Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

oldgeekjobs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 391 posts

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#371

Post by jnbiche »

autotune wrote: post #358
jnbiche wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * I agree, and I hate it. What happened to the days when I could just be productive? Now, I have to spend hours "working as a team" (ie, socializing) on Slack. I hate it so much that I've dramatically cut down on the work I do. It's not that I'm asocial, it's just that I don't want to be exchanging memes when there's work to be done. I want to do the work, and do it well, so I…

Ask your manager to have a couple days out of the week where you can "go dark" and focus on projects.

Yeah, I did that when I worked remotely as an employee for a company. They didn't like it, particularly my boss's boss, and it definitely only served to make the younger developers who quite literally live and socialize on Slack more wary of me (because of course if you're not online, you're not really working, right? Even if you're producing results.)

What I'm talking about now is working as a contractor/freelancer for short-term projects, like even as short as 3-4 week projects. Most of the good freelance jobs expect you to be on Slack coordinating with their team in Eastern European country X. It really didn't use to be like this, I used to be able to make good money as a freelancer just coordinating with other freelancers and the contracting company/individual a few times a day. And in my opinion, it worked a lot better. Yeah, the irresponsible devs can't screw around as much if someone's keeping tabs on Slack, but the productive ones are significantly less productive this way. And why would you hire a remote freelancer you didn't trust to do the work?

And jobs that are paid per job and not per hour aren't any better, in my experience. Everyone has to be online, checking in, chatting, exchanging memes.

Maybe I've just had a streak of bad luck this year, but it definitely seems to be a significant trend.

I don't know, maybe I need to make a concerted effort just to work for small businesses, and not start-ups or mid-sized companies.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#372

Post by JPKab »

noddingham wrote: post #150
JPKab wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a weird situation, because I was working remotely for a tech company and was required to move to the Boulder, CO area recently. It's an awesome company and I was stoked about the area, so I went ahead and did it, but the requirement for collocation that has been driven by certain management ethos' is odd in such a technology driven world. The advantages I've had by moving from Arkansas to here have been numerous…

As someone that also works in Boulder, is your compensation enough to allow you to actually live in Boulder?

I live in Broomfield. It's 100% affordable, and its pleasant. My son likes his schools, and Boulder is a short drive away anytime we want to visit. I see no reason to blow extreme amounts of money on a townhouse so I can have the luxury of having to be stuck in a rich town that excludes poor people for the sake of "open space". Housing policies like Boulder's aren't liberal, they're greedy. But hey, when I take my son hiking in Chattaqua, we get to count how many Tesla Model S and X's we see as a game.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#373

Post by JPKab »

analogwzrd wrote: post #262
noddingham wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that also works in Boulder, is your compensation enough to allow you to actually live in Boulder?

I've been working full time in Boulder for the past five years and I could get into the bottom end of the real estate market if I really wanted to - I started working straight out of college with no debt, but no equity either. I've stayed out because I've not felt my career stable enough to jump into that kind of long term investment. My company's been going through some ups and downs and cash in the bank seemed smar…

What's hilarious is that I make six figures, but because I have two kids and my wife is a stay-at-home mom, I'm "poor" enough to qualify.

However, like all programs like this that are a stupid fucking band-aid for NIMBY assholes interfering with the free market, they are neverr enough. It's an incredibly long line of people trying to get each home, and might as well be a lottery. These programs don't help the people they claim to. They are nothing more than ways for rich hippies to feel a little better after they vote for policies that set de-facto financial segregation firmly into place.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#374

Post by ArkyBeagle »

crispyambulance wrote: post #192
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing the hair shirt mentality is half the battle. If you're my boss, and you have the hair shirt mentality, one of us will suffer and chances are it's not me... In a job, I want to do one thing - to get as close as possible to defect-free, correctly operating code, on time and under budget. If you're not into that, I'll find someone who is. Good metrics are impossible ( for now and for the forseeable - they may be…

OK.... what the heck is a "hair shirt mentality"? Dictionaries say it means someone who is ascetic-- but I don't think that's what you mean?

I'm nearly afraid to answer that.

There is masochism in the world. I won't participate in your masochism if that's your thing.

A "hair shirt" is a garment ascetics wore for purposes of "mortification of the flesh." It's just masochism. It has unpleasant overtones.

An example is: everybody must chronically work 80 hours a week, as a sacrifice to the Tiki God, when the real solution is to sit down and figure out the best path forward.

