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Show HN: Hire an Oldster

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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#131

Post by emcrazyone »

epalmer wrote: post #66
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…

I'm 63 with a BS in Chemistry and MS in Environmental Systems Engineer. I was a student teacher of microbiology when I was in graduate school. I started coding fortran in HS about 1969 or 1970. > I'm pretty knowledgeable about paid search and social but I don't think my Political Science degree has anything to do with that. To imply that someone's age precludes them from understanding paid search, mobile advertising,…

so you're the exception to the norm; you're one data point against... ;)

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#132

Post by Bahamut »

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…

Being one step removed from the hiring manager at work, the one thing I have noticed about some older candidates is sometimes their background/resume/performance demonstrates to me that some just don't show an aptitude for learning quickly in technical problem spaces. Personally, I don't particularly care about how old someone is, but I absolutely need to see the ability to learn (in addition to the standard things of integrity, good problem solving ability, is not a jerk, etc.). My company even trends older than a lot in our industry (I might be average at 32 here), especially for a smaller one.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#133

Post by epalmer »

emcrazyone wrote: post #131
epalmer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 63 with a BS in Chemistry and MS in Environmental Systems Engineer. I was a student teacher of microbiology when I was in graduate school. I started coding fortran in HS about 1969 or 1970. > I'm pretty knowledgeable about paid search and social but I don't think my Political Science degree has anything to do with that. To imply that someone's age precludes them from understanding paid search, mobile advertising,…

so you're the exception to the norm; you're one data point against... ;)

You might be right. I run circles around some of the youngsters I work with. Yet I still feel like an imposter.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#134

Post by skewart »

skwirl wrote: post #88
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…

>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. I completely agree (I'm 32), but what is worrying is the possibility of a fundamental shift that doesn't occur within individual companies but rather manifests itself as a new industry of sorts, and then a slow decline of the industry we're in right now - a paradigm shift, for…

I'm pretty confident that the web and mobile development that most of HN does today will NOT be big in 2035. Computers will probably have evolved into pretty different forms, and we'll have different ways of interacting with them.

However, the principles of engineering good computing systems will probably be pretty similar. And the higher level skills needed to be a good engineer will almost certainly be the same.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss soft skills as easy to pick up - well, maybe you mean soft skills like basic verbal and written communication, in which case, sure, they can be learned pretty easily. But there are a lot of very valuable "soft" skills that fall under the realm of engineering wisdom and experience.

A senior engineer can add a huge amount of value for a team - justifying a huge pay check - by having a good sense for how to design things to allow for greater productivity, when to be extra paranoid about failures, which corners can safely be cut, or how to avoid subtle but devastating pitfalls in a given domain or platform.

I think most professions are a bit pyramid shaped, with lots of people whose career trajectories don't always go up and to the right. Software development probably has a bit more of a plateau than some, but it's not the only one. Architecture, for example, is very cutthroat, with a handful of senior people who do very well, and an awful lot of disappointed later-career professionals. Even at big corporate law firms things are pretty much up or out - not everyone makes partner, and not every partner makes senior partner.

I think across all of these professions, if you want to keep moving up and/or stay highly employable (and that's a big if), then you have to always be thinking about trends in the market for your skills, and how you can stay ahead of them. It's not that different from a company thinking about how their products can continue to stay competitive in a changing market.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#135

Post by ____nope »

pc86 wrote: post #57
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 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…

I think the companies that hire an army of 23-25 year olds are planning to fail fast anyway. Why bother trying to recruit older, more senior talent that is going to expect higher benefits if the skills that they bring to the table vs. a 25 year old (knowledge of scalability, long-term decision making, planning, deep technical knowledge, etc.) aren't going to be used unless the company survives the first few years?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#136

Post by skrebbel »

emcrazyone wrote: post #131
epalmer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 63 with a BS in Chemistry and MS in Environmental Systems Engineer. I was a student teacher of microbiology when I was in graduate school. I started coding fortran in HS about 1969 or 1970. > I'm pretty knowledgeable about paid search and social but I don't think my Political Science degree has anything to do with that. To imply that someone's age precludes them from understanding paid search, mobile advertising,…

so you're the exception to the norm; you're one data point against... ;)

is he though? i mean, are you sure about the norm? meet a young colleague who doesn't understand search, you'll say "he has no clue about search". meet an older colleague and you might say "he's too old to understand search".

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#137

Post by JamesBarney »

suprgeek wrote: post #74

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 flyin…

Theoretically point 1 is true but theory and practice can be very far apart. At the end of the day you're hired by a hiring manager to make him look good. Sometimes that involves solving business problems, sometimes that involves working 60 hours a week on a death march so that when the project inevitably fails the hiring manager can say the problem was impossible. Look how hard his team was working and still weren't able to accomplish it.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#138

Post by nostrebored »

logicallee wrote: post #127
epalmer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that bad. All are in a push CMS. We have a staff for content and UX. Many sites are small. Probably total 15,000 pages for all sites. These are univeristy sites so they are not complex apps. But there is a lot of backend code and middleware for pushing files to the CDN and to an xml database.

All right. I'll be honest, I forgot what thread we were on, I was just in awe at all of the sites you run. My next thought was, "man, I wish I could use some guy like him, but he is just too expensive." One thing is for sure: there are definitely, 100%, no-questions about it, over 1 people who can be reached and who, at least for a few months, would take over 15,000 pages and 154+ sites. (An early 20s hacker). For un…

"There's nothing stupid about working for $30,000 doing a job that's worth half a million, when your friends are earning $20,000 as barristas at starbucks."

That's patently false. Undervaluing your labor because your friends work in a poorly compensated industry makes no sense. If anything the money you are earning when you are younger is more important to secure for ROI purposes.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#139

Post by drewrv »

paulcole wrote: post #111
enraged_camel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a matter of degree. A two week crunch time every 6 months is OK, maybe even beneficial. Every month though? Not OK, and definitely detrimental.

> A two week crunch time every 6 months is OK, maybe even beneficial Being overworked nearly 10% of the time is not "OK"

Depends how often you're underworked.
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