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On Getting Older in Tech

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Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#311

Post by mixmastamyk »

It's good advice to keep up to date and in shape, and always have, but unfortunately even that is often not sufficient.

Lately potential employers have been expressing surprise that I never went into management. I enjoy developing so was never interested---until I encountered a few truly incompetent bosses in the last few years and rethought my position. So I've read all the classics, such as MMM, Peopleware, etc... but found it is too late to be hired as a manager when you've never managed anyone.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#312

Post by orionblastar »

Getting older in tech, most of the stuff I learned is obsolete: http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/184668/readers_throw...

I'm a legacy software, retrocomputing expert now I guess?

Most of the old commercial software has released free and open source versions of itself or someone wrote a FOSS clone or whatever to do the same things.

I am 48 years old now, getting close to 50 in two years, and can apply for AARP and get better health insurance through them.

I ended up on disability, but been trying to learn new things and keep up with trends and patterns in the industry.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#314

Post by BipolarElsa »

nsxwolf wrote: post #210
Thaxll wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorting algorithm you serious? No one uses that in his carreer.

You need them for those whiteboarding tech interviews.

Why the fuck is the hiring culture in programming to test candidates on something they rarely use if ever over the course of their career?

What kind of insanity is this?

Do they ask psychiatrists how to perform surgery during hiring interviews?

Give me a break.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#315

Post by orionblastar »

flavor8 wrote: post #198

The problem is not age, it's being rusty. Far too many of the over 40 crowd I've interviewed appear to have stagnated. EDIT - to whoever downvoted me, grow a pair and reply instead of downvoting because you don't want to hear reality. I'm a gray beard myself. I've done hundreds of interviews in the past 5 years and know what I'm talking about in this respect...there are far too many programmers who get comfortable in…

The problem is if you find a problem and be negative about it, you'll more likely be downvoted for it. Unless you give a solution to the problem and find a way to work it out.

Like pair up a greybeard with a mentor who will help him/her learn the new technologies, there ought to be hackathons for greybeards or something.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#316

Post by markmckelvy »

As someone who transitioned to tech from finance, I can tell you that this trend (preferring young workers to old) is not limited to tech. The fact is companies in general are going to prefer younger people for labor. Younger people are cheaper, tend to have fewer obligations outside of work, and are willing to put up with more on the job.

As someone getting older and more experienced, you can take this one of two ways. (i) You can try to "learn new tech" and "stay up to date" in an effort to compete with these younger workers or (ii) you can actually listen to the market. And what is the market telling you? Yes, younger workers are more valuable for the aforementioned reasons. But it's also telling you that by the time you are 40 or 50, you should be implementing your own ideas, not someone else's.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#317

Post by markmckelvy »

As someone who transitioned to tech from finance, I can tell you that this trend (preferring young workers to old) is not limited to tech. The fact is companies in general are going to prefer younger people for labor. Younger people are cheaper, tend to have fewer obligations outside of work, and are willing to put up with more on the job.

As someone getting older and more experienced, you can take this one of two ways. (i) You can try to "learn new tech" and "stay up to date" in an effort to compete with these younger workers or (ii) you can actually listen to the market. And what is the market telling you? Yes, younger workers are more valuable for the aforementioned reasons. But it's also telling you that by the time you are 40 or 50, you should be implementing your own ideas, not someone else's.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#318

Post by linkregister »

gaius wrote: post #109
ChicagoDave wrote: post #54

Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. That said, the OP is correct. You're only as good as your last two years and even that's pushing it. If the tech changes, you have to adapt with it. I'm 53 as of yesterday (the 8th). I started with PDP-11's in the 80's, then VAX's, then PC's, BASIC at first, then C, the…

Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. The fact that people are still claiming there is a shortage of tech workers, demonstrates that that isn't true. The industry wants young, cheap workers who come ready made with the trendiest skills, then it wants to ditch them rather than retraining or allowing them to…

What companies fit this mold? Do you work at one or worked at one in the past?

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#319

Post by matwood »

kornish wrote: post #38
vacri wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that - very broadly speaking - old guns are better at strategy and young guns are better at tactics. The energy and interest of the young lead them to find the local maxima more readily, and the experience of the old help you find the real maxima rather than the local. Or put another way, young'uns will get you out of the rabbit-hole more quickly, but old'uns will take you down fewer rabbit-holes. Both mindset…

Would you mind expanding a little bit more, from your perspective, on what falls into tactics and what falls into strategy?

Breadth of experience often turns into strategy. Lack of experience tends to show up as when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. At this point in my career I've written production code in many languages/frameworks and was even a DBA at one point. I've also worked in many types of businesses. Now I can look at a given problem and provide a range of possible solutions. Sometimes those solutions do not involve writing any code at all.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#320

Post by elbear »

myth_drannon wrote: post #301
Lambdanaut wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude. Open source software.

Even jQuery which is one of the most famous open source projects will be forgotten in 10 years or even less.

I disagree. Software with that level of popularity doesn't disappear.
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