Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job.
We are blessed.
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The insane thing would be to expect someone to take you at your word for 150k*, when hiring managers know that 50-70% of people with your resume fail to write a nested for loop.
Didn't have to solve PDE's on the whiteboard, or regurgitate integral transformations.
Which doctor would you prefer do surgery on your brain - the one that jumped through all the hoops and went to 15yrs of med school - or the one that learned brain surgery through a YouTube tutorial?
I think you know the answer. The problem is not gatekeeping in general it’s the detail and nuance of how gates are being kept and how to find the right amount of gatekeeping.
It's not a perfect system, but it's a lot harder to fake being an experienced doctor than it is an experienced developer.
No unnecessary gatekeeping, but maximum necessary quality standards (which I distinguish from gatekeeping).
With software you never have to stop proving yourself, and your skillset is always a few years away from being outdated. A doctor with 20 years of experience would be welcomed anywhere, but an engineer with 20 years experience is viewed with trepidation. The next "big thing" could roll out at anytime and suddenly crypto engineers are getting 800k job offers so everyone furiously tries to learn crypto stuff. A few years later that all dries up and now you have 100k engineers who are out of work and learned tech that no one cares about anymore. All the LLM engineers might be in the same position next year.
My answer is that I don't have access to what I'd really like to base that judgment upon: their success rate, adjusted for the difficulty of the procedure.
Simpler, less-risky procedures would therefore have a lower skill/experience bar.
Basically, I'd want someone with decades of experiences to remove a tumor deep inside my brain, but I'd be much more willing to use someone who learned via YouTube this time last year if I'd suffered a TBI and was experiencing swelling and intra-cranial pressure.
Of course. They paid an enormous cost and beat other competitors for that privilege which is carefully guarded by regulation and certification boards.
No doubt software has more instability, but the trade off is that you don’t have to do that multi year grind. Easier fire, easier hire. Similar pay.
> skillset is always a few years away from being outdated.
I strongly disagree with this. In your example you use “crypto” and “llm”. If this is your skill set you are fad chasing and needlessly increasing your exposure to changing markets.
Engineers solve problems by applying math and science expertise. This is a timeless skill.
Somehow in programming every interview starts from the assumption that the candidate must prove competence to the employer, and the employer decides what "competent" means.