Boeing Starliner upcoming launch, first w/crew

[tszaboo]

Formal education only means person had gone through formal education and does tell very little about actual skill. Heck, in a software field formal education more often than not means you should better pass on that applicant and hire someone that got into trade through a hobby instead.

It doesn't. But if I hire someone (happens sometimes) I will ask for formal education.
Because if I hire someone who didn't know how to calculate power dissipation in a resistor, or didn't care enough to do it, it slips through the certification process, and the device sets an oil refinery on fire... Then I will have a very hard time not blaming myself.
If I hire someone who has at least a BSC, at least they are supposed to know. They don't know how to calculate all the time, but at least it's not my fault.

[wraper]

Formal education only means person had gone through formal education and does tell very little about actual skill. Heck, in a software field formal education more often than not means you should better pass on that applicant and hire someone that got into trade through a hobby instead.

It doesn't. But if I hire someone (happens sometimes) I will ask for formal education.
Because if I hire someone who didn't know how to calculate power dissipation in a resistor, or didn't care enough to do it, it slips through the certification process, and the device sets an oil refinery on fire... Then I will have a very hard time not blaming myself.
If I hire someone who has at least a BSC, at least they are supposed to know. They don't know how to calculate all the time, but at least it's not my fault.

Of course formal education is an important factor and is a must for some jobs, but floobydust's argument was about hiring at all with no formal education.

After I saw that he would hire people with no formal education I had to cringe.

[coppice]

Formal education only means person had gone through formal education and does tell very little about actual skill. Heck, in a software field formal education more often than not means you should better pass on that applicant and hire someone that got into trade through a hobby instead.

It doesn't. But if I hire someone (happens sometimes) I will ask for formal education.
Because if I hire someone who didn't know how to calculate power dissipation in a resistor, or didn't care enough to do it, it slips through the certification process, and the device sets an oil refinery on fire... Then I will have a very hard time not blaming myself.
If I hire someone who has at least a BSC, at least they are supposed to know. They don't know how to calculate all the time, but at least it's not my fault.

So your thinking is not about the team being product, or reliable, its all about blame shifting? Would you really be OK if you had hired someone based on sandpaper, and never checked if they had a clue about such basics as calculating power dissipation? Moreover, the sandpaper only gives you a clue about whether they know how to calculate it. It tells you nothing about whether they give a shit, and will bother to. Giving a shit is a very important quality in safety related engineering, for which there are absolutely no formal qualifications.

[floobydust]

[...] What nonsense must be in ones head to be unhappy on the fact that engineers can bypass management hierarchy tiers and report to the top if there is a problem that does not get solved ? I guess Boeing like structure must be better where issues do not get fixed for years or ever.

Reporting to the top "if a problem does not get solved" gets you on the list.
Why? Because you just dissed your manager and his manager etc up for their inability to solve something. I've done it before- if you go over your manager to his manager - you just fucked yourself. Try it sometime and see what happens. The tiers are protected by the apes.

After I saw that he would hire people with no formal education I had to cringe.

Formal education only means person had gone through formal education and does tell very little about actual skill. Heck, in a software field formal education more often than not means you should better pass on that applicant and hire someone that got into trade through a hobby instead.

I find there is no substitute for example learning computing science, software engineering - in school. Picking it up on your own as some trivial hobby task, I would say nope. Stick to using GOTO lol. It's not about how smart you are or aren't, it's just that knowing the right way to do something is essential sometimes and formal methods are taught in school. The notion "genius" can learn everything with ease no longer applies because things are much more complex nowadays. The human ego of course thinks it knows everything but not true in practice.


Something is wrong that they keep stuffing accountants in for CEO's in Boeing Commercial Aircraft. Future CEO Stephanie Pope background included. Imagine not knowing what an MCAS or aileron is, and you are in command.

I predict Boeing will announce they are ditching the Starliner program. Let's say a $2B hit to the books. That feedback loop involves no negative consequences other than some humiliation and tossing blame around.

[tom66]

When hiring engineers, formal education is a plus, not a requirement.  At least for me. 

If I was hiring someone (midlevel/senior) and I had two CVs in front of me...
* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

I'd probably weight the 15 years person over the other one.  Both would get interviewed, of course, but if they came out roughly equal on interview scoring they'd probably get picked on experience over a degree.

The problem comes for juniors.  There aren't many juniors that would pass the bar here without a degree, so the degree becomes mandatory in a sense to get your foot on the ladder.

Engineering degrees vary significantly and, especially in electronics, contain frequently irrelevant and limited knowledge.  For instance by my fourth year I could design a semiconductor laser in CAD, but no one had taught anyone in the class how to do SMD soldering.   The soldering is a far more useful skill for an every-day hardware engineer, but the semiconductor knowledge is useful for someone doing a PhD in that subject (my university had a strong focus in lasers, pun not intended, so many of the PhD students were doing one thing or another with lasers).

[tszaboo]

When hiring engineers, formal education is a plus, not a requirement.  At least for me. 

If I was hiring someone (midlevel/senior) and I had two CVs in front of me...
* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

I would still hire the one with the degree. I've seen people without formal education telling they had experience which was: Screwing around without a clue of how and what to do until something worked without understanding why. And getting angry when you set some standards for work.

There were zero engineers from my university that didn't have a clue. They never made it through, as more than 50% were dropouts. I'm sorry that other universities have their standards set very low.
And you can learn how to solder in a week, or someone in a trade school can teach you that, but you would never get the chance to learn semiconductors or quantum physics.

