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Is 40 the New 60?

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Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#301

Post by newsclues »

thechao wrote: post #222
newsclues wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick to teaching the same thing over and over, is to use each time as a way to master and refine your understanding of the topic.

I had 6 identical lab (secondary teaching) sessions per week, each 1 hour long. I handled lecture once a week, for two blocks of 400 students. It’s the equivalent of a decade teaching per school year.

With that kind of opportunity you can:

Master your understanding of the topic.

Master your ability to communicate the topic.

Optimize your explanation to be thoroughly complete and time effective.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#302

Post by stooliepidgin »

usrusr wrote: post #200
jasode wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 :…

People don't look at a surgeon aged 55 asking themselves why that surgeon failed to move on to the next level. Unfortunately the same isn't true at all for programmers, for some reason it's assumed to be an entry position. If the path to surgery would be through nursing experience, aging nurses would have a much lower standing amongst all their future surgeon peers than they have now. Seen from this angle, the ageism…

It's as if the industry doesn't want competency to have a career and a retirement.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#303

Post by stooliepidgin »

aweiland wrote: post #257
willvarfar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn’t that techies over 40 can’t do good work or keep current or invent the future, it’s that they can’t get a job. As someone a few years north of 40 and recently went looking for a new job, I can identify with much of the article. Although for me, in the market I’m in, I kinda felt the pay for a ‘senior dev’ didn’t really cut it either. The whole pay structure is for younger folks and veterans have a hard…

I'm in the same boat. Also "senior dev" doesn't mean what it meant 10 years ago. I just had a really quick chat last night with a engineering lead. The position was a "senior dev" with 5-8 years experience in multiple things. Usually those are taken is minimums. They were actually maximums. He was surprised I made it past the initial recruiter screen having 20+ years experience. We thanked each other for our time and…

One has to adapt to the biases and reality for survival. Lie about your age if it ever comes up. Lie downward about your experience too. Fuck their discriminatory bullshit.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#304

Post by WriterGuy2021 »

lanstin wrote: post #289
WriterGuy2021 wrote: post #42

I've seen a few people fall off the career ladder to their doom in different fields. I once was a member of a local hackerspace and the place was like the Island of Misfit Toys. So many interesting and talented people biding there time there in between jobs and struggling to get back on the ladder. Lots of horror stories -- a homeless mechanical engineer, a couch surfing old programmer, etc. I think most of us are qu…

I tend to dress a bit sloppily and take public transit, so I end up talking to a fair number of homeless folks. about half of them (I live in Sillicon Valley) are former software engineers (half after filtering out the schizophrenic or super drunk people). Pre-FAANG salaries but still.

> I tend to dress a bit sloppily and take public transit, so I end up talking to a fair number of homeless folks.

There's dressing sloppy and then there's dressing like a homeless person sloppy. Sorry for making light of your depressing observation, but that setup sentence made me laugh.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#305

Post by _moof »

cyberlurker wrote: post #107
mosburger wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During my last job hunt a little over three years ago, I encountered what I think was some subtle ageism or at least discrimination based on family status (lots of questions about my family life when interviewed by the CTO and CEO, ultimately turned down because they didn't think I had the energy/disposition to be devoted enough to the company to put in extra effort when needed). I ultimately got a job at a better co…

Isn’t that technically illegal?

Never, ever, EVER ask questions about family life in an interview in the United States, unless the candidate brings it up first.

Asking them isn't illegal per se, but if you do ask them and the candidate isn't hired, you've opened the door to a discrimination lawsuit.

If the candidate brings it up first, it's fair game for conversation, but still off-limits for hiring consideration.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#306

Post by marcus_holmes »

bacro wrote: post #123
marcus_holmes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work out what you're doing to make people prefer to lie to you and tell you they've understood when they clearly haven't? If you're having the same communication problem with multiple people, then I'm afraid that's you not them.

Unfortunately, it is not only me that has these problems. But I agree that I am not the best teacher in the world. However, I do believe that they are not trying very much and keep calling me or stopping the team with meetings for small problems. I get it when you are new to the company, but for god's sakes when you have 2 years+ and you still keep asking trivial questions, there is some other problem here.

