Comment by bpodgursky

9 hours ago

How is it hand waving? It's literally true a large corporation can fire a customer support agent while sponsoring a software engineer, it is not interchangeable talent

13 comments

bpodgursky

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dec0dedab0de  8 hours ago

If we had a union we would be training people from customer support to engineer.

I truly believe that software would be improved immensely if all developers spent a few years doing tech support for the elderly.

  • JumpCrisscross  8 hours ago

    > If we had a union we would be training people from customer support to engineer

    This, to my knowledge, very rarely works.

    > software would be improved immensely if all developers spent a few years doing tech support for the elderly

    This, on the other hand, absolutely does.

    • simonw  8 hours ago

      I've worked with several excellent people in my career who progressed from customer support to QA to QA engineer to software engineer.

      It's not common though, and I don't think it's a case of "training". Some people have the drive to figure that path out, and those people should be encouraged and supported.

      1 reply →

  • bpodgursky  8 hours ago

    I'm sorry but this is just absurd. Not everyone has the same aptitude for every job. For a company or country to function you have to acknowledge this and put people in jobs suited to their natural talents.

tracerbulletx  8 hours ago

I doubt that's the argument they're making. They're saying they are laying of a software engineer in one org, and hiring another software engineer in a different org. Not cross functional roles.

eastbound  8 hours ago

Talent can be trained, less across jobs (although it's often what public services ask to entrepreneurs in some European countries), much more across departments.