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It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

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

#291

Post by JeremyMorgan »

arenaninja wrote: post #81
JeremyMorgan wrote: post #13

I don't know about the Silicon Valley, but I'm in the Silicon Forest (Hillsboro/Portland Oregon) and this market seems to be very merit driven. You can be 80 years old and get a job if you can do work. Maybe you can't get a job at fart.IO building an API for some craft beer BS but at many mid to large companies 40 is still an average. The last 4-5 companies I've been at value bullet points over anything else (for wha…

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.

It's not a potshot at the technology, but the market itself.

I'm glad you're making that, but in Portland they are paying $15 an hour for PHP/MySQL/Jquery developers all day long. It's an over saturated market that peaked 10 years ago. Sure there are a few edge cases here and there but the majority of it is a swampy wordpress ghetto.

Folks who started on that stack in the 2000s (like me) and refuse to move forward aren't making 6 figures around here.

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

#292

Post by luis_espinal »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #245
mywittyname wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. What if that means you end up mostly with white males due to women and minorities being drastically underrepresented in the total tech employee pool? Diversity is great until you hit the statistics wall.

Well statistics tells us two things: 1. Yes, minorities and women are underrepresented in the body of students pursuing tech careers.

2. That discrepancy does not explain the wider discrepancy found in tech employment.

Everyone can take and pick bits of statistics to make up faux points (specially when they do not like the actual picture that comes when we use statistical data as objectively as possible.)

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

#293

Post by toomuchtodo »

luis_espinal wrote: post #292
toomuchtodo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. What if that means you end up mostly with white males due to women and minorities being drastically underrepresented in the total tech employee pool? Diversity is great until you hit the statistics wall.

Well statistics tells us two things: 1. Yes, minorities and women are underrepresented in the body of students pursuing tech careers. 2. That discrepancy does not explain the wider discrepancy found in tech employment. Everyone can take and pick bits of statistics to make up faux points (specially when they do not like the actual picture that comes when we use statistical data as objectively as possible.)

I don't agree with point 2, but we're just arguing opinions currently without data.

As soon as you start actively seeking candidates based on underrepresented classes, you're practicing reverse discrimination in the name of "diversity".

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

#294

Post by daxfohl »

rubicon33 wrote: post #290
nfriedly wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you were asking me or daxfohl, but I've always been a saver. I got serious about it maybe 8-10 years ago. My savings rate has been trending upwards during that time, it's around 40-45% of my take-home pay now. I spent a year in the Bay area, but moved back to Ohio for family reasons. That helped, because things are so much less expensive out here. (Bear in mind, though, you can work in the Bay Area and th…

"... you can work in the Bay Area and then retire somewhere cheaper" Yes but, while working in the Bay Area you have to live in the Bay Area (assuming you aren't remote). I'm just super curious how we're supposed to save enough to be safe by 40.

* Forego apartments and scour craigslist for cheap rooms in shared housing. This will cut rent by 2/3. Look in less desirable (not dangerous, just not primo) neighborhoods, though sometimes deals can be found in primo locales too. Don't buy a house until you need one; some claim it's an investment, but really they're just money pits.

* Don't spend more than about 8K on a car. Drive it till it dies. (I drove a $2140 15 year old Saturn without AC or working windows for 7 years).

* Learn how to save money while still in college.

* Read "The Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich". Ridiculous title, but plenty of sound advice throughout the book.

* Use Excel or C to figure out what your savings will be by age N if you save X/mo with whatever inflation/investment rate. You're a programmer so this should be straightforward.

* Take those results and save X/mo. Stick it into an index fund with automatic reinvestment. Set it up to withdraw X/mo from your bank account every month. This last part is probably the most important part! It forces you to live like your salary is $Salary-X, and eventually you just come to accept that.

* Monitor those numbers and watch it go up. Discover you prefer doing that to buying things. Increase X.

* Travel! Okay this is odd advice. But when you take time off work to travel a bit you really learn how to stretch every penny. I spent three years overseas sometimes working odd jobs and it was worth every second.

* Don't incur "bad" debt (duh), and pay high interest rates off ASAP. Low interest rates 3% or so you don't have to worry about so much.

* Don't play the lottery. Don't expect that there's a "trick" to building wealth. It's just a long arduous boring process of living below your means.

* Read "The Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich". Ridiculous title, but plenty of sound advice throughout the book. Yes I said it twice.

