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Show HN: Hire an Oldster

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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#181

Post by azeirah »

jhayward wrote: post #89
azeirah wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attended a lecture last week, older people were one of the topics that got touched. Instead of having old employees teaching the younger, he told a story of a business requiring old people to receive fresh young employees as their mentor.

I'd like to hear more. What are the benefits of this arrangement? Is it merely an organizational statement that over-30's are worth less and need remedial training? What was the rationale? What was the group discussion like? What do you think about it?

There's not much more, it was a very general lecture touching on many topics, it was merely an anecdote.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#182

Post by HCIdivision17 »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #152
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…

I feel like in the startup space a lot of young people just aren't exposed to just how good highly experienced engineers can be. As a result, they end up just hiring the best youngsters they can find (and afford) and dismiss a lot of people as dated. It's just breathtaking when you watch an experienced engineer slap together a well architected, highly optimized project that passes all tests on the first try. They eve…

Elsewhere in the threads here someone noted that a lot of young teams don't have upper managers. And frankly, I'd believe many simply don't have any proper management.

Where "proper" is critical. I've had a lot of managers, but few effective ones. And almost none who led the department. I found my mentors in other departments. It's a real shame, since a great manager will do more for learning and quality of life than anything else, I think.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#183

Post by yitchelle »

As I am approaching my 50s, I kinda find this type of jobsites a little discriminating. I know that age should not contribute to whether you are suitable for a job or not, but the reality on the ground is rather different.

Should there be sites that zone in on a particular discriminating aspect of a person? Hmm, like www.hireanoldveteran.com for old veterans that are having trouble looking for jobs.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#184

Post by ryandrake »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #152
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…

I feel like in the startup space a lot of young people just aren't exposed to just how good highly experienced engineers can be. As a result, they end up just hiring the best youngsters they can find (and afford) and dismiss a lot of people as dated. It's just breathtaking when you watch an experienced engineer slap together a well architected, highly optimized project that passes all tests on the first try. They eve…

Yep, in contrast to the current unfortunate common practice of "hire in quantity and brute force your way to a working app". I've seen places where copy-pasting from StackOverflow was the norm and "getting it to compile" was seen as a milestone worthy of congratulation.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#185

Post by ep103 »

tim333 wrote: post #119
jrochkind1 wrote: post #3

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

Bar chart, kinda looks that way: http://hn-stuff.appspot.com/poll_chart/build/?thread_id=2175...

I mean, I have to think that's because our field has been exploding for the last 2 decades. Give it 5 years, and all those bars will likely shift down 5 years, and the new 26-30 bar will be yet larger.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#186

Post by ygjb-dupe »

smallnamespace wrote: post #162
ArlenBales wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like, I won't "hire" him. Hiring is a two way street. Always ask about how much overtime is expected from a job during interviews. If you don't believe in >40 hour work weeks, except maybe under rare conditions, then don't "hire" your prospective employer.

But once a recruiter has this type of experience with a few older candidates, they will be more likely to discount older candidates in the future, regardless of whether those later individuals were willing to do 60+ hour weeks or not.

Then that recruiter should schedule themselves for a rectal occipital extraction :)

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#187

Post by maerF0x0 »

bitwize wrote: post #107
maerF0x0 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unwilling to run the same 60 hour gauntlet that a 25 year old _can_ etc. Older people _can_ run 60 hour gauntlets. We're just wise enough to know that it leads to no good outcome.

That wisdom makes you of negative business value to your manager, since he still believes 60-hour gauntlets are an intrinsic part of being on time and under budget. Hence, you won't get hired.

I disagree. I have read articles like http://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-you... which claim that over 40 hrs a week on average, for average people, will have lower productivity. I get that sometimes people have to work over 40 hours a week, and then follow it with extended periods of rest. An example is tax accountants. But for continuous producers like executives or engineers imo they are more interested in volume of work completed in 1 year than fastest single week/month.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#188

Post by compiler-guy »

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…

The biggest problem with "Hire someone super smart at a vastly-under-market rate." is that some other company will come along tomorrow and offer them market, and the best case is that they give you two weeks notice before jumping ship.

The worst case[0] is that they don't show up the next day and you are SOL.

0. Assuming they don't actively try to sabotage the company that has been exploiting them.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#189

Post by digler999 »

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…

> He saw object oriented programming as snake oil and a passing fad

for how long ? I dont blame him for reading about C++ in 1989 and saying "hrmmmf! hogwash!". But in 1995 ? in 2000 ? It sounds like he got set in his ways, and how is that NOT an "age problem" ? I'm also 32, and I'm getting slightly more set in my ways as I get older.

> he begrudgingly learned Java/C#/JavaScript/SQL and took a major pay/prestige cut basically starting over.

well, had he had an open mind and not shunned new things, he might be a Herb Sutter today. Or even in IBM, had he bet on a different "horse", and moved into As/400 or whatever other IBM technologies there are, he could be earning more than a C++ programmer, knowing some obscure proprietary IBM language and having 20+ years experience backing it up. I've heard of guys like that making $100+/hr because only a few people in the world can do it.

I think his story is one of mismanagement of intellectual capital. Maybe it's naive of me, but I dont see how you could be in software engineering for 30 years and not be worth at least a million, especially from his era. Did he invest in IBM or any tech companies at all ? How could you not see everyone making money in the dot-com era and not be a part of it ?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#190

Post by wglb »

tptacek wrote: post #21
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.

I'm 40 and don't feel that way at all.

Whippersnapper
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