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Sucks to be an old engineer

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Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#171

Post by Jare »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #132
WalterBright wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it an example of ageism if someone who is 45 can't find a job when what they know is Ada, Cobol and Forth? Um, I'm 54 and the languages of my 20's were C, C++, etc. I also fairly regularly get calls from recruiters. > So yes, you either need to find a job that doesn't change (eg a plumber or a teacher) or you need to constantly battle to maintain relevancy in a fast-changing industry or you need to become master…

Java is nearly 20 years old. Do people really think if you're 45 you worked in Cobol?

I'm 42 and I did, working part-time at a bank during college. For 3 days, at least. Then I designed a DSL and wrote a C tool to generate the COBOL programs from templates and DSL files. Then my boss decided to never again let me near the mainframe and bank accounting systems. But many of my coworkers spent 3+ years entirely on COBOL.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#172

Post by jiggy2011 »

qwerta wrote: post #158

Age discrimination is sometimes even publicly announced. For example European Space Agency has age limit for recruitment 55 years. This applies even to desk based jobs such as administrative or software developement. Extract from job description: - The European Space Agency is an equal opportunity employer - Contracts Officer in the Procurement Department, Directorate of Procurement, Financial Operations and Legal Af…

That seems odd, I can't find anything explaining why such an age limit is in place. I am assuming that there is some reason for it.

I know that the military often has an upper age limit due to fitness requirements.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#173

Post by timr »

ycombobreaker wrote: post #159
timr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Medical knowledge does change relatively quickly and standards of care change a lot." You have to be clear about the relative rate of change, though: it's nothing like software, where technical knowledge from a decade ago is completely irrelevant today. Medical appointments are pretty much the same as when I was a kid. The more important point, for me, is judgment: older doctors are far less goofy and spastic than y…

> Medical appointments are pretty much the same as when I was a kid. I have a young child, and I have had enough conversations with doctors and nurses to see that standards for medical care _do_ change rapidly enough to matter. Some examples: - At the hospital where my wife gave birth, the SOP is an epidural and continuous fetal monitoring. This means that very little equipment is available which supports mobility. T…

I never claimed that things don't change...just that the rate of change is pretty slow by comparison to software.

Look at your examples: in the first, you're talking about the difference between laying down and...not laying down. And how long have people been giving birth in hospitals?

In the second example, you're discussing a subtle difference in the age at which kids are fed a specific food.

Medicine moves slowly and deliberately. Software does not.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#174

Post by dennisgorelik »

SiVal wrote: post #134
samfisher83 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an industry like O&G or energy experience is highly valued. When you have you have potentially billions of dollars on the line and many peoples lives with an oil platform you want someone who has done it before. In tech you are trying to make something no one has done before so you want the young hungry engineer.

I worked for a well-known software company (everyone here has used their software, I would guess), and they had this, "we're doing cutting edge stuff and need young, hungry engineers" notion in spades. At one point, a VP announced to me that they were going to build a certain software project and the CEO had decreed that it would be done in 90 days. I, an "older engineer", chuckled. I assumed that she was complaining…

What would have happened if you did not create your side project?

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#176

Post by beat »

kp27 wrote: post #156
MaggieL wrote: post #4

It doesn't suck to be an old engineer. It sucks to be an engineer with outdated skills. I learned FORTRAN in 1968. I learned Scala in 2012. I'll be 61 this week...and I just started a new job developing in Scala.

MaggieL, As a guy in his 30's it would be interesting to read more on how you did this. Were you laid off at any point? Did you learn Scala on your own or through a previous employer, or a class? And finally, how hard was it for you to make your transition & land this job? I find myself having to learn new skills with things changing every ~5yrs. Its scary, but also quite interesting to see things fork SO MUCH so fas…

I've been in IT for ~20 years. I started in Unix systems programming, in C. in 2002, I shifted into Java/J2EE. Another decade later and I find myself shifting again, this time to modern lightweight systems (Rails, Node) and NoSQL (Neo4J). They're just languages, not that big a deal. What's more important is my ability to put problems in perspective.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#177

Post by ctrager »

One datapoint from Chicago: Got laid off at age 56 last year and had two offers within two weeks. But I interviewed at several other places without receiving an offer whereas in the past I almost always got an offer if I got an interview (Google excepted). Here is some speculation about why my batting average dropped. I do feel that age worked against me but I don't think it was because of the companies having institutional biases against hiring older people. Rather, I think it was just the mindsets of individual 20-something/30-something interviewers making individual decisions based on what felt comfortable, based on the vibe feeling ok. Nobody here is doing anything wrong.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#178

Post by nikatwork »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #132
WalterBright wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it an example of ageism if someone who is 45 can't find a job when what they know is Ada, Cobol and Forth? Um, I'm 54 and the languages of my 20's were C, C++, etc. I also fairly regularly get calls from recruiters. > So yes, you either need to find a job that doesn't change (eg a plumber or a teacher) or you need to constantly battle to maintain relevancy in a fast-changing industry or you need to become master…

Java is nearly 20 years old. Do people really think if you're 45 you worked in Cobol?

I work in finance. We are teaching plenty of fresh-faced graduate recruit devs COBOL.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#179

Post by queensnake »

VLM wrote: post #73
pvnick wrote: post #3

What have some of you more career-advanced HNers done to ensure yourselves employment as you guys age? I'm looking for tips to take into consideration through the years.

Always do something newer at home than at work. This is really easy and cheap in CS/IT vs say chemistry or physics or medicine. There's no need to have hardware at home faster than work. Software that's newer or more complicated than at work, sure. Keep up with changes in the industry, just like any engineering career. I never fail to be amazed at meeting people who have no idea whats going on in tech outside their w…

Coursera, Udacity etc are killer for this. Sure they're not work experience or academic credit but I've gotten positive comments "It shouldn't be a problem [that I didn't know their tech], you've picked up a lot of stuff". (Thinking about it now, I only assumed it included the Coursera work. But it can't have hurt.)

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#180

Post by dj2stein9 »

300bps wrote: post #58
andyl wrote: post #44

I'm not buying it. I'm about to turn 50 - doing better work than ever and more in demand. The tools today are so good compared to 5-10 years ago. Now I have these awesome tools, and understand sales/marketing/management/finance. ps - could I get a job as a developer? probably not. but there are other (better) alternatives.

I turn 41 next month and have been a developer for the two decades that I have been in IT. A 50 year old up to date on the latest tools seems to be the rare exception. The rule at my current employer seems to be after hitting 50-55 that they really have their eye set on retirement. Learning a new skillset has such low dividends that they don't believe it is worthwhile. They show up to work right on time at 8 am, they…

You just described every member of the Baby Boomer generation that I've ever worked with.
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