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

#295

Post by daxfohl »

rubicon33 wrote: post #290
nfriedly wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you were asking me or daxfohl, but I've always been a saver. I got serious about it maybe 8-10 years ago. My savings rate has been trending upwards during that time, it's around 40-45% of my take-home pay now. I spent a year in the Bay area, but moved back to Ohio for family reasons. That helped, because things are so much less expensive out here. (Bear in mind, though, you can work in the Bay Area and th…

"... you can work in the Bay Area and then retire somewhere cheaper" Yes but, while working in the Bay Area you have to live in the Bay Area (assuming you aren't remote). I'm just super curious how we're supposed to save enough to be safe by 40.

Also note that "save enough to retire" doesn't mean "retire in Hawaii". It means "have enough savings to maintain my current lifestyle if I lose my job". So it's more about lifestyle than savings. If your lifestyle is lavish then retiring, ever, will be difficult. If you're accustomed to being frugal, then retiring by mid-30's is entirely possible, especially with no kids.

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

#296

Post by daxfohl »

rubicon33 wrote: post #288
nfriedly wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 30's, married, have a son, and a mortgage. But I also have enough savings to pay off my mortgage in full today if it was an urgent need.

... how? Either your mortgage is very small, or you have somehow managed to save an incredible amount of money. It's really the latter that I'd like to know more about.

> It's really the latter that I'd like to know more about.

Whatever nfriedly's situation may be ... you won't get to the latter until you understand the former. In other words: You can't "save an incredible amount of money", without first "saving some money".

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

#297

Post by renaudg »

mywittyname wrote: post #199
crimsonalucard wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks

How else are you supposed to meet arbitrary diversity quotas, when the pool of applicants is overwhelmingly white and male ?

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

#298

Post by m4x »

ErikAugust wrote: post #242

I think the most unconscious or perhaps completely conscious bias that I'm not sure I'm seeing mentioned with age is salary requirements and other various forms of compensation. Older people are thought to have mortgages, families, etc. They often cost more money, and work less hours. That's simply never thought as attractive to employers who want more work hours for less money. Disclaimer: Not saying this is right -…

This is true of all industries, however. Having a family and owning a home are not attributes found exclusively amongst tech workers.

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

#299

Post by dang »

shams93 wrote: post #69

Engineering is a dead end job, especially outside of silicon valley. There is 0 respect for experience in the industry, we have more respect for someone who has coded for 2 weeks than someone who continually improves over 25 years. Unless you become a celebrity coder you find that your best choice going forward is suicide. The industry won't let you have a social life or a family once you hit 45 no one cares about yo…

Oh man, that's rough, and reading this makes me worry about you. I know it's not much, but if you feel like sharing your experiences or want someone to talk to, let me know at hn@ycombinator.com and I'll send you my personal email address.

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

#300

Post by daxfohl »

Bartweiss wrote: post #286
daxfohl wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a few corollaries to that are: Stick with big companies. Yes by working at a small co you gain experience picking tech stacks, working on all areas of software, etc. But the ceiling is lower at small companies (only the very hottest couple startups each year notwithstanding). And the experience you gain there (mostly writing simple CRUD apps in various languages) isn't so applicable to larger companies where…

This all looks like really good advice. I'm doing the small(er) company thing, and I don't regret it, but I've slowly shifted to larger groups and I definitely feel the difference. Getting exposure to lots of different things is good, but at a certain point being in charge of maintaining the website while you're also building an actual product is just a distraction. The "current tech" thing is obviously a constant ba…

Specializing, I think, is a good thing. I'd long been beholden to the belief that "broken comb" (https://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/27/broken-comb-people/) could lead to a fulfilling career path, but I no longer believe this is the case. If you're middling at a bunch of things then you'll never be hired to greater than a middling position.

The only advantage of broken comb is that you potentially have lots of middling positions you can apply to. But even for those, you may be rejected as "overqualified" because you know so much other stuff. Besides, who wants to send lots of resumes and do lots of interviews in the pursuit of a middling job? Especially when you know you're way better than the people that you're competing against and losing to.

So, don't fan too far out. Find a concentration that's reasonably mainstream for the foreseeable future and expand your skillset to supplement that. Maybe not as renaissance-man as the typical above-average programmer would hope for, but likely the best career path.

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