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Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

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Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#281

Post by fatbird »

scioto wrote: post #115

I'm hitting another 0-year shortly, but I have few worries about my losing my job. The thing I worry about is not having shiny assignments to put on my resume. I haven't seen a shiny assignment in years. That's probably because my employer and I have unintentionally agreed upon my best fit. What do I do? I clean up after the cowboys are gone. We start a new project that has bells and whistles and does nifty cool thin…

I still tell people that my proudest day as a developer was when I deleted 70,000 lines of code that I'd made irrelevant, following a year of incremental refactoring that was consciously leading up to this point. It was, in my mind, an exquisite act of long-term maintenance programming. Older coders know what I mean and grin when I tell them about it.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#282

Post by dang »

azr79 wrote: post #93
code4tee wrote: post #15

Startups and such typically don’t want young people because their smarter, it’s because their more gullible career wise. Sure some people get a bit stale with age but some also get far far smarter and their experience can be very valuable. “Hey guys we have no business plan or customers, but please pull a few more all nighters to finish this bit of code.” 22 year old living with 5 roommates is like “yes sure, whateve…

> because their smarter > their not as "smart" as you are

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#283

Post by intellectronica »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #274
intellectronica wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 40+ engineer working in startups and I can't complain - my work life is good. I did, however, encounter age discrimination (where I wasn't the victim, just a bystander) a few times during my career. This is only anecdotal evidence, but this usually correlated with places where the management was not very mature and professional and there were other problems. I am a bit worried about the future, but I also have…

> but it's decreasing with time and will probably not What’s your source for this assertion?

Completely anecdotal. I've been working in the industry for over 20 years and it seems to be less prevalent.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#284

Post by dabockster »

curtis wrote: post #247
dabockster wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question about AngelList, did you bother with their built-in coding challenge that they are pushing? Or did you just start applying?

I just started applying. And I applied to pretty much every open position in Seattle for which I was remotely qualified.

Huh, I'll have to try it. I mean, since Indeed and Linkedin are flooded with Amazon and CyberCoders spam.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#286

Post by nomercy400 »

gerbilly wrote: post #94
nomercy400 wrote: post #32

As somebody who does interviews for developers in a Java shop, a very blunt view of things: Any coding you've done more than five years ago isn't relevant anymore. I can't remember what I did five years ago. It is probably outdated, replaced or not in use any more. Looking back at my projects from five years ago, I would probably not agree with most of the code, as I've learned a lot of new things. I do care about yo…

>You don't know what the technology behind a website is? Then it's a minus, as you've missed out on ten years of technological advancements in your field. Huh, we hired a guy who worked on the JVM and the Java compiler. Not much web experience. Would he have been technical enough for you? You don't like COBOL it seems, but you do realize that web development and it's byzantine combination of random languages, documen…

I've never met a candidate who worked on the internals of the JVM or Java compiler, so I can't say we would hire him. I have met more candidates who know what technology is used as the backend of a website, than who know the internals of the JVM. Also, is he still aware of the current intrinsics of the JVM and Java compiler, or was that 10 years ago?

My post was very blunt, like I said. I read through every resume I get, and I would be interested in somebody who has JVM/Java compiler knowledge.

As for COBOL: I don't need a COBOL programmer, we have no COBOL and won't write COBOL. We do have a website, which requires development though. If you had to pick one, which would you hire: A COBOL developer with no Web development skills, or a Web developer with no COBOL skills.

I have a view on web development as well, but that's a long post as well. I prefer JSON over XML, I've worked with both, and I struggled with tooling for XML, validation, parsing and the whole 'who creates the WSDL' discussion. I miss some good JSON validation though (and JSON comments). YAML I like less, because using indentation as for logic is asking for problems.

We don't use NOSQL. Our data is very relational.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#287

Post by nomercy400 »

FabHK wrote: post #65
nomercy400 wrote: post #32

As somebody who does interviews for developers in a Java shop, a very blunt view of things: Any coding you've done more than five years ago isn't relevant anymore. I can't remember what I did five years ago. It is probably outdated, replaced or not in use any more. Looking back at my projects from five years ago, I would probably not agree with most of the code, as I've learned a lot of new things. I do care about yo…

> at least have a basic understanding about HTML5, CSS and Javascript I get that you're referring to the current job market for most Silicon Valley programmers, and are well aware and mentioned more theoretical CS stuff, so the following rant is not directed at you, but at the ignorant buffoons one sometimes encounters in this space: I find this notion so cute that programming is front-end or back-end, or maybe even…

I do feel you can distinguish between a front-end and a back-end developer. Each employ different tooling and mastered different skills. I don't expect a front-end developer to create a database model, or a back-end developer to work with photoshop.