We keep telling people "there are no stupid questions - please ask before assuming anything" then get annoyed when they do exactly that ;)

Though I do get the frustration. I had similar with one of my juniors, and it took me ages to work out that his learning style didn't match with my teaching style. I ended up having to go right back to basics and walk him through everything painstakingly slowly.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#307

Post by dagmx »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #194
Icathian wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said nothing about what is fair, or what should be. I'm describing what is . Programmers jump jobs every 2-4 years (myself included) because it's the best way to reliably get good pay increases, and because staying more than 10 years at one company often makes it harder to get hired at the next place. You can blame me for recognizing that all you want, but it's a pretty well-known truth of our industry. I want it t…

> it's a pretty well-known truth of our industry There are a lot of bad things about our industry, repeating the stereotypes that lead to them is still harmful. Which brings me to... > I'm not sure what about that you object to so strongly. Simple: If you were in a a position where you were screening resumes, I think you would rule out people with long tenures purely on the basis that the tenure was long. I am saying…

Honestly, as someone who reviews tons of resumes for my team, I wouldn't see 27 years at a company as bringing an interesting point of view by itself.

I'd look at what they've accomplished in those 27 years. This is no different than someone with 5 years or even 1.

If someone only has a couple notable things in 27 years , then I'm not sure what they're bringing to the table.

If someone has the same number of notable things in 5 years, then that speaks more to the level of work they're innovating at.

In short, it's really about the meaningfulness of what they've done during that time, relative to the tenure. Tenure alone is meaningless IMHO.

I've interviewed too many people who have careers longer than my life, who have basically just gotten by. I've also interviewed people who've done amazing things year on year.

The latter are the people I seek to build out the team. The former don't add much, unless they're really rock solid devs who've stayed in top of things. But if they're just alright? Then why wouldn't I hire someone more junior when they're giving me the same results, for cheaper, and are usually easier to mold and train?

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#308

Post by marcus_holmes »

Aeolun wrote: post #113
marcus_holmes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call it the "grumpy old fart" syndrome. I've (M50+) felt it - the urge to stop learning and complain at everything that changes. It is a struggle to continue learning at this age. But it is worth it. Being a grumpy old fart sucks all the joy out of life.

So does keeping up with all the latest hotness when you already know it won’t fix your organizational problems. Hell, I’m only 33 and when asked today what I currently want to learn, had to seriously consider that I didn’t want to learn anything new in particular.

We picked the wrong century to quit learning ;)

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#309

Post by jandrewrogers »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #37

Don't even get me started (just take a shufti through my posting history on this very site. You'll see this is a subject that has my attention) . > while the experience that comes with age is valued in fields like music, it counts against you in tech. Yup. The Jurassic-scale disasters that are becoming increasingly common, these days, are evidence of unsteady hands at the wheel. I'm not saying that older folks are be…

The kind of experience that ages well is operations and organizations i.e. knowing how to run the business, not technology. An advantage of having worked at many companies that can't be overstated is the exposure to many different ways of addressing myriad organizational and operational challenges in different business contexts in practice. My experience with technology 20 years ago is worthless. But my experience working in so many organizations and types of businesses is still extremely relevant -- humans don't change.

This is where working at a single company for 27 years works against you, it implies a lack of the kind of experience that makes older individuals uniquely valuable. There is little generally applicable skill around architecting and shipping software; the practical constraints on how those things can be done are often wildly different across companies and industries. Bright and capable people that have spent decades at a single company often struggle to effectively adapt their skills to an entirely different company context. There is practically a meme about Microsoft lifers only being able to work with other Microsoft lifers in Seattle, for example, because empirically it has tended to be true. What you don't have is 27 years of experience applying your technical skills across very different organizational and operational contexts, and that is valuable experience that only years can provide.

That isn't to say you can't, just that your experience doesn't provide much evidence of it. Anecdotally, as someone also getting up there in age, it has never been easier for me to find work.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#310

Post by dagmx »

victords wrote: post #233
Icathian wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nex…

Your counterpoint is valid only if reviewers are looking at the number of companies.

Resumes usually include the list of major achievements at that role.

It's the combination of the two that people look for.

Looking at just quantitative things like number of companies is terrible. Looking at the combination of qualitative and quantitative aspects of a CV/Resume are what make for an attractive candidate.

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