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How the Valley treats experienced people

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Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#181

Post by zaptheimpaler »

j45 wrote: post #143
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately these kinds of shitty recruiters and companies will always be around - none of them are thinking about lofty societal goods like family or what happens 40 years later, they are thinking about how to get the most work for the lowest price for their company. As long as droves of young people continue to flock to tech to try and get their share of the money, hiring is a buyers market. Throwing out old peop…

If there's fewer kids born today, there's a likelihood of fewer coders in 20 years.

On the other hand, 1 person who knows AWS well today can do things that would take huge capital investments and a team of 40 people 20 years ago

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#182

Post by dannypgh »

xb10y wrote: post #35
pojzon wrote: post #19

Works pretty well for Google tho. Too bad most companies dont understand that they are not Google! and never will be - most often - dont even have to be. Unfortunately most managers are sheeps, only able to copy ideas of other ppl without thought if its even needed/required. Im in this industry for a few years and already see that all middle level managers should be fired. Software Craftsmen would be a lot better to…

How does it work for Google? Except for the "search+ads" division, which seems too important to ruin, Google gives the impression of a highly unfocused company with internal feuds and fiefdoms that releases one half-baked product after the next. It seems to me that Google only hires to keep people from working for the competition.

I think you might be greatly underestimating the fraction of the company that works on search or ads if you think you can make a meaningful comment about the company that starts with "Except for the 'search+ads' division."

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#183

Post by dominotw »

aklemm wrote: post #167
slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

Very well-said! Wouldn't it be nice if we knew going in which companies understand this? I'd like to see more companies state these ideas explicitly in their values.

Sounds discriminatory against ppl who don't have kids and are over 40.

'work to death when you are young or raise family when you are old' is not a good 'value', imo.

Your employer shouldn't have some 'values' about what you do outside work.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#184

Post by galangalalgol »

marktangotango wrote: post #95
slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

The distinction between valley culture and everywhere else is never made in these pieces which is a pity. I work in fortune 500s and we’re all 40+ in these companies. I rarely see 20s.

I too work in a fortune 500 outside the valley. Occasionally I wonder why we lose so many young coders good and bad to SV. I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living. Is there some magic pool of jobs there that let you retired after 10 years that I am not seeing? I'm coming up on 20 years of writing c++ and I'm not paycheck to paycheck but I couldn't retire yet.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#185

Post by pdimitar »

kannanvijayan wrote: post #162

This is something that has been bothering me somewhat. The following in particular bothers me a lot: > "Why are you still working?" The answer for me is simple - because I want to. I learned how to program at the tender age of 10 using a book that came with a C64 that my dad got for free from a garage sale. Since those first years, the field at every turn has provided me with new intellectual challenges and as I've p…

While I fully agree with your sentiments for the programming work -- I learned at 12 and never suffered a loss of enthusiasm, and I am 38 now -- I disagree on the money part.

You can love your job AND be rich. I've seen programmers achieve it. But to be brutally honest to all sides, it doesn't come to you by a mere technical talent. Knowing people, psychology, some sociology and basically having an eye for opportunity seem to be key.

I am not rich. I've made a ton of bad financial decisions in my life and for a year now I work really hard to prioritize things properly. I have success on that front and I am now a pretty wise spender (without being frugal, too) but I still live paycheck to paycheck.

To go outside that bubble we really have to stop believing in a "secure income". Many investors and financiers say: "diversify your portfolio". We must all be working on 4-5 places with 5-10h a week each I guess? Or just be consultants at several places where the workload for us is low? Have 10 small SaaS businesses each netting us $500 a month? Not sure yet.

But I definitely do agree that spending the rest of your life only managing your finances is boring and insipid and is a waste of life indeed.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#186

Post by pedrosorio »

galangalalgol wrote: post #184
marktangotango wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between valley culture and everywhere else is never made in these pieces which is a pity. I work in fortune 500s and we’re all 40+ in these companies. I rarely see 20s.

I too work in a fortune 500 outside the valley. Occasionally I wonder why we lose so many young coders good and bad to SV. I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living. Is there some magic pool of jobs there that let you retired after 10 years that I am not seeing? I'm coming up on 20 years of writing c++ and I'm not…

http://www.levels.fyi

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#187

Post by gaius »

sokoloff wrote: post #104
ramtatatam wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you share how old are you? Sorry if you find that question out of place, but I'm 33 and have kids and I don't (yet?) make such observations as yours.

Not @avip, but I’m 47 and definitely feeling the time/family responsibilities crunch. Our parents have all just turned 70+/-2, we have two smart kids in elementary school who need to be fed almost every single day :), a house/yard instead of apartment, everyone’s healthy, but just managing school, activity, and holiday calendars is grueling. In my 20s and 30s, I could code like hell, have time to devote to learning n…

there are 20x-40 fewer “free” hours in the week

Giving up Facebook was a huge win for me. People just don't appreciate how much of a time sink it is (by design). You might think "I'll just check it" then you look up and a quarter or a half an hour has passed!

For example I have 2x30min train journeys per workday. I used to spend them just idly scrolling the timeline, clicking like, maybe making some comments. Now I use them for reading on Kindle, or doing a module on EdX or Coursera. And that's even before all the other time I would spend on it. I literally got back 5-10 hrs/week, and it boggles my mind that I ever wasted that time to begin with!

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#188

Post by mcguire »

samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

To be honest, you're probably on to something. Outside the tech hubs, older workers are common (and if you don't want to work those 80 hour weeks, you probably want to be outside the tech hubs, although you likely also won't strike it rich).

And if (career, area) is 80% under 30, any given company is mostly under 30, and naturally they're going to want to hire under-30s.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#189

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

badpun wrote: post #150
halfastack wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A startup that really wants people working 80 hours a week" sounds like the most US thing I've heard/read this month. The US work culture is utterly insane. They say that the Japanese work extreme long hours, but from my experience, it's quite similar for big cities in the US. Sounds like a sure way to a burnout, getting fat, and losing your family.

I wonder if I'm just a lousy human being, or are these startups full of cheats. For me, working 25-30 hours a week (really working, not pretending to work or sitting disengaged in meetings) is probably a long-term maximum of sustainable effort. How the hell are these people working 80 hours a week?

They aren't, or if they are there's probably drugs involved. In the 80s, it was cocaine.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#190

Post by kannanvijayan »

pdimitar wrote: post #185
kannanvijayan wrote: post #162

This is something that has been bothering me somewhat. The following in particular bothers me a lot: > "Why are you still working?" The answer for me is simple - because I want to. I learned how to program at the tender age of 10 using a book that came with a C64 that my dad got for free from a garage sale. Since those first years, the field at every turn has provided me with new intellectual challenges and as I've p…

While I fully agree with your sentiments for the programming work -- I learned at 12 and never suffered a loss of enthusiasm, and I am 38 now -- I disagree on the money part. You can love your job AND be rich. I've seen programmers achieve it. But to be brutally honest to all sides, it doesn't come to you by a mere technical talent. Knowing people, psychology, some sociology and basically having an eye for opportunit…

I was responding particularly to the sentiment of why one would still be working as they get older, independent of financial situation.

I don't disagree at all that money and financial maturity matters - simply for assuring the security you need to feed, clothe and shelter yourself through the inevitable ups and downs of life.. as well as open up opportunities that you may not have otherwise had access to.

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