Bored out of my mind Forum

[rpupkin]

You aren't a very good lawyer, are you?

[Anonymous User]

I'll say this much - 80% of my family and friends are programmers and nobody hates their lives as much as the lawyers that I know do.....so I think that says something about which profession is better and which is worse. 80% of the lawyers I know want out of law.

[AntiHuman]

How do college kids fresh out college make 100K+? It baffles my mind.

Some do not even have technical degrees...they major in poli sci/sociology then do app academy or hackreactor and come out making 100K base salary. Most of the ones I know aren't very smart...and yes their work environments are much better. Then again, im from the SF Bay Area so it makes me wonder why anyone would do law out here. Other areas of the nation are different im sure.

[kellyfrost]

How do college kids fresh out college make 100K+? It baffles my mind.

Some do not even have technical degrees...they major in poli sci/sociology then do app academy or hackreactor and come out making 100K base salary. Most of the ones I know aren't very smart...and yes their work environments are much better. Then again, im from the SF Bay Area so it makes me wonder why anyone would do law out here. Other areas of the nation are different im sure.

Can someone even live in SF on less than $100k power year?

[AntiHuman]

Live in Oakland or East Bay? Rent a room in a decent area for 800/month?

[Anonymous User]

Live in Oakland or East Bay? Rent a room in a decent area for 800/month?

Oakland and much of the East Bay are really expensive now. Oakland is the third most expensive city in the country to rent a 1 bedroom apartment nowadays.

[ookoshi]

That ship has pretty much sailed. Getting a CS degree isn't the gold mine it used to be (about 3-5 years ago). Now, everyone's coding. Friend of mine is a recruiter for Google and, at least in her department, she doesn't even consider candidates without a PhD.

Nonsense. No one who is really good at software development bothered to get a PhD. Seriously.

I worked in various software development jobs for over a dozen years before heading to law school. A person's competency with coding, both in terms of innovation and efficiency, was almost always inversely proportional to their level of education. The best developers were writing code as kids and probably could do the work straight out of high school. The people who were doing the stuff as kids were almost always better at thinking outside the box about solving problems. The bachelor's degree was mostly there to fill in the gaps of self-taught knowledge and check the box on the recruiter's list of qualifications.

There's very little you will learn in the realm of CS past a bachelor's degree that will be substantive for 99% of software development positions out there. Sure, there's a tiny fraction of CS positions where you're doing R&D into a highly specialized area, where you need a PhD focused in that area just to have a foundation, and your friend may well be recruiting for those types of positions at Google. But that's the exception, not the rule. Also, a person's odds of getting a job at Google with a CS degree, PhD or not, is probably about the same as getting a Fed. Court of Appeals clerkship straight out of law school. Describing what credentials you need for that as a basis for judging the entire profession is horribly inaccurate, especially when, unlike the legal profession, your median salary expectations are better. The only area where a JD outpaces CS in terms of money/experience is biglaw. I suppose also possibly mid-size and smaller firms 10+ years out, but in those cases probably not by much. I went to law school with eyes open, I knew my exit options were either biglaw or a 20-30% pay cut.

I only have a bachelor's in CS. I bounced between half a dozen jobs while I worked as a software developer. For the first 4 years, I didn't even have a bachelor's. Some companies cared, but once I had a year or two of experience, most did not. After I got my bachelor's, no one ever cared about my level of education. Almost any company who listed a preference for a post-graduate degree looked at work experience as a substitute for it, so 2 yrs of WE = master's. There was no incentive to pay tuition when you could meet the equivalent while making money. In between jobs, either because of layoffs or because my contract was up, I never spent more than 2 months of actually looking for work. If my break between jobs was longer, it was by choice (e.g. big severance package and still single so didn't need the cash flow immediately).

I still get calls from recruiters asking me if I'm interested in software development positions, even though my professional online presence reflects my current status as a law student/summer associate.

[Johann]

I still get calls from recruiters asking me if I'm interested in software development positions, even though my professional online presence reflects my current status as a law student/summer associate.

you should hear out the next call. law sucks man.

[Pomeranian]

It's typical to burn out within 3 years and come home every night in tears. #BigLaw

[haus]

I would assume most biglaw lawyers out of t14s could code just fine.

lol

As a group attorneys are some of the worst users of computers I run across, many in the crowd you describe would be hard pressed to make it in dev, or IT in general.

