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

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

#101

Post by cc81 » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #93

carlmr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. That's my experience as well. Generalists are often the most productive people. A good generalist can often grasp the whole system faster than a niche programming language specialist. And you usually don't need those niche programm…

I hire at a FAANG for two roles where we specifically target generalists: Solutions Architect (design solutions for complex real-world problems) and Technical Solutions Engineer (last line of support for really gnarly cases). Both need people who can cover a lot of ground, and it's hard to be good at either if you don't have significant practical experience and can't traverse the stack from source code to tcpdumps if…

Do you (or anyone else) know of any more resources of what a Solutions Architect is doing day to day at that company? What artifacts are they producing, how much hands on are they, do they belong to teams etc?

I have the title right now but it is a new one in the company and it is up to me to navigate really what it means for us.

EDIT: And are there any books or other resources you or you see Solution Architects recommend?

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

#102

Post by ashelmire » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

I’ve seen some kids on the internet doing crazy algorithms stuff. But I was like that at that age too - at 16, 17, 18, I was able to do a lot. But I’m much better now that I’ve hit 30. I don’t really do any algorithms anymore, but my code is cleaner, I resolve tickets quickly and with robust, tested solutions, and I can anticipate business needs and problems that relate to my job way better than someone without professional experience.

There’s a lot of people like that - the best blogs are from devs in their late 30s or 40s. The answer is basically that older is almost always better.

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

#103

Post by fluffycat » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

Most of them >30 years old. Some were a bit younger, I have seen some raw talent at earlier ages, but their usefulness were severely limited because of lack of experience.

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

#104

Post by skj » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

tchaffee wrote: post #78

cperciva wrote: post #25

As a general rule: Old enough that I feel that it would be rude to ask their age. Wikipedia entries for three of them indicate 41, 52, and 64, though.

Please don't treat old timers any differently than anyone else. If you're comfortable asking someone in their 20s what their age is, you should figure out what is making you hesitate for someone past a certain perceived age.

I'm not comfortable asking anyone their age. Someone in their 20s, could be perceived as experience-shaming (I am in my late 30s).

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

#105

Post by arandr0x » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

It's a bit hard to answer, because the most talented I know became more talented as they aged (so I'm tempted to answer their current age which is 30s or 40s because of my own age range) but they were definitely noticeably more talented than their peers when young, too. They would have been decent hires at 17 for those who were coding then -- not better than the best experienced people, but decent, definitely leagues above other first year students.

Some of them weren't coding until 25 or so but in that case same applies -- they were noticeably very competent at 25, and better at 35 than they were at 25.

Obviously motivation, desire to stay in tech, specific technology stack, etc, varies.

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

#106

Post by barrkel » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #92

carlmr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. That's my experience as well. Generalists are often the most productive people. A good generalist can often grasp the whole system faster than a niche programming language specialist. And you usually don't need those niche programm…

As a specialist who is currently looking for a job, HR generally only seeks generalists. Almost all interview loops that have been standardized seriously prefer generalists. The mold doesn’t fit anyone and are just generic programming/system design questions that do not evaluate specialist skills and experience at all. PL specialists are also pretty good generalists. I mean, what hasn’t Jeff Dean done and do people e…

I think experience in compiler and language design is a strong signal of meta-thinking about problems and high-level abstraction. Compiler implementation requires a kind of rigorous thinking and separation of concerns to keep straight, because you're writing code that writes code, and need to model execution explicitly. Also, all edge cases and interacting features need to be considered in both disciplines - you generally can't get away with smoke and mirror demos or handwaving.

I don't think it adds up to generalist though. Generalists need knowledge in a lot of different things (though one man's generalist is another man's "full stack" web app developer), or else they're just smart people who don't know much yet.

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

#107

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #84

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.

What science has little need for programming these days?

[deleted]

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

#108

Post by arandr0x » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #47

scrollaway wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same story here. The most talented engineers I know are either in their early 20s or in their late 40s/50s. Of course it's for different reasons. Something many people don't want to admit is that a lot of talent comes from practice and experience, and someone in their 40s is much more likely to have 20+ years of experience than someone in their 20s. The early-20s geniuses I know are talented for different reasons. Th…

>The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. That's my experience as well. Generalists are often the most productive people. A good generalist can often grasp the whole system faster than a niche programming language specialist. And you usually don't need those niche programm…

I don't know if I'd call that talented though? I mean, I also got the right number in the IQ and motivation lottery, but not only is that like 80% biochemistry, it's not a differentiator in the sense of doing qualitatively different things. I do all the same things as everybody else, just faster and without guidance.

But I work with people who are extreme specialists. (I don't mean in React. I mean in computer vision or non linear optimization, that kind of thing.) There is an entire class of problems that only those people can address properly; I could learn to but it would take me a couple years and the output from these years would be significantly below state of the art. In general they're skilled, not just talented, but they also work with mental models that require some amount of essential ability to grasp and that plenty of people will never be able to fully understand.

Although, the most successful developers I know (of) are both generalists and extremely talented. Their special talent is "people understanding"!

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

#109

Post by tchaffee » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #91

tchaffee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't treat old timers any differently than anyone else. If you're comfortable asking someone in their 20s what their age is, you should figure out what is making you hesitate for someone past a certain perceived age.

I know what's making me hesitate: In my culture it's generally considered rude to ask someone older than you what their age is. (And the larger the age difference, the ruder it is.)

Cultural factors are important. I would just challenge you a little to consider that some people who are older than you might not like this cultural tradition. I don't know if there is a polite way to find out, but I personally don't feel like an older person. Even my Mom doesn't feel like an older person! Being treated like an older person when you still have that same young enthusiastic person inside of you can feel like you are being excluded for nothing more than how you look.

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

#110

Post by meddlepal » Thu, Jan 03, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

Late 30s through mid 50s.

They've all had diverse experience, were great mentors for younger engineers, very adaptable, and mostly dependable... especially during crisis moments.