I finally got one of the papers I'm proud of published! It was in review at a major journal for over a year, and then was soft-rejected for being too specialized (nice comments from referees though). Then it went to another journal, and was most of the way through the review process when the entire board quit to start an open-access journal. So we withdrew the paper and submitted to the open-access journal. They finally accepted with revisions last fall, and so I think it'll get published soon. Only three years from start to finish, where "start" refers to posting the finished paper to the arXiv!

Every job application process has its own kinds of luck and failure modes. The time scales of academia lead to very different distortions than those in software engineering.

Congratulations! A three-year ride is a outlier. I hope your arXiv version got some citations to keep you going emotionally and professionally in the meantime :)

It's quite absurd to suggest either that (i) the review process is entirely fair or (ii) that it is possible to land an academic position merely by publishing papers. (If so, where are all the professors without PhDs these days?) I don't claim that the process by which hiring decisions are made in academia is notably unfair by the standards of life in general or in comparison to many other career paths. But when talking to another (ex) academic, you must know that you can't get away with those kinds of simplifications.

I don't understand your rhetorical questions. Clearly, yes, conferences choose bad speakers sometimes.

I didn't suggest either of those two points, which I agree are absurd.

I readily agree these selection processes are not perfect, and institutional nepotism in particular is an issue in academia.

>The equivalent to acing a code interview for an academic is submitting a terrific paper.

You can get a coding job just by acing a coding interview (and having basic social/professional skills). So this part of your comment did appear to suggest that merely publishing papers can be sufficient to obtain an academic position.

You have to be invited to interview before you can ace it. So you probably have either a relevant degree or experience before you get in the room.

It's very much possible to get a coding interview without either of these things.

I've hired many people and interviewed many more.

What possible reason would I have to interview someone if they had neither relevant experience, nor a degree? Should I just ask random people I see on the street to come in for an interview?

If they can write a good covering email, have a few github repos, and some other indications that they might be smart/capable. I know from experience that it is easy to get interviews on that basis.

If you're talking about people who have no experience in the sense that they've never written a line of code, then no, obviously not. But professional experience and relevant qualifications are not necessary.

As with any job application, you need to have something going for you. It just doesn't have to be any of those two things.

No, you ask random people on LinkedIn like every recruiter does.

I used the word 'probably' on purpose.

Ehh, I guess, but lacking relevant qualifications and experience doesn't even make it difficult to get a coding interview. It is no doubt the case that most people being interviewed have relevant qualifications and experience, but that's not because there's all that much of a barrier to people who don't. There is certainly far less of a barrier than there is in academia.