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

311–320 of 381 posts

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#311

Post by stooliepidgin »

I started in tech at 17 with my own consulting company so an exhaustive, over-sharing resume would make me appear nearing retirement. What I do is conceal my true age (early 40's, M) and experience through creative resume sculpting. It helps that I look 10 years younger so I will experience delayed-but-inevitable discrimination until the marketing wank that is a resume can no longer maintain a too much plastic surgery, Botox facade.

Coincidentally, it may help that I am involved in an age gap relationship with a gorgeous, lovely woman in her early 20's. My Machiavellian plan is to drag her to any and all work and coworker gatherings to reinforce that I'm not a ye olde farten just yet. You can get more social currency by demonstrating you're in a relationship with someone and more so if they're attractive.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#312

Post by lowercased »

bumby wrote: post #286
mgkimsal wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, one of the things you'll hear from "older" developers is "you gotta keep learning new stuff" and "learn how to learn". You might find yourself with some extended contract for maintaining a legacy codebase that is too big or important or risky to migrate... then you may be "set" for some years, but that's certainly not a majority of cases I see. And... if you're early 50s and have some in-demand niche skills t…

The problem I've witnessed is this creates a perverse incentive to keep the organization using old tech even when its against the organizations best interest. I've seen developers essentially lie to non-software-minded managers as a means of not being forced to learn a new platform.

There's a lot of factors at play. Yes, there's incentives to 'lie' and say "this can't be upgraded". There's also incentives to say "this is old and is bad and we have to rewrite!" - I've seen a lot of resume-driven-development. There are people who will lie to avoid having to learn an old platform as well.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#313

Post by blub »

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…

The really interesting question is whether you and the other N guys replying claiming that they're enjoying good careers are an outlier or the typical case.

Based on the multitude of threads and articles about ageism posted on HN alone and what we know about ageism in general, I'd say it's the former, but I'd be interested to see if someone actually studied this.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#314

Post by sul_tasto »

bsenftner wrote: post #50

The tech industry wants young developers because they don't know all the employment exploitation tricks the older developers are too wise to fall for. Plus, the management class has no idea what we really do; we're just warm bodies to be worked hard and put down when no longer profitable. It is literally as simple as that.

Does that mean the best move is to eventually become a manager?

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#315

Post by dagmx »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #16

I wonder how much ageism is due to the fact that basic coding skills can really atrophy in senior developers who quit writing code years ago and are full-time architects/managers. I’ve interviewed more than a handful of highly accomplished people with decades of experience as developers and then engineering managers who couldn’t answer extremely basic coding questions (I’m not talking about Leetcode-esque BS, I mean…

i agree with your point and it is why I have resisted becoming a manager at my current role at a FAANG.

I was previously a manager for my team at my previous company. However I got to both manage, and continue developing.

After switching companies, I've been offered management positions multiple times. However the reality is that at a FAANG, you rarely see managers who get time on the box anymore.

I know a lot of managers who are happy to not split the time between management and dev work, and power to them. However I don't want to risk the atrophy of skills.

When I interviewed here, the biggest concern most people had in my interview panel was "you've been managing. Can you still dev in a non management role?"

Frankly that's how a lot of the industry is. Managers don't get the time to dev. Many like that aspect, but if you're planning to leave, well good luck because you won't be able to hold your own against the people you managed when vying for a non managerial role.

I've seen decided my best path is to be an individual contributor who has more weight. Effectively a lead (currently) or principal dev. It's the closest I can get to both ends of the spectrum.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#316

Post by bumby »

lowercased wrote: post #312
bumby wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I've witnessed is this creates a perverse incentive to keep the organization using old tech even when its against the organizations best interest. I've seen developers essentially lie to non-software-minded managers as a means of not being forced to learn a new platform.

There's a lot of factors at play. Yes, there's incentives to 'lie' and say "this can't be upgraded". There's also incentives to say "this is old and is bad and we have to rewrite!" - I've seen a lot of resume-driven-development. There are people who will lie to avoid having to learn an old platform as well.

Very true. In my experience the rationale to lie to upgrade has a higher burden because it has to overcome the inertia of a status quo that has at least worked for some time.

It tends to be easier to advocate for a past solution than an unproven one.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#317

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

bacro wrote: post #135
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop giving them the full answer and only lead them part way there. They will then (hopefully) learn how to look up documentation for themselves. Essentially "teach a man to fish". They don't necessarily want to know the answer, but they want to know how you know the answer.

That is what I am trying unsuccessfully to do. I made a sugestion the other day and did not write the code. He understood the idea but implemented poorly. When I asked why did he implement it that way, he said "it was your suggestion". I tried very very hard to not explode here...

Explain why the implementation is poor, e.g. if there is an unperformant loop that will struggle with large workloads, point that out and ask them to write a test to simulate this, then fix the implementation.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#318

Post by dagmx »

biddit wrote: post #116
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, taking the date of the CS degree is now a signal you're "old".

Haha, after having the same train of thought, I debated just taking the degree off entirely...

I'm about ten years younger and I already start stripping my education off my resume. It's superfluous.

Honestly, when I'm interviewing candidates, the only time I'm interested in their education section is:

- when they are fairly green (interns, juniors) because they don't have much experience yet

- when they keep bringing up "I did this in college" and I need to see how long ago that was to frame the rest of my questions

Anyone with a few years and an accomplished resume should strip their education out unless it's meaningful in some way.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#319

Post by blub »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #232
WriterGuy2021 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems your thesis was conclusively disproved by the parent poster and you're just nitpicking. This would be a good time to stop posting and reconsider your approach.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#320

Post by blub »

dagmx wrote: post #315
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #16

I wonder how much ageism is due to the fact that basic coding skills can really atrophy in senior developers who quit writing code years ago and are full-time architects/managers. I’ve interviewed more than a handful of highly accomplished people with decades of experience as developers and then engineering managers who couldn’t answer extremely basic coding questions (I’m not talking about Leetcode-esque BS, I mean…

i agree with your point and it is why I have resisted becoming a manager at my current role at a FAANG. I was previously a manager for my team at my previous company. However I got to both manage, and continue developing. After switching companies, I've been offered management positions multiple times. However the reality is that at a FAANG, you rarely see managers who get time on the box anymore. I know a lot of man…

Management is a different career path though and coding is not one of the skills they require even for software management jobs. The problem is really more applicable to senior technical roles like tech leads, architects, where it is actually reasonable to expect them to be able to code.
Post reply on HN