Being a Developer After 40 • Hacker News Board

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#551

Post by gremy0 » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 10:44 AM UTC

interpol_p wrote: post #523

j4kp07 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LMAO....you literally just said prior to this comment: "We are not trying to ensure there is an "arbitrary number" of certain types of people working in our field." You are a walking Poster Child for hypocrisy.

How does sharing such stats imply achieving "arbitrary numbers" in any sense? I am pointing at data showing a large disparity in tech employment relative to the population. Women are equally as capable as men when it comes to tech, so we should expect equal representation. We don't get equal representation because of existing cultural biases against women in this field. It's the same reason we don't get equal represe…

> so we should expect equal representation

This is conjecture.

> We don't get equal representation because of existing cultural biases against women in this field.

As is this.

You are pointing to data and making your own conclusions that the data simply isn't complete enough to show.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#552

Post by flexie » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 12:27 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #547

flexie wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark, mainly

I assume that means you get a Denmark sort of price for your software. Yet you pay your developers a Bulgarian sort of wage. I don't want to moralise, but in this case I don't see how I can avoid the conclusion that you're basically ripping them off. So I'll just stop here 'cause I don't like to moralise- but I'll just say that I'd never work under such conditions.

I thought it was the nature of business to sell at higher prices than you buy.

Feel free to moralise but try to live up to it yourself: Don't buy anything produced in parts of the world where people make less than you. Buying employees or services or products are the same, you know.

With virtually zero percent unemployment for developers in Sofia, need for programmers everywhere in Europe, no visa-requirement preventing anyone from leaving Bulgaria, and some 10-15 percent of the population already having left, I think it's fair to assume that nobody is getting ripped off.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#553

Post by pc86 » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

spacemanmatt wrote: post #491

WalterSear wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not, really, if saving for retirement is factored in. Most people aren't saving at all, which is how they manage to maintain that upper middle class lifestyle on what has becoming the equivalent of a formerly lower middle class salary.

It's true. I make in that neighborhood, and I can't even save for a house, much less retirement. Maybe my kids will support me when I'm old.

Where do you live?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#554

Post by ryandvm » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

justinlardinois wrote: post #467

bwanab wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swiss also have a real ageism issue. When I worked there, I had a good friend who was Swiss that got fired. He was in his 50s at the time and the attitude was that nobody that age should be coding. He was a very good developer, but couldn't get hired because of his age. He started a web development company. The key to his success was that when he met with clients he presented himself as "the boss" with his crew o…

As an American I've heard this is a major issue in our software industry as well. But I'm young and I don't know any significantly older developers so I can't really verify.

0_o

I think you are verifying it.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#555

Post by mahyarm » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

s3nnyy wrote: post #549

mahyarm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one those engineers who has worked in SV for 5 years, you definitely do not have to be in the top %5. You probably spent 4+ years of your life going to some sort of university to get a degree to help get something like 60k euro per year software job. So is spending a couple of months really getting good at cracking the coding interview and doing some practice interviews is definitely worth the $70k+ equivalent aft…

You're assuming that everyone with a bachelor or master in CS can just walk into FaceGooSoft after reading "cracking the coding interview". That is not true. The false-negative rate at FaceGooSoft is very high, they have a revolving door of candidates, that is why they can afford it. I am interviewing people for IT-jobs for over a year now and I met many engineers that are Google-material but did not make it into a t…

That is why you apply for 10 companies, get 3+ offers and maybe try a few times. They know that people get rejected for BS reasons and it's totally cool to apply again after +6 months. They even will start contacting you again to apply! With enough prep and determination, you can do it, and the amount of time & money required is far less than getting any 2 year masters degree.

You can even apply to not FaceGooSoft, get in the USA with smaller company X and then try from a more comfortable position of having a work visa and being in the USA.

Look at this guy as another example:

http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-airbnb-part-ii...

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#556

Post by st3v3r » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #398

st3v3r wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except no one is talking about disadvantaging people of a certain skin color (white). We're talking about trying to help bring everyone else up to the same level.

As someone with white children applying for college, I can say without question that skin color is used to disadvantage certain people.

No, it isn't. You're not getting the advantage you used to have. That's different.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#557

Post by Chris2048 » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

j4kp07 wrote: post #320

interpol_p wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is attacking your grandfather. The previous poster is simply pointing out the better mortgage rates many white Americans of his generation would have received as a direct result of the racist culture. From Wikipedia [1] > For example, in Atlanta in the 1980s, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles by investigative-reporter Bill Dedman showed that banks would often lend to lower-income whites but not to mi…

> No one is attacking your grandfather. The previous poster said "your grandparents". A narrow minded assumption that every white person reading his comment would/should identify with. > The previous poster is simply pointing out the better mortgage rates many white Americans of his generation would have received as a direct result of the racist culture. Then quit complaining to the current generation(s). Grow up, st…

> Why say that the Armenians are still allowed to be traumatized about what happened in the 1920s while black Americans aren't allowed to talk about mortgages in the 1980s?

I think that was sarcasm, I think the point was why mortgages in 1980 and not genocide in 1920s - i.e. Where does it end?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#558

Post by Chris2048 » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #324

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I've heard this assertion made many times in recent years, but I don't recall any reasoned arguments for why the listener should accept it as a moral imperative. Since the assertion clearly isn't something we'll all…

The "reasonable argument" for privilege isn't that you grew up rich or whatever, but rather that there are negative assumptions made about others that are not made about you. For example, one of my best friends is a doctor, who moved into hospital administration, and from there into financial advising and investing. He's very wealthy and successful. And if he's pulled over by the cops, he has to worry that they'll as…

> I've watched men carefully explain to her

Can you give the context under which this happened? Who where these people? Why did they not think your wife was capable?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#559

Post by redblacktree » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 6:56 PM UTC

nucleardonuts wrote: post #278

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well enough if you want a traditional 9-5 job (which is fine if it suits you) - pity Java is such a PITA to work with though and Oracle do charge a lot! for there product. Trouble is if your company pivots and you have been doing Mainframe COBOL for 20 years - you might find transitioning to a new language hard.

I would happily go back to mainframes if given the opportunity. I miss the days of the "priesthood of the computer". I sorely miss linear languages like COBOL and PL. Yes, yes, I'm old fashioned, but man, were those the days. I miss programming on my 8-bit Commodore 64, praying I wouldn't run out of space on my floppy drive. Anyone remember Creative Computing magazine. I wrote every program in every issue for quite s…

I get some of that "praying I [won't] run out of space" with programming microcontrollers for home projects.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#560

Post by justinlardinois » Wed, Apr 27, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #554

justinlardinois wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I've heard this is a major issue in our software industry as well. But I'm young and I don't know any significantly older developers so I can't really verify.

0_o I think you are verifying it.

My point is that I'm only passing on hearsay.