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I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

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Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#51

Post by cyberferret »

One thing that people don't seem to talk about is that with age, usually comes a broad network of colleagues and people that you know in an industry. Never underestimate the power of a network.

A 50 year old engineer sitting alone in a remote location on the other side of the world is going to find employment and opportunities much harder to come by than a 50 year old engineer who has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for decades. (Ask me how I know... ;-) )

Just the power of a warm referral, or someone in a meeting to say "Oh, I know so-and-so is really great with database security - I worked with him about 10 years ago...We should get him on board for this project..." can work wonders for a career.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#52

Post by purerandomness »

pcurve wrote: post #41
user5994461 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I wonder if that's not just rationalization for simply not wanting to work longer hours [...] No it's not. As someone who's had 10 jobs by the time I was 25. I can attest that. You can be 10 times more productive by picking a solution that achieves the same for 10 times less effort. And that's what you should do all the time. Whenever you take wrong decisions (let's call that "the design phase"), you have to comp…

"In practise, that means I could play ping pong 4 days a week and still be more productive than most people, because they will do work that require a week to be done, while I will do work that require only the last day, to achieve the same result." Unless you are surrounded by sea of incompetent workers, I find it hard to believe that one can be 4 times more productive than most people, on consistent basis. Has enter…

I believe it's entirely possible. Remember the feeling you get when you're pairing with someone who's hunt-and-pecking curly braces on their keyboard? Or searching for GUI sub menues for the simplest operations that would be instantly done with a keyboard shortcut?

Or people typing in "google" into google's search box? Or how it feels watching someone copy&paste data in Excel instead of using a simple formula?

That's what's happens on a software architecture level as well.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#53

Post by thegayngler »

scarface74 wrote: post #8
mgbmtl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know very few people who actually put in lots of hours and who do productive work. It's just that at first, you have to put in more time to find what you're good at. In many non-US cultures, overwork is a symptom of bad time management and incompetence.

I agree that putting in more hours consistently toward an active project seldomly turns out well in the long term, but someone that can put in more hours doing side projects using technology/frameworks that they aren't currently using on their job that allows them to stay current/cutting edge that will make them more competitive. I knew plenty of younger developers who spent nights/weekends doing proofs of concepts t…

When I started getting burned out at work, I made a rule for myself. The general rule is no work outside of work. For me that means I am allowed to write code but it can't be currently work related code. I've been much happier and productive at work since I made that rule.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#54

Post by rhizome »

kcorbitt wrote: post #26
ChuckMcM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is always possible. I suppose to be really scientific about it I should got through my LinkedIn connections (which I generally curate to only people who I have actually worked with in one way or another) and put beside their name my impression on whether or not I felt they embraced their curiosity, and then to go through all of their profiles, for the ones that were current, and rank their status as unwillingly…

I think a lot of us younger engineers would love to see the results of that type of analysis, as biased and incomplete as it inevitably would be. My career planning will be significantly different under the assumption "as long as I feed my curiosity and stay up to date, I have a reasonable expectation of continuing a primarily technical career until retirement age" vs "it's vital that I've built up some non-technical…

You'll probably come up against the management vs. technical fork in the road before 40. Which you choose depends on your particular strengths and skills, but no shame in either choice.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#55

Post by [deleted] »

purerandomness wrote: post #52
pcurve wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In practise, that means I could play ping pong 4 days a week and still be more productive than most people, because they will do work that require a week to be done, while I will do work that require only the last day, to achieve the same result." Unless you are surrounded by sea of incompetent workers, I find it hard to believe that one can be 4 times more productive than most people, on consistent basis. Has enter…

I believe it's entirely possible. Remember the feeling you get when you're pairing with someone who's hunt-and-pecking curly braces on their keyboard? Or searching for GUI sub menues for the simplest operations that would be instantly done with a keyboard shortcut? Or people typing in "google" into google's search box? Or how it feels watching someone copy&paste data in Excel instead of using a simple formula? That's…

[deleted]

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#56

Post by toomuchtodo »

lenzm wrote: post #35
mpweiher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not wanting to work longer hours As others have pointed out, working longer hours is actually counterproductive. The 40 hour work week and paid vacations were not introduced out of kindness, they were introduced because employers found out that they actually improved overall productivity. However, particularly in highly cognitively demanding fields, even 40 hours is likely too much, actual productive work is more a…

The 40 hour work week was introduced because workers demanded it (in the US I'm not sure about other countries). The first strike in North America was workers demanding a shorter work day. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/1835_Philadelphia_general_strike

I feel like we're going to require a larger wrench to throw into today's machinery.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#57

Post by tracker1 »

Constant curiosity and learning are two of the things I love about software development... Most people gain and hone knowledge and experience in a particular sector or industry, and usually not very broad. With software development you hone your own craft, with a breadth of knowledge, experience, tools and techniques. You will be exposed to project management knowledge and techniques as well. But beyond all of this, in a career you will have the ability to work with any number of industries and areas of business. From eLearning materials for aircraft engines to business security in banking. It's an incredible opportunity.

