Career Trajectories and Company Loyalty

The majority of the articles which were covered for this blog post make specific references to the tech industry and employment issues therein. Since I’m not going into tech, my experience will be a bit different from many others in the class. The standard investment banking career path—the one I’ll be following—is much more flowchart-based than that of the tech industry. By this, I mean that bankers do not simply change from one job to a similar one every few years. Rather, they typically work for two or three years right after college as an analyst. Analysts are the lowest rank and consequently are the most numerous (usually) and expected to learn, rather than lead. After two years, well-performing analysts are usually offered a third year as an analyst. During this period, analysts begin to hone their leadership skills in preparation for a possible promotion the next year. Analysts who do not perform particularly well are typically not offered another position within the bank. These people often go into another financial job or return to school to further hone their skills.

Analysts who have been given a third year and perform well are then promoted to associate for their fourth, fifth, and sixth years. Again, those who are not promoted find other work or return to school. Associates are now expected to become leaders. It is the job of the associate to support the bankers above him or her by quarterbacking the operations of the analysts within the associate’s group. To use a military analogy, first- and second-year analysts are the privates in the squad, third-year analysts are the corporals, and associates are the sergeants in charge of the squad. Associates spend three or four years in their position, taking on more leadership responsibility as necessary. The top associates are then considered for promotion to vice president. Vice presidents exist largely in a transitional role as they occupy the space between junior staff and senior management. Consequently, VPs must keep their hands in two buckets: the daily operations of the junior staff and the client-facing operations of senior management. Furthermore, good VPs will begin to develop their own portfolios of clients whom they will call on for the rest of their careers in banking. Once vice presidents have built a portfolio and demonstrated their leadership ability and social skills, they are considered for promotion to director. Directors are the second-highest mainline rank in most investment banks. They carry out all the typical client-facing duties and interactions, including cultivating new business, leading deals, and maintaining current client relationships. The best directors are promoted to managing director. Managing directors are not only responsible for their own performance, but for that of their entire group, including all the analysts, associates, VPs, and directors under them. Finally, some MDs seek positions within the corporate leadership of the bank as a whole—think C-level-type positions.

A nice feature of the i-banking career path is that upward mobility is all but guaranteed for those who perform their jobs well. My 5-year plan is to work hard and do as well as I can as an analyst. If I’m promoted, I’ll likely continue on the career path outlined above. If I’m not promoted, I’d like to go to business school and get an MBA. An MBA would enable me to switch to a wide variety of career paths, or even re-enter banking. Like I mentioned earlier, the decision to stay with my current company long-term would follow a “am I going to be promoted” sort of flowchart. Additionally, the career path outlined above has a job change every three years built in, as Vivian Giang and her sources for the article suggest. Although the issue of job-fluidity and consistently increasing pay is not a big deal in the banking industry, company loyalty is more of a problem. Often a bank will only be loyal to its employees if they are loyal to it or are very good at their jobs. For example, if a bank hears that one of their third-year analysts would rather pursue business school than a promotion, the bank would likely not even offer the promotion in the first place. Additionally, unlike the conflict between tech workers and Apple, Google, etc., the banking industry often faces and quietly deals with talent-poaching at all levels. Non-compete agreements are unusual among the lower ranks, especially because junior people often switch from bank to bank. However, non-disclosure agreements are very common and they are used to protect proprietary models, information, and financial data. Since the banking career path is very segmented into three-year blocks and is very flowchart-based, job-hopping is an inevitable aspect of the process.

Just Who is a Hacker?

Upon exploring the readings associated with hackers in this week's assignment, one key trend immediately surprised me: hackers are inherently right-brained people. Since their occupations, fascinations, and persuasions typically resolve around computers, hackers are typically viewed as technological, left-brained people. However, for hackers, computers are merely a tool to a larger end, just as marble is merely a tool used by a sculptor to achieve something more important. As many self-proclaimed hackers explain (and I alluded to in my previous post), hackers are artists.

                Some hackers actually come right out and say that they identify very closely with traditional artists: hacker Paul Graham in his 2003 essay “Hackers and Painters” says that “Hacking and painting have a lot in common. In fact, of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers… trying [to] make good things.” Later in the essay, Graham furthers his view on hacking by saying that hackers are like artists in that they can only learn by doing, unlike scientists or mathematicians. No one would dispute that artists (painters, sculptors, musicians, etc.) are very heavily right-brained people. It is becoming clear to me that hackers are just as right-brained as their artist counterparts.

                More evidence for the artistic and expressive nature of hackers can be found through studying their behavior and personality. As “A Portrait of J. Random Hacker” explains, common hacker hobbies include science fiction, music, medievalism, chess, backgammon, and other intellectual games. All of these make heavy use of the creative and artistic capacities of the brain and each of them help participants learn how to solve problems in new and interesting ways or encourage creative development, both of which are central to the hacker’s mission. Just as artists and musicians, many hackers typically hold leftist politics, think highly of themselves, occasionally indulge in recreational drugs and other substances, and don’t care for societal conventions of race, gender, and religion. These are all marks of an intensely creative, right-brained person.

        Hackers’ inherent creativity and artistry are often accompanied by a certain mistrust of established ways of doing things, whether these things are other ways of hacking, sports, or the modern sociopolitical order. Eric Raymond, in his “A Brief History of Hackerdom,” chronicles the technological developments made by hackers over the latter half of the 20^th century. A common theme among the achievements was a desire to create contrasting systems, as seen in the rise of UNIX to supplant MIT’s early systems and later the compartmentalization of UNIX and its subsequent liberalization through the development of LINUX. Only later in the development of hacker culture when the internet and open-source became dominant did the mistrust of other computing systems erode away.

