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Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

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Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#201

Post by bradlys »

ein0p wrote: post #200
bradlys wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech is definitely not hiring like it used to. I’m not sure where you’re getting your source but big tech has been doing most of the layoffs for the last 18 months and not rehiring to fill.

Not "like it used to", but it's hiring, for sure. And it's not "rehiring" mostly - it's hiring in different places than the ones from which they lay off.

You're gonna need a source for this. Every person I know in SV is having trouble getting interviews at big tech employers outside of FB. FB is the only one that is actively still interviewing - and they're negotiating people down aggressively because they know they're the only ones hiring. We've had articles here about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#202

Post by pksebben »

pojzon wrote: post #53
costanzaDynasty wrote: post #33

The jokes on them. The generations are getting smaller and smaller. The lack of junior roles is making that pool even smaller. A giant bubble is forming. They spent the last 5 years talking about diversity and how great it is and how it makes better teams. Now every job is 5+ YOE. Do as I say, not as I do tech.

AI changes the landscape alot. Even as an experienced engineer the sheer amount of knowledge you get access to from a single prompt without having to read any tutorial or book can change a Junior into Senior very quickly. I just hope it wont face the same issue google had: - starting with good answers and evolving into mud

Man, comment was greyed between reading and clicking reply - I get that the back-and-forth over AI is a thing but if you're gonna respond negatively to an arguable point based on a topic with this much nuance, at least respond with words as well as downvotes. ANYWAY...

...It's that very google issue that convinces me the most important thing we can do is build towards locally runnable LLMs. There's no reason we can't eventually get to gpt4-or-better on consumer hardware, it's just going to take some time and research and we're gonna have to dodge the incessant ladder-pulls that the big dogs keep lobbying for ("AI is dangerous! Only we can be trusted(tm)!").

You can't enshittify an application I own, that's running on my hardware. Not with the current state of things, at least.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#203

Post by pksebben »

timr wrote: post #169
mulmen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the time I spent in school was valuable and that formal education gets a bad rap around here. I believe that my teachers all had good intentions. But they weren't always right. In my experience nobody is right 80% of the time. I'm skeptical of the AI hype but I do believe there is value. Similar to self driving cars an AI assistant or teacher doesn't have to be right all the time, it only has to be r…

Oh, I'm not saying there's no value , just that I don't think the value is nearly the magnitude being hyped, and certainly not for the "speeding up the junior to senior transition" posited by the comment at the top of the thread. And sure, every teacher is wrong at some rate -- but the way we deal with that is by thinking for ourselves, asking lots of teachers, working out the differences, etc. This inherently takes…

I can't really speak for previous posts, but I've personally seen a huge uptick in how fast I can move through material using LLMs - not because I'm asking them how things work or to explain things to me, but because they remove the slog of memorizing ancillary boilerplate and help me find the terms I need to search the docs for.

These are very specific things that you can't get as efficiently elsewhere. Essentially, it's not so much about the language model outputting information that I can understand, but more about the language model being able to parse MY queries and respond with something that's kinda good-enough.

Say you're looking at a chunk of code you didn't write, and you want to know what function foo_man_chu() is doing. You could go straight to the documentation for that function, but in many cases it's interacting with a bunch of other systems that are documented elsewhere, and not referenced in that material. If you ask GPT to explain it to you, it pops out a (reliable enough) list of things to RTFM on. This takes what could be a couple hours deep-reading through stack / google and distills it down to like ten minutes.

This effect is magnified the less you know about the domain, if you do it right.

Multiply that by the amount of times you have to do this in the course of teaching yourself something and it adds up quite a bit. This may be what the parent is talking about.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#204

Post by ein0p »

bradlys wrote: post #201
ein0p wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "like it used to", but it's hiring, for sure. And it's not "rehiring" mostly - it's hiring in different places than the ones from which they lay off.

You're gonna need a source for this. Every person I know in SV is having trouble getting interviews at big tech employers outside of FB. FB is the only one that is actively still interviewing - and they're negotiating people down aggressively because they know they're the only ones hiring. We've had articles here about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316

Dude, I’m _interviewing candidates_ every week at one of the FANGs that is not Meta. I _am_ the “source”. If you have any AI/ML skills, and the corresponding track record, the market is not dead by any stretch. Could be that those persons aren’t in demand right now. I also know a ton of people at Google, and Google is hiring as well, in spite of the much publicized layoffs. I don’t understand this (it takes someone external 3-6 months to get productive there, and some people don’t make it at all), but it’s a fact.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#205

Post by HumblyTossed »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #126
mech422 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh - most are younger then me as well ... I had an interviewer about 15 years younger then me ask "what was the most important thing I learned about DevOps"... my reply was "dont deploy on Friday" :-) I got the job (and a chuckle) :-D

I used to work for someone that LOVED to deploy on Fridays. She would make us all stay late if whatever she wanted to finish this week was not done yet. So many 7pm on Friday deployments, ick.

