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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

#301

Post by 5ilv3r »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #272
5ilv3r wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently been thrown into the position of interviewing many candidates for both more senior roles than I have, and job functions I know nothing about. So I'm totally guilty of this, sorry. We had a candidate a while ago with lots of experience in many different stacks, but none in the ones we use. I suggested to the hiring manager that ageism might be a factor here, as he clearly could learn new stacks based on…

> but only after it was needed by the sales team. ?

Money trumped affirmative action and ageism in one fell swoop. They needed experienced sales people.

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

#302

Post by matwood »

fsloth wrote: post #279
matwood wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I know C++ in an out". I know what you mean, but this was a bad example. People who really know c++ are having to turn jobs down right now. Fintech is all over my c++ acquaintances. Your advice about clear economic terms is spot on for resumes at any age. You have to link to numbers and then try to link to dollars. "Developed a Python API for reporting." -- boring "Developed a Python API that handled X amount of d…

"... this was a bad example. People who really know c++ are having to turn jobs down right now. Fintech is all over my c++ acquaintances." Yeah, maybe some easier language would have been a better example of dangerously shallow knowledge base. The basic theme was to give a financial valuation to a knowledge base - in your example, I presume a software engineer who had financial experience and could explain his contri…

Not just negotiating compensation, but they could actually be more valuable to the company. The engineer who is always wondering 'what am I contributing to the bottom line' will make decisions that typically are more company focused. A bit sarcastic example ;) is as an engineer thinking about work to do or argue to get done. Do they rewrite some existing functionality in the latest js framework of the day or add a new feature that may lead to new sales?

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

#303

Post by renaudg »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #158
bengalister wrote: post #106

I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the most part. I work in France. Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in different cloud platfor…

Your last paragraph perfectly describes why as a French speaking American engineer I refuse to work in France even though I would love to live there. My salary in a flyover state in the US is 5X the best I could find in France.

I agree that developers in France are rather underpaid, but you're comparing apples to oranges.

A lower French salary comes with a number of valuable benefits which makes the take-home pay difference much smaller than what you're saying : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412599

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

#304

Post by renaudg »

sokoloff wrote: post #231
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last paragraph perfectly describes why as a French speaking American engineer I refuse to work in France even though I would love to live there. My salary in a flyover state in the US is 5X the best I could find in France.

Part of the problem is trying to employ people in France or, more specifically, worrying about the day when you need to stop employing someone in France. After going through it once, I'll never voluntarily do it again.

This is changing with Macron's sweeping labor law reform.

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

#305

Post by renaudg »

ralphc wrote: post #277
alasdair_ wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is also an issue. At a previous job, we completely moved all development work from Munich to Dublin because the added headaches caused by hiring/firing in Germany were enormous.

Do France and Germany have the concept of the "contractor" worker, where the company can just call the contracting firm and say we don't need the developer anymore?

Yes.

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

#306

Post by redblacktree »

pdimitar wrote: post #289
bitsnbytes wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 compe…

You remind me of me several years ago. I had a life coach at the time and he introduced me to financial discipline, in the particular form of Dave Ramsey and his debt snowball. We paid $47k of debt off in two years, and things have only improved since. We're saving to do a $30k kitchen renovation, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Two years seems like a long time, but the time will pass anyway. How would you feel to be debt free at the end of it? Something to think about.

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

#307

Post by pdimitar »

redblacktree wrote: post #306
pdimitar wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compe…

You remind me of me several years ago. I had a life coach at the time and he introduced me to financial discipline, in the particular form of Dave Ramsey and his debt snowball. We paid $47k of debt off in two years, and things have only improved since. We're saving to do a $30k kitchen renovation, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Two years seems like a long time, but the time will pass anyw…

Thank you. :)

After buying the iPhone X for me and my wife, debts are the next target. Let this not sound dismissive but we don't need books and coaches to apply common sense to money; we always knew how to manage money but the income simply wasn't there up until several months ago.

I firmly do NOT believe in the philosophy of "don't make more, spend less". To us this is BS. We only have one life -- as far as we know -- and spending it trying to achieve a monk level of discipline with money is a waste of happiness of the soul.

The harsh truth is -- money does make a difference. It's absolutely not the center of happiness but it's a solid side contributor.

Many people fail to account for that.

