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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?

#171

Post by stcredzero »

buserror wrote: post #151
stcredzero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 useful to make you sellable in the future... Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first…

I don't think you were "age" discriminated here my friend, it's likely you were just skill discriminated -- sometime it happens -- something you think is terribly easy and boring might come out as completely "wow" to some -- some people take it well, some, don't. Don't let that drag you down, remember the other thing I've posted in that thread: THESE people failings are what will keep you employed to fix them in the…

I don't think you were "age" discriminated here my friend

I think I definitely was. The attitude of one guy changed when he was looking through my resume and realized how old I was. There's this condition and particular set of reactions that accompany people getting strangely willing to believe you did something bad, even when they have scant or incomplete evidence. I grew up someplace where we literally had to drive 50 miles to visit friends of our approximate ethnic group. It's something that's familiar to me.

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

#172

Post by stcredzero »

JohnFen wrote: post #163
stcredzero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 useful to make you sellable in the future... Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first…

> Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first principles knowledge is irrelevant. Yes, that sounds like the normal "folly of inexperience" -- it comes from people who don't yet have enough experience to know that they don't know as much as they think. There's a reason that people (in any field) with less experience tend to be more certain of…

I think back on instances like that as dodging a bullet. Can you imagine the hell that actually working with those people would have been?

That's very true, but it has changed my attitude for the worse about interviews. The particular situation where someone can take facts and reality itself away from me (not really in reality, but in terms of the outcomes of the immediate proceedings) is like hell itself. The possibility of that lurking, because I am indelibly "marked" by my age is awful.

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

#173

Post by SmushyTaco »

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 currently a sophomore in high school and I'm studying a low level language called Rust and I'd be interested in what you think about the language and what languages you have a lot of experience with.

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

#174

Post by scarface74 »

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…

Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--

I can’t agree with this. Most businesses aren’t doing anything that require leetCode and deep algorithms knowledge. After a certain age, what’s important is to know how to drive business value and how to either save the company money or make the company money.

Also, be well aware of where a technology falls on the hype cycle and keep your skills current with it. Whether you are looking for a job or not, see what other companies are looking for and make sure your skills are in sync.

Also, knowing how to speak the language of business is just as important as knowing how to talk tech - if not more so.

Finally, networking. Network with former coworkers and get to know local recruiters.

I’m 45 and I am not seeing any signs of ageism. My former manager is in his late 50s, self demoted to an individual contributor after his kids graduated and is now a full stack React/C# developer on top of Azure. All of the people he hired at our former company were 38+ and we are still developing, switching jobs, and are very much in demand. None of us are in management.

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

#175

Post by jjakque »

LarsHackerNews wrote: post #14

I'm almost 66. Still working on active fun projects, and love what I do. Tips? 1. Be of value. 2. Always learn new things. 3. Seek opportunities in the code base (there are wins in there) 4. Keep learning. A repeat (see #2), and important. 5. Embrace new. We work in an adapt or die industry; keep that in mind. And, if a shop discriminates about age, find a better shop.

Can you kindly elaborate what you meant by "3. Seek opportunities in the code base"?

Are you possibly refers to improves existing code base, shall it be Open source projects or in-house developments?

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #144
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…

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 useful to make you sellable in the future... Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first…

[deleted]

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

#178

Post by scarface74 »

JohnFen wrote: post #163
stcredzero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 useful to make you sellable in the future... Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first…

> Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first principles knowledge is irrelevant. Yes, that sounds like the normal "folly of inexperience" -- it comes from people who don't yet have enough experience to know that they don't know as much as they think. There's a reason that people (in any field) with less experience tend to be more certain of…

Instead of listening to you and I (age 50) there are some young people who would rather claim that basic/low-level/first principles knowledge is irrelevant.

It is irrelevant to most jobs and no I am neither young nor inexperienced. I first started programming in the 80s in 6th grade doing a combination of 65C02 and x86 assembly language and I spent my first 12 years professionally bit twiddling in C - first on DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes and then on x86 PCs. Later I maintained a proprietary compiler/VM used to write apps for Windows Mobile.

I think I have my low level chops....

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

#179

Post by scarface74 »

stcredzero wrote: post #171
buserror wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you were "age" discriminated here my friend, it's likely you were just skill discriminated -- sometime it happens -- something you think is terribly easy and boring might come out as completely "wow" to some -- some people take it well, some, don't. Don't let that drag you down, remember the other thing I've posted in that thread: THESE people failings are what will keep you employed to fix them in the…

I don't think you were "age" discriminated here my friend I think I definitely was. The attitude of one guy changed when he was looking through my resume and realized how old I was. There's this condition and particular set of reactions that accompany people getting strangely willing to believe you did something bad, even when they have scant or incomplete evidence. I grew up someplace where we literally had to drive…

Why would you have that far of history on your resume? I only have 11 years worth of experience on my current resume and my year of graduating isn’t on there either. No one cares about my C programming experience on mainframes in the mid 90s nor my C++/MFC/COM programming up until 2008.

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

#180

Post by scarface74 »

thekingofh wrote: post #79
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #18

I hire a lot of engineers and it’s always a breath of fresh air to interview someone with 20-30+ years of experience, as long as they stay up to date.

What do you mean stay up to date? From my experience I've noticed that if they dig deep and understand the underlying fundamental concepts of the trade, there's not many programming problems, platforms, or languages, that couldn't be learned in the span of a few days. The longer I go, the more I realize that everything that seems new and fresh was most likely already invented in some capacity before I even wrote my f…

Why would I hire someone who didn’t keep their skills up to date and didn’t show any desire to do so when I can hire someone who can hit the ground running from day one?

I’m 45 and have religiously kept my resume “buzzword” compliant.

You can’t learn best practices, frameworks, etc in a few days. Yes things were already invented, but if you don’t know the ecosystem you’ll end up reinventing the wheel badly.

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