Why is LeetCode a symptom of a lack of continuous certification or changing toolsets? I ask because LC is about neither of those things. I agree LC is a symptom of something but I think it’s something else. I also don’t think ad driven software has inflated salaries, there are many, many more software companies than ad based ones, it even only compromises at most half of FANG, which is hardly the only game in software. For defense and medical, these are places where software is not tertiary concerns.

Well, take the macro position.

If you didnt have degree requirements and certification bodies for:

* accountants

* engineers

* doctors

* lawyers

What do you think hiring might look like?

Do you think they would build a hiring process to validate to the best of their ability your aptitude of the core fundamentals- except worse than certification and education bodies?

I would presume so at least.

Having spent quite a bit of time around a couple of those groups, I find most of those degree requirements and certifications as just ways to increase salaries, more than ways to increase quality. Many people pass state bars and are incompetent. Lawyers that go through residency get lazy and kill patients, and they aren't magically superior to someone that isn't allowed to work in, say, the US, because their medical training was done the wrong country.

Realistically, licensing boards are there to protect their members, and rarely do political things against people in the same body with unpopular opinions. You have to be catastrophic for most boards to do anything about you: Just like a police union will defend a union member that has committed gross negligence unless the evidence is public.

When you hire a doctor for something actually important, you don't look at the certification body: You look at long term reputation, which you also do in software. Only the largest of employers will leetcode everyone as a layer of fairness. In smaller employers, direct, personal references replace everything, which is what I'd go with if I needed an oncologist for a very specific kind of cancer. The baseline of aptitude from the certification body doesn't matter there at all.

> Many people pass state bars and are incompetent. Lawyers that go through residency get lazy and kill patients, and they aren't magically superior to someone that isn't allowed to work in, say, the US, because their medical training was done the wrong country.

So we need the barrier to entry to be even lower for such professions that deal with life-changing outcomes? I don't think so. In such high risk fields: "long term reputation" is totally dependent on hiring extremely qualified individuals.

The barrier to entry MUST be continuously raised with the bare minimum requirement of a degree. Only then the secondary requirements can be considered.

> When you hire a doctor for something actually important, you don't look at the certification body: You look at long term reputation, which you also do in software.

I don't think you can compare the two. Since one deals with high risk to the patient such as life and death and the other in most does not. (Unless the software being written deals with safety critical systems in a heavily regulated setting.)

From what you are saying, maybe you would be OK consulting a surgeon or an oncologist that has never gone to medical school.

What makes you think certifications can’t be gamed? Brain dumps have been a thing since at least 2008 and just like you can have a dozen AWS certifications, it tells you nothing about whether they could actually be productive in the real world.

Have you ever done any of the various IT certs?

Do you think gaming is a very big problem with accountants, doctors, lawyers, and professional engineers?

Doctors and lawyers specializes. Are you going to have specialized non gameable certifications for all the different facets of software development?

Doctors also go to school for 8 years and then do residencies. Lawyers go to school for 7. Are you proposing that?

I'm just pointing out that certifications don't have to be meaningless. If somebody wants to use the title "Software Engineer", then perhaps we should require them to be actual professional licensed engineers.

There is a bit of a difference between other professions and software. You wouldn’t hire an orthopedic surgeon for cardiology. Now, the human body doesn’t change that fast. So both are needed. In software the rate of change is much faster. So what happens is tools change and people who want to switch streams for better opportunity have to tweak resumes. Now the only way to validate basic proficiency comes down to leetcode style interviews - for better or worse. It’s pretty much the only common denominator between an interviewer and the candidate.

Software may be important in defense and medical but I don't think this is reflected in how software engineering is done or how software engineers work in those industries.