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Why Ageism Never Gets Old

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Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#151

Post by billmalarky »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #144
billmalarky wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you have a strong understanding of how to architect code and how the "big picture" technologies fundamentally work, learning the different flavors/frameworks/etc takes time, but we're talking weeks of learning vs the years it takes to understand the fundamentals. You're not going to be an expert in the idiosyncrasies of X tech unless you are working with it full time for a year or so but you'll know enough to pa…

but you'll know enough to pass a job interview. Unfortunately not. I believed it myself, until it became obvious it was a myth: One interview went like this: They sat me down, opened up postgres, and said "Accomplish these goals." The goals were simple things like write SQL statements to query for certain types of users, or join data together. I never had any reason to learn any of that. I knew that I could learn it…

That's my point though. You say you don't know the job skills that you need for you to hit the ground running (which is what pretty much every employers expects these days unfortunately) and what I'm saying to you is you could develop a good understanding of these skills rapidly because of your background vs the years it takes if you have zero tech background.

You could spend nights and weekends learning postgresql/SQL, web MVC architecture, JS syntax (for node.js and frontend dev work), and http concepts, in a few months. That's enough to open a lot of interview doors.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#153

Post by sillysaurus3 »

billmalarky wrote: post #151
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but you'll know enough to pass a job interview. Unfortunately not. I believed it myself, until it became obvious it was a myth: One interview went like this: They sat me down, opened up postgres, and said "Accomplish these goals." The goals were simple things like write SQL statements to query for certain types of users, or join data together. I never had any reason to learn any of that. I knew that I could learn it…

That's my point though. You say you don't know the job skills that you need for you to hit the ground running (which is what pretty much every employers expects these days unfortunately) and what I'm saying to you is you could develop a good understanding of these skills rapidly because of your background vs the years it takes if you have zero tech background. You could spend nights and weekends learning postgresql/S…

Yes, I could, and that was my goal throughout that time. I was doing exactly that, but hadn't focused on postgres yet.

The point is that it was impossible to know beforehand which of those skills I'd be quizzed on. It's both difficult and senseless to learn every technology just in case I'm quizzed on it in a 30 minute interview (which really doesn't give you any sense of my skills or learning capabilities anyway).

The sole way to deal with this situation is to plow through a dozen interviews until one sticks.

You say you don't know the job skills that you need for you to hit the ground running

This isn't an accurate description: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15714338

I'm about to hit HN's comment limit, so I think we'll have to leave this off here. Feel free to email me if you'd like to know more or chat about this. It's an interesting topic and I'm simply trying to call attention to the other side of it.

It's so easy to dismiss it as fake or that it doesn't exist. The real world is quite a bit more complicated and messed up in certain ways; it's not just sour grapes talking.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#154

Post by blub »

notyourday wrote: post #143
blub wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding does matter, but most companies can only extract a limited amount of value from code, due to various dysfunctionalities in how they operate. Being a good coder in such a company could be problematic, because they won't be able to recognize ability or benefit from the difference in skill to an average coder. These companies will treat programmers poorly, will try to save costs, outsource, etc. I don't get why y…

Because I'm not seeing younger developers complaining that they are being replaced by older ones. What I am seeing is older developers complaining that they are being replaced by younger ones.

If they want a big salary and can't deliver enough value for the company or the company can't extract enough value from their skills (see above why) they might be let go, but this happens in countries with poor worker protection, like the US.

Companies in EU countries have the opposite problem, they can't easily dismiss employees, even when perhaps justified.

I wouldn't want to work in the US, it's too darwinian. A company shouldn't be able to dismiss an empoyee just because there's someone cheaper available.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#155

Post by danielvinson »

whack wrote: post #103

> "Dan Lyons, a fifty-one-year-old Newsweek reporter, gets his first shock when he’s laid off. “They can take your salary and hire five kids right out of college,” he’s told" I wonder to what extent, the above is the reason behind senior workers having a harder time finding/maintaining their job. It almost sounds like a Keynesian liquidity trap. People expect their salaries to continually grow over the course of thei…

The problem isn't ageism, the problem is capitalism. For a long period of time in the (not too distant) past, one of the the main purposes of a company was to pay employees. Corporations in the U.S. have continually shifted goals to eschew all goals other than raw profit and growth (leading to more profit). It is EXTREMELY rare to see a tech company which offers its employees more than they are worth on the market or spends more money than is absolutely necessary to keep its employees on benefits.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#156

Post by moduspol »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135
moduspol wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on all points, but we're going down a dark road when any measurable disparity is assumed to be an unfair "-ism" without evidence, that must be corrected because clearly the decisionmaking gatekeepers are "-ists." It's possible the problem (at a macro level) is caused by other correlating factors, such as differing salary expectations and how up-to-date skillsets are.

