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Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

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Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#31

Post by mettamage »

I have a strong bias: the university crowd (haven't seen old programmers yet).

One guy who was about 24/25. He came in already experienced in creating extensions for clang and LLVM. He wanted to do a masters in cyber security. I told him to get a job, but we became friends instead.

When I wrote my first if-statement for an operating system course, he finished the entire program. It was unreal to see. Funnily enough I was quick enough to read his code and to see where he'd be sub-optimal in his architecture.

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#33

Post by sierdolij »

17, ~25, ~30, ~40, ~45, ~65 and even ~70. I think it depends on the personality property of curiosity to delve into the software-hardware stack turtles of details all the way down and not see anything as a real barrier that can't be overcome with effort.

There's something to be said for lots of experience shipping product under a deadline, politely questioning technically-expensive features that wouldn't be good for the user and managing stakeholders' expectations.

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#34

Post by minipci1321 »

oldmancoyote wrote: post #4

I actually haven't met many being a scientific programmer in a science with little need for programming. So, I guess I'm the most talented. I was at my best in my 40's, but at 72 I'm still very good, but slow.

Care to tell what makes you slower, compared to your 40-ies? We need to prepare ;-)

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#35

Post by andrei_says_ »

May I recommend “The Talent Code”?

It’s an excellent book discussing the concept of “talent” in the context of practice and quality attention.

The word talent implies something one is born with. Turns out that how good one is at something has much more to do with the quality of the neuropathways generated by specific practice habits.

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#36

Post by sierdolij »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #30
nlh wrote: post #29

I've met two deeply talented software engineering minds in my life, and they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum: The first I met when I was in my mid-20s and he was about 17. Gifted kid, absolutely. He'd published a programming book (!) and could do things with JavaScript that, in 2001, nobody had even thought of doing until the mid 2010s. Totally undisciplined of course -- we hired him and he refused to follow an…

The ageism in SV has very little to do with actual talent and productivity and much more with how the team feels someone can handle themselves at happy hour.

I think there's three components to every employment position:

- sufficient work ability, rarely an issue.

- teamwork - at work interface, negotiating, empathy with others. be relentlessly resourceful and useful, but get yours too.

- off-the-clock skills and interpersonal/appearance likability - a bunch of awkward single dudes can't say "no" to the socially-calibrated dude who goes out and convinces a bunch of attractive-enough females to hang-out with a bunch of random engineer dudes. be that guy, and you'll have friends bugging you all the time... turn your phone off and rock out to Spotify. :D

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#37

Post by sharemywin »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #30
nlh wrote: post #29

I've met two deeply talented software engineering minds in my life, and they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum: The first I met when I was in my mid-20s and he was about 17. Gifted kid, absolutely. He'd published a programming book (!) and could do things with JavaScript that, in 2001, nobody had even thought of doing until the mid 2010s. Totally undisciplined of course -- we hired him and he refused to follow an…

The ageism in SV has very little to do with actual talent and productivity and much more with how the team feels someone can handle themselves at happy hour.

Don't forget be at work 80+ hours a week to impress the VCs.

"He's been at it for four days straight. He just re-wrote our core code five times and it 20% faster. never mind it still doesn't work right but man is it fast. And he works for lottery tickets."

Re: Ask HN: How old were the most talented software engineers you've met?

#38

Post by setheron »

nlh wrote: post #29

I've met two deeply talented software engineering minds in my life, and they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum: The first I met when I was in my mid-20s and he was about 17. Gifted kid, absolutely. He'd published a programming book (!) and could do things with JavaScript that, in 2001, nobody had even thought of doing until the mid 2010s. Totally undisciplined of course -- we hired him and he refused to follow an…

Anecdotally I'm so curious about this 17 kid and what happened to him.
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