on if something better comes along: your employers will be tossing you to the curb the next time they screw up sales and economic climate forecasting, with "employment at will" you have every right to move on to better things when the opportunity comes your way.