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Show HN: Hire an Oldster

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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#71

Post by nervousvarun »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #40
tjr wrote: post #28

I was recently working with an older developer. I don't know, maybe of 65 or 70 years. He was working on aerospace network intrusion detection systems, and I was helping him set up a simulation system. He was slinging around low-level computer architecture terminology, while I was quickly trying to access what I remembered from a college class 15 years prior, just to keep up with the conversation. Older programmers a…

It's a weird experience if you're a clever youngster. I liken it to speed vs torque. I have to rely on being fast and being able to scan a problem as fast as I can to understand it. But an older engineer will just know the lay of the land. I had this happen a lot with an older electrical engineer. He seemed slow and I looked to run circles around everyone, but he could point to things as a root cause before I even un…

This is fundamentally true and basically is a great anecdotal argument for why we have the concept of a PE.

Edit: Context is America and also obviously this isn't a thing in software but is very much the normal way of doing business in classical engineering.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#72

Post by OliverJones »

Some interesting points made here in these comments, worth rebutting.

1. older folks are less flexible, can't relocate, etc. When we have kids in high school, that's valid. But high school doesn't go on forever.

2. older folks cost more. You'd be surprised. Salary doesn't have to be an always-upward ratchet. There are plenty of us who are able and willing -- even delighted -- to work for less than the executive-level pay of the biggest jobs on our resumes.

Unlike many of our juniors, we aren't scrambling to pay off our edu loans any more, nor are we scrambling to cover those costs for our kids, or pay big mortgages.

You know that dream about being motivated by the work, not the money? It's a real thing. Many of us are living that dream.

3. older folks are a protected class (in USA, anyhow). That's true. We are nominally harder to lay off when things get rough. But we've been through a few cycles of things being good, then bad, then good, and we've survived. We are as willing as anybody to stop drawing our pay when things aren't going well. Some of us are willing to agree to that in advance. Ask whether we'll accept contractor status, rather than employee status.

See item 2 about being motivated by the work.

4. older folks drive up health insurance pool costs. true. sucks. But I, for one, am on my spouse's insurance so the startup I'm with doesn't have that problem. Many of us have similar setups. You can't ask in an interview, but we can tell you voluntarily. Plus, when we hit 65 (in USA) we go on this decent national single-payer health plan and out of your pool altogether.

5. older folks can't manage 80-hour work weeks. Of course we can manage crunch time. We've done a lot of it, and we're skilled at getting it done.

Can we manage sustained 80-hour weeks for years at a time? No. Neither can you and keep your quality up.

6. older folks' skills are obsolete. Not true. Maybe that was true once, but many of us put a lot of work into keeping up to date. Safari Books Online, and online tutorials, and community / dev versions of various tools, have made that possible.

7. older folks would rather play golf than work. For many of us, that's just nonsense.

So, don't just screen out that resume showing a MS degree from 1980. Take a look.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#73

Post by xapata »

nkassis wrote: post #68
pc86 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. If you're hiring 40-60 year olds you cannot simply hire a 25 year old and get an "acceptable tradeoff of competency" unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place. Also if you're 50 and are relying on a new job's retirement program you're probably…

"unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place." I think that's a key thing to look at. There is only so much space at the top of the experience chain in most jobs. I doubt most companies need more than 1-2 senior software devs per 5 software devs.

Most companies are structured as a pyramid. Depending on the career path, it's about 1/5th the population for each rung up the ladder you climb. Not everyone should expect to climb to the top.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#74

Post by suprgeek »

As an oldster - two things that I really wish my younger self would have intimately realized.

1) As a software person your are employed to Solve Business Problems - NOT to write code, NOT to write tests, NOT to hack on platforms, NOT to be Agile. Solve the problem (or add the feature) - never lose sight of this. The value you bring is directly related to this.

2) People outside software development don't give a flying f* about most issues software related - but everyone has a computer, so most are poorly informed about technology and terrible at making right software choices - build products accordingly.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#75

Post by parennoob »

aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

> higher related costs like healthcare for a family

How exactly is this a concern for a hiring manager? I thought a company's employees were insured as a pool. In any case, discriminating against someone because of their healthcare status is pretty scummy (in my opinion), but I don't even understand why this is a concern, let alone a legitimate one.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#76

Post by vvanders »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #40
tjr wrote: post #28

I was recently working with an older developer. I don't know, maybe of 65 or 70 years. He was working on aerospace network intrusion detection systems, and I was helping him set up a simulation system. He was slinging around low-level computer architecture terminology, while I was quickly trying to access what I remembered from a college class 15 years prior, just to keep up with the conversation. Older programmers a…

It's a weird experience if you're a clever youngster. I liken it to speed vs torque. I have to rely on being fast and being able to scan a problem as fast as I can to understand it. But an older engineer will just know the lay of the land. I had this happen a lot with an older electrical engineer. He seemed slow and I looked to run circles around everyone, but he could point to things as a root cause before I even un…

Yup, I worked with some grey-beards in the GPU space and holy shit did they know their stuff, root causes and the like. My experience mirrored yours almost exactly.

The best ones are also pretty enthusiastic to share and educate. This group was very much like that and I'm incredibly grateful for all the things I learned.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#77

Post by happy-go-lucky »

edoceo wrote: post #2

I'm 40, in tech years that's like 1000. I also see value in hiring experience but explicitly factoring by age discriminates against a protected class in the USA. I think a lawsuit is in my future if I use this for placement at my company. Of course, if you simply rebranded to talk about "experience" rather than "age" then solvelem probbed. Also, age != experience != skill.

+1 for age != experience != skill

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#78

Post by LanceH »

rhizome wrote: post #56
aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

I wonder what an effective approach would be for 40+'ers who don't have kids or other outside constraints. I'm thinking they wouldn't necessarily want to bring it up in an interview, since familial status is a protected class and employers may blanch at statements along these lines.

As someone with kids, I almost always bring it up, so they can avoid wasting my time if they don't want me to have a life.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#79

Post by jrochkind1 »

mathgeek wrote: post #23
jrochkind1 wrote: post #3

An oldster in HN world is someone over 32, right?

Only because going one more bit to 64 is too far, and one less bit to 16 is too young.

Nice, I wasn't even thinking of this, maybe at this point powers of 2 is just what comes out of my brain when I reach for an arbitrary number, ha.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#80

Post by jplahn »

This is tangentially related (and wholly anecdotal), but one thing I've noticed is that when dealing with other engineers or managers, it's often very easy to tell who has kids and who doesn't. I find myself drawn towards those who have them because they have a knack for understanding people better and can approach mentorship on another level. Easily the best engineer I've ever worked with had a couple of kids, only worked 30 hours a week, but did more to grow team members than any other engineer has done in 20 hours more per week.

It's not a perfect 1 -> 1 to between kids and age obviously, but working with older engineers (and managers/TPMs) has been invaluable for the growth early in my career and I wish we had more of them.

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