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Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

nytimes.com

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Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#81

Post by vonnik »

markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

^^ so this ^^ I was a tech recruiter for about a year (hate mail can be sent to dialogue@dessourds.com). the skills gap in america is so huge. there's so much demand for coding talent. anyone who has ever mastered a programming language is one Rails bootcamp away from getting a job. the older programmers who i saw struggling to get jobs had either a) gotten halfway rich and dropped out for 15 years or b) run their own company and were writing in long-forgotten idioms. that is, they left the conversation and stopped caring.

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#82

Post by wobbleblob »

markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

This is great, but when people see an older programmer, their first, involuntary thought is "I wonder what went wrong with his career, why did he get stuck?".

I vividly remember a manager (50-ish himself at the time) screening resumes once, letting out an exasperated sigh at the sight of one: "this one was born in the 60's, jeez!". I was the ideal age for a programmer at the time so it didn't affect me, but it still shocked me.

(I know it's customary not to include a date of birth on an American resume, but they'll still figure it out from dates on your diplomas, work experience etc)

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#83

Post by Beltiras »

markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

I try to find minds open to new ideas and mentor because I have an unquenchable thirst for seeing someone discover the world. My criteria is FIRST to find if the person in question is a compulsive maker. I find that those types of people will simply be excited by the prospect of manipulating new dimensions of the world into shapes pleasing to them. My first thought when I saw the headline was "They just need to find the joy of learning new solutions again!" because I can't envision anyone that has gotten the maker bug being cured of it. Maybe I wouldn't mentor those people because they would fail my first test. I think it is incumbent upon us to try thou.

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#84

Post by spyrosg »

graycat wrote: post #22

The article has "stay on the cutting edge". Ha! The real leading edge is work that is at least "new, correct, and significant" and published in a peer-reviewed journal of original research in information technology , yes, and also powerful and valuable in practice. So, put on resume that have published in original mathematical statistics for detecting zero-day problems, in artificial intelligence, and in optimization…

To those starting on a similar path (self-taught, but interested in the mathematical part), what would you say? What was easy to progress in, where did you flounder and why the difference? Is a Ph.D. requisite?

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#85

Post by codeshaman »

vonnik wrote: post #81
markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

^^ so this ^^ I was a tech recruiter for about a year (hate mail can be sent to dialogue@dessourds.com). the skills gap in america is so huge. there's so much demand for coding talent. anyone who has ever mastered a programming language is one Rails bootcamp away from getting a job. the older programmers who i saw struggling to get jobs had either a) gotten halfway rich and dropped out for 15 years or b) run their ow…

You said it yourself: > a programming language is one Rails bootcamp away

It means that anyone can learn a programming language and become as 'competent' as the 55 years old. When you have a choice between a 22 year old and a 55 year old, equally competent, who of the two is a better bet ?

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#86

Post by lsc »

Now, this is just my impression... I have no statistics to back this up. But I've been working in IT for 20 years, and eh, it is changing. The sort of person who gets hired is changing.

My impression is that the industry is changing... not really in the tools we use (UNIX is older than I am; we keep re-hashing some combination of C and lisp, it seems that virtualization tech is on a one decade cycle. It's the same shit, new packaging) - no, the industry is changing because more "normal people" are entering it. Standards are going up in terms of expectations of things like social skills, being tall, good looking, etc, etc, all the things you'd expect to need to succeed in sales or management or other things that a normal person might do. My observation of my unemployed friends; the sort of people who were seriously into computers in the early to mid '90s, is that they are generally rejected on "cultural fit" grounds. "You aren't cool enough to work here"

I mean, it's still way easier in tech than in sales, for a person with poor social skills or poor confidence, a man who is short, or someone who is plain ugly, but every year, the vast difference between sales and engineering seems to be shrinking. It's pretty dramatic, really, because when I started in the '90s, it seemed like this was the haven for people who were not welcome anywhere else. Being smart enough to do the job excused a lot of negative attributes that would not have been excusable in other fields.

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#87

Post by Loque »

markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

Great advice which I think applies to everyone who has been around for long enough to see new standards come into their domain. I am only 33 and am now on my 3rd platform, but I love it, and the skills I used on my previous platforms are more than relevant here and now.

It can always be daunting when new tech comes out and hard to be a newcomer in an area you have so much experience in, better to embrace and learn or consider another line, as apposed to be a grumpy ol' stubborn git ;`P

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#88

Post by ido »

lqdc13 wrote: post #23
danieltillett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has gone the other way I would say no. Getting to the forefront in biotech is a 10 year full time journey. I have met a few developers who have tried to learn, but they have all struggled. Having said this don’t worry, if you think the job prospects are bad for old developers they are far worse for old scientists.

Biotech also pays a lot less. If you look at current jobs such as "bioinformatics programmer", the salaries are somewhere between a biologist and a software engineer even though it requires more knowledge than either. Remember, biologists start off at around 35-50k/yr on jr. level, while SEs start at ~100k+. Basically, it is better to be a junior level SE than a super senior bioinformatician.

It seems biotech is sorta where software was in the 80s (AFAIK dev salaries weren't so great till at least the mid 90s). I suspect in a couple more decades it will be quite a lucrative profession.

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#89

Post by GvS »

jordanb wrote: post #13
markbnj wrote: post #7

So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…

As a 34 year old I always like hearing of people who actually manage to pull off a long career, it gives me hope. If you notice, a lot of these people in that article are in hardware design: electrical engineering, probably Verilog and the like. A lot of that work has successfully been outsourced which I think is the real cause of the decline. I suspect it didn't look like it was a particularly bad field to be in unt…

We had ~40 junior web dev recently in our company and he was pretty good.

Re: Old Techies Never Die; They Just Can’t Get Hired as an Industry Moves On (2012)

#90

Post by eru »

philsnow wrote: post #50
kspaans wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you found that your salary followed a trend of increasing ~10%/year? (I read that somewhere as the target amount you should receive as a raise annually.) Give-or-take fluctuations due to lay-offs, taking opportunities over salary, etc.

1.1 ^ 40 is a factor of ~45. If your first job is around $40k, and if you get 10% raise every year, your salary after 40 years will be $1.8MM / year.

That's probably a nominal 10% kspaans suggests, which is less in real terms.
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