The biggest problems I have with this industry most developers don't want fixed. So unless a union offers something like a certification, licensing, or credentialing program for its members, like the security industry does, I don't see a union solving the software industry problems most frustrating to me. A license or certification is valuable because it provides a common platform of competencies that raises the value of the union members in the workforce, requires documented continuing education, and ensures a common criteria of best practices that reinforces the business value of the union to business entities.
Developers don't want this because 1) at least in the US, our educational system is prohibitively costly, and your solution proposes putting the cost of that on developers, including not having time off for education, and 2) that's mostly a problem for employers, not developers--I'm quite capable of working with poorly-qualified and poorly-skilled developers and my work looks better by comparison.
You're proposing that developers pay to solve their employers' problem.
I don't think you'd find many developers who object to their employers paying for education and giving them time off to pursue that education.
> You're proposing that developers pay to solve their employers' problem.
Education is completely orthogonal to licensing or certification. If education is your primary basis of qualification then you are at best a beginner.
I am proposing that developers pay to justify higher wages and cut through subjective hiring bullshit as part of their union dues they would pay for anyways to be a member of said union. When have you ever seen software candidate selection be at least partially objective?
The rest of your points don't make any sense. You don't need any education to be a developer. For example, I am completely self taught. I have also worked with some incredibly talented developers who have no college at all. How do you, objectively speaking, determine if that makes somebody less or more qualified? You don't, because there isn't any objective measure by which to rate qualification.
Without some value added quality like licensing why would I ever pay union wages when I could simply jump ship and go work somewhere else? Every time I have changed employers my wages have gone up by 10% or more.
I also suspect the developers who are most strongly opposed to licensing or certification are those who have never completed a certification in any field.
> I am proposing that developers pay to justify higher wages and cut through subjective hiring bullshit
Why is that a problem developers need to solve? A bad hiring process hurts the company much more than developers.
> The rest of your points don't make any sense. You don't need any education to be a developer. For example, I am completely self taught. I have also worked with some incredibly talented developers who have no college at all.
That's good for you and them, but if you have certifications, there are going to be tests for those certifications, and people are going to want an effective way to learn the material necessary to pass those tests. I've taught myself things, and I've learned things from teachers, and the latter is much faster for me and most people. So if you want me to get a certification, I'm going to want you to pay for me to take a class geared toward that certification. Certification classes = education.
I'll also point out that a bachelor's degree in CS is a certification, which you seem to think isn't much of a value added. So which is it: are certifications a value added or not?
> Without some value added quality like licensing
How is licensing an added value for developers?
> I also suspect the developers who are most strongly opposed to licensing or certification are those who have never completed a certification in any field.
I'm not opposed to certification. I'm opposed to requiring certifications in order to work in development, and then forcing would-be developers to pay for it. I learned a lot in my J2EE certification class when my employer paid for it, and while I don't think I've ever even put that on my resumé, the knowledge gained does show up sometimes in these non-objective interviews you're complaining about. :)
> Why is that a problem developers need to solve? A bad hiring process hurts the company much more than developers.
Its not well thought out company policies that interview and hire people. Generally its other developers insecurely biasing their decisions on subjective considerations for their personal preferences. That hurts the company and potential candidates, but this is still how software hiring works in most cases.
> I'll also point out that a bachelor's degree in CS is a certification
No it isn't. A medical degree is not a medical license and a law degree isn't a law license. No education is a real estate or truck driver license, though both of those licenses demand some form of education. Hopefully the education has prepared you for both the real world and for the licensing, but clearly this is often not the case in practice, at least in software.
> > Why is that a problem developers need to solve? A bad hiring process hurts the company much more than developers.
> Its not well thought out company policies that interview and hire people. Generally its other developers insecurely biasing their decisions on subjective considerations for their personal preferences. That hurts the company and potential candidates, but this is still how software hiring works in most cases.
You're not answering my question: Why is this developers' problem? Sounds like a problem for companies, not developers. If you think this solves a problem companies have, then companies should pay for it, not developers.
> > I'll also point out that a bachelor's degree in CS is a certification
> No it isn't. A medical degree is not a medical license and a law degree isn't a law license. No education is a real estate or truck driver license, though both of those licenses demand some form of education. Hopefully the education has prepared you for both the real world and for the licensing, but clearly this is often not the case in practice, at least in software.
Okay, if your definition of a certification is that it's required for employment, then why not just require a CS bachelors for employment as a software developer? If you answer that, you have the answer for why people are against certifications.
Yes, interviews are subjective and ineffective in identifying suitable candidates, but a) I'm not sure why you think that this is a problem developers should solve rather than employers, and b) I'm not sure why you think a standardized certification would be less subjective. If anything, a standard certification is going to be much poorer at identifying candidates suitable for companies, since specific companies have specific needs.
The biggest problems I have with this industry most developers don't want fixed. So unless a union offers something like a certification, licensing, or credentialing program for its members, like the security industry does, I don't see a union solving the software industry problems most frustrating to me. A license or certification is valuable because it provides a common platform of competencies that raises the value of the union members in the workforce, requires documented continuing education, and ensures a common criteria of best practices that reinforces the business value of the union to business entities.