Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

[Hamster]

The reason why I brought the certificate part up is because it is apparently used to measure/assess whether you are a master or not when at an interview.

They do? Never got asked for one before. Only thing "certificates", as you call them, counts for in my opinion is the company getting a bigger discount from Microsoft or Oracle because they have x amount of Java/.NET certified professionals working for or them and are now considered gold or diamond partners.

In fact, we had a guy who was a fully certified Java professional (passes all those exams) but has never written any real Java before in his life. He knows how to study.

 

[rward]

They do? Never got asked for one before. Only thing "certificates", as you call them, counts for in my opinion is the company getting a bigger discount from Microsoft or Oracle because they have x amount of Java/.NET certified professionals working for or them and are now considered gold or diamond partners.

In fact, we had a guy who was a fully certified Java professional (passes all those exams) but has never written any real Java before in his life. He knows how to study.

I have a couple of Oracle certificates that I got for sitting in a class room listening to a guy read from the book for 4 days.
I got free lunch too, it was great.

I asked him something easy but not covered by the book and got the 'we don't have time to go into that now, tomorrow morning we can' answer, which means 'that's not in the book,I need to Google it and find out what you're talking about'.

So yeah, certificates don't mean much to me either..

 

[battletoad]

I think this conversation lacks one thing: the "true" definition of a master. Everyone here has their own idea of what exactly a "master" constitutes... add to that, I'm pretty sure its not homogeneous at all.

However we define this standard...

Camikaze's point: supposing you know plenty of things, there is a perception that you are a master of none. Nevermind whether your capabilities allow you to complete any conceivable project thrown your way on time, satisfactorily or [insert any good dev practice here]. I suppose your status as a "master" depends on your experience + your capabilities in relation to other developers in your team (subject to completing projects, of course). Yes, its quite possible that the latter could be low-hanging fruit, but then do yourself a favour by finding challenging problems or communicate with similarly capable people.

Flip side: spending time learning other technologies robs you of specialising in one (obvious). However, in this case I believe the need for you to specialise to attain this mythical "master" status relies in part on your potential, assuming it could be achieved at all.

As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't care less whether I'm perceived to be a master or not. What matters right now is whether my applications can provide a worthwhile experience to tens of thousands of users at any given time. Once that box is ticked, optimise until they can do that for hundreds of thousands, even though they'd never see that traffic. Why? Because.

 

[ChocolateBadger]

[video=youtube;7xH7eGFuSYI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xH7eGFuSYI[/video]

 

[battletoad]

I would rather use a specialist for a particular task if its their strength, than someone who can do everything at sub-par.

I'm sure everyone would agree with you. But I seriously doubt you'll only ever have those two options.

I think it boils down to be a master problem solver and solutions provider using technology, not being a "master API builder" or "UX specialist" or "database savant".

Personally, I feel the same. I prefer problem solving and providing their subsequent solutions/blueprints, as opposed to getting into the guts of any particular aspect. This is in no way saying that focusing on the disparate systems which complete the solution is useless... I see them on more on the tuning side of things (although via feedback they could alter the original blueprint).

The crux of your argument seems to be that you have never encountered a truly difficult problem, so you assume they don't exist.

I'm just wondering... do you personally find truly difficult problems to be moving targets? i.e, truly difficult problem A pales in comparison to truly difficult B, therefore A is truly difficult no more.

 

[cguy]

I think this conversation lacks one thing: the "true" definition of a master. Everyone here has their own idea of what exactly a "master" constitutes... add to that, I'm pretty sure its not homogeneous at all.

Of course there's a standard, it's when you begin to glow (see earlier video).

 

[cguy]

I'm just wondering... do you personally find truly difficult problems to be moving targets? i.e, truly difficult problem A pales in comparison to truly difficult B, therefore A is truly difficult no more.

No, I try to avoid that trap. I've seen many a grad student avoid submitting their work, since despite years of battling with a problem, once they understand it, they see it as easy, and therefore not worthy of publication. So to be clear, I may no longer find problem A (or similar) difficult to solve, but I still consider it to be a difficult problem, because I am cognizant of the path taken to solve it. Problem B may now be more difficult for me, but I may not consider it to be the more difficult problem, since the path taken to solve it appears to be simpler. Essentially, in this context, it makes sense to consider difficulty subjectively, both from the perspective of those have solved difficult issues in the field, and also from the perspective of those who haven't.

Like master, "truly difficult" doesn't have a standard definition. Personally, I consider difficult problems to be those that would take a smart person with baseline education (say, a bachelors degree) and baseline experience (say 5 years), years of high quality effort to solve. The "solving" process here would typically be research and familiarization with the right academic tools, as well as gaining enough of the right experience to finally achieve the necessary skills and insight to produce bleeding edge solutions. Of course, future work in this area would be easier now that the person has the relevant background - whether one considers someone with this education and experience as a master or someone in the 95th percentile of this group to be a master is arbitrary to me, since the term is nebulous at best, however, I do believe that the term implies a rare level of skill and the ability to now do something that the majority find difficult (and will for the foreseeable future).

