Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by crispyambulance » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #128

crispyambulance wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just about the interviews. Google and others in the big five also evaluate "career trajectory". That means you need to show continuous progression in your career as a non-entry-level hire. Someone who has reached a plateau in salary usually doesn't have that, a "grizzled" tech veteran won't be able to show continuous career progression after surviving ups and downs in the industry (layoffs, failed companies…

That's a misunderstanding. They want you to show growth at Google , and if you are hired as an entry-level engineer . It isn't about what you did up to that point. Source: did a lot of hiring at Google.

    >show growth at Google, and if you are hired as an entry-level engineer. It isn't about what you did up to that point.

Wait, do you mean: IF you are an entry-level engineer, they want you to show growth at Google upon getting hired at Google?

What about NON entry-level? That's my point-- career trajectory is, I am told, very important to them.

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

#142

Post by afpx » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

bla2 wrote: post #115

afpx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. When I graduated, my salary was $40k. And, 3-bedroom houses, in my economically-attractive, but not extravagent, area were around $300k. Rent for a 2br was about $1000 / month, so saving $60k took quite a few years. Of course, several co-workers had well-off parents who bought them their first house…

> it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. Not sure if that's meant to evoke sympathy, but to me that sounds extremely entitled. I'd be grateful if I had a house at 30. Is it common for people around you to feel they deserve to own a house?

Entitled to a house? No - I grew up poor, man. My single mom of 4 made less than $8,000 many years (Bet you didn’t know that, as recent as 25 years ago, some Americans still didn’t have bathrooms and full electricity). No, in my family, it was unusual to own a real house (as opposed to a mobile house). I had no entitlement.

But, I also grew up in a place where real houses cost $25-40k. So, I’m a way, yes, I had some expectation that if I got a STEM degree, I’d be able to afford a house. But, a $300k house? No - where I grew up, that wasn’t even a thing.

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

#143

Post by gaius » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #119

gaius wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what brilliant things were you saying in 2007? If Zuck had said “whites are just smarter” or “men are just smarter” he would not have gotten away with it then and it would not be forgotten or forgiven now. It’s a valid point because it illustrates ageism is considered acceptable even today.

He might not have gotten away with it then, but it wouldn't be harming him much today. It might well have earned him a cabinet post or "senior adviser to the president" role in the current administration.

it wouldn't be harming him much today

Oh it would. Eich is still feeling the fallout from what he did in 2008. Rightly or wrongly is up to you, but nevertheless we see that people have long memories.

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

#144

Post by Aloha » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

bla2 wrote: post #115

afpx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. When I graduated, my salary was $40k. And, 3-bedroom houses, in my economically-attractive, but not extravagent, area were around $300k. Rent for a 2br was about $1000 / month, so saving $60k took quite a few years. Of course, several co-workers had well-off parents who bought them their first house…

> it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. Not sure if that's meant to evoke sympathy, but to me that sounds extremely entitled. I'd be grateful if I had a house at 30. Is it common for people around you to feel they deserve to own a house?

there is a point when you realize rent is just a treadmill that keeps going faster.

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

#145

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #79

ggg9990 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does an older person cost more? Either they produce more, or they’re overpaid. The first type is definitely worth finding and paying... I’ve seen companies built solely by 22-year old script kiddies and usually the stack can’t scale. At that point, you’re in a trickier spot because a 40-year-old who can inject some good sense at the beginning of a project is a lot more abundant than a 40-year-old who can lead a t…

Because older people have lives, children and more - coming in over the weekend is not an option. Spending extra time to "Show you love your work" is not something they care about. On the other hand that is something most American Techies in SV firms or on HN already are part of. Just sitting here on HN for so many years I know what it takes to look like an up and coming coder - and that is to breathe and live code.…

[deleted]

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

#146

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

virmundi wrote: post #139

dasil003 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I don’t even know where to begin with this. Perhaps the biggest flaw is confusing language with architecture. Twitters scaling issues had to do with non-trivial architecture issues that are much more widely understood now than they were a decade ago. It’s very easy to sit in your armchair now with your pipe and claim how bad their approach was, but the fact that you think it has to do with choice of language show…