I'd like to share my story related to ageism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642428 If it's that hard for me, it seems true to say it's much harder for someone much older. I hear you about the -ism fanaticism. But there seem to be serious problems on the horizon. I can't make you believe them. All I can do is try to relate it to something in your life.

Thanks for sharing this--and sorry in advance if I came off abrasive.

I just think the key difference in our industry is that it's far more punishing than others if you're not keeping up to date with relevant skills.

I'm 29 and my last search was two years ago. My last job had me primarily doing ColdFusion-based web development and occasionally iOS development. A big part of the reason I left was specifically to avoid finding myself trapped with few relevant skills a few years later.

I got into and built hobby projects around an upcoming "hot" new paradigm (serverless) and learned Python along the way to do it. Being able to talk passionately about that (and cloud architecture in general) was key to finding my next position even though most of my cloud experience on the job was with the plain stuff (like normal VMs).

But despite being 27, I wasn't immune from having to branch out, learn new things, and become passionate about something to find a new position. Respectfully: our industry doesn't allow for one to stick to the same skillset for long. Your post reinforces what I had feared, which is that people are blaming ageism while sitting on a skillset that is no longer competitive.

I think this is a problem that needs to be handled, and maybe that's through a more industry norm "20% time" for trying new things, a stronger case for experience applying well to new concepts, or something else. But I don't think the problem is ageism.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#157

Post by billmalarky »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #153
billmalarky wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point though. You say you don't know the job skills that you need for you to hit the ground running (which is what pretty much every employers expects these days unfortunately) and what I'm saying to you is you could develop a good understanding of these skills rapidly because of your background vs the years it takes if you have zero tech background. You could spend nights and weekends learning postgresql/S…

Yes, I could, and that was my goal throughout that time. I was doing exactly that, but hadn't focused on postgres yet. The point is that it was impossible to know beforehand which of those skills I'd be quizzed on. It's both difficult and senseless to learn every technology just in case I'm quizzed on it in a 30 minute interview (which really doesn't give you any sense of my skills or learning capabilities anyway). T…

Yeah tech interviews are notoriously awful about testing for trivia style tech knowledge and you either know it or you don't.

>The sole way to deal with this situation is to plow through a dozen interviews until one sticks.

Yep, and that's pretty much the standard. On the plus side the more you interview the more you see the same questions popping up so you can prep for them. It's an awful numbers game but so long as you keep optimizing/learning that's all that matters.

For what it's worth there was a post on HN a few months back from a high end recruiting company where candidates were highly pre-qualified to interview for certain positions and even then I think their success rate was like 20%. It's the nature of the beast for tech. If your interview offer percentage is too high that probably means you just aren't reaching high enough.

>It's so easy to dismiss it as fake or that it doesn't exist. The real world is quite a bit more complicated and messed up in certain ways; it's not just sour grapes talking.

I'm not dismissing you at all, I've bombed tech interviews before it's the nature of the beast.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#158

Post by dep_b »

legohead wrote: post #147
jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

I wish companies saw it this way. My company is downsizing and I've been interviewing like crazy. 5 years ago when my tech stack was hot I had to fight off companies, now I feel they are just humoring me. I make it clear in my cover letter that I am capable of picking up new technologies and languages with ease, which if you look at my resume and my personal projects on github is pretty plain and obvious -- I have 15…

Lie on LinkedIn about knowing Python after doing one simple Django project 1). Watch the desperate recruiters fill your inbox.

1) actually I didn't lie, people I knew just kept +1'ing Python on my LinkedIn profile because I talked about it sometimes while I was doing a one off project in Python

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#159

Post by arethuza »

skrebbel wrote: post #121
ams6110 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only is the claim "now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three" an unhelpful mythology, it's laughably incorrect It's narrowly referring to the "framework fads" that do seem to sweep through our profession on about a three-to-five-year cycle.

Going off topic fast, but I've felt recently that this speed has slowed again. On the frontend, React has been king for quite a long time now, with no obvious contender in sight. Of course there's stuff like Vue but the difference isn't so big that people are throwing away their gigantic React codebases to restart anew with Vue (things that did happen a lot with jquery, bootstrap and even angular based frontends). Th…

I suspect WebAssembly may provide the start to that new cycle you are (or are not) looking forward to.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#160

Post by fjsolwmv »

Bartweiss wrote: post #126
jonahx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Not only is the claim "now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three" an unhelpful mythology, it's laughably incorrect to the point that I can't imagine anyone knowledgable espousing the view with a straight face. It stems from, on the one hand, "software as popular cultur…

I've certainly heard people toss around the myth of "expiring expertise", but even the people who believe that talk on the scale of decades. I honestly have no idea where Friend got "less than three", it's not a claim even the most ignorant ageists seem to make. Sure, there are frameworks that turn over in I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though, because the article also offers: "With the advent of the cloud and o…

Nothing shows a software expert like putting periods between letters in an initialism.
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