Recommendations For Noob In Data Degree

Define expert. Who posting here is a legitimate expert in programming?

programmers who work on windower or ashita seems like a decent enough starting place you can at least validate they do something for the community that is programming, then maybe if you want to be more strict people who have been doing it professionally for more then 10 years, and another notch up have lead development of company critical systems (lets say that means it generates 5M dollars in profit a month), as well as have had to maintain and improve existing system (maybe as a wild example a system written for a PDP11 that had been ported to dos then to windows over the last 42 years)

What defines an expert in design?

42.6% in March 2024, I extrapolated.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/technology/artificial-intelligence/92-of-indian-offices-have-integrated-chatgpt-into-daily-operations-9430123/lite/

You do realize who's in this thread right?

Several of the posters are professionals who have spent one or more decades as developers or engineers.


I don't know if anecdotal counts but almost all the devs I've had to deal with the last seven years have been either H1B or remote through India and recently they've all used CrapGPT to submit work. Think is they are all working multiple contracts at once but won't actually tell anyone. The faster they can meet a sprint deadline the more money they can make from their second or third contract. Me and the handful of FTE senior devs hate having to clean up their mess.

I don't agree with either of those being definitions of expert.

I teach design at the top uni in my field in the UK, lecturing on design theory (including on AI). Have a master's and doing a PhD, I publish in peer reviewed international conferences and people ask me to speak and give webinars, and masters students from all over Europe have contacted me for their master's thesis. Am I an expert in design? I don't know.

I've met many people that have done the same job for decades that are useless, many more than are very average at best. I don't think time = expertise.

Also by this definition anyone that has played FFXI for a decade would be an expert FFXI player? We all know that isn't true.

When did you switch from being a mechanical engineer to a programmer? I'm sure you said you were a mechanical engineer once.

I think if you wrote a new language you'd be an expert as a very strict criteria. If you've trained people in programming to a level beyond entry level I'd probably consider that an expert.

This ... explains so ... much

I think K123 suffers from academic vs readily syndrome it is a common affliction to professors who do not engage in industry, I am not sure it is worth continuing the discussion, since we cant possibly understand it.

Run with your tail between your legs if you must.

I'm a professor of practice btw

If you say so, but this really shows you do not understand this field at all.
That is not a strict criteria, people ***out languages.

Again, ad hominem nonsense. I have experience as a design engineer, continue practicing and I'm a professor of practice (in American terms). Keep making things up though, it's pitiful.

Ok. Let's take it from your emotional opinion to fact then.

How many programmers were fired from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, etc. in the last 24 months?

So tell us how many candidates for senior engineering positions have you interviewed in the past year? How many hiring reqs and job descriptions have you had to write and get approved through HR? How many projects have you had to present before an architectural review board to get approval for?

This sums it up.

None of your questions have any relevance. You're really grasping.

When did you stop being a mechanical engineer and become an expert programmer?

So none, got it.

That is the difference between academics and real world.

You have provided 0 logical arguments as ever, hence why most the forum has you blocked. I will not get dragged into losing IQ with your desperate jealous spite.

GG avoiding answering though. That's a real quick career switch to being an expert in a completely different field.

Correlation v. Causation

AI may have played some part in it, but most of these companies had become extremely fast and loose with hiring practices because they wanted to hoard all the talent. In reality, a considerable percentage of those employees had nothing productive to do and were bordering on detrimental before even factoring in their costs.

Elon (rightfully) realized that a relatively basic service like the company formerly known as Twitter does not need as many employees as it had. He cleaned house, and despite the immense tears of millions of liberals, Twitter remained fully functional on a fraction of the staff. This created pressure for other tech companies to evaluate how many staff they could afford to cut. Zuckerburg is even openly willing to say that Elon inspired the wave of tech layoffs.

The fed sent interest rates through the roof. Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. The economy has not been doing great, despite what Biden had to say about it. This is also a greater factor in the tech layoffs than AI.