[HuronKing]

When hiring engineers, formal education is a plus, not a requirement.  At least for me. 

If I was hiring someone (midlevel/senior) and I had two CVs in front of me...
* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

I'd probably weight the 15 years person over the other one.  Both would get interviewed, of course, but if they came out roughly equal on interview scoring they'd probably get picked on experience over a degree.

In this scenario, for me, easily the person with the university degree provided it was an ABET accredited engineering school.

If the person without the degree had taken and passed the FE Exam, I'd favor them at that point on experience.

[fourfathom]

Fortunately for me, I've never worked for a company that was contractually required to hire only degreed or certified engineers.  In my early days, after my first few jobs (as a technician) I was hired or recommended by my associates who had moved on to greener pastures.  I evolved into the "engineer" role and title, again working with an expanding pool of engineers and managers.  At my last job, I hired one of my old bosses.

Sure, If I didn't know someone from Adam I would seriously look at their education and other credentials.  But I was usually hiring seasoned pros, often recommended by someone I trusted, or at least with a good string of verifiable projects.  And yes, they usually had at least a BSEE.  But I've seen enough outliers to not let that degree be the make-or-break criterium.  FWIW, the few times we were burned when making a poor hire, the person had a degree.  But since most do have that degree, this isn't surprising, or indicative.

[Neganur]

* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

Hire the one without degree and pay them a wage that reflects the lack of a degree 😂

(Obviously, it is different in different countries,  local agreements can have wage ranks that depend on having a degree. No amount of experience will get you a government job if you don’t have a university degree, etc.)

The example above is really provocative, with many assumptions. The 5 years difference is a typical time to earn an MSc in Finland. I would like to believe that the 10 years experience on top of the MSc is probably more effective in terms of learning. Who taught the non-degree person the technical basics, or is that included in the first 5 years of their experience of effing around to find out?

Sure, there are some very smart people who for whatever reason dropped out of uni and are just as skilled as someone who wrote a thesis. I just don’t think it’s the vast majority.

Regarding engineers and soldering. My personal opinion is, there is a reason engineers don’t learn how to solder in universities… any good technician does a better job (because he does it all the time), and it also doesn’t cost an engineer’s wage. Should an engineer be able to solder? It sure is a useful skill. The field is way too big for it to be necessary though.

I mean, by all means, pay me enough and I’ll solder all day 😃 instead of massaging Altium or   sitting at the emc chamber all day. (Until
I eventually get bored after a week, I guess haha)

[JustMeHere]

* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

I'd take a true Comp Sci programmer over a converted engineer every day.  There are things a typical person never does in their career (Assembly, I'm looking at you) that is covered in school.  It gives the Comp Sci guys  an understanding of how programs work that you don't get with practical experience.   Hell, I'd never hire a converted Comp Sci guy to design an airplane....even if he has been doing it for 10 years.

[tom66]

My reasoning for the five years is it was my feeling that everything I did in my degree course could have been condensed into two years if it focused on the critical requirements for electronics engineers.  I did a four year master's course (at a top 10 UK university), with a year in industry.  I found the amount of experience I got when I was hands on with actual hardware in an actual company at my industry year was extremely valuable.  Meanwhile, it's very interesting to know how a semiconductor laser works, but I have never used that knowledge. 

It was also interesting to me how little focus there was on software engineering too, when it's so very essential for a modern hardware engineer to be at least be able to understand how software works and how to debug problems that occur in software, if not actually design software properly.  There's no debugging or understanding of things like how I2C works (and how it goes wrong!)  Or understanding SMPS design beyond the basic principles (here's how you properly layout a buck converter, for instance.)

It's that knowledge, which is gained from making things that work and don't, that I value over a higher education.  But perhaps my experience was tainted.

[coppice]

* One with no university degree but 15 years industry experience
* One with a university degree but 10 years industry experience

Hire the one without degree and pay them a wage that reflects the lack of a degree 😂

After 15 years working the lack of a degree does not reflect on salary at all. Even 5 years out from university your degree is a weak indicator of what you are worth in the job market. A degree can make it far easier to get past the human resources idiots, who understand a CV's description of actual real world results so poorly they fall back on no degree, no interview. However, places run like that aren't the most desirable places to work anyway.

[SiliconWizard]

Accessing certain positions (higher management) without a degree, unless you're the owner of the company, is still a problem in most cases.

[fourfathom]

Accessing certain positions (higher management) without a degree, unless you're the owner of the company, is still a problem in most cases.

This depends on the company, and I suspect the country.  Big, established, publicly-traded, risk-adverse, government-contract companies will be like this.  I've tried to avoid those -- they seem to be soul-killers.

[tszaboo]

Accessing certain positions (higher management) without a degree, unless you're the owner of the company, is still a problem in most cases.

This depends on the company, and I suspect the country.  Big, established, publicly-traded, risk-adverse, government-contract companies will be like this.  I've tried to avoid those -- they seem to be soul-killers.

Maybe before. Nowadays you can rise if you are a DEI hire.
Don't believe me? Boeing's CEO's bonus is directly tied to DEI now. Not profits.
Companies like that don't deserve to continue to exists.

[Sal Ammoniac]

[Gyro]

By the time they get back, they will be in the possibly (probably?) unique position of being able to compare the comfort of flying Boeing versus Spacex! Space travel writers in the making.

[Homer J Simpson]

 Food for thought....