> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase
Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you.
When we think "programming", we think FAANG but in the real world, there are thousands of places that need basic code slung.
> You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you.
As a lawyer who can code (years of experience as a professional software developer and years of experience as a practicing attorney) let me assure you, this is not the case. There just isn’t that much overlap, despite the common wisdom that such a thing should exist, it’s very hard to actually find.
Also, not everything outside of faang is ‘basic code’ - there’s a whole wide world out there!
I don't remember where I read this (possibly even on HN at some point), but this reminds me of an interesting idea that has stuck with me over time...
Consider two broad but otherwise generally viewed as unrelated (however, not mutually exclusive) skillsets: A and B. Lots of people are great at A and lots of people are great at B, but the intersection of the two is generally small (perhaps "law" and "programming" could be reasonably argued as examples of A and B here). There are large numbers of people employed doing A, and similarly for B, often quite successfully in both cases.
Now, there's some much smaller set of individuals who have a reasonable grasp of both skillsets A and B. Recall that they're not mutually exclusive (are any skillsets, really?), just not often seen together. It seems that this set of people would be uniquely positioned to potentially provide immense value over the perhaps small (but even more marginally serviced) field of needs where A and B intersect. The value here isn't in the individual's capability for A or B in isolation, but in what they can provide where A and B cross.
I realise the above is a big generalization and perhaps hugely oversimplified, but it's interesting to think about the different, seemingly unrelated skillsets where there may be great potential from some cross-pollination of ideas to bear new fruit. I do think that "programming" in general, perhaps in some form not as it's conventionally understood today, is becoming somewhat of a new literacy, at least to the extent that there seem to be countless existing businesses or fields of inquiry that could benefit from programmers who are also experts in their traditional domains. However, one could also come up with lots of different examples for A and B above, which may not even include programming at all.
Yeah, this was Scott who creates comics (I forget the full name). His claim is that it's easier to be in the top 80% of two things rather than the top 90% of one thing.
You mean better than 99% of the population in two things together, rather than better than 90% in one. As in it's easier to be a top 1% percent programmer-laywer because there are so few of them, than it is to be a 10% lawyer or a top 10% programmer.
Basically summarizes the nugget of advice my advisor gave me in college: if you want to be incredibly valuable, bridge two or more often disjoint in-demand skillsets. It's served me well throughout my career so far. I'm definitely not the best software engineer nor am I the best at the other fields I bridge but I often not only see the connections those more skilled on both sides often miss and new opportunities, I have enough skill in both domains to bridge them and create at least a proof-of-concept. At some point the experts in both domains take over once I build the bridge and I actively work to help build something less like a wooden bridge and something with more concrete and steel, usually with more people involved...
I think in software (and CS in general) this advice is especially valuable because software and computing is the glue that can connect and materialize ideas into something that seems tangible. It's also something that's often approachable by an individual and doesn't always require a mountain of capital to achieve.
Techcrunch called it the dual PhD problem. One example is if you understand the traditional finance, you'll have an easier time when building a DeFi application on top of Ethereum.
Absolutely, he probably would not be the right hire to squeeze an extra 0.1% of performance out of Google search, but on any team which has to understand the needs of the legal industry (plenty of these at FAANG and non-FAANG companies) he could find himself in a senior role very quickly.
Yeah no shortage of Legal Discovery startups. Plus plenty of use for a lawyer-with-tech-skills when it comes to things like intellectual property laws, or just having someone who knows how to use Legal Hold software effectively.
Isn't the 'senior role' aligned with what he said though? He'd have the industry insight to design product roadmaps and UX wire frames in a PM type role, but wouldn't touch the codebase because he's a lawyer who wrote some code a long time ago, not a lawyer who codes, and the non-lawyers his team can hire have much more experience in actual software engineering.
The silos that individual contributors perceive tend to disintegrate as you move up the chain. If you're the GM of some product at a FAANG that has exposure to the legal industry, what you often find is there are tons of great developers you can hire internally, but not many people who have expertise in that vertical and can also be dangerous around the code. If a lawyer with a CS degree and a bit of coding background wanted to cross over and join your dev org you'd probably be happy to open whatever doors they need.
> You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you.
Being able to natively express and review logic related to some legal software would be useful indeed, but honestly your team will need someone good at gathering requirements from non-technical folks either way and my guess would be that a lawyer that can vaguely code would likely be retained as an expert in the field but offered compensation like an entry-level to mid- developer by a startup.
I think that SMEs are great to have on the team, and I'd happily jump at the chance to contract with one that's got some vague coding experience as well - but I'd contract that out to pick their brains specifically on their specialty rather than try and shoe-horn them into a dev role. If I found a lawyer that had returned to development full time that's a different jazz - but you also need to keep in mind if the now-lawyer that used to be a developer actually wants to go back to full time development.
> There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space.
In my experience disrupting spaces it's easier to find software engineers that are open minded when working with other professionals. Not like, super easy, most of the SWEs I've worked with can't do it, even on embedded when working with EEs... but open minded SWEs are out there, albeit usually more expensive or with good pay and job security by working on a less-softwarey company than "Big Tech".
> ... there are thousands of places that need basic code slung.
Not just "basic code". There are thousands of companies doing just as challenging work than FAANGs do. There's innovation happening all over the place.
Of course since most Startups are using the Leetcode/FAANG style interview loop the OP probably wouldn't stand a chance of passing without months of study.
Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you.
When we think "programming", we think FAANG but in the real world, there are thousands of places that need basic code slung.