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Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#71

Post by mjones »

fecak wrote: post #61
old-soft-man wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the advice, Recruiter, but despise the suggestion that appearances apparently still matter more than reality.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating ageism at all. I'm in my 40s, write about ageism somewhat frequently (1), and tend to work with candidates that are closer to my age or older. On Monday, I should be getting an offer letter for a female engineer who started her career in 1988. I don't necessarily feel that appearances matter more than reality, depending on what appearance you are referring to. We're talking about…

Thanks and doubly so for the links.

And thanks to all for the great information and perspectives!

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#72

Post by schlinb »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #50
schlinb wrote: post #46

I have recently been involved in a project where we are analyzing employment offers from companies in different markets (SF bay area being one of them). We have found that one of the biggest factors in getting employment offers is how you position yourself. For instance right now if you are an enterprise engineer with extensive perl or .Net experience this will hurt you if you want to get into a young web company. On…

It's pretty silly, though. Node is not a new "technology." It is framework for using Javascript. It is debatable if it is even good. What is more important is someone's grasp of core CS and programming concepts. If a code bootcamper with 6 months of using some fad framework is more valuable than someone with 30 years of experience, why is that? If the code bootcamper can use Nodr, presumably the person with 30 years…

I completely agree. It's strange to me too... but that's what the data shows.

I think it makes sense in a way. If your technology is built on Node then hiring a guy who'd rather work in php or java is not going to be a good fit. He won't go home at night and play with Node to really understand it's strengths and weaknesses and he won't have excitement for the technology -- totally justifiable since at some point all these new frameworks start to feel like re-inventions of the same wheel over and over again.

In my experience there are nice things about working for SF startups --

You're surrounded by people passionate about technology. You're generally working on problems that are small enough where you can have big impact on them yourself. If you want to know how to build a company then it's really good experience.

That said, it's sort of a question of what scale you'd like to work at.

In my experience --

Contracting is fun because you build lots of small stuff and experiment with lots of different technologies and ideas

Startups are fun because you get to actually build and run a product but you have to build everything so sometimes you don't get to venture into those really interesting areas like massive scale or search quality

Enterprise (I haven't done a ton of enterprise work) seems fun because if you're part of the right enterprise then you get to work on problems that are much larger than a startup can work on and work with more resources and more exotic larger problems (wouldn't it be fun to work on self-driving cars?)

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#73

Post by [deleted] »

blergh123 wrote: post #36

For me, when I've interviewed older developers, my main concern is that they have too much experience for the role we are interviewing for and may be bored and want to leave. It probably depends on the job description, but sometimes more experienced candidates get rejected for this exact reason. I'd love to hear how other people handle this type of situation.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#74

Post by MagaManGo »

developer1 wrote: post #43
tjradcliffe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the advantages of being older is that it gives one the wisdom to be more selective about tools. I'm an expert in the tools I use (C, C++ and Python, mostly, although I know a dozen-odd languages well enough to crash a program in them) and not hugely keen on learning new ones. I poke around at new languages now and then but quickly learn they are either a) so much like ones I know there's nothing specia…

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

>> They write code for hours or days at a time without validating what they are writing.

In emacs we use flycheck to see errors and style warnings as we write in real time. For javascript there is js2-mode.

If you're a lisp programmer you take it a step further. Not only checking syntax in real time, but running the code in real time. Like a small talk developer! It's the tightest feedback loop you can get. Makes test driven development more enjoyable too. (skewer-mode allows this for javascript)

Don't judge text editor users based on your experience with a few people. Writing code for hours without style checks or execution is not a common workflow for an emacs user. I've met quite a few inept Eclipse and Visual Studio users but I know better than to correlate IDE's with traits.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#75

Post by MagaManGo »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #51
developer1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

This is kind of ridiculous. You are indicting vim and emacs users for some alleged major catastrophe at your organization. You realize very large and well written software projects, probably my h larger than your's, have been built by people using vim and emacs and not having JetBrains did not hamper them. Honestly, I have seen so many developers fumbling around with their "intellisense" and the kinda of things you a…

The linux kernal an GNU tools were built by emacs and vim users. That software is running the world from android phones to servers.

Python, Ruby, and Javascript were built by emacs users. All the modern goodies the new hip people rave about.

Web browsers were created by emacs users. The entire industry we make a living in came from the belly of emacs.

But 2 guys at some company refused to follow coding standards, so yeah...

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#77

Post by rajacombinator »

As a startup founder who anticipates hiring some time this year, my feeling is that all things equal I would vastly prefer someone who has been programming for 40 years and still loves it. You're likely to have far more experience, knowledge, and superior work habits vs a fresh grad. However I doubt you would be willing to join a risky startup for lower wages than you could get elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#78

Post by droope »

developer1 wrote: post #43
tjradcliffe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the advantages of being older is that it gives one the wisdom to be more selective about tools. I'm an expert in the tools I use (C, C++ and Python, mostly, although I know a dozen-odd languages well enough to crash a program in them) and not hugely keen on learning new ones. I poke around at new languages now and then but quickly learn they are either a) so much like ones I know there's nothing specia…

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

HAHAHA. I almost fell for the trolling.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#79

Post by mjones »

rajacombinator wrote: post #77

As a startup founder who anticipates hiring some time this year, my feeling is that all things equal I would vastly prefer someone who has been programming for 40 years and still loves it. You're likely to have far more experience, knowledge, and superior work habits vs a fresh grad. However I doubt you would be willing to join a risky startup for lower wages than you could get elsewhere.

Actually, due to the fact that my kids are grown up and out on their own, I am not nearly as concerned about getting top dollar (or climbing some career track) as I am about working on something interesting and having done something I can look back on 10 years from now and feel that my time was well spent.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#80

Post by kuujo »

mocfive wrote: post #40

At 31, I feel like I am just now leaving the 'young talent' group, but not yet considered older. Standing in the middle, kinda, I think I can see both sides. To help deal with the agism issue, my hypothesis is that if you can zero in on the exact misconceptions they might have about you, or older programmers in general, and demonstrate that you don't fit that mold, you're in. Some younger engineers will worry if olde…

I have to say, as a young engineer working at a startup full of cutting-edge technologies, this seems to be the best advice I've seen yet (if that type of environment is what you're looking for).
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