It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#191

Post by rdiddly » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

coleifer wrote: post #115

My parents and my friends' parents are all nearing retirement age, and I've been surprised by the profound differences in their responses to the realization that they are becoming old. It seems clear to me that age is just a state of mind. Some people act old and are cautious fucks that recoil from change. Others try very hard to appear as if they "get it", though they obviously don't, and the fact that they're tryin…

Well you had me and then you lost me. But speaking as one of the ones who doesn't give a fuck, I'd say it's because we know we're right. Like if I think "I'm a great candidate" and some company made up of little twerps says "Yeah we don't think so," I know I'm the one who's right. My answer is based on (let's say) 25 years of working that career; theirs is based on a 60-minute interview. (Done by someone who's spent most of his life sponging off mom & dad.)

Which still proves that they were right not to hire me -- but it's because THEY suck and I would be miserable. (And actually I would probably screen out this kind of "opportunity" before it got to the "yea or nay" stage.)

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#192

Post by wott » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

thenewwazoo wrote: post #100

DonCarlitos wrote: post #57

Try being over 60 & gettind cred. "How could you possibly understand bleeding edge tech and emerging trends?" Well...I've lived there for four decades, you?

Someone here recently pointed out the irony of the term "digital native", which you illustrate nicely. The people who aren't "digital natives" built everything the "digital natives" purport to understand so deeply. Which knowledge is deeper? That of the user, or that of the builder?

Yeah, I was occasionally told I was outdated, out of touch with technology, and other such qualifiers because I did not own a smartphone.

I've designed some of the bloody devices, for God's sake! I just don't want any because I have no use for them (either because I get the same function another way I do prefer or because I consider the function pointless or harmful). It doesn't mean I don't understand them better than the average candy crusher.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#193

Post by jabl » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #47

DigitalJack wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craft beer in portland just means "more hops." I call it crap beer. Fully agree with your post, just felt like griping about "craft" beer here.

On that note, why are there so many new IPAs in PNW? I like IPAs, but I doubt most people want them.

Don't know about PNW (Pacific Northwest??), but at least over here (northern Europe) IPAs are terribly trendy, you can find them in every grocery store. I suppose it's some worldwide trend..

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#194

Post by mwfunk » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 7:54 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #142

albertop wrote: post #107

I find it fascinating that when there is a discussion about age discrimination, most commenters have "advice" for the old farts how to stay current, learn current hip tech, be willing to work longer hours etc. However, we we talk about women in computing, it is always sexism and the discussion is about how the corporations need to change to attract more women. Pretty asymmetrical, don't you think?

Bang on. Discrimination by sex is not socially acceptable. Discrimination by other protected factors is sometimes socially ok. (not that it should be). Edit to add: At a former company i became a bit of an outsider when I noted at a diversity meeting that diversity meant more than the big 3 that tend to get pushed around Gender, Orientation, Race. I noted that our office was young, had no parents, no ex convicts, no…

From what you described, to an observer it would have sounded like you were arguing with them against the whole concept of protected classes, rather than pointing out that they should add ageism (etc.) to the list of things to be wary of.

Usually when people point out hypocrisy, people assume that they're making an indirect argument against the thing they're being accused of being hypocrites about. If you say something like "you seem to really worry about discrimination based on gender, but are ignoring ageism", that doesn't sound like you're trying to enlighten them about ageism. Rather, that sounds like you're trying to illustrate that the whole concept of protected classes is BS.

Accusations of hypocrisy are easily misinterpreted because so many people use them as a terrible form of argumentation. For example, consider all the people who get mad about other people complaining about intolerance, and the best they can come up with is "but you're just intolerant against intolerance!". As if pointing out hypocrisy invalidates whatever else someone is saying. It's the dumbest possible approach to debating an issue, but 99.9% of the time when I hear someone accuse someone else of hypocrisy, that's what they're doing. That may not have been what you were doing in that situation, but I could totally see how everyone might have misinterpreted you.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#195

Post by drather19 » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 7:58 PM UTC

angryasian wrote: post #121

new_hackers wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and the medical field, and the law field, and the engineering field. Basically if you want to get premium dollars when trading your skills, you have to have premium skills.

All those other fields value experience very highly. Software engineering is the only field that doesn't care what you've worked on in the past or what you've done. They only care about what trick algorithm that you will never utilize that you can answer on a white board.

