undefined | Better HN

0 pointsFirmwareBurner11mo ago0 comments

>At my old company, we trained Japanese interns. They would often relocate to the US, for 2-year visas, and became very good engineers,

Damn, I wish that was me. Having someone mentor you at the beginning of your career instead of having to self learn and fumble your way around never knowing if you're on the right track or not, is massive force multiplier that pays massive dividends over your career. It's like entering the stock market with 1 million $ capital vs 100 $. You're also less likely to build bad habits if nobody with experience teaches you early on.

0 comments

dylan60411mo ago

I really think the loss of a mentor/apprentice type of experience is one of those baby-with-the-bath-water type of losses. There are definitely people with the personality types of they know everything and nothing can be learned from others, but for those of us who would much rather learn from those with more experience on the hows and whys of things rather than getting all of those paper cuts ourselves, working with mentors is definitely a much better way to grow.

ChrisMarshallNY11mo ago

Yup. It was a standard part of their HR policy. They are all about long, long-term employment.

They are a marquée company, and get the best of the best, direct from top universities.

Also, no one has less than a Master's, over there.

We got damn good engineers as interns.

FirmwareBurnerOP11mo ago

>Also, no one has less than a Master's, over there.

I feel this is pretty much the norm everywhere in Europe and Asia. No serious engineering company in Germany even looks at your resume it there's no MSc. degree listed, especially since education is mostly free for everyone so not having a degree is seen as a "you problem", but also it leads to degree inflation, where only PhD or post-docs get taken seriously for some high level positions. I don't remember ever seeing a senior manager/CTO without the "Dr." or even "Prof. Dr." title in the top German engineering companies.

I think mostly the US has the concept of the cowboy self taught engineer who dropped out of college to build a trillion dollar empire in his parents garage.

yardie11mo ago

Graduate school assistant in the US pay such shit wages compared to Europe that you would be eligible for food stamps. Opportunity cost is better spent getting your bachelors degree, finding employment, and then using that salary to pay for grad school or have your employer pay for it. I’ve worked in Europe with just my bac+3. I also had 3-4 years of applied work experience that a fresh-faced MSc holder was just starting to acquire.

fn-mote11mo ago

Possibly also because they don’t observe added value of the additional schooling.

Also because US salaries are sky high compared to their European counterparts, so I could understand if the extra salary wasn’t worth the risk that they might not have that much extra productivity.

I’ve certainly worked with advanced degree people who didn’t seem to be very far along on the productivity curve, but I assume it’s like that for everything everywhere.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse