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

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

#321

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 1:23 PM UTC

drather19 wrote: post #280

emodendroket wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense. If the problem is that we don't have some sort of licensing board, experience should be more highly valued, not less.

I guess where I was going was that there was a fairly high standard to "get in the door" first, after which experience seems to be valued more uniformly (at least more than in software). We don't have the equivalent in software, and we also seem to have a recurring discussion about effective ways to filter people during an interview process. I've certainly had mixed results in my limited sample set when considering p…

I don't know, but if you don't have other qualifications to go on, surely the fact that they were able to hack it at other companies for a long time is the strongest signal you have.

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

#322

Post by loco5niner » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

throw_away_777 wrote: post #58

oxryly1 wrote: post #46

Is this perhaps because older workers gravitate towards sane hours? Maybe because they develop interests, lives, families, etc outside of work that they commit to (moreso than most 20-somethings)? As a side note: I'm over 40 now, but I do recall being 27 and interviewing someone in their early 40s who was qualified and enthusiastic. I passed on them in part because I felt guilty hiring them; to work on my team the pe…

What you did was definitely illegal and immoral. It is not your decision to make on how someone should live their life.

Not at all. He was being considerate.

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

#323

Post by ocdtrekkie » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

jganetsk wrote: post #29

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the software development industry not bigger than it was twenty years ago? Developers still age. Ergo, as development as an industry grows, at a delayed rate, the number of aging developers will also grow.

That assumes they remain being developers as they age.

I suppose, but the cost of a career switch to a job that is similar or greater in pay is quite high. What do you think is the likely place a developer who is 25 today will be in 20 years?

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

#324

Post by dismantlethesun » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #231

brlewis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too reliant on state changes all over the place, making even medium-complexity web apps really hard to maintain. I find with Mithril (similar to React but smaller) it's a lot easier to understand how my app gets into a particular state.

Only if you keep too much of the complexity in the front end.

Well.. as a client interface HTML/CSS/Javascript have all been fairly anaemic compared to what is possible with native interfaces.

Once you've worked with a native interface, you're loathe to give up the potential for creation that comes with it, just to keep complexity out of the front-end.

Arguably, one could say people need to be retrained, and need to stop trying to make the web into something its not.... but considering the trends, I think that ship has sailed.

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

#325

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

renaudg wrote: post #297

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."

> 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 ?

They aren't arbitrary quotas, they are based on demographics, such that, randomly hiring qualified applicants should produce the desired results.

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

#326

Post by PhasmaFelis » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #157

maerF0x0 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So true. Something diversity advocates conveniently forget and omit.

Some diversity advocates forget, so other diversity advocates point it out to them. Don't paint this as diversity advocates being the bad guys somehow.

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

#327

Post by Asooka » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

bigger_cheese wrote: post #303

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.…

I'm a Materials Engineer in my 30's I work with a lot of Mech/Chem engineers. The engineering world is a bit different to software world. I'd say the main reason for this is there is a much lower applicant pool (Fewer graduates entering workforce). From what I have experienced engineers change companies much less frequently and engineering companies tend to be more stable than software companies (Most of the engineer…

This can't work however, there's one manager to a team of 15 developers, so you can't have all 15 move up into management. Not unless you have 15 layers of management...

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

#328

Post by kafkaesq » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

arenaninja wrote: post #318

kafkaesq wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The potshot was aimed at Winforms, actually, not SQL.

The sentiment often echoed on HN usually includes relational DBs that aren't postgres, but you are right, he didn't explicitly call out SQL, I included it because that's the usual skillset the devs I was talking about have

Oh, the geek pecking order is fractal and recursive on every scale, to be sure.

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

#329

Post by muzz » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

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.

Housing overshadows pretty much all other expenses in the Bay Area. So the key is simple: if renting, spend as little as you can. Then try to buy, so that you can be on the receiving end of the increasing housing costs.

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

#330

Post by pfranz » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #232

pfranz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googling "west coast beer style" has this[0] as the first result. You could argue that this isn't a canonical source or that things have changed since the thread in 2011--but the stigma is still around. [0] https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic...

I would argue that the IPA fandom hasn't diminished (especially out west), but other things have arisen alongside it. On the east coast, I see an impressive number of sours and dubbels coming out of craft shops, and the midwest is big on bold, malty offerings like ambers and oatmeal stouts.

I haven't seen IPAs drop in popularity (I much prefer darker, maltier beers), but I do feel like more recently IPAs have tried to use hops in more interesting ways instead of just going for XIPA/DIPA. I hope if hops stay around this trend continues.

I would have thought the hops shortage of 2008 would have forced breweries to try something else, so by now it's probably demand driven. I hear there's a new hops shortage coming up.