Excerpts from Shauna Gordon-McKeon's message of 2016-02-28 20:01:06 +0100: > > i am sorry, but if you want to work as a programmer, you have to learn > > programming some time. if you can do it at your current work, then good for > > you, but if you can't, how do you expect to pick up the skills i need from > > you? > > I find it tremendously sad that the idea of providing training for entry > level employees is so unthinkable to you.
why should i pay you to learn programming, when there are plenty of opportunities for you to learn it in school. i don't expect students to hit the ground running, there is still plenty to learn and experience to be made. but i do expect not to have to teach you the basics. especially with programming, this is a very specific kind of work that you have to enjoy to do well. i can't afford to pay you to figure out whether you will be enjoying this or not. compare this with system administration. while there are classes that teach you, they are not common. so training on the job is my best option. but then you don't need to have completed a sysadmin training in order to tell, whether you'll enjoy that work. tinkering with your own computer, and general technical aptitude are enough. with programming you need to have learned a programming language and written a few programs (even just toy ones) before you know if that work is for you. when i hire you as a programmer, i need you to be able to read and write code. i don't need you to have much experience at it, but i don't have the time to teach you basic programming either. nor am i going to pay you to go to school. same as when i hire you as a driver. i won't pay you to get a drivers license, i expect you to have one when you start. even if you just got it last week. this is of course a question of the market. if hiring candidates are so hotly contested that the only chance i have to get anyone is by paying for their training, then i'll have to do that. but then everyone has to do that too, and it would be an even playing field. paying for someones training when noone else does, means it will take so much longer before my business is profitable. for a small company, i just can't take that risk. > I don't think anyone's arguing that FOSS contributions aren't a way to get > your foot in the door. They are. What I'm arguing is that they shouldn't > be. i don't see how we can fix this. in hiring, my goal is to find the most experienced person that i can afford. so having any kind of experience will always trump having no experience. as a small company i simply can not afford to invest a lot of money into training someone. maybe i can do it when the company has grown to a few hundred people. incidently, last year i hired someone for a project where i needed linux testing experience. she had just the experience i needed, and did her work very well. so well that i decided to keep her on and see if she can learn new things and do them just as well. and it works, in that whatever she learns, she can do. except for programming. not that she can't learn, but there is just to much to learn before you can be productive. it simply takes time. and that time is starting to hurt my bottom line. i want to keep her on longer, but as time passes, the risk grows that she will take her experience to get a better job before i can reap the benefits from her training. i just can't afford that. especially not on something that everyone else goes to school for. greetings, martin. -- eKita - the online platform for your entire academic life -- chief engineer eKita.co pike programmer pike.lysator.liu.se caudium.net societyserver.org secretary beijinglug.org mentor fossasia.org foresight developer foresightlinux.org realss.com unix sysadmin Martin Bähr working in china http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
