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A comment on We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring. Parent comment

Re:We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline proble... by Spooky23 on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @09:59AM (#21702680)
I don't think that a computer science degree is bad, just that it's a poor filter. I have one, and while the math background is critical for many things, honestly the skills learned there are pretty limited in terms of what I've do.

If you have a background in any science, or even a good analysis ability in a liberal arts field, you can be trained pretty quickly to be a functional developer. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more given the absurd salaries people are getting paid these days!

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Re:We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline proble... by jki275 on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @11:28AM (#21703574)
Lots of people can be "trained" to be functional developers. That doesn't make them good software engineers.

A CS degree is supposed to educate you in how to think, not train you to write software. Being able to properly decompose a problem and use the right data structures and algorithms to solve it is more than just training. You need education in the fundamentals to do that effectively.

I don't believe that it is impossible for someone without a CS degree to be a developer -- far from it -- but in my experience most of the really good ones have CS or CE or EE degrees. YMMV of course.

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