Poll: How old are you? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#51

Post by eksith » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:26 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #27

pvnick wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you encountered any agism in your line of work? Do you work with "trendy" languages and technologies or do you stick with tried-and-true, enterprisey type of stuff? Have you considered moving into management or have you always just preferred getting down on your hands and knees so to speak and hacking things together?

I'm 48, and I haven't encountered ageism yet. I haven't seen it, among good technical people. The hard part is that by the time you're in your late 40s, you've probably peaked out on advancement. Even if you go into management (which isn't really "advancement"), you're just going to ceiling out there instead.

  > among good technical people

Good technical people appreciate others who are of equal or greater skill. And I've noticed older (no offense to you folks; I'm speaking relatively) people tend to abhor office politics and the like. Things got done because they needed to get done, not to further some hidden, convoluted, agenda.

Most of the people in the upper tiers got there in their early to mid 30s.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#52

Post by kfcm » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #39

emp_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, I feel like peaking with 31. Constantly leaning towards an own business from where I stand.

Once you reach a certain salary as an engineer the only way to make more money is to go in as an owner either as an early hire in a startup or as a founder. You can also get stock options and wait for your company to get bought. Other than that it's pretty much all down hill.

Or use the route I went: start your own consulting business.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#53

Post by abritishguy » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

Enquiry wrote: post #43

People aged 1-20: How did you find HN? HN isn't easily found on search engines (except for the exact keywords "hacker" and "news"). I can't imagine how a 15 year old is stumbling upon Hacker News, other than a mentor or parent referring them.

I'm 18 but I can't really answer that, I stumbled across it a while back and now it is my 6th most visited site. I think an article on a site was using hacker news for discussion rather than having a comments thread below it, although I can't remember if this was my first exposure or not.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#54

Post by centrinoblue » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

I'm 44 and have been writing web apps since the late '90s. As a UI architect now my JavaScript / front-end skills are in very high demand and I am writing by far the best code I have ever written.

A couple of years ago I faced a cross road in my career to either go into mgmt (director of UX) or commit to development. I chose to remain on the technical path and haven't regretted it one bit. I haven't experienced any overt ageism but I do feel I need to keep my skills at the cutting edge to stay on top like a cagey vet.

Looking forward (and in the mirror) I realize the clock is ticking wrt promotions and salary so I'm working on a couple of side project/apps/start-up ideas with the idea that eventually I will be able to leave the mon-fri corporate world behind once and for all.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#55

Post by podperson » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #47

edw519 wrote: post #42

58, writing more code, having more fun, reaching more people, & making more $ than ever, all of which still seem limitless: edw519's Hacker Quality of Life | ?? | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ***** ------------------------------- 10 20 30 40 50 60

I know you are well respected around here, but your ability to sound like a douche seems limitless too.

Where's the bump for "kids go to college"?

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#56

Post by pvnick » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #47

edw519 wrote: post #42

58, writing more code, having more fun, reaching more people, & making more $ than ever, all of which still seem limitless: edw519's Hacker Quality of Life | ?? | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ***** ------------------------------- 10 20 30 40 50 60

I know you are well respected around here, but your ability to sound like a douche seems limitless too.

I thought it was a well-humored, insightful post and that your personal attack was completely uncalled for.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#57

Post by YZF » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #27

pvnick wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you encountered any agism in your line of work? Do you work with "trendy" languages and technologies or do you stick with tried-and-true, enterprisey type of stuff? Have you considered moving into management or have you always just preferred getting down on your hands and knees so to speak and hacking things together?

I'm 48, and I haven't encountered ageism yet. I haven't seen it, among good technical people. The hard part is that by the time you're in your late 40s, you've probably peaked out on advancement. Even if you go into management (which isn't really "advancement"), you're just going to ceiling out there instead.

I've seen a lot of people around that age strike out on their own and start new businesses. I think that would be the "advancement" path for those who are interested in that.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#58

Post by eksith » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

dkulchenko wrote: post #49

Enquiry wrote: post #43

People aged 1-20: How did you find HN? HN isn't easily found on search engines (except for the exact keywords "hacker" and "news"). I can't imagine how a 15 year old is stumbling upon Hacker News, other than a mentor or parent referring them.

I was 15 when I stumbled on HN (turning 18 today). Learned about it through YC and its startups (Heroku in particular). Google "startups" and you tend to end up on a YC page pretty fast, and on HN soon after.

Happy Birthday!

I came across HN while searching for code examples for forums (strangely enough). This was when Digg was still relevant, but someone suggested looking to alternatives for link sharing and HN came up in the conversation.

I lurked around for a long time and then finally joined.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#59

Post by Udo » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #47

edw519 wrote: post #42

58, writing more code, having more fun, reaching more people, & making more $ than ever, all of which still seem limitless: edw519's Hacker Quality of Life | ?? | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ***** ------------------------------- 10 20 30 40 50 60

I know you are well respected around here, but your ability to sound like a douche seems limitless too.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "ability to sound like a douche" or is that just a random personal attack?

When I think about high-karma HN users with douchy tendencies edw519 is not someone who comes to mind. I mean, in any account exceeding a couple of hundred posts it's probably easy to find some less than stellar content, but I don't remember edw519 ever making a post as low as you just did.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#60

Post by alexvr » Wed, Jul 17, 2013, 6:37 PM UTC

At what age would you say you were smartest, if you have noticed any fluctuation? I hear you mental power peaks at about 22 and begins to decline after 26, but that's pretty depressing, and I don't want to believe it, so if you have experience to counter or confirm this, please share. If you have noticed any decline in "fluid intelligence," is it negligible? Does your wisdom and experience outweigh any mental decline in real-life situations? How does age affect creativity? Thank you, wise elders.