That's toxic. Unless there is a specific business reason to deploy on Friday, don't deploy on Friday.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#206

Post by bradlys »

ein0p wrote: post #204
bradlys wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're gonna need a source for this. Every person I know in SV is having trouble getting interviews at big tech employers outside of FB. FB is the only one that is actively still interviewing - and they're negotiating people down aggressively because they know they're the only ones hiring. We've had articles here about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316

Dude, I’m _interviewing candidates_ every week at one of the FANGs that is not Meta. I _am_ the “source”. If you have any AI/ML skills, and the corresponding track record, the market is not dead by any stretch. Could be that those persons aren’t in demand right now. I also know a ton of people at Google, and Google is hiring as well, in spite of the much publicized layoffs. I don’t understand this (it takes someone e…

You just said it yourself, the market is dead for anyone not in ML/AI.

Why are you being contrarian just for the sake of it?

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#207

Post by ben_w »

sharts wrote: post #177
jghn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this as a greybeard myself, but as someone who been on the interviewer/hiring manager side of quite a few interviews with older candidates, it's a lot more common than they realize that they're just *bad*. Yes, there are many good ones, and yes the wisdom they have is a huge benefit. But plenty of them think this applies to them when it does not. The most common issue is they've long since let themselves go tec…

> They haven't been staying abreast of current changes, and by that I don't mean jumping on the latest fad but rather knowing that the fads exist. Thing is if you’ve been around the block and have a decent understanding of fundamentals…it just doesn’t matter what the fad of the week is. It’s just noise. Old principles repackaged with different conventions. Not sure why that has to be a red flag. It doesn’t mean peopl…

> Thing is if you’ve been around the block and have a decent understanding of fundamentals…it just doesn’t matter what the fad of the week is.

You say that, but…

I find I have huge problems with VIPER, and while I can't tell if it's me or the design pattern, I do notice that some developers seem to swear by it (others, including me, swear at it).

I have that clip of Principal Skinner asking himself "Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." playing inside my own mind.

I don't want to wake up one day and find I'm Skinner.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#208

Post by SuperNinKenDo »

screachymodem wrote: post #68
SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #52

Ageism is pretty much only talked about when it affects older people. Younger people - broadly millenials and younger - have just had to make piece with the ageism they've faced their entire lives and continue to face. I understand that one day I'll be old too, but my sympathies are limited and it'll be nothing truly new for us when people start dismissing us for being old, since people have been dismissing us for be…

Hang in there buddy. We hire qualified people of all ages who like to learn and get their work done. I'm GenX and I've heard all the age stuff before in my youth as well. (1) Be yourself (2) Provide value (3) Take on some of the boring stuff that adds to business continuity Number 3 is not sexy, but good management notices.

Thanks. I appreciate your words of encouragement.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#209

Post by ein0p »

bradlys wrote: post #206
ein0p wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, I’m _interviewing candidates_ every week at one of the FANGs that is not Meta. I _am_ the “source”. If you have any AI/ML skills, and the corresponding track record, the market is not dead by any stretch. Could be that those persons aren’t in demand right now. I also know a ton of people at Google, and Google is hiring as well, in spite of the much publicized layoffs. I don’t understand this (it takes someone e…

You just said it yourself, the market is dead for anyone not in ML/AI. Why are you being contrarian just for the sake of it?

I did not say that. I said market is not dead for ml/ai and adjacent fields for sure, since that’s where I am. That doesn’t mean hiring is dead everywhere else.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#210

Post by SuperNinKenDo »

antod wrote: post #78
SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #52

Ageism is pretty much only talked about when it affects older people. Younger people - broadly millenials and younger - have just had to make piece with the ageism they've faced their entire lives and continue to face. I understand that one day I'll be old too, but my sympathies are limited and it'll be nothing truly new for us when people start dismissing us for being old, since people have been dismissing us for be…

That is such a weird take for a young software dev to have - you are uniquely positioned in an intersection of both age and the industry you're in to have faced extremely little ageism. Compared to just about anyone else working their way up and gaining experience elsewhere, you've had it easy. The lack of perspective is staggering. You'd fully deserve that violin played for you later on in your career.

That's just a bunch of empty assertions you're putting forward, you need to back those up with an actual explanation of how you formed those beliefs.

You might say most of my comment was just a bunch of assertions, but they were assertions about my own perception of my own experience. I think you have a higher burden to elaborate when you're making assertions about someone else's experience, especially when it contradicts what they allege.

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