I am not saying that AI won't take programming jobs, to be clear. It almost certainly will over a long enough timespan. I personally don't see it happening in the next decade, and very likely not in the next 2 decades. The gap from where LLMs currently are to where they need to be to replace skilled programmers is still much larger than public perception indicates. But, even if it takes low end jobs, those displaced workers will increase competition for middle jobs, and that will increase competition for high end jobs. There will be effects, it is not a safe field.

I didn't mean to imply that exactly, was more back to my initial point that learning programming now and at the age I assume he is, I don't think it's a good bet unless exceptional bright.

Artists and designers said the same, then videographers (still plenty of room for improvement, don't get me wrong, but it's moving fast), and then game asset developers, etc.

In most fields AI is killing off the bottom end and even middle range now. The best will get better with AI (like I have in my field) but that also poses problems for the future. Major companies all cutting out the bottom end leaves no talent pool to move up the ladder. I'm certain it is the belief and hedge bet by these companies that AI will be able to do high level programming before their top employees they've retained retire or move jobs.

Making this back relevant to the actual thread: OP clearly isn't in that top tier or above average if just starting out. I stand by the belief that the train has left the station for someone in his position. Better to make something of what you've got than start afresh when the world is in the most uncertainty in our lifetimes.

I've tried explaining this to people, that FAANG (or whatever they are called now) companies were in an arms race to prevent the other companies from acquiring talent and hiring junior to mid without any real work for them to do. All those Tiktok "day in the life at X" videos should of been a giant warning sign to people.


I see it mostly effecting the junior and some of the mid range. It's very good at duplicating functions and task blocks it learned from stackexchange and the other places we all search for a place to start. Most of what we do is just us using google-fu to figure out how to build what are essentially lego blocks, then coming up with a way to stitch those blocks together to create a reliable product. Building the blocks is one thing, but putting them together correctly and in a way that doesn't create a timebomb is a whole skill unto itself.

I totally agree with your initial point, and I said as much in my first post. I do not think it's a career that is likely to provide 30 years of guaranteed employment, and that [in my opinion] should be the bare minimum return on extensive education. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of fields that will provide that guarantee in the current state of the world, and if you rule out physical labor and social skills there are next to none.

I don't think that means it should be completely ruled out, though. While there's no guarantee AI won't remove his job prospects, it is still completely feasible that the field will remain viable or adjacent fields will develop for long enough.
While there is a strong possibility he will need to change fields during his working life, it would also be throwing out a good portion of his education to try to go into a trade or something with better prospects. There are clear potential perks to the field, such as ability to work from home and live in a low CoL area. Plus, there is still some value to doing something you enjoy or have an interest in, it's not a 'chase your dreams' moonshot like making a band.

I don't think many jobs are future proof right now at all. I wouldn't go to uni to study graphic design today, or art or illustration or creative writing or history, etc.

If I was going to retrain in something at age 35+ today it wouldn't be learning programming from scratch. I'd have agreed with that 5, 4, 3 years ago, start to question it 2 years ago, be on the fence a year ago. You'd probably find it hard to make it as a tradesman too.

It also really depends what your motivations are for working. Is it security, high salary, challenge, meaningfulness, the social element, etc. I only work because I have to, and granted that I have to I prioritise something that feels meaningful and is somewhat intellectually stimulating. I don't really even like being around people much, but I like that people appreciate my expertise that I've invested time to gain which changes the dynamics.

If an candidate does not have some programming skills, they will not get a job in this field, period. Some places will go to the extremes of having Live Coding Exercises (LCE) where the candidate is screen sharing and needs to create a solution in about 15 minutes. It doesn't need to be perfect or even entirely functional, but it must be 100% the candidates own work, no CrapGPT or copy pasta.



The dirty secret is that most of the tech interviewers just copy pasted examples off LeetCode. LC is where you can solve different coding problems to various difficulties as ways of sharpening codeing skills.

https://leetcode.com

For trades jobs, a $30k robot of the capability we already have will decimate jobs doing work like wiring electrical panel boards (something I did in a previous life), but will lack the dexterity and contextual understanding required to rewire an old house. Plumbing would be hard to get a robot to do. Not sure what else, but I still say understanding people and society are useful future skills to further develop. People will be depressed as *** when most things are done by AI and robots. We'll all be doing art therapy and baking to keep our sanity.

