Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

muldoon.cloud

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 505 posts

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#251

Post by lmilcin »

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

Your backup plan is to differentiate from younger developer.

I have defined my advantage should be experience, wisdom and maturity. I try to deliver something to my managers that they just can't get from a developer that is very bright but has just couple of years of experience. I try to spend more and more of my time learning and deliver with less time expenditure.

Also, don't get discouraged when you don't get a job somewhere because you are an older guy. You should be thankful that you did not get the job, probably it would be a dead end anyway.

You don't need every place to accept your age. You just need one -- one where you will feel at home and be happy offering your services.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#253

Post by esoterica »

falcolas wrote: post #136
neogodless wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 40 and I don't suppose anyone has ever called me a 10x developer or a rockstar or a ninja, though I was recently described as having "a superpower to crush tickets." I have a feeling you have not applied "everywhere" in the United States, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I've never left my home state, and the deluge of recruiter spam on LinkedIn hasn't slowed down yet. And no I'm not an architect or team lead…

> the deluge of recruiter spam on LinkedIn hasn't slowed down yet Recruiters spamming you is not a correlative metric for companies hiring you. SV is worse than other locations, but even the midwest company I work for (I'm also over 40) much prefers to hire people straight out of college. They're cheaper, willing to work longer hours, and easily molded into an image the company wants. EDIT: To provide a small anecdot…

> They're cheaper, willing to work longer hours, and easily molded into an image the company wants.

There's no intrinsic reason why older workers are more expensive than younger workers. If you think your experience warrants a compensation premium, then it's up to you to persuade your prospective employer of that; you can't just unilaterally insist that you deserve more pay. If you demand extra pay because of your age and no one is willing to give you that, then your compensation expectations are just out of line with the market. The employers who won't pay you more money aren't discriminating on the basis of age (illegal and unethical), they're discriminating on the basis of salary expectations (legal and perfectly reasonable).

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#254

Post by xzel »

throwphoton wrote: post #218
scarface74 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 45, and was last in the job market in 2018 and before that in 2016. I’m in Atlanta. The last two times I looked for your standard senior/lead enterprise dev roles it took less than two weeks to get an offer just by using local recruiters. Edit: There is a huge difference between random spam from recruiters who throw a big net and working with local boutique recruiters who have relationships with local firms. I ig…

I'm in my 40s in the SF Bay Area and recently landed a new software development job. The process took several months. My initial interviews were disastrous; it had been many years since my last job search and I didn't know I wasn't prepared for the "leetcode era". Drilling on "leetcode medium" problems with a time limit got me to the point where I was at least in the game that's being played nowadays. It wasn't prett…

The leetcode grind is very real these days. My advice for people is pick a language you want to get more familiar with but have a decent understanding of already. It will help you learn some of the standard but not always used libraries. For example I’m doing some in Python now and had never used the defaultdict class, even though I’ve been using python for 10+ years.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#255

Post by onion2k »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #249
onion2k wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon recruit huge numbers of graduates, so obviously that's a yes. I think their graduate roles pay quite well too. But if this article is to be believed, they also do things like using 15 different languages on the tech stack (16 to choose from minus PHP because it's banned) and give you the idea that estimates are worthless. If your workplace is doing things like that it's a very bad sign in my opinion.

> they also do things like using 15 different languages on the tech stack Teams have a lot of flexibility to choose the best tool for the job. It's not surprising that you'd have those options if you're tackling everything from UAV avionics to distributed systems to facial recognition.

It's not surprising that you'd have those options if you're tackling everything from UAV avionics to distributed systems to facial recognition.

Amazon as a company might use them all, but no Amazon team should be choosing between them all (well, they do in so far as you can immediately rule out lots of unsuitable languages for most projects). This guy has worked on two teams so far and appears to be suggesting he's made choices between 15 languages already. That either means the teams he's been on have used wild stacks with endless choice (a reason not to work there) or that he's not correct about the extent of choice he had (and if someone has 5 years at a company and they still don't know that's another reason not to work there).

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#256

Post by dnautics »

Erlang (and elixir) are very unfairly bunched with Haskell since they are both functional languages; in practice they are functional in form and in the large, but they make compromises which really make them "a working person's language", not something to live in the ivory tower.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#257

Post by BurningFrog »

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

At your age, you should have at least dozens of former coworkers who enjoyed working with you and would unreservedly recommend you to hire where they are now.

I'm 50+ and that is how I easily get jobs.

Now, (and I'm not saying this applies to you) if no one you worked with before wants to work with you again, that is a real bad sign.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#258

Post by angarg12 »

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

Could this depend on the country? I'm 35 and this isn't my experience at all in the London area. Every week I have to ignore messages or emails from recruiters, even during the last two months.

Sure, most of the jobs advertised are worse than my current position, but I get the feeling that if I looked around a bit, I wouldn't have any problem getting offers.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#259

Post by TheRealPomax »

joelbluminator wrote: post #236
dkdk8283 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m over the hill, expensive, and want to spend more time with family vs work. Shouldn’t minimize the reality of getting old.

well in your 50s your kids are grown, in your 30s they were just born. So companies are better hiring 50 year olds?

That's quite an assumption to make about when someone had kids.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#260

Post by trcollinson »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #157
devnullbyte wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case anyone reads this and gets very worried about getting older and being destitute, its certainly not always the case. I am 48 years old and having a blast. I am team lead working in the companies CTO office. I play around with build systems, making everything cloud native (kubernetes) and I get to work on a good amount of upstream open source projects. My company does not see my age at all, they just see m…

I’m over the hill, expensive, and want to spend more time with family vs work. Shouldn’t minimize the reality of getting old.

I can implement streaming architectures using the latest technologies that can handle throughputs of TB per hour. I can handle the architecture, security, infrastructure as code, and monitoring, as well as the development. I can also help with price vs feature analysis. I have demonstrable experience in doing so, with happy references. I can do it much faster and more successfully than a recent college grad.

Shouldn't minimize the reality of getting old.

Edit: Just in case this sounds snarky, it is a bit. But that first paragraph sells well. I am sure if I was making crud apps in Node I would be a much harder sell. A younger, recent grad can definitely out price me and do a wonderful job.

Post reply on HN