Software jobs, PhDs and over-qualification(semanticlifescience.wordpress.com)
semanticlifescience.wordpress.com
Software jobs, PhDs and over-qualification
http://semanticlifescience.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/software-jobs-phds-and-over-qualification/
9 comments
Coding is not necessarily part of a PhD (even in Comp Sci!) and programming well certainly isn't. No one will ever look at that code, inspect, test it, document it or complain when any of those things are missing
My rather opinionated thoughts on my 3 year failure of a PhD is here: http://jamie.ideasasylum.com/2008/07/things-i-learnt-during-...
When I applied for software engineering jobs the recruiters ignored my 3 years of Java/Python programming for the PhD and my 4 years of embedded Java programming for research labs. All that counts is the time when you were delivering code to paying customers in a commercial setting :(
My rather opinionated thoughts on my 3 year failure of a PhD is here: http://jamie.ideasasylum.com/2008/07/things-i-learnt-during-...
When I applied for software engineering jobs the recruiters ignored my 3 years of Java/Python programming for the PhD and my 4 years of embedded Java programming for research labs. All that counts is the time when you were delivering code to paying customers in a commercial setting :(
I get the impression 3 is a problem. From the discussion thread where the job seeker asks for help:
Someone offering a helpful suggestion: Dude...if you have a PhD...there is no excuse for you to not be able to remember your C coding with barely a day's effort. [This refers to job interview questions about the complexity of linked lists and such.]
The PhD having job seeker: ...there's a mental mode where you're doing those low-level things and you do lose it after college and after not working any more with C/C++. Reviewing it doesn't help that much. I dislike the notion that I just went to the job and then realized I had to practice.
That's not to say that things are bad out there. When I got my Ph.D., recruiters would cold call me ("Want to work in the financial industry?"). Now I'm actively looking and rarely get called back. I guess I need to network a bit more...
Someone offering a helpful suggestion: Dude...if you have a PhD...there is no excuse for you to not be able to remember your C coding with barely a day's effort. [This refers to job interview questions about the complexity of linked lists and such.]
The PhD having job seeker: ...there's a mental mode where you're doing those low-level things and you do lose it after college and after not working any more with C/C++. Reviewing it doesn't help that much. I dislike the notion that I just went to the job and then realized I had to practice.
That's not to say that things are bad out there. When I got my Ph.D., recruiters would cold call me ("Want to work in the financial industry?"). Now I'm actively looking and rarely get called back. I guess I need to network a bit more...
Yes. Programming is a complex skill, like using math or a foreign language, if you want to stay good at it, you MUST stay in practice.
Wow this is really depressing to contemplate. Has anyone here been through the experience where you went to grad school for curiosity and found that it made you unemployable? I really fear this outcome. I went to graduate school because I looked up at the end of my undergrad degree and realized that my knowledge of Physics was very shallow. I was pretty obvious just from the numbers I was extremely unlikely to get any kind of academic employment, but I decided that it didn't matter because I was sure I could talk to someone and convince them that I was a "practical" person. In another year I'm going to look seriously for a job and this story scares me. Is it really this hard to find a job solving hard practical problems with computers? Would someone seriously say that it's "too theoretical" to have experience building scientific instruments and software to control them in a lab, software that by construction has a real user? It really worries me that someone with a PhD in soft eng from CMU had such a hard time. This doesn't leave me much hope of crossing fields.
No.
My experience in a PhD program made me more employable. Last year, when looking for a job, I got interest and offers from industry positions as a direct result of the skills I learned while pursuing a PhD (in Computer Science). As kurtosis here mentions, you often learn real practical skills while doing research. I interviewed for developer positions, and no one suggested that I wasn't practical. We talked about development I'd done.
The article's use of the "plain ol' developer position" phrase suggests that this person had a different problem. God forbid they said that in an interview... They were apparently not interviewing for jobs they actually wanted.
If you actually want the job, you'll be interested in it, you'll explain why you're a good fit, and you probably won't describe it as a "plain ol'" anything, even in jest, even to yourself. Otherwise, why waste the time?
The article's use of the "plain ol' developer position" phrase suggests that this person had a different problem. God forbid they said that in an interview... They were apparently not interviewing for jobs they actually wanted.
