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

Is 40 the New 60?

neverworkintheory.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 381 posts

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#231

Post by Alex3917 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #33

40 is not the new 60. Not even close. At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has only gotten better. Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer. The onl…

> I focused on learning new tech; Python, Go, Kubernetes, Cloud, etc.

OK, but it's also completely legitimate to just say, "I already know Python so now I just want to focus on building better and better things each year, not getting better at tech." And yet that won't make you employable, even though it's probably the ideal strategy as an entrepreneur and product creator.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#232

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

WriterGuy2021 wrote: post #172
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. At some point, it's also a question of perception and attitude. Falling off the career ladder is in itself a strange idea. As I get older, it seems to me that the concept has little actual reality. Few people have linear career nowadays. At some point, things tend to take a turn for the unexpected. It can be failing to reach the position you were aiming for or suddenly finding yourself unemployed. It ca…

Here's a concrete example. There was a guy that had a PhD and worked for big pharma as a researcher all his life. The company he was working for downsized and he was left unemployed at 54. He looked for another position somewhere else, but he could not find a position at his pervious level of seniority: he had fallen off the career ladder. He was thus stuck in a strange limbo: he was capable of doing things below his…

> I could also tell you about a guy that had a masters degree in chemical engineering working at Best Buy alongside me when I was in college. I've met so many people in my life that have not been privy to the dynamically lateral career system you seem to be aware of.

Well he obviously was. He was working at Best Buy.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#233

Post by victords »

Icathian wrote: post #138
Dumblydorr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does doing 27 years at one company make someone unhireable? It's one thing if he used the same old tech for 27 years, but without that assumption, seems like ageism to say 27 years at one company is an obvious ground for disqualification.

After a thousand threads on why tech hiring is hard, I don't think I need to re-hash that getting signal from noise is complex and imperfect. Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is going to get hired? It isn't ageism, again go read the rest of this thread. It's the nature of making yourself…

> Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is going to get hired?

Why is the assumption not the opposite?

"This person failed at 8 companies" vs "This person was success at one for almost three decades"?

Why is it a sign of success if you are at a company for a short stay before going to the next? If anything, I'd imagine that a short stay would be more likely related to getting PIPd or unable to get promoted/grow there.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#234

Post by stonemetal12 »

syshum wrote: post #126
quadrifoliate wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of programming" doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO candidate has. Why? I'll bite – I think it is because instead of licensing and regulating our profession…

hmm there are a lot of old brands and designs out there in clothing, and I dont think I have ever owned anything from a "hot new" fashion brand My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wrangler, Dickies, etc...

Carhartt produces clothes designed by others. If you look at their wikipedia page, all the designers mentioned are either old and famous, or the young "hot new thing".

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#235

Post by comeonseriously »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #15
jmfldn wrote: post #5

I feel like this comes up a lot and it's something I think / worry about as a developer at the 'old' age of 40. I posted this comment below on a similar thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28294734 Essentially I think this is hopefully a temporary effect of the doubling of programmers every five years for the past twenty plus years. I expect this to level out and thus shift the ratio in favour of older develo…

I'm not so confident that's true. There's seemingly this prevailing attitude in IT that new is always better. The latest gadgets, the latest complicated tech stacks, and the latest languages. Rewrite everything again so it's all fresh and free of 'legacy cruft'. Don't fix bugs, prioritize slapping a new "modern" GUI on it so people don't think it's old . Why wouldn't that same mentality apply to people?

> There's seemingly this prevailing attitude in IT that new is always better.

See this all the time on HN. Something hasn't had a PR in 2 months, must be dead! That uses React, why not switch to Vue!? Blah, blah.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#236

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #190
brandall10 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have that optimism and it certainly is not fake. I love what I do. Yes, I bring experience to the table but not bad energy. WTF would you want to hire someone who poisons the well? It doesn't matter what the job/industry is, in what situation would that be remotely desirable?

This is 100% correct. As a hiring manager, the attitude of candidates was probably equally important as their skills when it comes to the decision of whether to hire. The baseline of is this someone I would enjoy working with every day? Is this someone my team would enjoy working with every day? If it's not a solid yes I'm going to pass on you.

You might be missing out on a lot of great people because of your high first impression bar. And I don’t mean good workers but bad social skills, but people who are actually really chill to work with even if they don’t show it so quickly. This is why most culture fit filters really don’t work well, people have a wrong or too narrow impression of who they would enjoy working with everyday.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#237

Post by [deleted] »

jasode wrote: post #73
SkipperCat wrote: post #33

40 is not the new 60. Not even close. At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has only gotten better. Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer. The onl…

>At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done [...] Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, The blog post isn't about self-reported cognitive ability getting stronger (or not declining). It's about the job marketplace . Maybe it's instructive to compare/contrast different professional careers that depend on mental abilities and how age affects marketability: - computer programming :…

[deleted]

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#238

Post by WriterGuy2021 »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #221
WriterGuy2021 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens a lot. I've seen it first hand and I've also read plenty of horror stories on the internet. There's definitely a shocking disconnect between the education system and the job market. Many people are becoming qualified for jobs that simply aren't there. What a nightmare.

I think it's genuinely the fact that interests of the university / professors / exam provider / "board" are completely counter to that of the student, especially when the profession is shrinking. I was taught to think that education is sacred and to think that the professors/institution has my best interest in mind. The naivete lasted up to my mid early 20s, which is definitely an issue. (I am obviously still pro-edu…

There's no feedback mechanisms which penalize the university for turning out unemployable graduates. Peter Thiel actually talks quite a bit about this. I think you're right on the money.

We must consider the increased cost of a university education and how its function has shifted in society. The university, for the most part, is now a training ground for corporations. We can see this in the dramatic shift away from the humanities and intense focus on STEM. STEM is essentially a corporate career path -- especially science. So we have a strange situation: universities are acting like job training institutions, but they are not directly coupled to industry. They want to maintain their ivory tower aloofness, but they lost their ivory tower status when they opened up the floodgates and became part of the cooperate pipeline. I think the university system is having an identity crisis.

This wouldn't be the first time it has changed what it is. We must remember that the prototype of the modern university was a semi-religious institution used to train the clergy. Funny that you speak about the ideal of education being sacred...at one time it literally was. And perhaps the secularization of the university system is also a symbol of losing that sacredness. Certainly, the demands of the earth are more important to the university of today than the demands of those platonic realms home to pure intellectual curiosity and moral transcendence.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#239

Post by gumby »

Ageism seems penny wise and pound foolish. I do think a lot of people overfit for “culture” and shoot themselves in the foot.

(Looks around furtively in case HR is within earshot) I prefer people who’ve already made mistakes on somebody else’s dime. Though a mix is good.

I’ve been hiring people for decades (yes, I’m an OF too) and this approach has worked out well whether I was 25 or 55 myself.

There is a problem with “we did it this way at company X so we really have to do it that way here too”. Better is “we did this at company X and i think what we learned that would make sense here is YY”. Newbies can’t say either; the older ones are more likely to say the second rather than the first, thanks to perspective.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#240

Post by jjk166 »

syshum wrote: post #126
quadrifoliate wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of programming" doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO candidate has. Why? I'll bite – I think it is because instead of licensing and regulating our profession…

hmm there are a lot of old brands and designs out there in clothing, and I dont think I have ever owned anything from a "hot new" fashion brand My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wrangler, Dickies, etc...

Something tells me you're not in the fashion industry.

The average customer doesn't give a shit about the hot new thing, be it fashion or web framework, but the customers aren't the ones hiring talent and shaping the industry.

Post reply on HN