This idea that "everyone in this world has an example of how difficult their job can be", so they are basically the same, is an utterly inane concept.

 

[battletoad]

Of course there's a standard, it's when you begin to glow (see earlier video).

:crylaugh: i guess when the universe itself deems you a master we all have to follow suit!

No, I try to avoid that trap. I've seen many a grad student avoid submitting their work, since despite years of battling with a problem, once they understand it, they see it as easy, and therefore not worthy of publication. So to be clear, I may no longer find problem A (or similar) difficult to solve, but I still consider it to be a difficult problem, because I am cognizant of the path taken to solve it. Problem B may now be more difficult for me, but I may not consider it to be the more difficult problem, since the path taken to solve it appears to be simpler. Essentially, in this context, it makes sense to consider difficulty subjectively, both from the perspective of those have solved difficult issues in the field, and also from the perspective of those who haven't.

makes sense. there are towers of infinities (difficulties) that build on top of each other, and sometimes there are infinities that are... different (incomparable). They're still infinities nonetheless.

As for the grad students, maybe there's a bit of dunning-kruger going into that? they research and come to understand a fraction of the literature, and in comparison to the true geniuses of the field (the very same people who wrote the literature), they feel their contributions inconsequential. Its a bit sad I guess to believe your initial contributions to be inconsequential since they're the basis for everything else you're to do, but I'm not sure if that matters at the end of the day, provided you come out sane on the other side of course (I've seen quite a few basket cases)

Like master, "truly difficult" doesn't have a standard definition. Personally, I consider difficult problems to be those that would take a smart person with baseline education (say, a bachelors degree) and baseline experience (say 5 years), years of high quality effort to solve. The "solving" process here would typically be research and familiarization with the right academic tools, as well as gaining enough of the right experience to finally achieve the necessary skills and insight to produce bleeding edge solutions. Of course, future work in this area would be easier now that the person has the relevant background - whether one considers someone with this education and experience as a master or someone in the 95th percentile of this group to be a master is arbitrary to me, since the term is nebulous at best, however, I do believe that the term implies a rare level of skill and the ability to now do something that the majority find difficult (and will for the foreseeable future).

a fair stab at a definition that anyone would be happy with

This idea that "everyone in this world has an example of how difficult their job can be", so they are basically the same, is an utterly inane concept.

true

 

[cguy]

makes sense. there are towers of infinities (difficulties) that build on top of each other, and sometimes there are infinities that are... different (incomparable). They're still infinities nonetheless.

The nomenclature that you've been using makes me think that you are aware of countable vs. non-countable infinities.

As for the grad students, maybe there's a bit of dunning-kruger going into that? they research and come to understand a fraction of the literature, and in comparison to the true geniuses of the field (the very same people who wrote the literature), they feel their contributions inconsequential. Its a bit sad I guess to believe your initial contributions to be inconsequential since they're the basis for everything else you're to do, but I'm not sure if that matters at the end of the day, provided you come out sane on the other side of course (I've seen quite a few basket cases)

Yes, I definitely think it is a form of Dunning-Kruger. Some of the guys who where among the top of my honours class struggled with their masters and/or doctoral theses for years (many eventually gave up), because their personal valuation of their work diminished as they wrote up their thesis, and they lacked the ability to put themselves back in their "when-I-started" shoes, before they had done a couple man-years of research to figure out how to solve their particular problem.

Something that I think also plays a part is a type of perfectionist psychology, where they want their thesis to be some great piece of ground breaking research (obviously, it still has to be high quality, novel and publishable), but they lose sight that they still have a whole career ahead of them and that their magnum opus can wait.

 

[battletoad]

The nomenclature that you've been using makes me think that you are aware of countable vs. non-countable infinities.

I blame Lang's Algebra. it put me to bed nearly every night for an entire year

Yes, I definitely think it is a form of Dunning-Kruger. Some of the guys who where among the top of my honours class struggled with their masters and/or doctoral theses for years (many eventually gave up), because their personal valuation of their work diminished as they wrote up their thesis, and they lacked the ability to put themselves back in their "when-I-started" shoes, before they had done a couple man-years of research to figure out how to solve their particular problem.

Something that I think also plays a part is a type of perfectionist psychology, where they want their thesis to be some great piece of ground breaking research (obviously, it still has to be high quality, novel and publishable), but they lose sight that they still have a whole career ahead of them and that their magnum opus can wait.

I'm sure we could write a thesis on this, chances are there are many already!

 

[cguy]

I blame Lang's Algebra. it put me to bed nearly every night for an entire year

Yeah - 900 pages of torture. I far preferred topology.

I
I'm sure we could write a thesis on this, chances are there are many already!

Perhaps none of them finished?