If you actually want the job, you'll be interested in it, you'll explain why you're a good fit, and you probably won't describe it as a "plain ol'" anything, even in jest, even to yourself. Otherwise, why waste the time?
I think the person is more wildly confused than anything else. I don't know of any PhD students having trouble getting jobs. Somehow this person has gotten the impression that what you do with a PhD is go out and get an entry level job prorgramming RoR or something. That is not the case.
I agree that people can enter and follow the programming career path easily without a PhD. Completing a PhD equips you to follow your dream of science, of being a patent clerk by day and brilliant theorist by night, but it doesn't exactly help you make money. Like studying classical music for ten years and then complaining you can't get a job: dude, I hate to upset you, but a "job" wasn't the point at all.
One thing I realized was that the PhD isn't what makes you the patent clerk by day and brilliant theorist by night. It is the brilliant theorist that makes you the PhD and the patent clerk by day.
This is true, at least in Einstein's case. Or, s/patent clerk/surfer/g, s/Einstein/Garrett Lisi/g But the romanticism has gone out of proportion.
This is true, at least in Einstein's case. Or, s/patent clerk/surfer/g, s/Einstein/Garrett Lisi/g But the romanticism has gone out of proportion.
Actually, I don't understand this either. The PhD is what makes you a patent clerk by day? Does anyone actually know Einstein's real history and not the vague stuff written on the backs cereal cartons? This sounds like the same stuff people say when they erroneously talk about Einstein as having not been good at mathematics. As for all this stuff about how PhDs don't make any money and how no one cares about their work boo hoo wah wah .. There are thousands of working PhDs that would disagree with you all and think you all out of your minds!
I don't really understand this. Einstein was a patent clerk before getting a PhD. Honestly, if you think PhDs don't make any money, frankly I don't think you know what you're talking about. Perhaps this is the case in the arts and humanities but in science, particularly computer science, this isn't the case at all. I always here people say this and usually they recommend people go get stuck in some 60,000 a year job, because supposedly that's more than any PhD will make ... lol. It's a naive view that CS PhDs don't or unlikely to make much money. Sure, most PhDs aren't millionairies several times over but neither are code monkeys. I'm just trying to be honest about it.
if you think PhDs don't make any money
I don't. PhD correlates with smartness, and smartness correlates with wages. Please take care not to assume causation.
But should you get a PhD just to make money without a love for research? Each year of industry experience at a young age will be more valuable to you than a year of study. Yes, you can get stuck. You can also get unstuck and learn ten different languages under ten different employers, as I did.
I don't. PhD correlates with smartness, and smartness correlates with wages. Please take care not to assume causation.
But should you get a PhD just to make money without a love for research? Each year of industry experience at a young age will be more valuable to you than a year of study. Yes, you can get stuck. You can also get unstuck and learn ten different languages under ten different employers, as I did.
I'm not assuming any such thing about "causation." This is an empirical issue for which you seem to have been very much misinformed.
My general experience is the opposite re: crossing fields - I run across many people doing software dev with a MS or PhD in something else. Just this past week I interviewed at a research institute where one of the primary developers had a PhD in biology. He didn't give me the impression that doing only software dev was his first choice, but clearly he was working.
I would guess from your experience "building scientific instruments and software to control them" you would be able to find a job doing dev. If you can swing it while you're still a student, I would highly, highly recommend you do some internships with companies writing software, even if it is doing the same type of code you currently do. If you can't do that, pick up a minor in CS while doing your physics grad work.
I would guess from your experience "building scientific instruments and software to control them" you would be able to find a job doing dev. If you can swing it while you're still a student, I would highly, highly recommend you do some internships with companies writing software, even if it is doing the same type of code you currently do. If you can't do that, pick up a minor in CS while doing your physics grad work.
Not terribly. For the same reason we make fun of liberal arts majors -- not thinking of what sort of job they get when they get out -- we have to consider (ack! gasp!) our post-graduate careers.
FWIW, it sounds like the author here was really applying for the wrong job.
FWIW, it sounds like the author here was really applying for the wrong job.
