[LRUG] Claranet at looking for a full time RoR developer

Tim Cowlishaw tim at timcowlishaw.co.uk
Thu Sep 23 05:29:36 PDT 2010


I've a totally unrelated first degree also (In fact, I'd struggle to call it a 'proper' degree at all, but that's another conversation), and have been working as a web developer for 4 years or so, and got on just fine.

However, I have done approximately one year of undergraduate mathematics since then (thanks to the OU) and can say that hands down, it's been better for my software development ability than pretty much any other learning I've done, so in my opinion, formal mathematical training is definitely not without value for programmers (And I'm about to start an MSc in CS - more for intellectual stimulation than employability really, but yeah - I'm clearly not as adverse to academia as some).

I have to say, I don't quite understand why this is such a big deal for some people. When ever I've applied for jobs, I don't think I've ever been refused an interview based on the subject of my degree, despite it being listed as a requirement in many ads, and conversely, I've received CVs responding to ads from people lacking the 'required' qualifications from the ad, and have judged them on merit alone - do remember that whatever the job ad says, nothing's stopping you from applying, and your CV will be read by an actual, flesh-and-blood person who I'm pretty sure in most cases will judge you on merit.

Finally, I note that that particular ad was for an ISP, and having also worked at one in the past, I can see why they specifically might need someone with a little more academic rigour. There's a lot of tricky integration problems in that particular industry, and a solid software engineering (which admittedly is not CS or maths) might be more of a priority than at a web startup where a developers main task is shunting the contents of html forms into and out of a database. In addition, there might be cultural reasons for it - if your entire department is staffed by maths and CS PhDs, I could see that a lone self-taught gung-ho hacker might not fit in, and it might be difficult to communicate in a vocabulary that everyone there's comfortable with. The same is true in the converse situation, of course.

Seriously though, noone's stopping you from applying, or preventing you from recruiting whoever you want to, so what's the problem? Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Cheers,
Tim




On 23 Sep 2010, at 13:08, Tim Benest wrote:

> Could not agree more, in my 25 years experience of programming and running software companies, I never use recruitment agencies. The whole must have a degree thing, to a certain extent is non-sensical. Looking at someones experience and getting them to write some code at interview, is a much better indicator. This is why I find open source such a good thing as anyone with and interest in what they are going and a good brain can get the required experience.   
> 
> I only have 6 'O' Levels (Showing my age now), yet I have had to supervise guys trying to get there Doctorate's in Computer Science, who could not write merchandisable code for toffee.  
> 
> /T
> 
> On 23 September 2010 12:33, Anthony Green <Anthony.Green at bbc.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Cookie cutting recruitment process ?
> 
> I'm seeing job specs getting increasing nonsensical as ruby adoption grows.
> 
> On 23/09/2010 12:29, "Rob Lacey" <contact at robl.me> wrote:
> 
> > I do wonder why an awful lot of jobs require degrees in Computer
> > Science or related fields, before even getting your foot in the door.
> > I worked in ISP and Web Development for 12 years and I studied Music
> > Technology, and I've worked with extremely capable people who didn't
> > even go to university. So it doesn't really seem to matter.
> >
> > RobL
> 
> --
> Anthony Green
> BBC Ruby Group
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> Regards
> Tim Benest
> Taskforce Systems Ltd
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