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Comment on The only thing doing tech tests has taught me is that I'm too stupid to do the job I've been doing professionally for the better part of 2 decades.

varsock@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

another problem with tech tests is how broad of scope they cover - like everything you’ve learned when pursuing your degree.

Most other professional engineering disciplines have licensing obtained using FE and PE exams. Those exams are effectively “tech tests” equivalents but after passing them you get a license that you have to maintain. I love this approach since you can take CEU (continuing education) to maintain your license instead of taking the entire test all over again.

I never though software engineers would need a license but I would MUCH rather prefer grind to obtain a license ONCE which then I can use to fulfill tech test requirements and maintain the license with much less effort throughout the year.

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shagie@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
nspe.org/…/ncees-ends-software-engineering-pe-exa…

The Software Engineering PE exam, which has struggled to reach an audience, will be discontinued by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying after the April 2019 administration. The exam has been administered five times, with a total of 81 candidates.

NCEES’s Committee on Examination Policy and Procedures reviews the history of any exam with fewer than 50 total first-time examinees in two consecutive administrations and makes recommendations to the NCEES Board of Directors about the feasibility of continuing the exam.

In 2013, the software exam became the latest addition to the family of PE exams. The exam was developed by NSPE, IEEE-USA, the IEEE Computer Society, and the Texas Board of Professional Engineers—a group known as the Software Engineering Consortium. Partnering with NCEES, the consortium began working in 2007 to spread the word about the importance of software engineering licensure for the public health, safety, and welfare.

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- varsock@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  thanks for sharing, didn’t know they got rid of it - makes sense though
  
  from the same article:
  
  if the boards aren’t regulating the [software engineering profession], it’s tough to get people to take the exam
  
  Now middle managers and HR are regulating the software engineering profession -_-
  
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  - shagie@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I looked at it when it came out. The problem is that taking classes back in the early 90s with computer programming - the CS department was an offshoot of the Math and Statistics departments rather than engineering (the engineering department was hardware focused - designing chips and circuit boards)… and so I don’t have the deep physics background that the FE exam expects you to have prior to taking the PE exam.
    
    prepfe.com/…/electrical-and-computer-fe-exam-prac…
    
    www.engproguides.com/feelectricalsample.pdf
    
    If I had taken electrical and computer engineering… well, assuming that I got through the math (had to take the CS numerical methods class three times)… maybe. But if people want to complain about the irrelevance of reversing a list or describing two different approaches to balanced trees… they’d probably complain more about being tested on generators and RC frequency response in low pass filters even if you only have to take it once.
    
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    varsock@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    But if people want to complain about the irrelevance of reversing a list or describing two different approaches to balanced trees… they’d probably complain more about being tested on generators and RC frequency response in low pass filters even if you only have to take it once.
    
    LOL! absolutely.
    
    I think the skills tested on tech interviews are important, though; At least fundamentals. I don’t encounter many people that consider time and space complexity of a unit of code (big O notation) and that’s unfortunate.
    
    Data structs and their method for language built-ins are already optimized so I get that most people just use them but man, I see so many developers not even choose the correct structures. That includes me until I started leetcoding for a new job after 4 years of professionally work.
    
    But of course, this needs to stay in reason. Asking Brainteasers and optimizations like dynamic programming are dick moves. I don’t want my team to prematurely optimize and make our code base complex just cause.
    
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