I am a PhD, in physics, that left academic research about 10 years ago for a programming career. As a researcher I studied Computational Fluid Dynamics. All of my programming jobs have been in network management or a related field. My Ph.D has been a plus at every job I have held. Over qualification has never been an issue.
I left academia for two reasons: pay and a preference for programming to the drudgery of publication. I started my programming career near the peak of 2000 tech bubble and had doubled my salary within with a couple of years. Six figure programming salaries are far more common than six figure salaries in academic research.
An additional bonus which I did not anticipate was the competitive advantage I would have. Competition for academic positions is quite intense involving many capable people. This is likely why salaries remain low. In programming the typical skill level is much lower.
I left academia for two reasons: pay and a preference for programming to the drudgery of publication. I started my programming career near the peak of 2000 tech bubble and had doubled my salary within with a couple of years. Six figure programming salaries are far more common than six figure salaries in academic research.
An additional bonus which I did not anticipate was the competitive advantage I would have. Competition for academic positions is quite intense involving many capable people. This is likely why salaries remain low. In programming the typical skill level is much lower.
"usually employers look for someone that codes like a robot"
Wrong. Usually employers look for someone to get the frickin job done without rethinking the problem. Classic example right now: I have PhD in Strategic Planning telling me to make the algorithm calculate the Economic Order Quantity when creating the Purchase Order. The Buyer immediately gave me 4 reasons why that will never work in the real world: the vendor will have to interrupt set-ups for plan changes, the bank will never approve that line of credit, the rev level may change before the end of the run, and oh, by the way, that many won't fit on the truck.
"...trying to get a plain ol’ developer position..."
You have an attitude problem. There's nothing "plain ol'" about what we do every day. While you were busy in your ivory tower for 8 years, someone had to keep the world moving.
"companies want the 20 year-olds to code quick and turn out an app with a 6-month lifetime"
On what planet? You were obviously too busy in college to actually find out what really goes on in the real world.
"6-8 years in graduate school under constant stress torn your ego into to pieces"
Poor baby. Get a job. Feed, clothe, and shelter a family. Deliver something every day to someone who is depending on you. For those of us who have been doing this for years, earning a PhD sounds like a vacation.
Wrong. Usually employers look for someone to get the frickin job done without rethinking the problem. Classic example right now: I have PhD in Strategic Planning telling me to make the algorithm calculate the Economic Order Quantity when creating the Purchase Order. The Buyer immediately gave me 4 reasons why that will never work in the real world: the vendor will have to interrupt set-ups for plan changes, the bank will never approve that line of credit, the rev level may change before the end of the run, and oh, by the way, that many won't fit on the truck.
"...trying to get a plain ol’ developer position..."
You have an attitude problem. There's nothing "plain ol'" about what we do every day. While you were busy in your ivory tower for 8 years, someone had to keep the world moving.
"companies want the 20 year-olds to code quick and turn out an app with a 6-month lifetime"
On what planet? You were obviously too busy in college to actually find out what really goes on in the real world.
"6-8 years in graduate school under constant stress torn your ego into to pieces"
Poor baby. Get a job. Feed, clothe, and shelter a family. Deliver something every day to someone who is depending on you. For those of us who have been doing this for years, earning a PhD sounds like a vacation.
As someone just finishing Ph.D. that also had industry jobs, I can say most of what you say seems wrong. There indeed are plain old developer positions, consisting of e.g. making some frontend talk to some backend - most real-world corporate programming is like that.
"Deliver something every day to someone who is depending on you" - this is exactly what you have to do in a Ph.D. program all the time - you have coauthors on papers that have to be shipped, and yours and their future depends on it.
In the corporate world, you also have to deliver, but at least what you're doing is well known to be possible. In academia you have a constant feeling that you might be against an impossible problem, and the results will never come together.
Plus in the corporate world, you can work 9am-7pm at most, rather than 11am-2pm as in grad school. And the pay is 4x higher. Now what sounds more like a vacation?
(Of course, here I was referring to a PhD in Computer Science. I don't know what's Strategic Planning, so I can't judge there.)
"Deliver something every day to someone who is depending on you" - this is exactly what you have to do in a Ph.D. program all the time - you have coauthors on papers that have to be shipped, and yours and their future depends on it.
