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Why Ageism Never Gets Old

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Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#191

Post by pizza234 »

BatFastard wrote: post #21
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…

60 year old dev here. I have been living on the cutting edge of tech for 30 years, and I have many scars to prove it. New is usually not better if you actually want scalable, maintainable, and monetizable results. I disagree that many area's of my knowledge has a half life. My deep understanding of network protocols hasn't aged. My deep understanding of SQL and NoSQL databases hasn't aged. The principles of distribut…

This is a sensible perspective, but the job market is actually the opposite of sensible (in a way).

Paradoxically, the (again, sensible) attitude that fundamentals are the same with a different coating, will distantiate one from chasing the latest fads... which is actually what the [majority of the] market looks for.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#192

Post by jlebrech »

gaius wrote: post #182
Harvey-Specter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, engineers are required to adhere to a strict code of ethics that puts the public interested first. Rayguns tend to be developed by people with evil ambitions. If I were a professional engineer and my boss asked me to work on a raygun, I would be ethically required to refuse and potentially to report him to the relevant authorities.

my boss asked me to work on a raygun, I would be ethically required to refuse and potentially to report him to the relevant authorities So Canada has no arms industry? I call shenanigans.

maybe their engineers are called advisors?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#193

Post by ataturk »

jasode wrote: post #108
humanrebar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point.

>median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point. Don't take my previous post as a complete dataset. It was only coincidence that I happen to list programmers in their 40s off the top of my head. Here are some more in their 60s: - Google also hired Vint Cerf (TCPIP) at age 62. - Amazon AWS recently hired James Gosling (Java) age ~62. - PayPal…

Nobody is going to want me (or you) at age 62. Sorry. These are far outlier examples of notables in the industry of which there are only a handful.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#194

Post by swagtricker »

ChiliDogSwirl wrote: post #164
irrational wrote: post #163

The code I wrote in my 20s was pure garbage. The code I wrote in my 30s was embarrassing. The code I'm writing in my 40s is perhaps passable. I'm hoping that by the time I get to my 60s I will be able to write good code. I'll probably retire just as I'm hitting my peak as a programmer.

In my 40s and feeling the same. It's the sad irony of life that just as we get truly good at this stuff, we either retire or move into management.

So in other words, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." :)

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#195

Post by Noos »

It sounds like we are seeing work become sport, with all the positives and negatives sport has. Maybe seeing it as ageism isn't helpful. Ageism doesn't exist in sport because the abilities you need can and do decline with age. I wonder for all the talk about "I'm just as good" if people really are; it's honestly ridiculous to assume a forty year old is as elastic or is possessed of the resiliency or endurance to keep reinventing their entire knowledge set every few years.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#196

Post by stevenwoo »

humanrebar wrote: post #90
tyingq wrote: post #24

A good way to counter this is to become an expert in some combination of "something old + something (somewhat) new". Like knowing bog standard java well, but also knowing how to deploy/use it in AWS well. Or being a C expert that also understands git in a deep way.

Or just pick a good technology going forward. Experts in C and Java are still in demand. There's no urgent need to branch out from those core competencies (well, C devs should probably have some C++ skills too). Old+New is an interesting and likely beneficial career plan, though.

I love C, but haven't done professional work in it for ten years - where are people looking for C programmers?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#197

Post by majormajor »

moduspol wrote: post #156
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 avoi…

> 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.

That's shortsighted and your employer's process sounds shortsighted.

I don't give a crap if you've already used React, Redux, Express, whatever new flavor of the months are coming. If you're 23 and actively using them, odds are you're still going to be worth much less to my team than someone 40 who has to pick them up their first couple months but can immediately contribute valuable, hard-earned broadly-applicable timeless lessons about how to build and operate software.

My job as employer, and my team's job as onboarders, is to train you in the specific skills. Yours is to bring a proven ability to learn, and the general knowledge, wisdom, and thought processes to know how to build things right.

I don't care if you're passionate, I want to know that you'll be professional enough to take pride in what you do and hold yourself to a standard worth being paid for.

If you're a hiring manager and can't figure out better questions than "can you prove you know some things about X technology already," well, please don't get too much better, cause I enjoy being able to hire the skilled people you overlook without as much competition. ;)

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#198

Post by walshemj »

moduspol wrote: post #34
Swinx43 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mythology leads directly to horribly created software that will either ensure many terrible security breaches in the future or the continued proliferation of "magic" throughout a product. One of the issues is using the word "engineer" for any of the brogrammer types. an engineer in any other proper engineering discipline does not become worthless with age, their experience actually counts for something. Somehow…

I don't think it's ageism if one person is selected based on being willing to work more for less money. That's just a labor market. There's an argument to be made that 20-somethings shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week or should require higher pay. Or that employers should place more value on the work of more experienced developers. Or both. But I don't think experienced developers should be exempt from keeping w…

But that's not the legal and societal POV is it would you say that applies to Race Sex Gender and so on?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#199

Post by humanrebar »

maxxxxx wrote: post #189
humanrebar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just pick a good technology going forward. Experts in C and Java are still in demand. There's no urgent need to branch out from those core competencies (well, C devs should probably have some C++ skills too). Old+New is an interesting and likely beneficial career plan, though.

"pick a good technology going forward" That's hard to pull off though. Who knows which technology will go out of fashion in a few years? It may become fashionable again a few years later but int he meantime you will have a hard time.

> Who knows which technology will go out of fashion in a few years?

Tech that is in heavy use and has been in heavy use for a decade is much more likely to be around in two years than tech that was invented two years ago. If the older tech were to decline, rarely would it drop off the face of the earth quickly. It would more gradually shrink in market share.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#200

Post by Harvey-Specter »

gaius wrote: post #182
Harvey-Specter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, engineers are required to adhere to a strict code of ethics that puts the public interested first. Rayguns tend to be developed by people with evil ambitions. If I were a professional engineer and my boss asked me to work on a raygun, I would be ethically required to refuse and potentially to report him to the relevant authorities.

my boss asked me to work on a raygun, I would be ethically required to refuse and potentially to report him to the relevant authorities So Canada has no arms industry? I call shenanigans.

> So Canada has no arms industry? I call shenanigans.

Whether or not Canada has an arms industry is irrelevant to the question of whether or not it's unethical to build weapons.

Having an ethical obligation and acting on it are two different things. People can argue about the philosophy around the ethics of creating weapons. It could be argued that every engineer working on creating weapons is violating the ethical requirements of being an engineer.

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