I think very few of us have stayed in one lane since the beginning, most change from one to another. I started out purely as a sysadmin who really liked to script tasks and loathed tedious repetitive work. Me automating all my work eventually led to teaching myself programming which then led to building an expertise in DevOps / automations and now sitting as a lead architect in charge of the entire middleware application stack for a large financial company.

Its why I tell everyone that their ability to learn and develop skills on their own is far more important then anything on a piece of paper.

Not that I disagree with learning skills on your own being important and what not, however I am in the middle of a career change (sales/service to cyber security) and so far I've been told that having at least *some* formal education is borderline necessary to get your foot in the door to majority of places. Now to be up front I haven't done much job searching so far, but from what I have seen most places what either a number of certificates, degree(s), or something showing you have an idea of what you're doing to be able to get the job.

To be candid I'm a bit scared of interviewing in the field of cyber security because it's so new to me and also I'm only in month 3 of the 10 month boot camp I signed up for (University of Michigan via Thrive DX). For those with experience, how is interviewing for things like cyber security? Or even IT help desk and what not? I'm kind of mentally preparing to be in a beginner role for awhile while gaining experience in order to get the higher paying gigs.

I knew someone that did their first degree in "criminal psychology", barely passed it, then failed a master's in cyber security and that ended up getting paid loads of money working in cyber security. All she did was make graphics for training events and encourage people to change their passwords regularly.

IDK how is interviewing in cybersecurity, but that field have some certifications that should give you the standard in the industry.

I would grab one or two of those CompTIA etc before trying a job. Maybe marathon some Udemy course and trying to pass the test.

We have had a small discussion as a class about CompTIA. It's definitely on my radar. I tend to grasp PC stuff in general pretty quickly, but some of this stuff I'm lost on. For instance, last nights class was about using containers versus VMs. I'm totally lost on containers lol. But, I'll learn. Lots of time to go.

It's a weird place.

For starters, most certification programs are an absolute joke. Yes even ISC(2) and all their nonsense with the CISSP. These businesses carved out their own niche by telling companies and the government that these certifications are the gold standard, then sold them at obscene costs for the test and training. Meanwhile the people who pass the tests are minimally engaged, they are all a mile wide and an inch deep. The more "technical" certification programs that teach hands on stuff tend to be highly tool focused, which the vast majority of the security space is in general. There are very few companies or people doing detailed, thorough work, a lot of it is push button / get result.

You'll get companies who really care and have customers that really care, they tend to really press on CS subjects and expect you to know things like basic operating system design, memory allocation mechanisms, compiler design, reverse engineering, navigating large source bases, etc. They are rare, in general most companies are built around tools because it scales easier and it meets the standards of companies only willing to pay a small amount so they can just check off a box. This is most of the world, for better or worse. The upside is you can make a lot of money with a very base understanding, the downside is to everyone else when that ***gets owned. The former tend to not care much about certs or can even be opposed to them (I let my CISSP, which I got VERY early on before I knew better, lapse many years ago because one of the larger employers in my small subset of the industry put notice out that they wouldn't talk to you if you were on the ISC(2) list), the latter tend to put heavy emphasis on it because they can put a bunch of letters on reports to give their results validity because they are ***results.

In the category of MOST security companies, understanding and demonstrating usage of most scanning tools is sufficient for an interview unless you come off as an *** or an idiot. Most cert programs will get you there or close but I usually suggest people have their own "lab" and play around on their own, if anything just to talk about it. In the former category, though, they tend to want you to demonstrate a stronger grasp of CS subjects that certifications won't cover, the types of things you need to branch out on your own and figure out, which most people don't have the motivation to do.

I don't know what the policy and management side does, though.


Yep. Same situation here. They guard that ***too.