It'd be fine if masochism were effective; I'd have nothing to say. It's just not. Fold the work better to get it done faster. There is always a way.

Some thing are just inherent Manhattan projects and will consume your life, at least for a while. These are much less likely than one might think.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#375

Post by chetanahuja »

commandar wrote: post #315
chetanahuja wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And the south isn't bigoted in the ways many people assume." Only if there was some sort of a "survey" on people's attitudes in different parts of the country. Perhaps people with competing ideologies would represent one side or another and then the general public would decide to pick one of those choices to represent the majority view from that area. This way we'd actually know what a majority of the population in…

You've pretty much entirely missed my point. I explicitly acknowledged that there are absolutely still real problems with race in the south. Things like the state of Alabama implementing voter ID laws and then shutting down DMV offices in poor black counties absolutely happen. But what I was talking about was functional racism in terms of daily life. While many southerners absolutely say and support shitty things, it…

"Things like the state of Alabama implementing voter ID laws and then shutting down DMV offices in poor black counties"

"But what I was talking about was functional racism in terms of daily life"

I think you're the one missing the point here. If disenfranchising a large part of the population based on their race, by politicians who more or less campaign on this sort of platform (though in coded language) and win elections repeatedly is not "functional racism", I don't know what is. And of course you know very well that voting rights is not an isolated case of the racism exhibited by southern states.

That is not to say that only the southern states have racist people but what this sort of blatant, racist policy-making at the highest level is signalling to people of minority races is to stay away from those states altogether if you can. There's a reason immigrant communities are strongest in states like California and NewYork and not Alabama or Mississippi.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#376

Post by chetanahuja »

alttab wrote: post #320
chetanahuja wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And the south isn't bigoted in the ways many people assume." Only if there was some sort of a "survey" on people's attitudes in different parts of the country. Perhaps people with competing ideologies would represent one side or another and then the general public would decide to pick one of those choices to represent the majority view from that area. This way we'd actually know what a majority of the population in…

What people believe isn't always what people DO. When I lived in Texas for 7 years I was surprised to find that Texans can make fun of "beaners" and then respect their work ethic and hire them over "lazy white people who want to get paid more." It's a mix that requires. A different lense that most don't have. I grew up in liberal DC, and then went to texas. I'm now up north again, but my view of the south has changed…

"What people believe isn't always what people DO."

I wish I could 1984 myself this throughly. My life will get so much easier.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#377

Post by sjdchid »

mattdeboard wrote: post #356
sjdchid wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for people my age, home prices have been growing faster than incomes recently.

Home price growth is independent of age and is heavily dependent on location. You are trying way too hard to make yourself sound like a victim.

I don't generally think of myself as a victim. It seems that my income puts me in the top 1% for my age (just about any 6 figure salary will do that). It's all my classmates and friends I'm worried about.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#378

Post by piedradura »

mundo wrote: post #282
ori_b wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That coupled with the "have you seen this question before" interviewing is just infuriating. When I interview someone, I will usually ask if they've seen the question before, so that I can skip it -- is there something wrong with that?

> "have you seen this question before" interviewing I suspect that this was meant to refer to interview questions with an "Aha!" answer, that are unlikely to be answered correctly by people who don't already know the answer. For example, I think, "How would you detect a cycle in a linked list?" is a bad question because, if the candidate implements Floyd's algorithm on the whiteboard, the likely assumption is that th…

in Lisp you use two pointers (a fast and a slow one) to detect a cycle in a linked list. For example http://clhs.lisp.se/Body/f_list_l.htm

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#379

Post by jwadhwani »

terrywilcox wrote: post #131
vemv wrote: post #11

You don't want to be coding by age 50 anyway. Sooner or later it has to end. If you are a young programmer and your salary merely covers your costs of living (including leisure etc), it seems to me that you need a plan.

I'm happily coding at 51.

Me at 59:-)

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#380

Post by mattkevan »

martinshen wrote: post #197
mattkevan wrote: post #191

The person who wrote this is 37. Imagine how much harder it is for a Guy I know. He's in his early 60s and has been looking for a job for over six months. Every interview he's had goes really well until they realise he's not 23. Then it's all 'Err, we want someone less technical.' Or 'Err, you're too technical for the role.' This is someone with over 40 years industry experience, from designing and building mainframe…

Interested. Can you shoot me an intro at Martin@smartcar.com ?

Thanks for your reply! I've just sent you an email.
Post reply on HN