In truth, being more happy with my woman (not because of the money -- but because of the relationship gradually developing and improving with time) also made me more financially-aware so at certain point you have to wonder if this isn't the chicken and the egg problem. :)

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

#308

Post by redblacktree »

pdimitar wrote: post #307
redblacktree wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You remind me of me several years ago. I had a life coach at the time and he introduced me to financial discipline, in the particular form of Dave Ramsey and his debt snowball. We paid $47k of debt off in two years, and things have only improved since. We're saving to do a $30k kitchen renovation, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Two years seems like a long time, but the time will pass anyw…

Thank you. :) After buying the iPhone X for me and my wife, debts are the next target. Let this not sound dismissive but we don't need books and coaches to apply common sense to money; we always knew how to manage money but the income simply wasn't there up until several months ago. I firmly do NOT believe in the philosophy of "don't make more, spend less". To us this is BS. We only have one life -- as far as we know…

> I firmly do NOT believe in the philosophy of "don't make more, spend less". To us this is BS. We only have one life

You really remind me of me. I had this exact conversation with my life coach. And you're right, this isn't rocket surgery -- it's grandpa's wisdom. The difference is in intentionality. Now I decide how I'll spend my money before I spend it (i.e. budgeting). That doesn't mean leading an ascetic lifestyle; we go out to eat, and I buy beer, video games, magic cards, etc.

It's all summed up by one of my favorite Dave Ramsey lines: "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went."

Edit to add: We also bought a brand new vehicle because it was something important to us. $33,000. Cash. (well, almost -- we ended up paying ~$200 in interest, but that's a longer story)

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

#309

Post by pdimitar »

redblacktree wrote: post #308
pdimitar wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. :) After buying the iPhone X for me and my wife, debts are the next target. Let this not sound dismissive but we don't need books and coaches to apply common sense to money; we always knew how to manage money but the income simply wasn't there up until several months ago. I firmly do NOT believe in the philosophy of "don't make more, spend less". To us this is BS. We only have one life -- as far as we know…

> I firmly do NOT believe in the philosophy of "don't make more, spend less". To us this is BS. We only have one life You really remind me of me. I had this exact conversation with my life coach. And you're right, this isn't rocket surgery -- it's grandpa's wisdom. The difference is in intentionality. Now I decide how I'll spend my money before I spend it (i.e. budgeting). That doesn't mean leading an ascetic lifesty…

Apologies for me misunderstanding. I can only hope I didn't come off as an asshat.

Point by point might be better:

- Budgeting: 101% agreed! Doing it for ~19 months now. I have a spreadsheet comparing money available vs. money spent. If I forget to put an impulsive eating outside I catch it no later than 2 days down the road. HELPS A LOT. Made me much more aware of how do we spend money as well. We didn't, like, stop eating out, but we're more conscious of the impact 10+ such meals a month might have on our budget and we made the conscious and informed decision not to splurge so much -- because we care of better investment of our money. Hard to quantify exactly but I believe you already get it. It's basically a data-driven approach, not an intuition-based approach (which is very often wrong when one has expectations and desires).

- My wife's ancient Android charging cable broke... has to be the 8th one for the 2.5 years she used it. However, since we're gonna be getting iPhone X for both of us, we figured she can temporarily use the charger of a Bluetooth keyboard we have until we get the iPhones. A new charging cable is $5 max around here. But we still won't buy it -- it's a waste of money even though we can easily spend $250 on cables and accessories anytime we want (and we recently did just that to prepare for the iPhone X). I believe this is the attitude you describe -- you have money but you don't give them for stupid crap. You're conscious about how you spend. You're practical.

- As for the car: bravo! That's how it's done. Same thing happened here with my iPad Pro. One day I was like -- crap, I am sick and tired of reading good books and watching interesting videos on my 5.2 inch screen! I am consuming media and reading material quite often. Time to invest in some eye care and convenience, I thought. Me and my wife consulted our budget, checked the money that were soon to arrive, figured we should wait one week. We waited, then ordered, I have the device for 3 weeks now, and the sky didn't fall. :D

Overall, we really were speaking about the same things with different vocabulary (me not being native English speaker surely contributes to this).

I can see us being friends.

Thanks for your calm and warm tone. It means more than I can express electronically. ^_^

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

#310

Post by RhodesianHunter »

renaudg wrote: post #303
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last paragraph perfectly describes why as a French speaking American engineer I refuse to work in France even though I would love to live there. My salary in a flyover state in the US is 5X the best I could find in France.

I agree that developers in France are rather underpaid, but you're comparing apples to oranges. A lower French salary comes with a number of valuable benefits which makes the take-home pay difference much smaller than what you're saying : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412599

None of those points really apply though.

U.S. engineers generally get excellent healthcare coverage already.

As a non-French citizen the pension system is worthless to me.

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