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Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

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

#141

Post by WalterSear »

fatnoah wrote: post #115
joewee wrote: post #17

Speaking from experience you need two resumes (I’m much younger, but with a long career). One that’s management focused and one that’s developer focused. Use the appropriate resume for the role you are applying for. Even though I’m a hands on engineer people didn’t want to consider me for roles because I had management experience and they thought the engineering role would be too boring, and vice versa. Reduce your r…

Two resumes? Granted, I'm only 43, but each and every resume I send out is tailored to the role I'm applying to. I make sure to highlight experience relevant to the role. Now that I'm mostly on the management side of things, I emphasize outcomes over languages and skills (they're in there, but not as prominent as they once were).

I think they mean 'two ways of presenting yourself', or 'two different base resumes to customize for each role'.

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

#142

Post by darkr »

justinhj wrote: post #95
joewee wrote: post #17

Speaking from experience you need two resumes (I’m much younger, but with a long career). One that’s management focused and one that’s developer focused. Use the appropriate resume for the role you are applying for. Even though I’m a hands on engineer people didn’t want to consider me for roles because I had management experience and they thought the engineering role would be too boring, and vice versa. Reduce your r…

I've instinctively done this for the last little while (I'm approaching my 50s). I list the last handful of jobs and no dates on the university courses etc. I don't put a huge list of languages and technology I've used, just the most recent and relevant. Not having problems so far.

As a hiring manager involved in many hires over the past few years, this is excellent advice for anyone with ~10 years or more of experience.

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

#143

Post by dep_b »

yellowapple wrote: post #108
dep_b wrote: post #105

Well US companies don't ask for details that could give away your age. I mean removing the date of your graduation and only including the last 10 ("relevant") years of your experience is not a crime in any sense. I don't feel my age is as much a problem as raising my rates. That definitely makes things a bit more challenging. I have two experiences in the last year that were a bit strange. One was a guy that kind of…

"Must even be more confusing to black people from Latin-American countries. Do I get a double race bonus or should I pick the one that gives me most benefits? If so which one?" Most US-based forms along these lines ask the Latino question separately from the general race question. "Latino" not fitting cleanly into any particular racial group is specifically why it's a separate question. So if you're simultaneously bl…

Nope, black and latino were in the same group.

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

#144

Post by iamdave »

kareemsabri wrote: post #137

I think a lot of startups are, frankly, ageist. They worry about "culture fit" from an older guy. There's a lot of twenty-something running around. They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations, or that you may want more than they can afford to pay. If you're still on the market, we're hiring, and not ageist. I'm the CTO, 34.

They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations

Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that needs to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either.

I'm 32 with a dog and a highly opinionated cat. Hire me, or don't. Plenty of other companies out there that respect work life balance and don't insist on the awful notion of "well you don't have anyone waiting on you to get home anyway, why do you care?" (of course I'm deliberately phrasing that awfully, but let's be honest with ourselves here).

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

#145

Post by my_usernam3 »

rrauenza wrote: post #94
joewee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I like working at VMware. It has a good work/life balance, age distribution seems well distributed, and only a couple hackathons a year -- totally optional.

> only a couple hackathons a year

Over one hackathon a year sounds like overkill to me, and I've never heard of a company with over two of them (not saying they don't exist of course)

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

#147

Post by randcraw »

gambler wrote: post #66

>If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone interview? Ph.D. in AI will probably scare off anyone who has a typical business app development or integration job. It's just hard to imagine someone with this level of education grinding out bugs in garbage legacy code, or calling vendors to ask why their SOAP web service doesn't work according to documentation. Now, whether you would even care…

Another challenge might be how much AI has changed in the past 35 years. In 1983, AI meant expert systems, small neural nets, phrase-structured NLP, symbolic reasoning, and a lot of custom models that embedded knowledge into heuristic-driven unstructured functions, like Minsky's Society of Mind.

The challenge now may be how to present your skills in ways that convinces others that they're up-to-date or relevant. I can definitely see why many employers might be wary of a PhD with a 35 year old history working in R&D who might have drifted away from the cutting edge (i.e. published research).

Obviously if you can emphasize relevant domain expertise (a major advantage of being experienced), you may be able to turn your liability into an asset. I know military and intel contractors value domain experience much more than do startups. Sell yourself as a principal scientist with "the right stuff". Large corporations buy into that.

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

#148

Post by imhoguy »

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.

Keep warm list of people on Skype/Hangouts/whatever IM. I have got multiple IM clients running just to keep contact with people I have previously worked with, even some whom I haven't seen live for over 10 years now. There is a lot of occasional exchange of creative ideas, interesting links or just silly "how is it going at...?" out of boredom.

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

#149

Post by kareemsabri »

iamdave wrote: post #144
kareemsabri wrote: post #137

I think a lot of startups are, frankly, ageist. They worry about "culture fit" from an older guy. There's a lot of twenty-something running around. They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations, or that you may want more than they can afford to pay. If you're still on the market, we're hiring, and not ageist. I'm the CTO, 34.

They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that needs to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either. I'm 32 with a dog and a highly opinionated cat. Hire me, or don't. Plenty of other companies out there that respect work life balance and don't insis…

Good for you. As you correctly point out, there are lots of companies that will allow you to strike the work life balance you're looking for.

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

#150

Post by drewmol »

dep_b wrote: post #105

Well US companies don't ask for details that could give away your age. I mean removing the date of your graduation and only including the last 10 ("relevant") years of your experience is not a crime in any sense. I don't feel my age is as much a problem as raising my rates. That definitely makes things a bit more challenging. I have two experiences in the last year that were a bit strange. One was a guy that kind of…

>On the other hand some US companies asked me if my "race"* is "Latino" whatever the hell that means.

You can thank the federal government for that question.

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