You Can’t Build an iPhone With Python
On the narrow definition of engineering perpetuated by boot camps and other coding initiatives
A friend of mine recently recounted an interaction with one of her co-workers. Described as a generally nice guy, he had attempted to convince her that code camps were “basically the new engineering degree.” He had gone to one himself, and, in the end, the two of them had ended up in the same place. This, understandably, gave her pause; after all, she had attended the University of Waterloo’s computer engineering program, and then the University of Toronto for her master’s in engineering.
After some thought, she asked whether the particular code camp he had attended had touched on security, infrastructure, or operating systems; it was a question asked with the intention of understanding his comparison. Flustered, he responded that roles in those areas were so niche that his statement still stood.
My friend recognized that her co-worker’s statement had some truth to it. Yes, they had ended up in the same place. What troubled her was that he failed to understand that the breadth of his knowledge was unlikely to take him to the deeply technical reaches of big tech, where he ultimately wanted to end up.