The one thing I have learned, is I'm not very interested in pursuing traditional management roles... I've dipped my toes in and hated it. But being able to work with some amazing people, be challenged by very opposing views and ideas and the opportunity to constantly learn from all angles is incredible.

The work itself is often rather mundane, but what you get out of it isn't just the process of making something work.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#58

Post by bayonetz »

Clubber wrote: post #45
rhizome wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just my delivery, but in many contexts I've found people who react to "why" questions as confrontational. So much so that of the 6 W's [sic] I think "why" is the line of inquiry most requiring of diplomacy.

In my experience: 1. "Why" is the most important question you can ask, and understand the answer to. 2. If someone is defensive to being asked why, it's because they can't answer it well. 3. If you can't answer it well, you haven't thought it through enough.

All true in isolation but...

1. Sometimes "why" can lead to analysis paralysis and procrastination. Sometimes "how" is better -- as in how do we best move on to a solution?

2. It depends on how the "why" is asked. If the asker is confrontational and implies the burden of proof is on the receiver, then the defensiveness might be warranted. In other words, sometimes people ask "why" because they are being contrarian dicks with axes to grind.

3. Sometimes you need time to think it through but the "why" asker expects your answer immediately and if you don't have one yet, uses this line of reasoning to conclude you must not have a good answer at all. It can be hard to have presence of mind in a situation like this and realize this fallacy is being thrusted upon you. Not a very fair setup.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#59

Post by mwfunk »

lj3 wrote: post #17
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

Here you go, the secret to relevance throughout your career: "I’ve spent a lifetime being curious about people and things, which, I guess, means I’m well-read and well connected." In my own experience being naturally curious has led me down interesting paths to meet interesting people and learn amazing things. As a parent I tried (and apparently succeeded) in nurturing the natural curiosity in my children, never shut…

Survivorship bias. There are plenty of older engineers who are still quite curious on the unemployment line.

It depends on what they're curious about. An incurious person who only learns new stuff when it's forced on them will eventually lose relevance. Their knowledge base is literally defined in terms of their environment and the forces that it exerts on them. They are like coastal rock formations shaped over the years by the tides- they don't shape themselves, they are shaped.

A more curious older engineer with a wider skillset and knowledge of current technologies is going to have an easier time getting a job than one with a very specific and perhaps less current skillset.

I mean, it's not a guarantee, there are lots of other factors that contribute to one's employability (interpersonal skills, for example). But it just seems obvious that someone with more skills (and more current skills) is going to be more employable than someone with fewer skills, and perhaps less up-to-date skills.

Re: I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry

#60

Post by phugoid »

pcurve wrote: post #41
user5994461 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I wonder if that's not just rationalization for simply not wanting to work longer hours [...] No it's not. As someone who's had 10 jobs by the time I was 25. I can attest that. You can be 10 times more productive by picking a solution that achieves the same for 10 times less effort. And that's what you should do all the time. Whenever you take wrong decisions (let's call that "the design phase"), you have to comp…

"In practise, that means I could play ping pong 4 days a week and still be more productive than most people, because they will do work that require a week to be done, while I will do work that require only the last day, to achieve the same result." Unless you are surrounded by sea of incompetent workers, I find it hard to believe that one can be 4 times more productive than most people, on consistent basis. Has enter…

It need not be on a consistent basis. I recall one bad decision on the part of a manager that caused me to work eight months of 60-80 hour weeks and nearly burned me out. It took some hindsight for me to understand that, and since he didn't have to suffer over it I'm pretty sure he would make the same decision today if he hadn't been promoted to a higher technical position where he can do more damage.

That's not unusual in my experience. I've gone down the wrong path a few times, but I'd like to think I've suffered enough to think twice now. Let's call that suffering "experience."

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