                    However, perhaps more importantly, many hackers have a mistrust of “the system,” or “the man.” I postulate that this is an artifact of the 1960s and ‘70s countercultural movements. Phrack Magazine contributor “The Mentor” expresses his mistrust of the system during his mid-‘80s juvenile years: “We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.  We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.” I can’t help but think of the image of the angst-ridden teenager fed up with the world and his superiors. 30 years later, The Mentor’s misgivings have been codified within the larger hacker culture: “they carry an ethic of disdain towards systems that normally allow little agency on the part of ordinary individuals.” (Brett Scott, “The Hacker Hacked”)
                    As an engineering student who has been doing stage lighting design for eight years and who will be going into investment banking after graduation, I have mixed reactions to the idea of “the hacker identity.” I certainly do not consider myself a hacker, but there are aspects of the culture I identify with. As a stage lighting designer, it is my job to leverage technology to create beautiful art. Such is also the occupation of the hacker. Like hackers, there are times when I prefer to use my right-brain to do things my own way. However, I have no mistrust of “the system” and in fact, I hope to be contributing meaningfully to it for many years to come. (See above about investment banking…) In a moment of self-reflection, I would imagine that perhaps I became an engineering student because I sit somewhere in between the hacker culture and the mainstream culture. Art and creativity are exhilarating (I can sit for hours working on CAD drawings of random buildings that pop into my head), but so are logic, technology, and mainstream constructs. The technical details of a microchip and the modeling of a mergers and acquisitions deal are more fascinating to me than science fiction, medievalism, or finding ways to outsmart “the system.” For these reasons, although I do somewhat identify with it, I would not consider myself a part of hacker culture.

CS: Art, Engineering, or Science?

Several articles included within the first reading assignment ask the question “What is software development?” Is it science, engineering, or perhaps even art? In my opinion, computer science and software development are not engineering disciplines. They do not have several prerequisites needed to be included within the engineering field. Instead, software professionals engage in what I prefer to think of as “artistic science.” As an electrical engineering student, my opinion may contain some bias, but I'd like to make a few points to help illustrate my claim.

Traditionally, engineering has been defined as the manipulation of physical laws with natural materials in such a way as to achieve a beneficial and finite result. As Stack Exchange founder Jeff Atwood mentions, “Traditional bridge-building engineering disciplines are based on God’s rules—physics. Rules that have been absolute and unchanging.” Software development does not fit within either of the above definitions. Physical laws like gravity, mass/energy conservation, quantum behavior, and even time-dilation have no bearing upon software development. They are important, however, for the electrical engineers who create the hardware necessary for software developers to ply their craft. Furthermore, software development does not rely on naturally-found materials to achieve an end. All a software developer needs are creativity, knowledge, a development environment, and a good mechanical keyboard. With these immaterial and/or unnatural inputs, a software developer can, like engineers, set out to achieve beneficial results. However, unlike the results of good engineering, software is never a finished product. Ian Bogost from The Atlantic points out that “today’s software development is iterative.” Unlike bridge-building, where the first iteration can be the only iteration for 50 or 100 years, software developers are free to continually improve their products. They are free to keep developing. This final reason alone certainly explains why computer programmers should be called developers and not engineers.

                Although software developers should not be classified as engineers, they can be classified as scientists. The iterative nature of coding very closely parallels the experimental processes scientists use. Inherent within scientific experimentation is a need for repeat-ability and stable boundary conditions. Software development relies on the very same. If computers did not offer repeat-ability and stability, software development couldn’t take place. Furthermore, like scientists, software developers rely on mathematics to inform their work. Without discrete math and the mathematics of binary logic, code developers would not be able to create a product which computer hardware could run. Clearly, software developers rely on the principles of scientific experimentation in their work. Consequently, they can be considered scientists themselves. However, computer science involves another element: creativity. Great software is great artwork, and creative computer scientists are also creative artists. Like artists, computer programmers have the ability to apply creative thinking to a blank canvas (or blank source file, as it were) and create something truly beautiful. No one would argue that Windows and MacOS weren’t works of art when they first came out. They beautified the computing experience, just as works of art beautify the human experience. Facebook changed human discourse in a way not unlike great art forms can. So, to fully describe the field of software development, it must be thought of both as a science and as an art.

                With all of the above taken into consideration, it becomes evident that software development is not a form of engineering, but rather a combination of science and art. It does not create physical or finite results in the way engineering does. Rather, software development is a scientific exercise which requires artistic creativity and discipline. In short: computer science is an acceptable term, software engineering is not.

Introduction

My name is Jake Reilly. I'm from the Chicago suburbs and I'm finally being vindicated for my 21 years as a Cubs fan. As a senior in EE, my interests lie primarily in how engineering can influence business and how business and economic requirements should be considered whenever engineering work is done. Furthermore, many of the EE projects we do tend to be cross-disciplinary. I enjoy being exposed to many different lines of study and ways of thinking. Outside of class, I'm very involved with the technical crew at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, particularly in the realm of lighting design. I've designed lights for student productions, Broadway-level dance companies, Hip-Hop Night, and everything in between.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies including AI, self-driving cars, medical robotics, and the technical aspects of the sharing economy. In my opinion, the biggest issue facing any engineer is "We can do this, but should we?" For electrical and computer scientists and engineers, this question demands that we always consider our breakthroughs and products from the perspective of not only their necessity, but their moral acceptability. Artificial intelligence, in particular, begs the question of "should we" in a way we've never seen before. I'm looking forward to hopefully hearing more on this topic.