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You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

nytimes.com

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Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#71

Post by markbnj »

newjersey wrote: post #40
ourmandave wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, "Grey beard". The term Microsoft used to separate the old from the young at a conference when they first introduced the .NET framework. Classic "old bad, good new" sales. As in, "you Grey Breads remember using C++ and MFC, etc." Yes I remember. Because it was yesterday just before I came to your conference! I still went home and started learning what the hell XML was though. =(

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we have developers who work on .NET and have never touched either WinForms or WebForms. And I am relatively young.

>> I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we have developers who work on .NET and have never touched either WinForms or WebForms.

>> And I am relatively young.

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we have developers who worked on WinForms and never used MFC or ATL or wrote C code to the Win16/32 API :).

And I'm... er... used to be young.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#72

Post by czep »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #65
czep wrote: post #57

This is a world where job posts for "Senior Engineer" ask for three years of experience.

And job posts for "Junior Engineers" somehow ask for the same three years of experience.

Squeezed at both ends! At some point I passed from too young to too old, but never got to enjoy the supposed middle period. I remember the struggle of trying to prove myself during my early career and then suddenly found myself in "mid-career" and being pinged by recruiters for entry level positions.

Noe, despite my self-confidence, articles such as this make me uneasy for the future. I don't really want to "graduate" to a management job. I love writing code and solving problems. I just hope there will continue to be enough level-headed hiring managers to let me do the job I love.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#73

Post by markbnj »

hirundo wrote: post #8

I'm a grey beard who applied to a company specifically advertising for young developers. Got the job without mentioning my vintage. That was six years ago and they still haven't seen my face. I waited a while to gently break the news to them. If you're a technological senior citizen remote work is your friend.

Heh, I applied for and landed a position on the SRE team of a youngish startup that is almost entirely remote. I'm 55 and there is one other guy in his 40's I think who works out of Northern Cal. Other than him I'm 20 years older than everyone else and it's been a blast. We recently did a week-long retreat and I had a truly good time, which surprised me. Really the only thing I can say after 20 years in the business is you just never know. I got lucky this time around and fell in with a group of people who are perfect for me.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#74

Post by bbcbasic »

hirundo wrote: post #8

I'm a grey beard who applied to a company specifically advertising for young developers. Got the job without mentioning my vintage. That was six years ago and they still haven't seen my face. I waited a while to gently break the news to them. If you're a technological senior citizen remote work is your friend.

Plastic surgery is another option for onsite jobs.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#76

Post by dmoy »

erichurkman wrote: post #37
JadeNB wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you keep that out of your CV? My understanding is that it is not only possible not to mention your age in your CV, but even illegal for companies to ask you what your age is as part of the application process.

Putting your age isn't necessary when your experience goes back decades and you graduated from university before your hiring manager was even born. Similarly, your name can convey a lot of biases as well, such as gender and ethnicity.

You can truncate your cv and not list graduation year, though name is tough.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#77

Post by toomuchtodo »

Swizec wrote: post #26
sp332 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you exist isn't the problem. The problem is discrimination based on age.

Naturally. All I'm saying that it IS possible to find someone in their 20's with 8+ years of experience.

8 years of experience? Or the same year of experience 8 times over?

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#78

Post by [deleted] »

sotojuan wrote: post #21
rawnlq wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People working in tech also tend to retire early or start doing their own thing due to their salary.

Do they really retire early though? I always hear people in forums saying how they'll save up and not have kids to retire by 40 but never meet anyone that has done that. I really doubt most programmers that don't go into management and didn't win the startup lottery retire much earlier than other careers.

[deleted]

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#79

Post by DougN7 »

baby wrote: post #67
ryanSrich wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the video games themselves. It's the culture. It's a way to keep young employees in the office longer. It's not uncommon for these places to have people roll in around 10am and stay until 10pm. That's not a place I want to work at, and I'm not even 30 yet. But you can bet your life savings on a company firing anyone for not playing this game. That's why I won't work for a place with videogames.

That's complete bullshit, I work for one of those company that happens to have video games around. Not everyone play, but after work, we sometimes get around and play for a couple of hours and we just have so much fun that we end up going home late. What's wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. But people with families, kids that need help with homework, etc won't be able to do that often if ever. Being young very often also means having fewer commitments.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#80

Post by sien »

This is a market failing that anyone who is hiring can exploit.

I've worked for a guy who hired young, smart guys without much experience who he felt had potential and who also had some 55+ year old developers who he thought could do things. He was one of the best managers I've had.

So be smart and realise that people who don't fit into what you expect might find it a bit harder at some places to find a job and that you can get better people if you consider people who were not initially what you expected to hire.

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