I've seen the "move to slow" argument bandied about here all the time. The all modern 3GL languages support fast development (they might need some help with code gen). Twitter suffered language level scaling issues. Period. They suffered architectural issues. When I see someone wanting to go to prod with Python/Ruby project, I know they will have to rewrite. I do want to nuance this a bit. If you're doing AI or stats…

Do you think any system goes from 1 to a billion users without being re-written? It never happens, if you go if into that architecture astronaut mindset from the beginning you will not ship the features necessary to get traction. Saying that Twitter faced language-level issues is absolute nonsense. Any stateless web front-end scales trivially whether it's Rails or anything else, it's the data flow and caching that needs to be designed properly to solve Twitter-type scaling issues.

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

#147

Post by tjr225 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #144

bla2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. Not sure if that's meant to evoke sympathy, but to me that sounds extremely entitled. I'd be grateful if I had a house at 30. Is it common for people around you to feel they deserve to own a house?

there is a point when you realize rent is just a treadmill that keeps going faster.

I live in a high rent area much like yourself and I don't necessarily agree. It's pretty affordable for couples like my wife and I- and we aren't running the risk of having to sell our house at a major loss if and when the housing market falls out due to whatever reasons.

We're saving for a house while pretty aggressively paying off our student loans... but the flexibility of renting has been great.

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

#148

Post by bla2 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #142

bla2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it wasn’t until I was 30 that my wife and I had enough for a downpayment for a house. Not sure if that's meant to evoke sympathy, but to me that sounds extremely entitled. I'd be grateful if I had a house at 30. Is it common for people around you to feel they deserve to own a house?

Entitled to a house? No - I grew up poor, man. My single mom of 4 made less than $8,000 many years (Bet you didn’t know that, as recent as 25 years ago, some Americans still didn’t have bathrooms and full electricity). No, in my family, it was unusual to own a real house (as opposed to a mobile house). I had no entitlement. But, I also grew up in a place where real houses cost $25-40k. So, I’m a way, yes, I had some…

Thanks for sharing!

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

#149

Post by Aloha » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #147

Aloha wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a point when you realize rent is just a treadmill that keeps going faster.

I live in a high rent area much like yourself and I don't necessarily agree. It's pretty affordable for couples like my wife and I- and we aren't running the risk of having to sell our house at a major loss if and when the housing market falls out due to whatever reasons. We're saving for a house while pretty aggressively paying off our student loans... but the flexibility of renting has been great.

The issue that I have, is cost of living has been going up higher than wages

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

#150

Post by drtr » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 2:18 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #129

drtr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am passing them now, after having gone through a few. I do still make stupid mistakes more than I would have in my youth. Four weeks drilling would definitely more than do it. I think the bigger problem is none of the other skills I have seem to even matter for Google/Amazon/Facebook hiring. I would rather practice those skills and find niche openings which value people like me than do prep for a broken process. Pl…

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. How do you and yours look for jobs? In other words, where would I need to advertise to have you find me and apply? Here I posted an ad for a principal engineer, and it drew zero responses [1]. What could I do differently to get attention of (someone like) you and your friends? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16055897

When I read a post like yours, it reads like $100k salary, boring system, small company, small total addressable market, so even if wildly successful, not much upside. Boring tech too: Basically a classic database system.

My friends are mostly at Amazon, Google, or Facebook with incomes from $250k up to over $1 million. The others are at startups solving big hard problems with big dreams.

If there is no particular complexity, I'd outsource to India, Ukraine, Pakistan, or similar. If there is, I'd describe the hard problem.

The minimal qualifications aren't a draw either. I want to work with smart people. Microsoft stack reeks of low end employment.

Midwest, rural, Deep South, etc. beats Seattle too. Lower cost of living draws many developers of the sort you want. Problem is a minimal living salary broke $200k in Boston, SF, NY, etc. You don't want a low end job.