Can I rephrase this as "you can get experience without any experience"? Certainly, there's stuff you can learn that's adjacent to doing the thing; that's what happens when juniors graduate with CS degrees. But the lack of doing the thing is what makes them juniors.
How much time will someone realistically dedicate to this if they need to have a separate day job? How good will they get without mentors? How much complexity will they really need to manage without the bureaucracy of an organization?
Are senior software engineers of the future going to be waiting tables along side actors for the first 10+ years of their adult life, working on side projects on nights and weekends, hoping to one day jump straight to a senior position in a large company?
The questions I instinctively ask myself when looking at a new problem, having worked in an enterprise environment for 20 years, are much different than what I’d be asking having just worked on personal projects. Most of the technology I’ve had access to isn’t something a solo hobbyist dev will ever touch. Most of the questions I’m asking are influenced by having that access, along with some of the personalities I’ve had to deal with.
How will people get that kind of experience?
There is also the big issue of people not knowing what to build. When a person gets a job, they no long need to come up with their own ideas. Or they generate ideas based on the needs of the environment they’re in. In the context of my job, I have no shortage of ideas. For solo projects, I often draw a blank. The world doesn’t need a hundred more todo apps.
Can I rephrase this as "you can get experience without any experience"? Certainly, there's stuff you can learn that's adjacent to doing the thing; that's what happens when juniors graduate with CS degrees. But the lack of doing the thing is what makes them juniors.
>that's what happens when juniors graduate with CS degrees
A CS degree is going to give you much less experience than building projects and businesses yourself.
How much time will someone realistically dedicate to this if they need to have a separate day job? How good will they get without mentors? How much complexity will they really need to manage without the bureaucracy of an organization?
Are senior software engineers of the future going to be waiting tables along side actors for the first 10+ years of their adult life, working on side projects on nights and weekends, hoping to one day jump straight to a senior position in a large company?
The questions I instinctively ask myself when looking at a new problem, having worked in an enterprise environment for 20 years, are much different than what I’d be asking having just worked on personal projects. Most of the technology I’ve had access to isn’t something a solo hobbyist dev will ever touch. Most of the questions I’m asking are influenced by having that access, along with some of the personalities I’ve had to deal with.
How will people get that kind of experience?
There is also the big issue of people not knowing what to build. When a person gets a job, they no long need to come up with their own ideas. Or they generate ideas based on the needs of the environment they’re in. In the context of my job, I have no shortage of ideas. For solo projects, I often draw a blank. The world doesn’t need a hundred more todo apps.
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