Licensed to Code

Here's an idea: Professional standards for software engineers.

The Concept

I have quite a few friends who are doctors, dentists, etc. They went through hard training at university... just like me. They went through lectures, assignments, exams, and had to give presentations, just like me. However, if they want to practice, they have to continually prove their level of proficiency by way of professional exams. I, however, don't have to. Once I was given my degree at university, that was the end of ever being examined.

I for one would welcome being examined every two, three, four or five years, just to keep myself provably up to date with my field. I would also like to be able to prevent people from giving themselves all sorts of silly titles such as "information architect, solutions architect, enterprise architect, analyst programmer", etc. I for one think that any software developer is an architect, a solution architect, an information architect, a user experience architect, etc.

Certainly, there are areas of specialisation, such as distributed systems, user interfaces, security, algorithms, etc, and there are key industries such as finance, travel, etc. So how about Junior/Senior Software Engineer, with an associated area, such as distributed systems/security? I just don't like the way that people can give themselves any silly title they want, never have to do any professional proficiency verification in their life, and claim to be a professional at the same level as other professions. I personally feel slightly embarrassed when my medical friends talk to me about software engineering roles/titles.

Good Old Job Interviews

As an aside, I am currently interviewing for jobs at the moment. Again, I have to do basic programming tests, along with aptitude tests, IQ tests, psychometric tests (here's a snippet from a four hour one I am about to do - along with some interesting rants), etc, which I am more than happy to do. It proves my worth, and also keeps me up to date with programming practices (I am forced to go back and relearn what I have forgotten prior to the test). However, there are some people (you know who they are) who will spend years and years in a company saying the right things to management and climbing the corporate ladder (see the next section below).

The problem with these people is that unfortunately they will end up being your boss, and they will also be making the design decisions. This is fundamentally bad. If, however, everyone must regularly show their ability, then people who want to position themselves into the title of "enterprise architect", "solutions tsar", etc will only remain in this position if they actually do hold a reasonable basic level of competence. Those who can't can at least then move on to whatever they are more suitable for, such as BA, account manager, strategic manager, etc... whatever suits them the best.

Your Boss Is Incompetent! *
* and you will be too one day.

Here is a sad fact, pointed out to me recently by a colleague. The process of workplace promotions has a slight but fundamental flaw. Let me demonstrate by way of a question: at the end of the following program, what is the value of the variable "Job_Level", presuming that you get promoted from tester (level 1) to developer to architect to delivery manager?

10 Declare Job_Level = 1
20 Do work
30 If it is time to retire or Job_Level >= MAX_JOB_LEVEL_HERE, end program
40 Time goes by
50 If you are really good, Job_Level := Job_Level + 1
60 If you are really bad, Job_Level := Job_Level - 1
70 If you are really really bad, end program
80 Goto 20

I guess the answer is level 4. Great news. You are a delivery manager (hard job... dealing with BAs, developers, architects, stakeholders... and the buck stops with you). However, if you were good at being a delivery manager... would you not have been promoted (over time) to the next level up (say Strategic Director, Board Member, etc)? Yes, you most likely would have, unless you said "actually, I am happy with where I am, and don't wish to climb the ladder any further"). However, if you weren't promoted, this doesn't mean that you were doing a great job... it just means that you weren't doing the job bad enough to get demoted or fired.

So... why are there not conditionals put onto any promotion for all companies, where a probation period is in place for the first few rounds of reviews? That would get around the problem I see a lot - where people position themselves into a nice, easy middle management job, and then just sit there for years, claiming a big salary, making ineffective decisions, pushing their own political agenda, and figuring out exactly why it is that they should never be fired. In small companies this is not so much of an issue, but as companies grow, and relationships across business units become more complex, it is possible to get yourself into a position of power - where no one knows what you are actually doing - but everyone is too afraid to question it :)