Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Hire an Oldster

tryoldster.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 308 posts

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#91

Post by Benjammer »

suprgeek wrote: post #74

As an oldster - two things that I really wish my younger self would have intimately realized. 1) As a software person your are employed to Solve Business Problems - NOT to write code, NOT to write tests, NOT to hack on platforms, NOT to be Agile. Solve the problem (or add the feature) - never lose sight of this. The value you bring is directly related to this. 2) People outside software development don't give a flyin…

>As a software person your are employed to Solve Business Problems - NOT to write code, NOT to write tests, NOT to hack on platforms, NOT to be Agile. Solve the problem (or add the feature) - never lose sight of this. The value you bring is directly related to this.

My chemical engineering degree really instilled this idea in me early on, and it's by far the biggest motivating factor as to why I love to work at software startups. When a scientist discovers something in a lab, the ChemE's job is to then come in and figure out how to turn this discovery or innovation into a legitimate business. How do we scale this reaction up from a petri dish to a 10,000 gallon reactor? Where and how do we get the reagents? How much do they cost? Are there any hazardous byproducts? How do we dispose of them?

I like to operate the same way as a software engineer. I'm an engineer, not a scientist. My job is to use technology to produce value for the business, while mitigating risks of that value eroding over time. All the work done should be focused on those two things. And it's not about focusing on those things instead of other things, it's more about realizing that anything worthwhile to do at work that you can come up with actually filters back to those two things anyway in some indirect fashion, so you might as well keep those ideas front and center.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#92

Post by beachstartup »

aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

the boom in "old geek" job boards is the market correcting itself. smaller companies have known about it for a LONG time, because we don't have access to the genius-level kids that churn out code 80 hours a week. tough luck for us, too bad, so sad.

our team is exclusively 35-60. i wouldn't hire a non-genius 25 year old to run anything critical. nope, no way. sorry, kids.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#93

Post by jasode »

parennoob wrote: post #75
aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

> higher related costs like healthcare for a family How exactly is this a concern for a hiring manager ? I thought a company's employees were insured as a pool. In any case, discriminating against someone because of their healthcare status is pretty scummy (in my opinion), but I don't even understand why this is a concern, let alone a legitimate one.

For a hiring manager at a large company (10000+ employees), that interviewer probably won't mentally compute the healthcare costs of a candidate. Although even large companies like AOL were not immune to high medical costs -- even if they inadvertently presented it in a distasteful way.[1]

However, for small companies (e.g. 10 employees), the premiums to fund the health insurance pool will change drastically depending on which employees it has. For example, let's say after a candidate interview, the employer (owner) checks Facebook and notices the wife just had a premature baby or birth defect, etc. Let's say that preemie baby's medical costs is $46000 more[2] (or $1 million more in AOL's case[1]) than a normal healthy baby. We as society may want the employer to ignore that costlier number but we should'be be surprised if he'd rather not pay it and hire another cheaper candidate. Yes, it's illegal discrimination, but we have to be realistic about self-interest -- especially when the employer's (real) reason for rejection can't be proven in court.

If you're bringing in big profits like Google Inc, you have the luxury of not having to make distasteful decisions with finite amounts of money in regards to employee healthcare costs.

[1] Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/tim_a...

BI: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-tim-armstrong-knew-...

[2] http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/womens-he...

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#94

Post by 6stringmerc »

Um, I know it's not industry specific, but in the United States, since the 2008 Recession, workers age 55 and older have been the ones gaining employment. Zero Hedge routinely posts the BLS numbers that show just how much better the Oldsters are doing than the Under 30 crowd. Projecting a false notion that older workers are being slighted, when the opposite is true, is not good for the long-term health of a Consumer-Based economy like the United States.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#95

Post by chc »

x1798DE wrote: post #86

I feel like I would love to use this, but I would be worried about HR freaking out. I had a training before being allowed to interview people and it mostly consisted of teaching how to avoid questions that might inadvertently provide you with information that could be used to discriminate against people that was also irrelevant to the actual job (e.g. don't ask "what do you like to do on the weekends", but you can as…

If you're going on this site, presumably it's to do the opposite of discriminate against them, so I'm not sure how that's a concern.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#96

Post by enraged_camel »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #82
aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

> unwilling to run the same 60 hour gauntlet that a 25 year old _can_ etc. Older people _can_ run 60 hour gauntlets. We're just wise enough to know that it leads to no good outcome.

I think it's a matter of degree. A two week crunch time every 6 months is OK, maybe even beneficial. Every month though? Not OK, and definitely detrimental.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#97

Post by walrus1066 »

So much time is wasted in our field, reinventing the wheel, adopting ill suited architectures and abstractions, not seeing problems in advance, misunderstanding the requirements.

An experienced engineer, who can prevent the above is worth their weight in gold.

Because ultimately, the fundamentals of software engineering haven't changed for decades, like abstraction, modularization etc

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#98

Post by cookiecaper »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
cookiecaper wrote: post #7

While I think there are issues with the presentation, as edoceo noted, I love anything that stands to dispel the startup bubble myth that experience is a contraindication. I've been privileged to work in companies with programmers in their 50s and 60s and they've been great mentors. Their work continues to be top-notch and the insight and maturity they bring is absolutely invaluable. In order to keep their labor cost…

A good organization has a mix of old hands and inexperienced young people. They have complementary strengths. Put it another way. When you board an airliner, are you happy to see a fresh faced pilot? Or my (old) dermatologist. He said he could spot skin cancer from across the room. I asked him how, he said half his business was skin cancer - he looked at it for hours every day.

Yes, I completely agree that it's an asset to have all types of people aboard, and that youthful contributions are also important and valuable. They simply don't displace or supplant the needs for mature/senior/experienced contributions, as many in the SV ecosystem would have you believe. You do NOT have to be young to be innovative.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#99

Post by jonathankoren »

aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

I'm glad to see that both hours worked, as opposed to tasks completed is the metric to use, and that booze time is a job requirement.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#100

Post by dragonwriter »

6stringmerc wrote: post #94

Um, I know it's not industry specific, but in the United States, since the 2008 Recession, workers age 55 and older have been the ones gaining employment. Zero Hedge routinely posts the BLS numbers that show just how much better the Oldsters are doing than the Under 30 crowd. Projecting a false notion that older workers are being slighted, when the opposite is true, is not good for the long-term health of a Consumer-…

> since the 2008 Recession, workers age 55 and older have been the ones gaining employment

I suspect that's less a trend against age discrimination against them and more a trend that they are progressively less able to retire acceptably.

Post reply on HN