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

Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 68 posts

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#31

Post by uxcolumbo »

theoa wrote: post #26

I'm 75. You will pull the keyboard out of my cold, dead hands. "Nobody knows you are a dog on the internet" Ditto being aged ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_... Most of the technologies I play with - HTML5, webGL, Three.js etc - did not exist ten years ago. So it's a level playing field. There's more open source stuff on GitHub that needs help and mentoring than you can shake a keyboard,…

I guess the OP referred to ageism as loss of job security.

What’s been your experience? Not everyone is a Spiekermann, Esslinger or Rams. Have you lost out to the newer crowd… more and more folks finish these 3-6 month UX boot camps and not all companies value experience or understand it’s not just about pixel pushing.

Or does OSS design help pay the bills? I’m guessing getting involved in OSS is more about maintaining the design muscle and helping folks out.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#33

Post by hjgjhyuhy »

ativzzz wrote: post #27
lornemalvo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example?

Creating a web SAAS product quick and cheap - rails / django/ JS eat Java's lunch in terms of speed of development and iteration - the amount of productivity a small team of 1-3 devs can have is insane for small companies

I doubt switching the backend to Spring Boot would reduce the speed of development much. You simply want to avoid having to reinvent the wheel, and plenty of languages have mature frameworks for that.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#34

Post by brudgers »

gaadd33 wrote: post #22
brudgers wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t expect an older designer to have that Rolodex because I am an older designer and don’t have one. I just understand that that is a problem that wishing the world was fair in ways that benefited me won’t solve. If the OP doesn’t have the Rolodex of people who would work with them again - like me - then it is a problem. Or possibly a symptom of a deeper issue of why people don’t want to work with them. Or possib…

I'm curious, do you really not stay in contact with anyone you have worked with in the past in any capacity? Or is it more that they wouldn't work with you again? Just curious since even as someone who sucks at "networking" and that sort of thing, I feel like I've worked with people that we mutually respect each other's skill regardless if it's direct reporting lines.

To paraphrase Peter Thiel paraphrasing Anna Karina, happy careers are all alike, every unhappy career is unhappy in its own way.

Not that I am unhappy.

Rather that instead of having delusions about a professional career, I have a day job and pursue artistic practice and live in paradise.

I go with the luck I have and don’t waste energy over the luck I don’t.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#35

Post by uxcolumbo »

vogt wrote: post #21

Many go into management, as you say. In my experience the best managers were never even remotely the best designers in terms of pure raw talent. That is sorta secondary to your question, and just kinda my own personal inject. At the same time though, I think it supports the idea that staff/principal/"Distinguished whatever" titles for design serve a use case. In fact, some BigCos have adopted that model similar to St…

What exactly is / has been burning you out?

PS your profile needs an email address if you want folks to reach out ;)

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#36

Post by simplotek »

bottled_poe wrote: post #28
lornemalvo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example?

iOS app? An OS kernel? Anything real-time?

> iOS app?

I'm sure you understand that iOS's problem is not technical but business constrains.

> An OS kernel?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JX_(operating_system)

> Anything real-time?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_time_Java

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#37

Post by simplotek »

vogt wrote: post #21

Many go into management, as you say. In my experience the best managers were never even remotely the best designers in terms of pure raw talent. That is sorta secondary to your question, and just kinda my own personal inject. At the same time though, I think it supports the idea that staff/principal/"Distinguished whatever" titles for design serve a use case. In fact, some BigCos have adopted that model similar to St…

> I don't know the official job requirements, but I'd assume 7-10+ years of real actual digital product design work.

I'm not sure your point stands any scrutiny. Titles such as principal engineer or staff+ levels are not granted by seniority or at an anniversary. They are granted if an individual meets all the technical and organizational requirements, as well as career accomplishments, that make a case for a promotion. You don't get that just by sitting at your desk.

Also, principal engineers at Amazon, a company renowned for the average SDE career spanning only around 2-3 years, tend to have been in the company for over a decade and comprise a very small fraction of the whole engineering community.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#38

Post by oflebbe »

simplotek wrote: post #36
bottled_poe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS app? An OS kernel? Anything real-time?

> iOS app? I'm sure you understand that iOS's problem is not technical but business constrains. > An OS kernel? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JX_(operating_system) > Anything real-time? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_time_Java

if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#39

Post by jalbertoni »

hjgjhyuhy wrote: post #33
ativzzz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a web SAAS product quick and cheap - rails / django/ JS eat Java's lunch in terms of speed of development and iteration - the amount of productivity a small team of 1-3 devs can have is insane for small companies

I doubt switching the backend to Spring Boot would reduce the speed of development much. You simply want to avoid having to reinvent the wheel, and plenty of languages have mature frameworks for that.

This sort of Java is almost all about boilerplate and patterns. Two or three decent engineers taking a few days to plan for the rest of the project can write 90% of the huge amount of boilerplate that Spring Boot needs.

One might say not as agile as starting to code from day one, but I'd rather take an extra week than risk a major rewrite in the middle of development.

Re: Ask HN: What Happens to Older Designers?

#40

Post by tannhaeuser »

What's old to you? What's supposed to happen to designers as they get older? I'm assuming they just keep on designing. Unless there's a fresh school of design that's explicitly created to push out older design, and carve out a niche for a younger generation. Like in programming and IT. It's just that with design, there's no assumption of a design being objectively better than another. Whereas in IT, we hear a lot about rationalizing things when in reality nobody wants to maintain daddy-o's stuff.
Post reply on HN