In the corporate world, you also have to deliver, but at least what you're doing is well known to be possible. In academia you have a constant feeling that you might be against an impossible problem, and the results will never come together.
Plus in the corporate world, you can work 9am-7pm at most, rather than 11am-2pm as in grad school. And the pay is 4x higher. Now what sounds more like a vacation?
(Of course, here I was referring to a PhD in Computer Science. I don't know what's Strategic Planning, so I can't judge there.)
As someone who has been in the real world for 30 years (after 20 years of schooling), I know most of what I say is fairly accurate.
I really don't mean to pick on you (or anyone else), but inaccurate claims about that with which you are not familiar deserve response.
"There indeed are plain old developer positions..."
Of course there are. And for everyone of those, there is someone else changing the world.
"this is exactly what you have to do in a Ph.D. program all the time"
Fair enough.
"In the corporate world, you also have to deliver, but at least what you're doing is well known to be possible."
Not my experience. "Do x, y, and z by the first of next quarter or you're out of business." You frequently don't know if what you're trying to do is possible. But you have to do it anyway. This happens all the time.
"you can work 9am-7pm at most..."
If only.
I admit that my "vacation" remark may have ruffled some feathers, and I love what I do, but it would be my dream come true to quit work and go back to a college PhD program. I know I'm not alone in this.
AFAIC, work is to make a living, education is what we live for.
I really don't mean to pick on you (or anyone else), but inaccurate claims about that with which you are not familiar deserve response.
"There indeed are plain old developer positions..."
Of course there are. And for everyone of those, there is someone else changing the world.
"this is exactly what you have to do in a Ph.D. program all the time"
Fair enough.
"In the corporate world, you also have to deliver, but at least what you're doing is well known to be possible."
Not my experience. "Do x, y, and z by the first of next quarter or you're out of business." You frequently don't know if what you're trying to do is possible. But you have to do it anyway. This happens all the time.
"you can work 9am-7pm at most..."
If only.
I admit that my "vacation" remark may have ruffled some feathers, and I love what I do, but it would be my dream come true to quit work and go back to a college PhD program. I know I'm not alone in this.
AFAIC, work is to make a living, education is what we live for.
We are not disagreeing. Here you're referring to your position of leadership and responsibility that you have risen to after 30 years, but I was talking about code monkeys.
"Do x, y, and z by the first of next quarter or you're out of business." Sure, but new developer hires in large companies are absolutely not in a position to decide where the business is going, and won't be for quite some time. The article and my comment were about the entry-level developer positions.
"And for everyone of those, there is someone else changing the world." Absolutely, and I greatly admire such people. But you won't change the world in an entry-level developer job. I tried such jobs, they were very easy and I suffered a lot the lack of opportunity to change the world.
"Do x, y, and z by the first of next quarter or you're out of business." Sure, but new developer hires in large companies are absolutely not in a position to decide where the business is going, and won't be for quite some time. The article and my comment were about the entry-level developer positions.
"And for everyone of those, there is someone else changing the world." Absolutely, and I greatly admire such people. But you won't change the world in an entry-level developer job. I tried such jobs, they were very easy and I suffered a lot the lack of opportunity to change the world.
I agree a PhD is not a vacation (I left my PhD program) but I think you are missing edw519's point. As an employer, why would you want to hire someone who thinks of the job as a step down, as just a "plain old developer position". Instead find someone who might not have the PhD-theoretical-type skils but is excited about the job and really wants to help deliver a higher quality product.
Thanks, lacker. You said it better than I. Good thing I write code better than hn comments.
I agree with both of you. I would advise Ph.D. not to take entry-level coding jobs, and employers not to admit Ph.D.s to such jobs. It will be a misfit, and everyone will suffer.
I was just a bit upset at the dichotomy of "industry = responsibility, having to deliver" and "academia = lack of such responsibility". I think we know better now what each of us meant.
I was just a bit upset at the dichotomy of "industry = responsibility, having to deliver" and "academia = lack of such responsibility". I think we know better now what each of us meant.
Agreed. I never meant to say that academia = lack of responsibility. 2 different worlds. I miss yours.
"While you were busy in your ivory tower for 8 years, someone had to keep the world moving...You were obviously too busy in college to actually find out what really goes on in the real world...Poor baby. Get a job. Feed, clothe, and shelter a family...earning a PhD sounds like a vacation."
