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How the Valley treats experienced people

rachelbythebay.com

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Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#51

Post by taneq »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

I took a bunch of time and focused on helping coders instead of coding myself. I came to coding naturally and never thought of it as much more than intellectual self-stimulation. It was a lot of fun, and there is some value to it -- but it tends to get a lot more attention than it should simply because it feels so good to do it well. Successful startup founders say that coding is no more than 2-3% of the total effort…

> 2. I'm not so sure that smart people should be coding.

It depends on their attitude. The smarter the better, IMO, as long as they understand that the code they're writing isn't for them. They can go hack on some personal project if they want to flex their "I'm so clever" muscles, but if they're writing commercial code, that code is for the dumbest of the dumb who will ever have to maintain it. If someone can focus their intellect towards making their code clear and simple then great.

Of course, as you say, someone who's competent but has a slightly humbler intellect will just automatically write simpler code.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#52

Post by gms »

Article commits a classic fallacy: one bad example leading to a general statement because the latter makes a better headline.

Rather like going from ‘my friend’s house got robbed’ to ‘all houses get robbed’.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#53

Post by perfmode »

vinceguidry wrote: post #44
perfmode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is one of the least egalitarian of developed nations.

Despite a distinct lack of egalatarianism, the US remains the place where someone born at the bottom can still climb the social ladder. Billionaire-hood may escape them, but they're not doomed.

remains "the" place?

the number one determinant of future success in the US is the zip code in which you're born.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#54

Post by sureaboutthis »

christophilus wrote: post #49
tokyodude wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for th…

> I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. 3-5 years is a pretty long stretch in this industry. The longest I’ve ever held a job is just barely 5 years. Most tech employers— at least the smart ones— know the average bounce rate in the industry is high. Older employees tend to value stability, for various reasons. So I don’t buy your argument. If there’s a reluctance t…

The neighbor I mention in my other post told me he'd work for $30K if they offered insurance and he'd stay for at least five years. As a software engineer, I know he can run code rings around anyone.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#55

Post by danohuiginn »

vinceguidry wrote: post #44
perfmode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is one of the least egalitarian of developed nations.

Despite a distinct lack of egalatarianism, the US remains the place where someone born at the bottom can still climb the social ladder. Billionaire-hood may escape them, but they're not doomed.

Possible, but decreasingly likely.

The US is now one of the countries where your success in life is most fully determined by your family background.

e.g. it's in the bottom third of the OECD for income mobility, and the absolute worst in the OECD for how much your family background determines your educational success

https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...

https://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#56

Post by humanrebar »

zik wrote: post #11
samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

This kind of ageism isn't really visible to you unless you're the subject of it. Yes, it's real.

For example, I find that technical interviews for experienced developers tend to be harder, which makes me infer an "up or out" culture. A dev with 20 years of experience isn't even evaluated for normal individual contributor roles, instead they are chief code wizard or unqualified.

Younger devs, especially college hires, are given more leeway to train on the job and grow into their level of aptitude and interest. A similarly intelligent and driven middle aged dev won't be offered the same chances.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#57

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #54
christophilus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. 3-5 years is a pretty long stretch in this industry. The longest I’ve ever held a job is just barely 5 years. Most tech employers— at least the smart ones— know the average bounce rate in the industry is high. Older employees tend to value stability, for various reasons. So I don’t buy your argument. If there’s a reluctance t…

The neighbor I mention in my other post told me he'd work for $30K if they offered insurance and he'd stay for at least five years. As a software engineer, I know he can run code rings around anyone.

Yes, the salary requirements thing isn't very convincing to me. At the end of the day a low salary is better than no salary. Also people approaching their sixties will have most likely paid off their mortgage and their children will have left home.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#58

Post by user5994461 »

humanrebar wrote: post #56
zik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of ageism isn't really visible to you unless you're the subject of it. Yes, it's real.

For example, I find that technical interviews for experienced developers tend to be harder, which makes me infer an "up or out" culture. A dev with 20 years of experience isn't even evaluated for normal individual contributor roles, instead they are chief code wizard or unqualified. Younger devs, especially college hires, are given more leeway to train on the job and grow into their level of aptitude and interest. A…

What do you recommend to handle that? I find it difficult to hire senior developers for junior positions with the salary that goes with it.

The biggest obstacle to middle age workers who are shifting career is to be unable or unwilling to take the paycut and downsides that come with a fresh start.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#60

Post by mmirate3 »

WalterBright wrote: post #18
aidos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must have been a strange sailboat to have an engine room :-) Sailing the world certainly isn’t a passive activity, especially if you’re sailing around the world . Ocean sailing involves all sorts of skills (and nerves) as you need to nurse a boat around while using your ingenuity to solve the challenges of things breaking that you can’t replace for weeks. You need to prepare all the food (victualling), learn how to s…

I understand that sailing on the ocean is no small feat, but my problem with it is it doesn't actually accomplish anything. I want to do things that matter.

Spoiler alert: nothing can matter to you once you die. (And everyone dies.)
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