[penr0se]

Could you elaborate more on the inverse correlation between degree and skill? Do you mean that usually people who did not go to university actually went straight to work and had the chance to get more skill as opposed to people with a degree that actually started later?

[roenxi]

Simpsons paradox. People without qualifications have to be obviously competent to be hired to do a job. If someone is clueless they probably slipped in because they got certified somehow (like with a degree).

Expect a negative correlation between certification and competence (in the workplace) because the workplace only reliably excludes people who are incompetent and unqualified. So the population sampled is made up of [qualified, competent], [unqualified, competent] and [qualified, incompetent]. And anyone who isn't ready for that will get very confused when they try to work out how much value a degree adds in their pool of programmers. Or any department, really.

[penr0se]

That makes sense, but I would expect this paradox to vanish (or at least get weaker) as you go higher in the hierarchy of technical positions (i.e. from junior to lead, to senior, to principal etc.). I would expect the workplace to somehow naturally get rid of the incompetent people, so that after a certain point you're only left with [qualified, competent] and [unqualified, competent]

[toast0]

One of the best ways to get rid of someone is to recommend them highly to an open position somewhere else. Sometimes a higher level position, or management.

[thomastjeffery]

When a software engineer gets promoted to a senior role, their responsibility changes to impact a broader timescale. It's entirely possible that promotion is the very thing that masks their incompetence.

For example, a junior developer is expected to manage implementation details, while a senior developer is expected to manage business logic. Incompetently designed business logic is noticed later, and can often be blamed on trivial implementation failure.

[oasisaimlessly]

See also: The Peter principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle