181–190 of 242 posts
There are more life frictions as we age that dissuade us from continually learning. If you realize this and work against it, there is no way someone significantly younger than you can realistically be a better fit for a job. They may have knowledge, but you'll have that and decades more experience and wisdom.
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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.
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> 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've never understood why for many professions age/experience is coveted but engineers are assumed to have such a short shelf life. Nobody prefers a 30 year old lawyer or doctor over a more experienced one but an engineer of the same age needs to start planning a career transition...where is the logic in this?
By that I mean that any explanation of why people over 30 really are worse programmers, will be interpreted as "discrimination" and therefore wrong. Any explanation of why people over 30 are better programmers, will be taken as evidence that there must be a lot of discrimination since the older programmers are not only not worse, but better.
This post is touching on two issues that are somewhat related but different: 1. Finding ANY job when you're 60 is hard; 2. Engineers (who are still engineers) at 40+ will often be passed over in favour of twentysomethings. Engineering is such a young industry that I'm not sure we've really faced (1) yet (since the number of people who started engineering in the 70s is but a drop in the ocean compared to the number in…
> 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…
I'm 53, know many engineers 45+, none of them are (still) hawking their Cobol/Ada/Forth skills. Just like the young 'uns, we learned C++, Python, Java, Javascript; we use node.js (if it's indicated), we read HN and other tech sites, etc. If we don't, then we're idiots and deserve not to get hired, and we know that.
One thing I've discovered is that knowing the new stuff in conjunction with some of the lost arts (messy old C builds, hardware-related mysteries, debugging without debuggers) gives me some skills that are not easy to come by, and that is a real advantage getting work. There will always be legacy systems that are 10-15 or more years out of date, and a market to keep them running.
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> 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…
The people capable of "Or, you can be a driver of this change yourself by developing a modern, advanced programming language." is probably farer and fewer between. How many are capable and how many advanced programming languages are needed?
Judging by HN, about 60 per year
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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…
I've seen countless failures like this. I was able to stop a couple before they collided with harsh reality. It never got me any friends in upper management, but saved a couple companies.
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I think you have a pretty bad view of managers. There are plenty of management positions that are a) necessary, b) challenging, and c) very technical. "Moving to management" doesn't mean you suddenly just create Powerpoints all day. If you're a good technical manager you can suddenly use your skills to multiply your contributions far beyond what you'd be able to do as a single person. Let's start with the common prem…
Engineering is an art.
But anyway if you're an engineer and can't retire by 60 then you've done something wrong.
Just don't blow your money on stupid stuff.
And by retire at 60, that can mean anything, work for free for a charity, do a simple start up, work part time.
This post is touching on two issues that are somewhat related but different: 1. Finding ANY job when you're 60 is hard; 2. Engineers (who are still engineers) at 40+ will often be passed over in favour of twentysomethings. Engineering is such a young industry that I'm not sure we've really faced (1) yet (since the number of people who started engineering in the 70s is but a drop in the ocean compared to the number in…
I once worked at a startup whose cofounders told me that I was the oldest person in the office (having just turned 26) because "people over 30 don't get technology", meanwhile, they couldn't understand HTML, much less programming, and therefore had to hire me.
The very best programmer I know works primarily in Ada at his day job, whereas I know all the trendy web fads. If I had to choose him or me as an employee to write code, regardless of language, I'd choose him, objectively. If he starts working on whatever I'm working on, he'd almost certainly be better at it than me in a week. Whenever I have a difficult programming problem, I can struggle with it for hours (or days), and he can make it clear in minutes. He can look at my code in a language he's never seen before, for example, and solve my problem. It seems like a lot of companies are in the habit of hiring resumes instead of people.
The older you are, the more time you've had not only to gain concrete skills, but to learn to abstract your existing skills and knowledge to apply to other things.
Some of the seemingly widespread opinions in this industry (or at least among startup scene types) make me wonder how most of you manage not to drown when it rains. Some of the stuff I hear just makes no sense. It's not based in logic.
Fortunately for guys like my friend, defense contractors and other huge corporations will be hiring devastatingly skilled people who have "boring, obsolete" skillsets for the foreseeable future. They're probably too smart to work at our on-average-destined-to-fail startups anyway.
Contrary to popular belief, computer skills really don't decay that much. "New" things aren't really that new, they're almost always related to or based on something we've seen before, and if you're really any good at what you do, it won't take you long to get a grasp on it.
Analogy: If you wouldn't hire Bruce Lee because he doesn't know the latest direct-to-DVD self-defense technique by Generic UFC Guy (TM)... you're making a huge mistake.
tl;dr: make snap judgements and you're going to wind up sub-optimal employees.