While there are definitely some bad eggs out there, I believe that most of the "undesirables" are simply inexperienced, ignorant, or incompetant. They don't have any intention to swindle their employers, they just don't happen to be as good as others in the field who are paid similar salaries. Sometimes their faults are quite small, often they just don't ask for advice when they need it.

Most of the real swindlers I've seen have been in the packaged software market. Products which don't really meet the client's requirements, and simply aren't flexible enough to accomodate growth. Despite this, the product will still be pushed to inappropriate clients in order to make a sale.

As for masters degrees, having been in the academic system for only a mere five years, I would say that you'd have to be interested in the craft and not at all interested in the money to go down that route. In all the jobs I've seen, commercial experience and not academic qualifications are king.

Paul Fenwick
Perl Training Australia

In reply to Re: Re: Bootstrapping Techies (or how to hire without technical knowledge) by pjf
in thread Bootstrapping Techies (or how to hire without technical knowledge) by pjf

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