'Hidden' Economy in Silicon Valley Built Without Advanced Degrees

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 06/10/2013 | Lisa M. Krieger

[nickcarraway]

Silicon Valley is world-renowned for the Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur "geniuses" behind theoretical breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and math.

Less well-known are people like Patrick Pickerell, a high school dropout whose $10 million-a-year Pleasanton metal manufacturing company is powered by people with no university credentials but plenty of math and fix-it skills -- ingredients essential to innovation.

A new report, "The Hidden STEM Economy," reveals that a university degree is not required for 27.5 percent of all jobs in the San Jose area in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The number is even higher -- 36 percent -- in San Francisco and the East Bay.

The report urges policymakers to boost funding for training in such careers as toolmaking, technical writing and technician work -- the critical pick-and-shovel brigades in tech's gold rush. Of the $4.3 billion spent annually by the federal government on tech-oriented education and training, just one-fifth goes toward training below the bachelor's degree level. National Science Foundation spending largely ignores community colleges, it asserts.

[cuban leaf]

I’ve had an extremely financially successful career in IT with nothing more than a Boeing $2,700 COBOL programming course in 1982. I’ve worked with people with masters degrees that could not program their way out of a brown paper bag. The singular smatest person in IT I ever worked with had no college. When our mainframe shop was bought out in the mid-1990’s, he learned powerbuilder and became an extremely effective teacher for Sybase.

College is nice, but it is not required except for things like engineering and brain surgery. And if you have a good mirror and hand eye coordination, you can do your own brain surger on yourself. Well, if you get a good manual with pictures you can.

[warchild9]

Snowden is a high school dropout. Also...

I personally know a friend’s daughter who:

1. Learned coding practically before she could walk (I have no idea what language...I don’t live in that world);

2. Learned to crack security regimes by messing around with a 386 years ago;

3. Taught herself Japanese and now works for, I believe, Mitsubishi in Kyoto as a security something-or-the-other.

She dropped out of NC’s lousy public school system at 16, soon as she could, and is now making boodles. No GED, nothing. Frighteningly talented.

I stayed at her apartment when visiting Kyoto—it was bigger than my present house.

[Salgak]

Best Database programmer and app developer I ever met. . .was a college dropout. ENGLISH major. He found Code, and has been raking it in happily ever after. . .

[CPO retired]

I am a high school dropout. I have advanced training in Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory training from the USAF and the USN. I taught seven level training in these courses too, and was awarded USAF Master Instructor as a Navy technical instructor. I worked for the Navy as a contractor, training new hire engineers just out of school. My job title was Senior Engineering Technician.

The courses I taught were in great demand in the Aerospace and Defense industries. In four years I only had two disciplinary problems because the students were so highly motivated to receive the training we gave them.

Many defense manufacturers would look for specific military training code numbers when hiring for technical jobs.

[A.A. Cunningham]

The biggest problem is that HR types and contracting recruiters are culling resumes for potential candidates not people with engineering backgrounds. The majority of those people have no idea how to comprehend the skillset of veterans with advanced technical training.

[factoryrat]

You don’t need a degree to persue your goals, but the meritocracy and their HR linebackers and corporate lawyers will try to put a stop to that post-haste. All the more reason to build the better mousetrap in your garage or basement.

[nickcarraway]

Do you just code, or do you use algorithms and data structures?

[cuban leaf]

Neither. I segue’d into PM and BA around 2003.

[nickcarraway]

Well, when you were an engineer did you do them?

[cuban leaf]

Well, when you were an engineer did you do them?

---

I was a programmer and, yeah. Except “algorhythms” is a very broadly defined word.

[null and void]

SVP?

[martin_fierro]

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