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Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#121

Post by tootahe45 »

nnash wrote: post #41
duxup wrote: post #8

Heck I'm only over 40. I did a handful of interviews at places where folks who I went to school with also interviewed. I got a lot of "culture" questions. My younger classmates, did not hear the world "culture" in their interviews, ever. It's hard not to be pessimistic and assume "culture" was about age...

Try being a minority, and consistently get rejected because you aren't a good "culture fit" on an all white team. edit: I didn't mean to sound like I was trivializing your experience. The "culture fit" is really nasty and sucks for everyone who isn't "the norm".

My experience in tech is that companies will go above and beyond to hire minorities including women, big companies will sometimes lower requirements to get more of these candidates in. You have to be wary though particularly with startups who talk a lot about culture, usually it translates to 'you should be working on our product in your spare time'.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#122

Post by yellowapple »

joewee wrote: post #82
klaw123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies that take this the other way. Companies where everyone is over 40 and has kids. And stability of the prod systems is highly prized. Nobody wants hackathons , we all leave at 5:30pm each day. These companies exist in Bay Area.

Care to list a few for those who might be looking for something like that?

I work for Grove; company-wide we have a pretty wide age spread (between 20's and 40's/50's from what I can tell without walking around asking people how old they are). Per-department is a bit of a different story, but Engineering seems to be reasonably age-diverse.

We're also hiring pretty aggressively right now (grove.co/careers), for what it's worth.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#123

Post by [deleted] »

klaw123 wrote: post #39
mchannon wrote: post #4

One theory: The Bay Area has become seriously ageist. Many people have a hard time accepting working for someone a generation younger than them, and especially hiring a subordinate a generation older than them. The people reviewing your resume and interviewing you won't say it (they're not allowed to by law) but they'll definitely be thinking it, and it ends up being a huge waste of your time. I genuinely think it's…

There are companies that take this the other way. Companies where everyone is over 40 and has kids. And stability of the prod systems is highly prized. Nobody wants hackathons , we all leave at 5:30pm each day. These companies exist in Bay Area.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#125

Post by heddingcal »

joewee wrote: post #82
klaw123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies that take this the other way. Companies where everyone is over 40 and has kids. And stability of the prod systems is highly prized. Nobody wants hackathons , we all leave at 5:30pm each day. These companies exist in Bay Area.

Care to list a few for those who might be looking for something like that?

I work at SAP. I'd say we're pretty neutral on age - I work with people 20 years younger to 2 years older than me.

I think I've put in maybe two 40+ hour weeks in the past 5 years. I manage several devs and I hate dashing the younger (or ambitious) ones' dreams of resume driven development. My team handles a legacy system that neither crashes frequently nor needs extensive refactoring. "Sorry, cutting up and containerizing the system and using Kubernetes to deploy isn't worth the headache."

I know I'll keep getting promoted (and so will my reports) if I make sure my manager doesn't get calls from his manager asking why there are service outages.

Things move very slowly on purpose. It's better to miss delivery dates than to get bad press or run afoul of laws (which begets bad press).

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#126

Post by dagw »

joewee wrote: post #82
klaw123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies that take this the other way. Companies where everyone is over 40 and has kids. And stability of the prod systems is highly prized. Nobody wants hackathons , we all leave at 5:30pm each day. These companies exist in Bay Area.

Care to list a few for those who might be looking for something like that?

Insurance companies, logistics companies, civil engineering companies, civil service and government institutions, basically any company that uses a lot of specialized in house software, but don't ship software as part of their core business.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#127

Post by AlexanderNull »

Very current knowledge is one of the main things I look for when evaluating a potential hire. It not only hints at an ability to learn, but also at a passion for the industry. I think that's where a lot of ageism comes in to play. I personally worked at two enterprise dev shops where the older engineers didn't give a hoot past what they had learned years ago and managed to stay writing ever since. Their code might potentially have been more stable but it also was slower, had a hell of a lot of unnecessary boilerplate, was a pain to navigate, and couldn't actually do much anything impressive because it was working with such a minimal toolset.

I'd say focus as much as you can with your resume on highlighting those current library/framework/patterns that you're passionate about. Those are often times the things that recruiters will look for as well (in addition to the basics).

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#128

Post by wallflower »

newtothebay wrote: post #118
docker_up wrote: post #22

Anything more than 10 years old on your resume is worthless. Yes, you may have 3 STEM undergrad degrees, but no one cares because it's not relevant anymore. What modern technologies have you recently worked with? What does your resume show, 20 years at the same company, or do you have experience at well-known, "prestigous" companies like FANG? Are you pigeon-holed into a specific area, or are you a generic, back-end…

As a young professional who's realized the importance of maintaining a network, I'd love to learn how you stay in touch with your former co-workers. Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat? Are people open to that (given work, hobbies, kids, etc.)? I'm having a hard time coming with "excuses" and serendipity to stay in touch with people I'm no longer working with.

> Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat?

This is not necessarily about ex-coworkers.

In general, weekend time is more guarded and precious so try to meet for a coffee/drink after work. Or you can both go to an event that is related to mutual interest (tech is possible but would not recommend it). Trying to meet more than one person at the same time also leads to scheduling difficulties.

If you want to meet up with more than one person, consider hosting a Tuesday night dinner party. Nothing fancy, do take out if you can't cook that well. Tuesday night is usually an "off" night for most people.

Ideally, you meet with people you would like to stay in touch about every 3 months. A person is not really in your direct network unless they know who you are and can recognize you in person and know what you are currently working on and have seen you in about the last 3 months. But here's the catch, you don't necessarily have to be directly in contact with everyone. A simple "How is Jane doing? Have you heard from her" can keep you updated enough.

There are some people from work that you might think you'll remain friends with after leaving with whom you do not meetup with again. That is ok. People drift off. Maybe it was just the recurring coincidence of time, location, and possibly purpose (going to the office for years) that made you "friends".

Like the saying goes:

Friends for a lifetime

Friends for a reason

Friends for a season.

The most naturally extroverted individuals that I know have many social circles. One friend I know always buys two tickets to a performance and never lets the other person pay for it.

Finally true friends whom are hard to find are those who you can open up and be vulnerable with.

Facebook has bastardized the term friend. Not everyone is going to be your friend, as it requires reciprocity and shared caring.

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