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

It's typical to burn out within 3 years and come home every night in tears. #BigLaw

+100000

[Mucho Maas]

That ship has pretty much sailed. Getting a CS degree isn't the gold mine it used to be (about 3-5 years ago). Now, everyone's coding. Friend of mine is a recruiter for Google and, at least in her department, she doesn't even consider candidates without a PhD.

Nonsense. No one who is really good at software development bothered to get a PhD. Seriously.

I worked in various software development jobs for over a dozen years before heading to law school. A person's competency with coding, both in terms of innovation and efficiency, was almost always inversely proportional to their level of education. The best developers were writing code as kids and probably could do the work straight out of high school. The people who were doing the stuff as kids were almost always better at thinking outside the box about solving problems. The bachelor's degree was mostly there to fill in the gaps of self-taught knowledge and check the box on the recruiter's list of qualifications.

....

I still get calls from recruiters asking me if I'm interested in software development positions, even though my professional online presence reflects my current status as a law student/summer associate.

You've been out of circulation for too long. The reason they call you is because have a quota to meet in terms of "outreach," (yeah, everything is quantified these days). Literally if you're a recruiter for a big software company, like my sister, she begins every day by searching LinkedIn and mass mailing. This way, well, let's call this company A-soft, can turn around and tell the relevant fed agencies that they need more indentured servants from India. Or at least they can quit early before lunch time.

This, I believe, is why the poster you're replying to mentions the PhD thing. It's all institutionalized to make false (well, false in a sense) demand for foreign born PhDs, and now there's a nice system set up where you see all the big companies whine and complain about lacking appropriate specialization even though these empty departments they point to are fictional. For example, they don't need PhDs to do many jobs. You're right. You're on point on how it should be if coding was fair or had anything at all to do with innovation these days. It doesn't, it has to do with cranking out product that can comply with twenty different international standards--so PhDs, much less innovation, isn't needed. But they say they need PhDs because they can simultaneously price out debt laden students who can't accept a job that A-soft wants to pay as well as turn to the relevant fed agencies with PhD requests which, for all the obvious reasons, fly through the comparatively antiquated and creaking U.S. permanent resident alien process.

If you actually hit some of those recruiters up your jaw would drop for how the bottom has fallen out on your job skills. There's a literal flood of foreign born PhDs whose immigration status is directly tied to their employment at that specific company. You, and similarly situated code monkeys, just aren't competing and will not likely begin competing in the future.

[20160810]

Man this is way better than teaching. At least now the people who yell at you aren't entitled 13 year old Juggalos

[jingosaur]

That ship has pretty much sailed. Getting a CS degree isn't the gold mine it used to be (about 3-5 years ago). Now, everyone's coding. Friend of mine is a recruiter for Google and, at least in her department, she doesn't even consider candidates without a PhD.

Nonsense. No one who is really good at software development bothered to get a PhD. Seriously.

I worked in various software development jobs for over a dozen years before heading to law school. A person's competency with coding, both in terms of innovation and efficiency, was almost always inversely proportional to their level of education. The best developers were writing code as kids and probably could do the work straight out of high school. The people who were doing the stuff as kids were almost always better at thinking outside the box about solving problems. The bachelor's degree was mostly there to fill in the gaps of self-taught knowledge and check the box on the recruiter's list of qualifications.

....

I still get calls from recruiters asking me if I'm interested in software development positions, even though my professional online presence reflects my current status as a law student/summer associate.

You've been out of circulation for too long. The reason they call you is because have a quota to meet in terms of "outreach," (yeah, everything is quantified these days). Literally if you're a recruiter for a big software company, like my sister, she begins every day by searching LinkedIn and mass mailing. This way, well, let's call this company A-soft, can turn around and tell the relevant fed agencies that they need more indentured servants from India. Or at least they can quit early before lunch time.

This, I believe, is why the poster you're replying to mentions the PhD thing. It's all institutionalized to make false (well, false in a sense) demand for foreign born PhDs, and now there's a nice system set up where you see all the big companies whine and complain about lacking appropriate specialization even though these empty departments they point to are fictional. For example, they don't need PhDs to do many jobs. You're right. You're on point on how it should be if coding was fair or had anything at all to do with innovation these days. It doesn't, it has to do with cranking out product that can comply with twenty different international standards--so PhDs, much less innovation, isn't needed. But they say they need PhDs because they can simultaneously price out debt laden students who can't accept a job that A-soft wants to pay as well as turn to the relevant fed agencies with PhD requests which, for all the obvious reasons, fly through the comparatively antiquated and creaking U.S. permanent resident alien process.