"You have an attitude problem"
"You have an attitude problem"
Even though you are screaming at your prospective employer, saying “yes I’ve done all the crazy stuff during the PhD, but now just want a job to code to feed my family”, they may not hire you not so much of over-qualification, but rather over-thinking.
Case in point, if you want a lower level position, remove the PhD from your resume. Stop over-thinking the problem. It's a perfectly valid solution to say you have a masters or bachelors instead so you can feed your family. Employers are perfectly valid in excluding PhDs if they are concerned about over qualifications costing more or leading to boredom.
Case in point, if you want a lower level position, remove the PhD from your resume. Stop over-thinking the problem. It's a perfectly valid solution to say you have a masters or bachelors instead so you can feed your family. Employers are perfectly valid in excluding PhDs if they are concerned about over qualifications costing more or leading to boredom.
The thing I always wonder about is 'PhD stupidity'. Basically, PhD's usually seem to get a sense of entitlement, which may put them at a disadvantage when entering the real world and leaving the academic world. What the author seems to be misunderstanding, is that employers aren't impressed by a PhD for an entry level job (actually it probably makes them very hesitant). However, the PhD is likely to get trapped into the whole 'I have a PhD so I'm important' mentality that seems to go around, so they never figure out that the PhD is stopping them getting a real job.
I think the other major problem is that people take PhD's that won't help them get a job. I've known forensic scientists who've been stuck in deli counters, because there's only a handful of available jobs in the entire western world. I've known journalist grads who've been flat out rejected because of their degree, because it teaches them poor skills (the main skill desired now is the ability to write with personality, which journalism courses actively discourage).
So I'm sure there's a lot of ways that can contribute to a PhD making you unemployable, however it's probably always down to poor choice or poor judgment.
Personally I'd love to get a PhD in physics out of pure interest. However, the one thing I'd worry about, and I've told to friends going the PhD route, is that taking a PhD keeps you out of the career field for 10+ years. So you have to really evaluate if 10+ years of experience is better for you career wise than a PhD and 0 years experience, because all the fields I'm interested in (career wise, not academically) don't give a damn if you have a PhD, so even though I'd like to have a degree in something I'm not going to waste my time.
I think the other major problem is that people take PhD's that won't help them get a job. I've known forensic scientists who've been stuck in deli counters, because there's only a handful of available jobs in the entire western world. I've known journalist grads who've been flat out rejected because of their degree, because it teaches them poor skills (the main skill desired now is the ability to write with personality, which journalism courses actively discourage).
So I'm sure there's a lot of ways that can contribute to a PhD making you unemployable, however it's probably always down to poor choice or poor judgment.
Personally I'd love to get a PhD in physics out of pure interest. However, the one thing I'd worry about, and I've told to friends going the PhD route, is that taking a PhD keeps you out of the career field for 10+ years. So you have to really evaluate if 10+ years of experience is better for you career wise than a PhD and 0 years experience, because all the fields I'm interested in (career wise, not academically) don't give a damn if you have a PhD, so even though I'd like to have a degree in something I'm not going to waste my time.
I don't think you seem to know what a PhD is about.
I don't understand this. Why is a recent PhD trying to get entry level programming jobs?
I think we need to rethink what we mean by "overqualified". An MD isn't necessarily overqualified for a job as an RN - in fact, such a person might be underqualified. Just because you have "higher" credentials doesn't necessarily mean your credentials are a superset of what is needed.
I'm wondering how many HN users have phds. Poll time anyone? (or has it already been done).
1. Your PhD has real-world applicability. Which is not hard.
2. Your potential employers could apply those skills.
3. You can actually code pretty well, too.
I think this third item is often the issue. PhDs often have underdeveloped programming abilities compared to industry vets the same age -- too much classwork, not enough larger-scale projects. There are good ways around this: graduate research assistantships that require reasonable code, collaborative research that requires you build your part of a system, internships, etc.
At least for the places that I've worked and do work now, if they think you can get the job done, you're in good shape. Then again, I don't apply to the 1000-monkeys on 1000 typewriter coder/body shops, either.