I do expect them to know a little of eachother's work though. My comment was that you don't have to have mastered in Web Development when you have mastered in Java. But at least have some minor skill points invested in the one you didn't master. Think your average RPG: You've master sword, but not magic, and that's fine. But it's nice to have that basic healing spell ready when you just got chopped to pieces in close combat and that spellcaster in your team isn't nearby.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#288

Post by nomercy400 »

alkonaut wrote: post #56
nomercy400 wrote: post #32

As somebody who does interviews for developers in a Java shop, a very blunt view of things: Any coding you've done more than five years ago isn't relevant anymore. I can't remember what I did five years ago. It is probably outdated, replaced or not in use any more. Looking back at my projects from five years ago, I would probably not agree with most of the code, as I've learned a lot of new things. I do care about yo…

I agree with most of this but lots of people will go a whole career without massive changes. I do desktop dev and the tech is not very far from where it was when I joined the project 14 years ago. I still change files I changed in 2003. If we found a good developer it wouldn't really matter much whether their skills was from 2007 or 2016. It's not "tech" or "programming" that evolves quickly, it's just a few specific…

True. My point is that if you've worked 14 years on a project, I'd like to know what you've done in those 14 years. Did you upgrade your toolchain, did you upgrade your main language version (eg. java 6 to java 8), did you consider webdevelopment and if so why didn't you change (I'm not pushing for web here, I'm just curious why you didn't follow the trend/hype). And what kind of substantial features/improvements did you create in those 14 years? Or did you only modify existing screens based on business specs?

Java didn't really evolve in the desktop development environment. We would still create Swing applications.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#289

Post by pdimitar »

bitsnbytes wrote: post #169
oldboyFX wrote: post #33

I see all these articles about the average employee age at startups being 20-30, and how older developers face discrimination. Now this is 100% anecdotal, but I know a few 45+ year old developers and most of them are long-time corporate employees and are not really interested in the whole startup / bloggosphere / tech hype world. They have good stable jobs (think Perl, .NET, Java), and are mainly focused on their fam…

"Older developers of HN, what are your experiences?" I'm 43. When I was younger and first started out 20+ years ago I put in easily 50-60+ hour work weeks ,but only billed the client for 40. I was young , hungry to learn, and loved the feeling I got when I accomplished a project or tackled something new and complicated. It was self rewarding. It was not a job or even a career , it was a feeling that wow somebody is a…

Don't make my eyes wet, man.

I am 37, no kids (happily! I don't want them!), burned out, tired, with several health problems due to continued neglect, in a relationship with the most awesome and beautiful woman in the world, and as much as I love programming, my soul SCREAMS for a break.

As it is though, I've been extremely stupid and short-sighted most of my life and career and now that I make more money, I am compensating for a lot of mistakes in the past -- f.ex. I already must have spend at least 2500 euro on a dentist. Other medical bills will be rolling in shortly. Also upgrading tech, saving for good washing machine / refrigerator / oven. Started buying new clothes and shoes. Etc, etc. to infinity.

Maybe in a few years I'll actually have savings and will be able to take 1-2 years of break but I quite frankly doubt it. This "mini retirement" is a beautiful dream but our system is constructed so as to keep you busy 100% of the time and doesn't care about your human needs. Still, not only the system is at fault -- we as people have to be smarter about our future, which I wasn't.

Lastly, my woman can't support both of us -- for now, even though she really wants to. Maybe that will happen one day, who knows. For now though, most of the burden is on me and it's heavy.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#290

Post by nomercy400 »

humanrebar wrote: post #61
nomercy400 wrote: post #32

As somebody who does interviews for developers in a Java shop, a very blunt view of things: Any coding you've done more than five years ago isn't relevant anymore. I can't remember what I did five years ago. It is probably outdated, replaced or not in use any more. Looking back at my projects from five years ago, I would probably not agree with most of the code, as I've learned a lot of new things. I do care about yo…

> ...will you be happy to work here (retention)... Why not let the candidate filter for this? Make it clear that you'd like them to stick around for X years or longer. Set up (communicated up front) bonuses, raises, clawbacks, etc. to make sure retention concerns are addressed.

Because candidates are not aware of the environment they get in to, or have not experienced such an environment. You don't know the company's language yet. You think you heared A at the interview, and you are not getting A. "They use continuous integration and deployment" which in their terms is a custom ant-based build system of 3000 files, while you think they use Jenkins with Maven.

Bonuses and raises are one part that influence the scale. Colleagues, maintenance work, difference in code style, heated discussions, way of working are another.

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