Young people fail to appreciate the fact that the technology they use was actually created by older generations.
We Hire Old People
281–290 of 303 posts
Re: We Hire Old People
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked at an electric autonomous car company in the Bay Area (not that one) that was crawling with 22 year olds slinging code every which way. Periodically a bug emerge that the younger generation couldn't get their head around. Invariably one of the older guys (in his 50's or 60's) would spend an afternoon looking at it, fix it, and then yell at all the kids in the room. I was somewhere between the two age groups…
I've seen this too, and I really wonder why there is such an age bias toward straight out of college kids. Having some is fine but the whole industry seems heavily biased in that direction. I suspect it's rooted in the historic youth of computer aficionados back during the early-mid PC era in the 1970s and 1980s, and a cargo cult idea that youth was the ingredient that made this stuff happen. Instead it was the other…
I know this is a cynical take, but I think a big part of the youth focus is how easy it is to take advantage of the young.
I'm a bit over 50. I have a wife, child, house, and obligations outside work. I'll put in 40 - 45 hours a week and I'll go home.
When I was 22, I had some weeks when I put in over 100 hours. There's no scenario where that happens today.
Re: We Hire Old People
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally yes, but if the discrimination is there in the process (by recruiters/interviewers intentional or not) then that's hard to do. People will think they're 'ignoring age and filtering for competence' when they're not totally. If you tell recruiters "this role can only be filled by someone 40+" it immediately forces that competence filter within those bounds. If there is a lot of under valued talent there that co…
Oh, sure, when the entire society is discriminating, not discriminating may require active initiative. Things like this one "we don't care if you are old" announcement surely help. But you don't need to discriminate on the reverse direction, and doing that is probably harmful.
Seems to me that "we prefer older workers for this position" looks a lot like affirmative action. Do you feel the same about that?
Re: We Hire Old People
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One thing could be companies, recruiters, or manager looking for CS or CE degree specifically. Someone who is 60 outdates CS and CE. I'm that old, and I have an undergrad CS degree. CS degrees were already common in the early 1980s.
It appears that undergrad CS degrees were a thing by the early 1970s: > 1973 Two-hundred B.S. degrees awarded [1] https://www.cs.purdue.edu/history/table1.html PS - Purdue is the oldest CS department in the US, though perhaps another university started an undergrad program earlier?
University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign created the Digital Computer Lab in 1949.
It was reorganized into the Department of Computer Science in 1964.
In 1965 the College of LAS undergrad degree was established.
In 1972 the undergrad degree in College of Engineering was established.
I assume within 4 school years of both they issued undergrad degrees.
The first graduate degrees were awarded in 1967.
Re: We Hire Old People
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, sure, when the entire society is discriminating, not discriminating may require active initiative. Things like this one "we don't care if you are old" announcement surely help. But you don't need to discriminate on the reverse direction, and doing that is probably harmful.
Seems to me that "we prefer older workers for this position" looks a lot like affirmative action. Do you feel the same about that?
Depends on how you communicate "prefer". I would not write that in an ad without context, and it would fell like a very assholey thing to say in a rejection (similar to "you don't have culture fit").
Re: We Hire Old People
#286I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal re…
ccleve... I am now 71 years of age. I retired in 2014 after 42+ years in corporate development. I have developed 3 commercial products in my career and am Still doing development. I have worked through three major eras of computer technologies from mainframes, to LANs, to the Internet. I am also a published technical writer in Europe. Can I get hired today? Not a chance. I took an interview out of curiosity several y…
Very well stated Steve! Excellent read.....and your last two paragraphs are spot on regarding development processes. I started my career as a support engineer, but eventually someone figured out I could talk in front of customers and not screw the pooch, so I became a project manager, and eventually an executive level program manager.
One thing I figured out early on was that development processes really haven't changed, no matter how much spin folks put on new approaches (Agile, etc). I wrote processes for major tech companies, but always told anyone I mentored that processes really haven't changed that much.....it's the same ole "best practices" with new marketing spin terms added in. It drove me nuts when teams would try new techniques without realizing that you need to keep in mind the basic foundation processes, and even a hybrid approach if needed (and in most companies/cases, it was needed).
Anyway, I retired a few years ago because I was sick and tired of watching money get wasted on the latest new process or toy, when sticking to your guns and doing the hard, low level planning and structure at the beginning of a project was the real key. The "Rapid Development" book you mentioned is a great read and still 100% relevant today.
Cheers, Mike
Re: We Hire Old People
#287You know it really hurts when (at the age of 64) you can not
be hired as a FORTRAN programmer even with 10 years of FORTRAN
programming experience.
Re: We Hire Old People
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That may all be true, but (at least some) older people have more to extract. Not when multiplied by number of hours foolishly spent on employer interests while caught up in the competitive frenzy with effectively zero other obligations.
I have far fewer obligations in my 50s than I did in my 30s. Kids are gone, I’m happily married and not in the dating scene, I am settled in a home. Other than work and hanging out with my wife, I don’t have anything else going on. But back when I was dating and then had young kids and then even older kids (with all of their activities) I had a ton more obligations outside of work. It started going down in my mid 40s…
And yet here I am at 5:30 am on a Saturday in front of my PC taking a break from some coding. Probably 4 hours before my 24 year old son even stirs from his pit.
Re: We Hire Old People
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. What "mortal insults" are you regularly subjected to during the course of your job...?
This whole thread is about the hiring process; not working. I wouldn't stay at a job for fifteen minutes, if I was treated in the way that some of these interviewers behave. One big one, is the assumption that applicants are supplicants . The constant attitude that the corporation is the "Dom" in the relationship, and that they are doing us a big favor, by offering us a chance to beg for the job. Other things are obv…
This. Exactly so. I was old when I got my degree. I work in gov't now and wouldn't go looking for IT work again if my life depended on it.
Re: We Hire Old People
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have far fewer obligations in my 50s than I did in my 30s. Kids are gone, I’m happily married and not in the dating scene, I am settled in a home. Other than work and hanging out with my wife, I don’t have anything else going on. But back when I was dating and then had young kids and then even older kids (with all of their activities) I had a ton more obligations outside of work. It started going down in my mid 40s…
Allow me to count the number of over 50 year olds I crossed paths with while burning the midnight oil Getting Shit Done crunching at the office... The only time those offices had lights on after hours were when the cleaning people occupied them. My assumption has been even after the nest empties these folks have better things to do like relaxing in their preferred home(s), eating their preferred meals, sleeping in th…
Why Could you not finish your work during normal hours?