Several of those field mentioned also have fairly high barriers of entry in terms of certification. They try to ensure that folks pursuing those careers have a core level of understanding necessary to pursue work in those fields. Whether or not they're successful in doing that is, of course, a matter of debate (as everything is).

I know understanding CS fundamentals and employer expectations about this are a lightning rod here, so I don't want to apply a value judgement on that here. However, what's the equivalent to the board or bar exams in our field (that lets us compare ourselves to those fields)?

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#196

Post by aquiles » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

gburt wrote: post #93

arenaninja wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the potshot on jQuery and PHP really necessary? I know enough people where I live making six figures (low COL city) with PHP, SQL and jQuery that I don't think they're ready to sunset.

This unfortunate obsession with new and shiny in the Valley is why we have to learn lessons like the benefits of relational databases over and over. Most of the new stuff isn't improved, it is simply different.

few days ago had a guy tell me that "relational dbs are dying because google only uses non-relational dbs"

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#197

Post by user5994461 » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

Don't believe the lies a single second.

The truth is, it is NOT tough being 3X-4X in silicon valley.

What is tough is accepting to put up with startups about to fail, long hours, mediocre pay, little benefits and immature coworkers. That does limit the size of the job market.

That issue is faced by everyone, independently of their age. The youngers selves just happen to have lower standards in average.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#198

Post by MichaelBurge » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #142

albertop wrote: post #107

I find it fascinating that when there is a discussion about age discrimination, most commenters have "advice" for the old farts how to stay current, learn current hip tech, be willing to work longer hours etc. However, we we talk about women in computing, it is always sexism and the discussion is about how the corporations need to change to attract more women. Pretty asymmetrical, don't you think?

Bang on. Discrimination by sex is not socially acceptable. Discrimination by other protected factors is sometimes socially ok. (not that it should be). Edit to add: At a former company i became a bit of an outsider when I noted at a diversity meeting that diversity meant more than the big 3 that tend to get pushed around Gender, Orientation, Race. I noted that our office was young, had no parents, no ex convicts, no…

I don't really care much about women or race, but ex-convicts and the disabled have it really hard. The disabled at least have legislation like tax benefits and federal priority helping them, but ex-convicts are just demonized and blamed.

Veterans are another good one: Even though the books say they get all sorts of benefits, the government is so poorly run that they often have trouble actually collecting them. Half the homeless in Portland claim to be veterans, and so do some people working at low-paying retail jobs in their 40s. I don't know how much of that is true, but I have a lot of weak evidence that veterans are often in a hard spot as they get older, despite all the benefits they should be getting.

Or even just the homeless directly. It wasn't exactly legal, but I used to know someone who'd pick up homeless, and offer them food, a place to stay, and some money to do roofing on his under-construction houses. It's rare to see jobs directly targeted to them.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#199

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

crimsonalucard wrote: post #174

donretag wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company is undergoing a big diversity initiative. Although the company is 75% female, the first task to is increase the number of women in tech. Race is also a factor. When asked about what is being done about age discrimination, there was a roundabout answer that did not address anything. Age diversity is not trendy. EDIT: I should clarify that I have nothing against the diversity initiative in general, just poin…

Most diversity initiatives are discriminatory by nature. Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill.... In order to artificially balance certain ratios your company must discriminate on who they hire. In the educational world this is called affirmative action.

I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process.

Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks, but they are saying the merely being such is not an indication of inferior ability or lack of "culture fit."

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#200

Post by daxfohl » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #145

rb808 wrote: post #123

I come from a family with a few generations of engineers of all types. Mechanical/chemical/electrical engineers have a similar problem that 30 years experience isn't much more useful than 10, wages tend to top out early and you're vulnerable to being laid off and never hired again in your 40s/50s. One advantage over software is that the skills change perhaps less frequently but that is offset by lower overall demand.…

So true. The question is, how do you avoid that place. Only so many can become managers. Only so many can start own business and keep it running.

So much of it is contacts. I'm in that place now.

In my 20's and early 30's every job I got was through contacts.

Since then I've been working solo projects at small companies for a number of years. Fun work, but suddenly it's dried up. I don't have any good recent contacts in the tech sector. So I'm competing with 22 year olds, with little to back me up.

So don't do that. Try to keep in touch with former colleagues, and try to be widely-known in your company for doing good work and being easy to work with.