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Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

joshondesign.com

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Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#11

Post by 1ba9115454 »

autokad wrote: post #8

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it.

I personally wouldn't target those companies. They tend to employ on a permanant basis and the contract market is a bigger payer.

Also after a few years in the game you tend to get targetted by recruiters as you may have specialised into certain areas. i.e. finance.

So for example, I don't normally look for work, it normally finds me.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#12

Post by tluyben2 »

autokad wrote: post #8

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it.

Don't want to generalize but as far as I have seen; they don't. As a 6th point in his list could be; connections. I (42 y/o) know people; I can get programmers to follow me if I move company which is a plus. But I also know investors, potential clients, C*O's and hiring managers. People recommend you or know you via their network.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#14

Post by chandler »

Consider smartness as "what you can do with what you know," while experience is "what you know"--then, what follows is that having more experience makes up for not being as clever.

    Able to make good choices = Intellect * Experience
Moreover, employers can _try_ to assess intelligence with whiteboard interviews...but the easier factor to evaluate is experience. It's right there on the resume!

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#16

Post by grive »

thehardsphere wrote: post #6
moron4hire wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, isn't that rather much the point? Once a young person learns all this stuff from experience, they've become an old person.

But you can gain experience without necessarily becoming old at the same time. They're correlated, but not causal.

Experience takes time. More or less, depending on several factors (willingness to learn and improve, complexity of the subject, ...). But by definition, if you gain experience, you just got older than before.

You cannot magically learn everything out of sheer willpower.

Additionally, a few things are impossible to learn without time: the "Judgement" section in the article. You can certainly theoretically understand the meaning of it, but to experience it and have a deep, intimate understanding of it you have to go through the process of writing something and supporting it.

So it's not a matter of correlation / causation, it's a matter of the two concepts being two sides of the same coin.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#17

Post by spodek »

Is this post not promoting age discrimination?

Isn't age discrimination illegal?

Why would discriminating against younger people be any more fair or legal than against against older?

I expect discriminating by amount of relevant experience is fair, but that's not the same as age.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#18

Post by eganist »

If an attorney were building an age discrimination case against a person (or entity, per jacquesm below) involved in the rejection of a younger candidate, posts like this are among the evidence I suspect would be used to point to a discriminatory mindset. That said, I'm not a lawyer.

If someone were to be making hiring decisions, posts like this discovered during the course of casual googling would oblige the person with a robust basis not to hire. Heck, at least one firm on my CV has instructed me to regard discriminatory language involving suspect classification, age included, as grounds to reject.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#20

Post by dagw »

autokad wrote: post #8

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it.

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google?

Badly. The unfortunate truth is that if you've hit 40+ without having built up enough expertise and contacts to bypass those types of interviews then finding a programming job is going to be really hard.

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