If you actually hit some of those recruiters up your jaw would drop for how the bottom has fallen out on your job skills. There's a literal flood of foreign born PhDs whose immigration status is directly tied to their employment at that specific company. You, and similarly situated code monkeys, just aren't competing and will not likely begin competing in the future.

This is very true. I worked with coding teams at Banks and financial institutions for 3 years and not one coder was American born. All of them had H1-B visas. If you did anything to criticize their work they went absolutely apeshit because they were so scared of losing their job, which would mean having to leave the US.

[ookoshi]

You've been out of circulation for too long.

LOL. I suppose, if by too long you mean a month. I was working in IT full time up until the point my summer associate position started (part-time law school -> biglaw). The last IT interview I went on was during law school, as was the last offer I turned down.

The reason they call you is because have a quota to meet in terms of "outreach," (yeah, everything is quantified these days). Literally if you're a recruiter for a big software company, like my sister, she begins every day by searching LinkedIn and mass mailing. This way, well, let's call this company A-soft, can turn around and tell the relevant fed agencies that they need more indentured servants from India. Or at least they can quit early before lunch time.

This, I believe, is why the poster you're replying to mentions the PhD thing. It's all institutionalized to make false (well, false in a sense) demand for foreign born PhDs, and now there's a nice system set up where you see all the big companies whine and complain about lacking appropriate specialization even though these empty departments they point to are fictional. For example, they don't need PhDs to do many jobs. You're right. You're on point on how it should be if coding was fair or had anything at all to do with innovation these days. It doesn't, it has to do with cranking out product that can comply with twenty different international standards--so PhDs, much less innovation, isn't needed. But they say they need PhDs because they can simultaneously price out debt laden students who can't accept a job that A-soft wants to pay as well as turn to the relevant fed agencies with PhD requests which, for all the obvious reasons, fly through the comparatively antiquated and creaking U.S. permanent resident alien process.

If you actually hit some of those recruiters up your jaw would drop for how the bottom has fallen out on your job skills. There's a literal flood of foreign born PhDs whose immigration status is directly tied to their employment at that specific company. You, and similarly situated code monkeys, just aren't competing and will not likely begin competing in the future.

Absolutely, the rise of H1B visas has meant that if a company wanted to hire cheaper foreign coders means they can do so if they want, to some extent. And sure, there are games employers play in order to get approval to do so. But you don't need to put a PhD as a requirement to get the federal authorities to OK your H1B request.

I worked for a large, multi-billion dollar corporation, and sure, we had people there on H1B visas. Some internal job postings were for people in the states and some were only posted because they were required to even though it was clear from the language they intended the position to go to someone with an H1B visa. I can promise you that in the job postings made to satisfy the prerequisite for H1B approval, none of them ever had a PhD as a requirement, and even the ones listing a Masters as "preferred" stated "3 years work experience in a related field" as an alternative. There are plenty of ways to game the system without having to ask for an unnecessary degree.

Even with the rise of H1B software developers, there is a hard cap on the number issued per year (outside of government/education). As a result, the company I worked for hired far more non-H1B software developers than those with H1B visas, even with a preference for H1B employees. At our corporate HQ location alone, we had around 1000 IT employees. The team I was a part of had 32, 2 of which were on H1B visas. Of those 32 employees, 6 were hired in the past year, 5 of which were non-H1B employees, and 3 of which were entry level straight out of undergrad. I'm not sure of the breakdown of the other groups, but none of them were dominated by H1B employees.

If I called a recruiter today, I'd be seeking mid or senior positions which means I'm not competing with the H1B people anyways. However, even someone who only has an undergrad CS degree but no work experience can easily find a job if they're flexible with what technologies they work with. The results of the technical interview matter far more than the degree. Maybe you guys want to believe that the IT job market is as difficult as the legal market, but it's just not.

[ookoshi]

Accidental anon. ^

[JenDarby]

I've been staring at my student loan balance and monthly interest rate accruals for like 15 minutes.

You just need to get creative with your time as a transactional lawyer.

[Anonymous User]

I feel like comparing biglaw and teaching is highly variable depending on where you teach.

In my flyover middling public high school, teachers start at like 50k base (with another few thousand in benefits) = $55k starting for 9 months of work, and approach 90k base (with 30k in benefits = $120k all in for 9 months of work a year). Most of the teachers I had already retired by early 60s with pensions....and many worked only max 8 hours a day.

