251–258 of 258 posts
Everyone here is talking about their skillset, and I'm going to take another direction: appearance and interpersonal skills. There is ageism, yes, but I think a deeper problem is reaction to peoples appearance. If you are late twenties concerned about age, then hide it, starting now. * Always wear sunscreen when you are outside, regardless of race. It prevents skin aging, and you'll still tan and get Vitamin D regard…
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…
What are the things you would suggest to learn and what resources do you recommend?
Thanks, again!
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Heh, respectfully, I think we're talking about two different kinds of burnout. The form I am referring to, builds steadily over time. It's not the result of some bad interaction with management, rather, it's the result of doing the "same" thing for 30 years. I recognize that the problem is in seeing it as the "same" thing. Yet, given our job as programmers is often to see the forest through the trees, to identify pat…
Well to be fair I went from doing well over 20 years of Mac programming with a lot of UNIX/Linux alongside to a semi-hardware developer with linux low level stuff, pure embedded and FPGA development... There's LOADS of fields that you haven't done. I remember my first time trying to get my head around some VHDL code and I felt I was 12 years all over again looking at 6502 assembly code. Make your horizon wider!
I'd love to be able to do 6502 for a living...
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What actually ends up happening is people like you get left behind. Jobs become harder to get as you struggle to keep up, your ambition hardens into a self defensive ego shield, and you're stuck telling yourself that you were right to stop moving forward because things only got downhill from the moment you chose to stop learning. The rest of us reap the benefits of innovation, standing in the sun, while you rot in so…
What actually ends up happening is people like you make outlandish truth claims about the dispositions, aspirations and futures of strangers on the internet who they have no context for. And get it it oh so wrong. People often misconstrue my pragmatic hyper-realism for pessimistic defeatism. It's nothing of the sort. Nice rhetoric though! I really pictured the rotting corpse at the computer in the basement of the for…
The there is the idea that your new boss may be threatened by your skillet, which opens yet a whole other can o' worms. Age discrimination in the SF Bay Area is rampant, no one will ever admit it, but it's here. It's like gravity, one denies its existence at one's own peril. So get your botox, your skinny red jeans and your converse or whatever they're wearing these days - don't forget to ink up - even if they're temporaries :)
Oh and impossibly colored hair might help too.
p.s. laugh while you can monkey people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well to be fair I went from doing well over 20 years of Mac programming with a lot of UNIX/Linux alongside to a semi-hardware developer with linux low level stuff, pure embedded and FPGA development... There's LOADS of fields that you haven't done. I remember my first time trying to get my head around some VHDL code and I felt I was 12 years all over again looking at 6502 assembly code. Make your horizon wider!
How do salaries compare? I get the impression embedded is rather low-paid, particularly compared to some of the FAANG salaries bandied about? I'd love to be able to do 6502 for a living...
I'm 61. My solution: keep up technically and choose a mainstream topic valued/needed by your company and stay near cutting edge in it (at least relative to the others working there). And develop other skills that are in short supply. Choose subject areas that leverage experience over inexperience: like regulatory compliance, subject matter domain knowledge, knowing what tactics are best with difficult clients or prob…
(OK, maybe not for software companies but certainly for engineering and manufacturing companies.)
I'm relatively young, but it baffles me that there's age discrimination is an issue. Do companies think I won't like working with someone who's significantly older than me? What's the issue? This is a bit of rhetorical question--I get that there are stereotypes and companies want to build young, hip teams, but personally I find it short-sighted and naive. I'd rather be on a diverse team, age included. If I go for an…
Last week a hiring manager said, before introductions, before shaking hands, "This job is for 22 year olds just out of college." He shut the door, literally, seconds after.
Consider viewing your HR contacts on LinkedIn then view the "also viewed" profiles. Notice any similarities? These decision makers determine whom you will see when you interview. Thank you for wanting to see different when you visit a company.