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Not Just Any Old Geek

blog.oldgeekjobs.com

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141–150 of 305 posts

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#141

Post by hacknat »

daemonk wrote: post #15

I am getting to old geek status myself. From a more cynical perspective, I am not sure if we can compete with early twenty-somethings who are unjaded and buy into the silicon valley mystique. They are willing to work 12 hour days and still do the faux-japanese salarymen afterwork socializing that supposedly builds "culture". Older geeks don't buy into this ping-pong table propaganda. Tech companies probably won't be…

I have to agree. I'm getting up there too. I'm the second oldest person at my current startup and I looked around yesterday and realized that I wasn't that much more valuable than the 23-26 year olds I work with. I think I'm a damn site more technical than they are, and I also think I manage my time better than they do, but I don't think I provide that much more value to the organization. Especially given the lengths to which they will go to burn through work (i.e. long hours and weekend work).

I personally think that 95% of organizations out there only need/want what the 23 year olds can provide.

I'm holding out hope though that when it comes to truly valuable and technically challenging work that more mid-level to large-ish companies still have teams that value the stability and vision more mature developers can offer. I think this is my last startup for a while.

I think this article hit the nail on the head. It takes a very mature and self-assured person to hire someone more qualified than they are and then hand over the commensurate freedom and responsibility along with it.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#142

Post by eropple »

rubber_duck wrote: post #136
optionalparens wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the parent is sarcasm, please disregard my reply. > The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today. Not even remotely true. Most of computer science is built on the past and either composed into something new upon a previous foundation, or a poor re-implementation of an already existing idea. A trendy favorite of many at the moment, Go lang is a good…

Like I've said the stuff that hasn't changed much is the CS, the actual engineering part has nothing to do with what we do today. 20 years ago the net was nowhere nearly as ubiquitous, hardware was incomparably slow, the bottlenecks were different - the focus shifted from single computer/mainframes/shared memory models -> distributed computing. When I say copy paste in visual basic I'm talking about professional prog…

If you don't use source control these days, you're below average.

If you don't use automated testing, you are probably average.

Plenty of junior programmers know nothing about patterns except how to cargo-cult them.

Plenty of people copy-paste code everywhere.

I'm curious how long you've been doing this stuff, because this sounds like neophilia.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#143

Post by ChoHag »

rubber_duck wrote: post #92
czep wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were having cardiac surgery, would you prefer your surgeon to be a year out of med school having done the operation oh 3 or 4 times, or the proverbial graybeard who has done it a thousand times? If you were wrongly convicted and awaiting a death sentence, would you pick a 22 year old attorney fresh from law school to defend you? If you have a field full of tomatoes that needs picking, do you save a few dollars…

Umm the more comparable parable would be "or the proverbial graybeard who has done ~~it~~ kidney surgery a thousand times" The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today. Like holly shit most people weren't even using source control back, unit testing and automated testing in general was SciFi, it was done by QA departments if you were big enough to do i…

> The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today.

This is basically false in every way it's possible to be false.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#144

Post by philbarr »

DeltaWhy wrote: post #94
EliRivers wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. I find this is true in two ways; not only do I have better things to do now than donate free overtime to my employer, I am far better at not needing to. My best work in recent memory involved reading and thinking and sketching for a day and a half, and then adding six characters and a space to the front of one line of code; a decade ago, there is a rea…

What were the six characters? Reminds me of the old joke/parable about the mechanic charging $1 for turning a screw and $499 for knowing which screw to turn.

if (false){ ...buggy code here... }

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#145

Post by ryandrake »

rubber_duck wrote: post #92
czep wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were having cardiac surgery, would you prefer your surgeon to be a year out of med school having done the operation oh 3 or 4 times, or the proverbial graybeard who has done it a thousand times? If you were wrongly convicted and awaiting a death sentence, would you pick a 22 year old attorney fresh from law school to defend you? If you have a field full of tomatoes that needs picking, do you save a few dollars…

Umm the more comparable parable would be "or the proverbial graybeard who has done ~~it~~ kidney surgery a thousand times" The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today. Like holly shit most people weren't even using source control back, unit testing and automated testing in general was SciFi, it was done by QA departments if you were big enough to do i…

> The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today.

The longer I'm in software the more and more I find this not to be true. The stuff that has changed is all surface level. The underlying principles are the same. The skills needed are the same. The attention to detail and other attributes needed to get the job done is the same. The problems are basically recycled or scaled up versions of the problems we had years ago.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#146

Post by jontas »

At 33, with over a decade of experience as a professional software engineer, I have no interest working for a team that values long hours over steady productivity, elegant solutions, and thoughtful architecture.

I know that plenty of companies have been built "quick and dirty", but honestly I think any company, regardless of size or stage, can benefit from someone with experience gained from building real applications.

I live in NYC, not the valley, so maybe attitudes are a little different here, but I have no trouble finding work at companies that value my experience.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#147

Post by dvirsky »

cholantesh wrote: post #43
superJimmy64 wrote: post #39

(Not that it really matters, but I'm 27...) A few things came to me after reading the post: Firstly, how this situation shared by the OP and many others is pure insanity. That the very people who grew up with this technology during the baby years are now struggling to have a place now that it really has taken off. Secondly, for those in their mid-30's and onward, to realize how immensely skilled they likely are at wr…

>(still must admit that 37 doesn't feel old to me) Same; I find it a bit terrifying that 35+ is considered 'old' in our industry...

I'm 41 and I still don't feel old even though I work with a few people who are 10-15 younger than me.

We tend to think of old programmers as these ancient neckbeards who write COBOL and FORTRAN and grew up on usenet programming PDP machines; but the reality is that 40+ year old programmers today were kids in the 90s, were in their 20s when languages like JS, Python and PHP became popular, and played quake 3 in their early twenties.

BTW I'm not doing straight-up programmer work, more of senior architect type roles in the past years, so it might be more "acceptable" in the industry to still be spending time with an IDE at my age in this context.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#148

Post by gwbas1c »

My experience is that a lot of the companies in the valley that are run by young people are very immature. The good companies hire a wide spectrum of experience levels.

"Reading between the lines," I think the original poster needs to be a bit more selective about where he applies.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#149

Post by dejv »

If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road.

I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do freelancing and work strictly alone. It was blast, but once my stream dry out I don't think I will ever find actual job: guy in late 30s/early 40s with string of trivial or dead end projects for unknown companies, no experience working in team and such.

I am ok with it and I am having awesome time (and always had). Everybody just have to know on what career path they are and have plan B in their pocket.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#150

Post by dvirsky »

dejv wrote: post #149

If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road. I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do f…

What makes you think your stream will dry out? Why wouldn't you be still doing this 10-20 years from now?
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