I don’t want to jeopardize my (public, state) university’s ABET accreditation but it was an open secret that the comp sci department just waved people through. My own experience supported this- any assignments that involved writing code (beyond introductory programming courses) were group projects, and I was one of very few who could write code- so after a couple of semesters everyone knew who to form groups around. All the groups had one (maybe two) people who could actually code. Most of my graduating class did not go on to be software engineers. They are mostly in the tech field, but as project managers, software sales, that sort of thing. One ended up at Boeing for a time as a software engineer- he was actually in my group for one of the classes and wrote, to this day (11 YoE) the worst code I’ve ever seen. That he was allowed to write code for Boeing proves to me that all the allegations about Boeing QA are true. That they decided he was competent enough totally explains why their MCAS software caused two of their planes to nose-dive into the ground.
I would hate to think that I can’t find a job because all of these dead-weight engineers are occupying seats at companies who might otherwise hire me. I feel like it’s more likely that the dead weight let go from FAANG realized they have to actually do work now, and take their new roles “seriously enough.”
Nevermind the MCAS, the doors flying off of airplanes shows that it's not just software, and that no quality disaster is really big enough by itself to create some renaissance of interest in engineering excellence. Clearly Google was absolutely never going to fix declining search quality until finally ChatGPT came along and pushed them towards doing it and despite that Anthropic may very well still win the AI race.
It's easy to look at this type of thing and moan that the MBAs finally won, or start talking about antitrust enforcement and too-big-to-fail. There's some truth to that but it fundamentally seems like a bigger shift where the social contract is broken almost everywhere and cooperation itself is just on the decline. Things are increasingly adversarial between corporations and labor, corporations and consumers, governments and citizens, governments and corporations, and the list goes on.
There's so much we can learn from history, but that takes time and we're a very apathetic and comfortable civilization now.
I think it's important and worthwhile, though. It will give you an edge over everyone else if you "know" what is going to happen- history repeats itself, in part because so few bother to learn it and learn from it.
It was only this month that I finally learned that the American Civil War was about BOTH states' rights and slavery. To some reading this (this is a particularly-learned forum after all), you may think "duh - it was about states' rights to own slaves"- but that wasn't how it was taught to me in my public, Florida high school. We weren't taught that the North was just as racist as the South, and that the ONLY reason they didn't have slaves in the North was that their economy was better-off without it. We weren't taught that Lincoln's main problem with the South seceding was simply that it was illegal- literally not allowed by the Constitution. It only became a fight over "slavery" when the Union Army was getting its ass kicked and Lincoln was forced to "free all slaves" so that some would join the Union Army to fight (this was also to gain support on the global stage and make it less likely for other countries to trade with and otherwise support the Confederacy).
The Confederacy decided to secede because they believed that slavery was going to become illegal at the federal level "at some point"- there was not a formal plan to do so at the federal level at the time.
This segue came about because I was seeing memes on Facebook about the Union beating the Confederates "a second time" if the current political trend continues. These people think they're on the right side of history by identifying with the Union but that's not really the case. I mean heck the Civil Rights Movement wasn't for another 100 years following Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
All that to say- history implies there's another revolution on the horizon where, once again, we have to put the 1% in their place.
Most of my classmates were white, so I doubt they were there for immigration reasons. This was also undergrad. Is an M.S. an automatic ticket to permanent U.S. residency?
What I saw in school was a lot of foreign masters in CS students with zero experience with coding and often with very little interest in learning. Big cheating issues. The school liked it because they were paying full price, and IIRC the students liked it because they got residency while studying and they could turn that into work permits and longer term status by getting a job after graduating. Definitely not an automatic ticket, but a relatively low barrier way to enter, assuming you have money.
There were plenty of local masters students as well, but it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to do masters in CS at the time, not a lot of value there beyond undergrad unless you were on your way to PhD or maybe decided to study CS after completing some other undergrad discipline.
Sounds like one heck of a loophole for those individuals, propped up by the institutions themselves (as usual). It reminds me of all the loopholes with the H-1B visas- for example, employers can get around both the "you need to hire U.S. citizens ahead of H-1B visa-holders" and the "you need to pay H-1B employees the same as U.S. citizens" stipulations?
That said, I have personally only known Asian SWEs whom I worked with in person to be very talented and hardworking, perhaps to a fault. Definitely to the detriment of their health and time with their families.
I don't doubt there remains a significant number of "0.1x devs" that are somehow still employed despite everything, and it's a shame because that heavily implies there are a significant number of unemployed "10x" or "1x" devs who can't find a job- so, again, as always, the institutions are supporting the status quo (in this case, by not really giving a fuck if they have quality talent working for them).
I would hate to think that I can’t find a job because all of these dead-weight engineers are occupying seats at companies who might otherwise hire me. I feel like it’s more likely that the dead weight let go from FAANG realized they have to actually do work now, and take their new roles “seriously enough.”