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Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

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Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#31

Post by simonsarris »

paulrpotts wrote: post #28
uptownfunk wrote: post #4

There is a technology called hair coloring, stack it with a hoodie and some well fitted slacks, roll up one of the ankle cuffs a bit. Talk like you've exited a startup and are just working for fun, or something to keep you interested, but not like you actually have to.

Absolutely not. This is idiotic advice. I'm not paid to be pretty. I earned this gray beard and if you don't respect the years of experience it represents, you and your hipster brogrammer culture can fuck right off.

I totally understand your frustration and that looks matter even if just subconsciously to everyone is quite the shitty paradigm to navigate. Humans being mimetic creatures results in all sorts of weird unfairness and idiocy.

However when it comes to advice, are we interviewing for a job in an imaginary world, or the real one?

If it's the real world, this is great advice. Just like having a marketing team instead of thinking every product will sell itself is great advice that almost every company in existence learns at some point or another.

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#32

Post by buserror »

WilliamLP wrote: post #26
buserror wrote: post #20

I'm 49! I've been working since I'm 17 as a developer -- I think the KEY thing is to be valuable, and be able to change quickly BUT not as quickly as the snowflakes. Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--, that will help you learn ANYTHING computer related quickly, and continue surfing that wave with whatever tech you fancy might actually be…

> I'm a frigging EXPERT in dozens of stuff that would make people smile now (those who are old enough ;-)) I'd love to read your list. :)

I'll just tell you now I've got a T-shirt with "Copland Driver Kitchen" :-)

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#33

Post by nhebb »

newlikeice wrote: post #2

Side questions if anybody answers this. How did you get your first job industry? I imagine corporation weren’t like there are now and thought of code as black magic.

This made me laugh. It wasn't the Dark Ages. They thought of code as code. I'm in my 50's, and I took my first programming class in high school in 1980. When I entered college a few years later, most of my engineering classmates had prior experience programming. It really wasn't considered anything mysterious or magical.

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#37

Post by Someone »

president wrote: post #7
zepolen wrote: post #3

Value. Are you valuable. You can be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 it doesn't matter. If you are valuable, you will find a job no problem. The 50 year olds who complain are the ones that offer no value and have essentially 1 year of experience doing the same thing (badly) for 30 years.

You're probably a young'n. This is what everybody thinks until they hit the point in their life where they realize there is more to life than just work (family, friends, hobbies, etc). You'll be complaining soon enough.

In some sense, that isn’t age discrimination by the employer, but you no longer being willing to be exploited.

It would be age discrimination if employers wouldn’t even invite you for an interview, thinking “(s)he’s 50, so (s)he must be wise enough not to fall for the crap story we tell the gullible”.

As long as there are employers where work-life balance is a better match with what you want out of life, I wouldn’t worry about it. And I think there are, certainly in Europe.

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#38

Post by Chopsah2 »

buserror wrote: post #32
WilliamLP wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a frigging EXPERT in dozens of stuff that would make people smile now (those who are old enough ;-)) I'd love to read your list. :)

I'll just tell you now I've got a T-shirt with "Copland Driver Kitchen" :-)

I've got an "OpenDoc Kamp Kodabunch" sweatshirt.

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#39

Post by duderific »

uptownfunk wrote: post #4

There is a technology called hair coloring, stack it with a hoodie and some well fitted slacks, roll up one of the ankle cuffs a bit. Talk like you've exited a startup and are just working for fun, or something to keep you interested, but not like you actually have to.

This seems a bit tongue in cheek, but there is some truth to it. You have to at least be able to seem like someone the 20-somethings can hang out with without feeling awkward. This is less about appearance than attitude. If you are enthusiastic and keep up with the youth culture a bit, you can probably fit in ok.

I'm 49 and have gray hair, and have since I was in my mid 30's, but I've not had any trouble getting work when I had to (or wanted to) change jobs. That said, I dress fairly youthfully (in typical Silicon Valley jeans/untucked shirt) and am told I don't look my age.

Re: Ask HN: Developers aged 50, how have you gotten around age discrimination?

#40

Post by theabsurdman »

Don't be afraid to learn new things. I started my IT career almost 20 years ago doing Struts and later Spring MVC. I felt a bit stuck in the enterprise java realm, but I branched out to Pylons and then Spring Boot. Now I'm doing Laravel/Vue.js and I have to say it's a breeze having worked with MVC frameworks for all these years. If you have a hot skill, which reactive/SPA apps seems to be these days, you'll always be in demand.
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