[ff317]

The problem is that software development is less like hiring an airline pilot or a structural engineer, and more like hiring an artist. Try making up a "standard exam" that will tell you whether an artist will produce several great unique works for you in the future, so you know which one to hire...

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

That's an interesting point, but then one wonders that if software eng are ultimately artists, why are we not having them work on their portfolios like the other art disciplines? Is that the fundamental problem?

[recursive]

> why are we not having them work on their portfolios?

Who is having whom? Having a portfolio of work is a well understood benefit, and a lot of candidates have been doing it for some time.

[gwbas1c]

> one wonders that if software eng are ultimately artists

I find treating software engineering like art is a very dangerous approach and bound for failure.

A lot of software engineering comes down to being comfortable with code and how the computer works. That has little to nothing to do with art.

[drewcoo]

Yet frankly, what most of us do is more like plumbing than art. In that we're just fitting systems together and in that it's actual skilled labor and in that we're seen by everyone else as the ones willing to do the shitty work.

Management puts up with us and they pay us because even though they think they can do our work, they wouldn't want to.

Plumbers are licensed and unionized, two possible solutions to the problems posed in this thread.

[itronitron]

Will they be required to use Scrum and forced to use Jira?