How is it hand waving? It's literally true a large corporation can fire a customer support agent while sponsoring a software engineer, it is not interchangeable talent

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dec0dedab0de 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If we had a union we would be training people from customer support to engineer.

I truly believe that software would be improved immensely if all developers spent a few years doing tech support for the elderly.

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If we had a union we would be training people from customer support to engineer

This, to my knowledge, very rarely works.

> software would be improved immensely if all developers spent a few years doing tech support for the elderly

This, on the other hand, absolutely does.

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simonw 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've worked with several excellent people in my career who progressed from customer support to QA to QA engineer to software engineer.

It's not common though, and I don't think it's a case of "training". Some people have the drive to figure that path out, and those people should be encouraged and supported.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Some people have the drive to figure that path out, and those people should be encouraged and supported Totally agree. I don’t think that means institutionalizing that pipeline is likely to yield those folks. They’re rare.

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gopher_space 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> This, to my knowledge, very rarely works.

Strictly a function of management quality and experience.

	▲	autoexec 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not everyone is interested in programing. Some people are amazing at customer support and super extroverted and seek out jobs where they interact with customers and would be miserable looking at code all day. The opportunity should be there, but some people are just never going to be engineers. Management quality can't fix that.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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bpodgursky 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm sorry but this is just absurd. Not everyone has the same aptitude for every job. For a company or country to function you have to acknowledge this and put people in jobs suited to their natural talents.

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tracerbulletx 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I doubt that's the argument they're making. They're saying they are laying of a software engineer in one org, and hiring another software engineer in a different org. Not cross functional roles.

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penskymaterial 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The army of developers stuck working helpdesk right now because they can't find work, would like a word.

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franktankbank 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe they weren't exactly doing that. Calling a developer something else doesn't make it so.

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eastbound 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Talent can be trained, less across jobs (although it's often what public services ask to entrepreneurs in some European countries), much more across departments.