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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

#41

Post by rdtsc »

Reason to hire a young programmer based on the confession from CTO: we like college grads because we can drive them hard and pay them minimal salaries. The only thing is they burn out pretty quickly. And yes they also lamented the quality of their software and how releases were buggy and delayed. Not sure they saw a connection there...

To attract the candidates they optimized non-salary benefits they thought college kids would like such sports tickets, beer nights etc.

The bottom line is companies know exactly what they are doing and just officially​ claim some culture fit thing.

Same with hiring women, minorities,etc.

Even with open space offices. They say it's because they want people to collaborate but more often than not they want to save money and monitor people to see if the are "working".

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#44

Post by arethuza »

ruffel wrote: post #35
pleasecalllater wrote: post #24

When talking with young programmers I too often think "well, you are doing that wrong, been there, done that". They don't want to listen. A couple of months later they notice that the gray beard ones were right. From a company perspective, that's just too late, as the money loss is not recoverable. There is nothing wrong with being a young one with no experience. There is so much wrong when a company has only a bunch…

Conversely I find that a number of the old(er) programmers I've worked with are incredibly stubborn and bigoted. They refuse to see anything from another persons perspective especially if that person is young. As well refusing to keep up with 'modern' technologies and paradigms because "that's not how I'm used to doing it". It's a lot of the "I've been round the block a few times I know what I'm doing" bullshit attit…

"that's not how I'm used to doing it"

To be fair - I'm not sure how that is age related. e.g. I've had very strong reactions from some inexperienced developers who literally only had knowledge of one way of doing things to the possibility that another option might be possible and better.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#45

Post by calafrax »

spodek wrote: post #17

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.

People under 40 are not a protected group under Federal law. People over 40 are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_...

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#46

Post by eganist »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
eganist wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (1) You don't make legal cases against people involved in a hiring rejection, you make a case against a company. Entirely true. In my defense, I'm not a lawyer. Technically also in my defense: the United States has a bad habit of calling corporations people. > (2) If you are making hiring decisions the appearance of random blog posts should not and will not give you any legal basis not to hire. Legality is encoded…

> if someone is likely to cause the firm to be responsible for illegal conduct HR policies are what takes care of that, if an individual is able to make the company engage in illegal behavior you have bigger problems in the oversight department. Hiring comes with a bunch of rules, this person should not be able to transcend those rules by their lonesome.

We're not at all in disagreement, but even after an enforcement action is taken within the firm, if the illegal act has already taken place, you'll still find lawyers willing to go after the firm.

Policies don't physically prohibit certain conduct; they merely provide a framework of consequences to discourage it. That's also why policies exist on when not to hire someone: to minimize the risk of the new hire acting in violation of policies.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#47

Post by eloycoto »

Be old dev doesn't mean that you know how to write code. I worked with devs with twenty years of experience, and I love it, and I learnt A LOT from them.

On the other hand, I worked with old devs too, and they did a lot of spaghetti code, they didn't make a module and a lot of things are weird for them. Like async/await/yield.

I think that it's not an old programmer, it's about the attitude that they had during his professional career and the attitude that they have now. With a lot of experience and the right attitude, I agree, it's a perk in the team!

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#48

Post by rpeden »

ruffel wrote: post #35
pleasecalllater wrote: post #24

When talking with young programmers I too often think "well, you are doing that wrong, been there, done that". They don't want to listen. A couple of months later they notice that the gray beard ones were right. From a company perspective, that's just too late, as the money loss is not recoverable. There is nothing wrong with being a young one with no experience. There is so much wrong when a company has only a bunch…

Conversely I find that a number of the old(er) programmers I've worked with are incredibly stubborn and bigoted. They refuse to see anything from another persons perspective especially if that person is young. As well refusing to keep up with 'modern' technologies and paradigms because "that's not how I'm used to doing it". It's a lot of the "I've been round the block a few times I know what I'm doing" bullshit attit…

It definitely happens in lots of other types of jobs, too. It's not just programming.

I'm interested in why it happens to some people, but not others. You'll see people who are set in their ways by their mid to late 20s, and others who seem to keep an open mind perpetually.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#49

Post by nova22033 »

pleasecalllater wrote: post #24

When talking with young programmers I too often think "well, you are doing that wrong, been there, done that". They don't want to listen. A couple of months later they notice that the gray beard ones were right. From a company perspective, that's just too late, as the money loss is not recoverable. There is nothing wrong with being a young one with no experience. There is so much wrong when a company has only a bunch…

> They don't want to listen

Hire older programmers because they don't make sweeping generalizations.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#50

Post by js8 »

I think programmers should reframe the problem. If cognitive decline is real, why would anyone hire anybody over 40? Yet there are plenty managers, politicians, doctors, lawyers, salespeople, engineers, etc. who are over 40.

If you want a culture where people retire at 40, go for it. But please don't pretend that programmers are "special" in that the decline in their skills is worse than decline in skills of anybody else.

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