My AP government teacher told us that he was a burnout of think tanks and Congress in DC and decided to move back home to teach because he didn't want to work crazy hours and wanted to spend more time with his family. He's still teaching years later, so I assume that teaching is more his cup of tea. He also literally never graded anything we did while class was in session, yet he was a pretty amazing lecturer/teacher that prepared us well for AP exams. I never got one test or paper back in his class though.

So yeah, teaching varies a lot by school and where you teach - but if you can get a job at my old high school (and especially teaching AP classes where the kids want to learn), you're pretty much living the dream.

[Anonymous User]

You've been out of circulation for too long.

LOL. I suppose, if by too long you mean a month. I was working in IT full time up until the point my summer associate position started (part-time law school -> biglaw). The last IT interview I went on was during law school, as was the last offer I turned down.

The reason they call you is because have a quota to meet in terms of "outreach," (yeah, everything is quantified these days). Literally if you're a recruiter for a big software company, like my sister, she begins every day by searching LinkedIn and mass mailing. This way, well, let's call this company A-soft, can turn around and tell the relevant fed agencies that they need more indentured servants from India. Or at least they can quit early before lunch time.

This, I believe, is why the poster you're replying to mentions the PhD thing. It's all institutionalized to make false (well, false in a sense) demand for foreign born PhDs, and now there's a nice system set up where you see all the big companies whine and complain about lacking appropriate specialization even though these empty departments they point to are fictional. For example, they don't need PhDs to do many jobs. You're right. You're on point on how it should be if coding was fair or had anything at all to do with innovation these days. It doesn't, it has to do with cranking out product that can comply with twenty different international standards--so PhDs, much less innovation, isn't needed. But they say they need PhDs because they can simultaneously price out debt laden students who can't accept a job that A-soft wants to pay as well as turn to the relevant fed agencies with PhD requests which, for all the obvious reasons, fly through the comparatively antiquated and creaking U.S. permanent resident alien process.

If you actually hit some of those recruiters up your jaw would drop for how the bottom has fallen out on your job skills. There's a literal flood of foreign born PhDs whose immigration status is directly tied to their employment at that specific company. You, and similarly situated code monkeys, just aren't competing and will not likely begin competing in the future.

Absolutely, the rise of H1B visas has meant that if a company wanted to hire cheaper foreign coders means they can do so if they want, to some extent. And sure, there are games employers play in order to get approval to do so. But you don't need to put a PhD as a requirement to get the federal authorities to OK your H1B request.

I worked for a large, multi-billion dollar corporation, and sure, we had people there on H1B visas. Some internal job postings were for people in the states and some were only posted because they were required to even though it was clear from the language they intended the position to go to someone with an H1B visa. I can promise you that in the job postings made to satisfy the prerequisite for H1B approval, none of them ever had a PhD as a requirement, and even the ones listing a Masters as "preferred" stated "3 years work experience in a related field" as an alternative. There are plenty of ways to game the system without having to ask for an unnecessary degree.

Even with the rise of H1B software developers, there is a hard cap on the number issued per year (outside of government/education). As a result, the company I worked for hired far more non-H1B software developers than those with H1B visas, even with a preference for H1B employees. At our corporate HQ location alone, we had around 1000 IT employees. The team I was a part of had 32, 2 of which were on H1B visas. Of those 32 employees, 6 were hired in the past year, 5 of which were non-H1B employees, and 3 of which were entry level straight out of undergrad. I'm not sure of the breakdown of the other groups, but none of them were dominated by H1B employees.

If I called a recruiter today, I'd be seeking mid or senior positions which means I'm not competing with the H1B people anyways. However, even someone who only has an undergrad CS degree but no work experience can easily find a job if they're flexible with what technologies they work with. The results of the technical interview matter far more than the degree. Maybe you guys want to believe that the IT job market is as difficult as the legal market, but it's just not.

Agree with this post. Most of my family are programmers and it's a joke to get a job, esp in the Silicon Valley. A CS degree doesn't really mean much though on its own (it's actually very theoretical and a lot of programming you learn on your own), although being from certain schools helps. My spouse went to one of the schools like MIT/Stanford and didn't even study CS (was a math/physics person) and basically auto received multiple offers in IT/CS because they did some programming on the side... there's a ton more jobs but also I think there's a higher intellectual barrier to entry than in law IMO.