[sfashset]

I have a lot of troubling squaring your statement

> Instead of a high-stakes and all-too-often arbitrary interview every single time you want to change jobs, you could prove your basic competence to practice through an exam, and elect to fulfill your continuing education requirements however makes sense for you, within a framework decided upon by workers themselves.

with how the barriers to medicine/law actually work. A single Amazon interview is not particularly high-stakes - if you bomb it you have a dozen+ companies that can offer similiar comp, and you can always re-interview after a year.

If you bomb the LSAT, or the MCAT, or STEP 1, you will effectively be branded for life. All your future applications to school/residency will include this information. How is emulating that going to get us closer to your stated goals?

[bwestergard]

> If you bomb the LSAT, or the MCAT, or STEP 1, you will effectively be branded for life.

I don't think this is true. I've heard anecdotally of people bombing the LSAT/MCAT, retaking, and entering elite universities.

But in any case, the analogy is not with exams to _enter_ post-secondary school training, but with exams to certify vocational skills _after_ such training and/or real world experience (e.g the bar exam, the F.E./P.E. in engineering, "masterpiece" evaluations in the skilled trades).

Private enterprises like TripleByte/codility try to perform a certification function of the kind I want to see workers handle through their unions. In fact, it might make sense for a union to simply contract with TripleByte/leetcode/codility to implement examinations. TripleByte has no real incentive to make its examinations a single-shot affair. Why would a worker controlled equivalent have such an incentive? There might even be a perverse incentive to encourage people to take the exam multiple times (as, for instance, the College Board does) that would have to be guarded against.

[stevegalla]

> exams to certify vocational skills _after_ such training and/or real world experience (e.g the bar exam, the F.E./P.E. in engineering, "masterpiece" evaluations in the skilled trades).

I think what needs to be considered with this is three things:

1. Tiered credentialing & scope of credentials

2. On-boarding / grand-parenting those who are already practicing

3. Studies on what interviewing in non-software related technical fields looks like. I see lots of anecdotes (probably data now) on what software interviewing is like, but mech / civil / elec, actuary, etc. interviewing isn’t something I’ve seen discussed as openly.

I hope I’m not misrepresenting or coming across as negative here or in what follows.

- - -

1. The F.E. and P.E. exams seem to be aimed at people with engineering degrees, so it’s the interaction of both education and practical experience being certified.

For the F.E. exams from [1], “It is designed for recent graduates and students who are close to finishing an undergraduate engineering degree from an EAC/ABET-accredited program.”

For the P.E. exam from [2], “It is designed for engineers who have gained a minimum of four years’ post-college work experience in their chosen engineering discipline.”

Even after passing those exams, there is still annual education and training requirements to maintain certification. Yes, it’s not nearly as rigorous as whiteboard coding that people are currently subjected to, but it’s not a one time activity either.

In both cases there is emphasis on college.

I’m Canadian and it’s pretty similar for P.Eng. There are some exceptions, but they do require a college education.

This leads to tiered credentialing in the Canadian system. There are:

- technicians (1 year education) - technologists (2 years of education) - engineers (4+ years of education)

There is a defined scope of work for each of these professionals. To move up the tier requires education, exams, and apprenticeship. To switch between specialties, I’m not sure if it’s possible.

Not everyone in the engineering profession needs to be an engineer. It is entirely okay to have tiers. However, tiers become very restrictive and could be perceived as gatekeeping, among other things.

2. I think there will have to be a dividing line of some sort to keep those who have valuable experience without an CS education in the field.

Something like: All people who can prove work experience and practical experience are under this one assessment and credentialing method. All others after follow a different credential evaluation method. Or the tiers allow math, physics, self-taught, etc. to be credentialed as such.

3. Technologist interview anecdote. When I was interviewing as a manufacturing engineering technologist the assessment has been:

- read a shop drawing and tell me what these symbols mean

- jump on a computer and start producing a 3D model in the software used by the company. Produce a 2d shop drawing from that model

- explain how you would come up with an inspection plan to show the product has been manufactured correctly

- solve statistics problems. Set up a control chart. Interpret what the points mean and explain the next steps. Design an experiment. Tell me the hypotheses, tell me how you would calculate sample size, how do you know that’s a good sample size?

- go on the shop floor be handed an inspection sheet and inspection tools. Check if this part conforms to standard

- whiteboard ladder logic for PLC

- handed some print outs of CNC code and asked to explain what the lines meant

Those are technical questions I’ve been asked in a series of interviews for manufacturing technologist jobs. It’s not one 8 hour day of interviews like some tech companies. It’s usually 2-3 sessions x 2-4 hours each session. That line of technical questioning is not a substitute for education. It’s on top of having education and certification in the field.

My point is I don’t think software is unique in asking technical questions. I just think it’s not as widely publicized in other fields.

[1] https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/

[2] https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/