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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

#81

Post by anexprogrammer »

cpprototypes wrote: post #9

Recently I got an email about a job that seemed interesting. It's a well known company that used to be a startup but is now a mature company. I went to the job description page: 8+ years experience, tech stack I'm familiar with, mostly backend work, seems ok so far. Then I get to the last line. Open office, has video games, happy hours, other typical things designed to attract those in their 20s. It's all a hidden me…

Let's see, most recent environment like that had me at late 40s (at the time), two guys mid 40s, the boss late 40s, and some young uns.

We all had nerf guns, regular silliness, and fairly regular beer+gaming sessions with the app company down the hall. They had a couple of full size multi game arcade machines, and a console. :)

I'll be old when they nail the lid shut :p I'd rather talk about games, motorbikes and beer than golf any day thanks. Unless you mean willingness to give up weekends for dubious reasons and pull stupid hours regularly - then on that score I've been old since my 20s.

That said I have experienced age discrimination - tech is rife with it, but never if I got past HR or recruiting types. I don't know why tech makes it more likely - it's not like every or even most companies are looking for the naive to work 10am-10pm daily.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#82

Post by derwiki »

kordless wrote: post #69
dijit wrote: post #2

I don't see many old sysadmins in companies I've worked in. Even fewer older developers, I have a slight worry that this career path has an affinity for youth- which I won't have for much longer. So this is disheartening to read.

Any company which allows it's employees to discriminate on age isn't worth your time spent being sad about not working there.

But when it happens a few times, you feel sad that you can't seem to get _any_ job.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#83

Post by borvo »

aswanson wrote: post #3
dijit wrote: post #2

I don't see many old sysadmins in companies I've worked in. Even fewer older developers, I have a slight worry that this career path has an affinity for youth- which I won't have for much longer. So this is disheartening to read.

Tech fields have an inherent disuse for seniority. Beyond five years, no one gives an f how long you have worked with a given toolchain/language. It's the hunger games. Medicine, finance, law, accounting...rightly or wrongly respect decades of experience. Tech is Logan's Run. Plan accordingly.

Here we go again, getting confused between SFO/Startup Bro culture and the majority of the productive software industry.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#84

Post by greggman »

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.

Unity3d is probably exposing tons of people to .net without winforms

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#85

Post by hodgesrm »

sien wrote: post #80

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…

It seems as if there's a moneyball story on tech hiring that has yet to be written.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#86

Post by deathanatos »

markbnj wrote: post #71
newjersey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm in my 20s, and when I was starting it was the Win32 API, in C. It really wasn't that long ago.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#87

Post by hiram112 »

ishbits wrote: post #32
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.

This probably only applies to various pockets like Silicon Valley or New York. For the most part, developer salaries aren't that great. I'd be much better off had I become an accountant, or perhaps even a plumber running my own business.

Spot on.

A majority of the HN crowd is in their 20's. They're making around 6 figures (albeit in a very high COL area) while their peers are still in grad school, slinging it out in the gig economy for peanuts, or even living at home still searching for a decent job. Software seems like it was a good choice.

By mid 30's, though, their intelligent friends will be doing well in their fields, too - making partner in the law firm, a big book of clients, management positions. Their salaries are now approaching yours.

You've hit the salary cap. Raises barely match inflation. (we're not talking about the top 5% at the Big Four, but the rest of us). Your management hired a few H1B's from India, and they don't mind working 12 hour days, even on Saturday. If you don't do the same, it's noticed. You work in a big open environment with no privacy. Now nearing 40, you notice that you're not getting as much recruiter email.

I hate to be disillusioned, but this is what I've seen. And please realize that 95% of us aren't working at Google or Facebook with $150K salaries and lots of equity. We're making $100k or so, relative to COL, with little room for growth. At best half the 'team' works in Bangalore, and more and more foreign workers are coming over on short-term visas. Each year it seems things get a little worse - longer hours, less space, less budget for hardware and training, tighter deadlines, more BS Agile / Scrum.

A lot of my friends with less 'lucrative' degrees in sociology, psychology, etc. work for state and federal government or typical Fortune 500 companies. They are only some $20K back from me now in our mid to late 30's, and they have lots of room to move up the chain.

Even more importantly, they get actual bonuses or cuts of the profit since they are more exposed to the company's sales and budgets. They have corporate expense accounts, offices, wear nice clothes to work, get to travel and attend corporate events, and never have to spend their free time learning yet another damn JS framework.

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#88

Post by dorfsmay »

philsnow wrote: post #54
jlarocco wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your age or birth date probably shouldn't be on your CV. Unless you think it's relevant to the job somehow, but it probably isn't. Not only should it not matter, but it's illegal for employers to ask about it or consider it in their hiring decision, so having it right there on your CV puts them in a bit of a tight spot. I think some recruiters will actually remove that type of thing before forwarding it on to the int…

Many people put college graduation year on their resume, and hiring managers reflexively subtract ~20 from that year and aren't wrong 99% of the time.

Interesting! I graduated much later in life, don't put my DOB on resume and I've often been told that they expected me to be younger when they see me - now I get it!

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#89

Post by [deleted] »

borvo wrote: post #83
aswanson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech fields have an inherent disuse for seniority. Beyond five years, no one gives an f how long you have worked with a given toolchain/language. It's the hunger games. Medicine, finance, law, accounting...rightly or wrongly respect decades of experience. Tech is Logan's Run. Plan accordingly.

Here we go again, getting confused between SFO/Startup Bro culture and the majority of the productive software industry.

[deleted]

Re: You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch

#90

Post by contingencies »

dijit wrote: post #2

I don't see many old sysadmins in companies I've worked in. Even fewer older developers, I have a slight worry that this career path has an affinity for youth- which I won't have for much longer. So this is disheartening to read.

don't see many old sysadmins ... well, how many do you actually see anyway? Usually they're invisible. Secondly, the profession of sysadmin is disappearing fast with automation, and older and more experienced people have probably ridden that wave somewhere else already.
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