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Cowboy Engineers in the Software Industry

posted by janrinok on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:59PM   
from the was-it-much-harder-in-my-day? dept.

shabadoo writes:

"Will software engineering always be a cowboy's game? Or is it just a case of when you're a passionate expert the pimples stand out more clearly. This guy has clearly had enough. His vents are amusing, but also raise some good points about the state of the industry."

• Re:What do you expect? (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 03 2014, @01:08PM

  by Thexalon (636) on Monday March 03 2014, @01:08PM (#10014)

  The problem in a nutshell:
  1. Bad techies are somewhere around $45K cheaper per year than good techies.
  2. When there are problems, they can easily cost more than $45K.
  3. However, just saying "hire good techies then" doesn't solve your problem, because to someone who doesn't understand technology a bad techie looks identical to a good techie.

  And, as it turns out, in many organizations the people who are responsible for hiring and supervising techies aren't techies themselves and don't understand technology. These people making hiring decisions about techies do so in roughly the same way that you probably make decisions about which auto repair shop to use: Do the results seem good enough, and are the prices in line with what I can afford? You might check the mechanic's certifications (which may or may not indicate anything), but you don't really know if you have a great car guy or a lousy wrench monkey until they screw something up.

  --
  The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.

  Parent

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