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Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

wired.com

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Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#31

Post by nbm »

3rdAccount wrote: post #25
nbm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just hire a (hopefully) good people manager? It's hard to find good managers, but it's also not entirely likely that your best IC engineer is going to be a good manager naturally either. Whereas you know they're good at what they're doing now. If they're not going to find a way to be more worthwhile, just don't pay them more. If they find a way to be more worthwhile (teaching, coaching, setting standards, wha…

You need to know the domain in complex fields. In my area, the non engineers have no clue what is going on and are almost dead weight. The high output engineers now in management aren't always the best at managing people, but at least they make good decisions and don't slow the rest of us down.

You probably don't need to force the _best_ engineers go into management to achieve this - you just need someone with the necessary background and experience - and from that larger pool you can choose the ones that want to do management, and are more likely going to be good at it.

The managers I deal with day-to-day were all once ICs in the same role, but I wouldn't put almost any of them in the same category as the strongest ICs we have in technical skill. And they mostly don't make bad technical decisions - because they mostly don't make any technical decisions - they defer to their strong ICs.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#32

Post by TomMckenny »

incompatible wrote: post #27
qubax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just wired. Almost every news site. Ad block, update your host file, etc. Ever since forbes had viruses/malware for ads a few years ago, I don't visit a news site without protection.

I'm using an adblocker, all I get is a brief flash of something and then a blank page. Maybe I'm too old for Wired now.

Indeed. And there are two calls to JSON.parse() with about a meg of text. I'm clearly much to old to understand why.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#33

Post by Aloha »

I'm in the opposite of this situation, I'm among the 10% of the youngest employees in the company, when around 60% of the company will be retiring within a decade. We're also in one of those high cost housing markets, and while I'm very well paid comparatively to others in my particular part of the technology sector - its still not enough to buy a house, or settle down - but they're somewhat unsympathetic when I talk about things like, working from home, remote working, etc, I generally get a blank stare.

So, there is a corollary here, make sure that pay and benefits are attractive to employees of all ages, not just one group.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#35

Post by markbnj »

Cacti wrote: post #9

It's not complicated: the costs of software development are almost entirely in labor. As long as that remains true, older people will be at a severe disadvantage simply because they cost 2-5 times as much as a new hire. Once Moore's Law slows down (or whatever we want to call the current golden age we're seemingly still in), this will change, but until then you're just fighting against exponential growth.

I'm not sure what you're comparing but it sounds like you're comparing experienced vs. inexperienced and not necessarily older vs. younger. I'm 57 and I don't think I am that much more expensive than younger experienced backend engineers and SREs. We're all as a group a lot more expensive than people who are just starting out but that's hardly surprising. Between those of us who would be considered senior in terms of experience I might be $10k or $20k more expensive just due to salary history and growth over time but I doubt that amount is a deal breaker for the average tech company.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#36

Post by rmason »

I think my advantage is that I've seen more engineering cycles. New problems can sometimes be solved quicker by the hard fought for knowledge gained solving older ones.

Mark Zuckerberg famously said young people were just smarter. In my generation it was Abbie Hoffman who said not to trust anyone over thirty. They were both wrong.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#38

Post by rdiddly »

butterfi wrote: post #3

wow, I'm not sure how good the article is, but my browser threw a hairball trying to load that page. Rarely do I see a page fail as hard as this one did. Has Wired just collapsed under the weight of ad trafic nonsense?

Excellent candidate for outline.com

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#39

Post by bigiain »

gcbw2 wrote: post #24
bigiain wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think you are replying to an ironic post to begin with. Doubt that quote was to prove a point, but to highlight the problem.

Sure - I still find it amusing tho - totally worth the downvotes...

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#40

Post by anothergoogler »

markbnj wrote: post #35
Cacti wrote: post #9

It's not complicated: the costs of software development are almost entirely in labor. As long as that remains true, older people will be at a severe disadvantage simply because they cost 2-5 times as much as a new hire. Once Moore's Law slows down (or whatever we want to call the current golden age we're seemingly still in), this will change, but until then you're just fighting against exponential growth.

I'm not sure what you're comparing but it sounds like you're comparing experienced vs. inexperienced and not necessarily older vs. younger. I'm 57 and I don't think I am that much more expensive than younger experienced backend engineers and SREs. We're all as a group a lot more expensive than people who are just starting out but that's hardly surprising. Between those of us who would be considered senior in terms of…

Agreed, it's actually kind of awful that it takes about ten years to hit the pay ceiling. 2-5x, if only!
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