[throwawaaarrgh]

In the past year, I have worked with people making six figures in technical positions that know as much about computers as my grandmother. And I'm not exaggerating (and she's no Grace Hopper). Like, doesn't understand the basics of how a computer works, much less an operating system (and I don't mean the kernel, I mean like, what a shell is, how programs are executed, environment variables, file permissions, devices, local networking, local storage, symbolic links, user accounts, etc).

There is a sea of candidates who are both insanely ill-equipped, yet pass interviews regularly. I believe the competent candidate pool was probably exhausted 5 years ago, and businesses just kept hiring clueless people because they felt they had no choice. They aren't given enough user support and no training at all. As a result, employees are much less productive, struggling to do basic computing tasks when they were hired as technical people. And yet are payed vast sums by companies with more money than sense.

[socialismisok]

Can they do the job they were hired for? Because if someone has a good attitude, can write good enough code, and is willing to learn I can quickly teach them the Linux basics.

Like, if someone doesn't know how to chmod or how to set up a .zshrc, I can get them up and running in an afternoon.

These folks aren't clueless, they've just learned at a higher level of abstraction then you did. That's fine.

[everforward]

I've worked places like that, and the issues are really threefold:

1) There is often a substantial depth of knowledge missing. E.g. it's not that they don't know how chmod works, it's that they don't understand conceptual models of filesystem permissions and the implications of having overly broad permissions.

2) The problem is often pervasive, where it isn't a single person that doesn't understand, it's a substantial (but non-majority) portion of the workforce.

3) Employees often only stay in their role for a year or two, creating a revolving door of people who don't understand X or Y.

> Can they do the job they were hired for?

It often depends on your definition of "doing the job". "chmod -R 777" will fix whatever issue is blocking the code from working, but is bad. And then someone else will use those permissions to build on top of that application, and it can spiral into a situation where it's incredibly hard to fix the bad permissions because of an unclear web of dependencies.

The app works, but the architecture is fubar.

[throwawaaarrgh]

Would you hire a lawyer that can't tie his shoes?

[socialismisok]

Your example is poor, because most 8 year olds don't know how local networking works, but do know how shoes work.

But I'll engage with the questions intent. Would you hire a lawyer who doesn't know all the skills of their trade yet, because they are just entering the workforce? Does it impact his ability to practice law? Are they interested in learning but never had the opportunity? Sure, assuming I had something very straightforward I needed them for.

Heck, a lot of places offer discounts or free legal support based entirely on this premise - having an issue as a tenant? Go ask a young lawyer who is volunteering their time and is missing some skills, but knows the basics of landlord tenant laws.

[filoleg]

Let me correct their example to make it more on topic and relevant to the problem.

Would you hire a lawyer who cannot use a computer (so no email, digital records, etc) and communucates exclusively through fax machines?

Mind you, they can claim to be a good lawyer otherwise, since none of those things directly contradict their claim of good lawyer skills. But something tells me that if they don't use digital record-keeping and can't utilize PACER, I will have my doubts in their practical usefulness.

[socialismisok]

If they are willing to learn, and I need a cheap, entry level lawyer, why not?

Show up at office, get paperwork for a lease or a will, pay the lawyer, and move on.

An entry level engineer who doesn't know Linux is fine. An entry level lawyer who doesn't know pacer is fine. You just have to train them and only give them work they can handle with their skill set.

Some of the strongest engineers who walked through my teams started with no practical Linux knowledge, but they had a can do attitude. Give me the inexperienced but driven engineer over the experienced but unmoving engineer 10 out of 10 times.

[filoleg]

> If they are willing to learn, and I need a cheap, entry level lawyer, why not?

I am all for letting people to learn on the job. But I, personally, would rather not risk it, knowing that the difference between them "learning as they go" and already knowing it might end up making the difference between me walking free and ending up in jail.

If it was something more trivial and with much lower stakes, like a traffic violation ticket, then sure, I wouldn't be so opposed to a lawyer that is figuring things out as they go.

Also, I think you might've missed the point of my original comment. It is one thing when a lawyer might not know something due to still learning their stuff, and another one when it is clear that they arent willing/planning to do so. If someone still uses fax as their primary mode of communication and refuses to use computers altogether in 2022, I have a feeling that it isn't due to them still trying to get the hang of it.

[throwawaaarrgh]

"You just have to train them"

I have never worked anywhere where engineers got basic training. They were just expected to perform, and so they would perform poorly, because they lacked so much basic knowledge. There's such inconsistency and such little understanding that they often confuse each other and waste each other's time trying to figure out simple things.

That's the bulk of the entire industry now.

[noodle]

I don't think the first paragraph and the second paragraph necessarily flow into one another. I've worked with a lot of people in tech that are very proficient at their jobs that have no clue about "basic" computing stuff like local networking, symlinks, chmod, user accounts, etc.. Because they don't need to be. And they're definitely worth the 6 figures they're paid.

[chasd00]

you know how there's that mythical 10x developer? what we really need is 10x HR. People who find and hire qualified workers 10x better than typical HR departments.

[kerblang]

This is mostly true, but I think you're blaming HR for tech teams' own inability to run job interviews effectively. HR might be able to add an X or two, but the tech teams themselves have a 10x gap waiting to be exploited by innovative approaches.