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Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

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Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#191

Post by edanm »

carlmr wrote: post #190
edanm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm kind of happy I'm not in webdev but embedded. There's not so much fads in this area. How true is that about embedded though? I started out in that field for the first six years of my professional life, but it's been almost 15 years since then. I still know a lot more about it than the random dev who hasn't worked in it at all, but I kind of doubt I could be very intelligent about it without a bunch of catching…

>but I kind of doubt I could be very intelligent about it without a bunch of catching up. I doubt you'd need to catch up because of expired knowledge. Rather things you forgot or areas that you didn't deal with yet. I think embedded can have a lot of depth if you get into certain details. There's basically no framework churn like in webdev, though. C and C++ are still very much current. Rust is becoming more of a con…

> C and C++ are still very much current.

So it's interesting you say that. I worked extensively with C++ back then, and I did have occasion to do a few small C++ projects about 10 years ago, and C++ seems to have changed quite a bit. It was actually really impressive.

I'm not saying it would be very hard to learn the differences, but I definitely needed a primer back then of "here's how C++ has changed", because code really did look different in some ways.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#192

Post by xtiansimon »

jghn wrote: post #90
imbusy111 wrote: post #29

I did feel a disadvantage myself when I was job searching a few months ago, but for me it was my personal attitude coming through more than anyone judging me by my age. I felt that I just cannot get excited anymore about some of the bullshit the company leadership is throwing around, and neither could I overlook the massive mistakes the companies are making based on my own interview questions. But I do understand tha…

I say this as a greybeard myself, but as someone who been on the interviewer/hiring manager side of quite a few interviews with older candidates, it's a lot more common than they realize that they're just *bad*. Yes, there are many good ones, and yes the wisdom they have is a huge benefit. But plenty of them think this applies to them when it does not. The most common issue is they've long since let themselves go tec…

The first two points seem subjective. Let’s face it, you’re not accessing people where they are. Your filling positions. Otherwise you’re an agent, or their mom.

“…large chunk of them wind up being jerks.”

Attitude is a problem. Defensiveness.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#193

Post by mistrial9 »

bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #183
mistrial9 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are looking for recent graduates

Literally all companies in my industry have an application track just "for graduates". They just want young kids, I never understood how this is legal. What am I missing?

in the USA this is not legal AFAIK

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#194

Post by jghn »

edanm wrote: post #188
sharts wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They haven't been staying abreast of current changes, and by that I don't mean jumping on the latest fad but rather knowing that the fads exist. Thing is if you’ve been around the block and have a decent understanding of fundamentals…it just doesn’t matter what the fad of the week is. It’s just noise. Old principles repackaged with different conventions. Not sure why that has to be a red flag. It doesn’t mean peopl…

> Thing is if you’ve been around the block and have a decent understanding of fundamentals…it just doesn’t matter what the fad of the week is. It’s just noise. Old principles repackaged with different conventions. This is just not true. Entire fields exist today that didn't exist or barely existed even a few years ago. As an example, the field I've been working in for ~7 years is Data Engineering, and it was "relativ…

> know that the field exists and what's different about it

This is closer to what I was trying to get at regard skills. I don't give a flip if someone knows Airflow, or DBT, or whatever. Besides, both of them are transitioning to the rear view mirror anyways. However I have found that it can be a surprisingly difficult jump for people to shift to directed graph based, data workflow thinking - some backgrounds more than others (side note: FP background tends to have no problem w/ models like pipeline oriented development)

But the real issue is how many people just ossify over time. I don't necessarily care that they've been using the same Enterprise Java/XML/PHP/etc stack since the early Aughts. I care that they've turned off their brain in the process and have little to no knowledge of the world beyond it. I care that they haven't solved a hard problem in 15+ years, and instead have been making small, incremental changes all this time. I've been there myself, and it takes a lot of work to dig out of it.

The thing an ideal older candidate would bring to the table is the ability to say "Oh yes, I've seen this concept 15 times over again. Here are the general pros of the approach, and here are the general cons. This new flavor patches over cons 4, 5, and 6 at the cost of losing pro 8. But we need to be careful about cons 2 & 3". The poor older candidate will state firmly that they've seen this all before and nothing new is happening here. There's a big difference between the two.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#195

Post by ElevenLathe »

mech422 wrote: post #136
ElevenLathe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 senior for 10 juniors is not a sustainable ratio unless the average person is a senior for 10x as long as they were a junior -- meaning, I guess, that in a 30 year career, you are "junior" for three years on average. I understand that this has been "sustainable" in the past because the industry was expanding, but can that continue forever?

I always figured 3-5 years to become a 'senior' (generally 5 but I've had some really sharp juniors too)

Wow, I've never seen someone three years off the turnip truck called senior. I would say it's usually more like 5-10, basically everyone left after those with management ambitions have flown in that direction. I'm in a relatively sleepy part of the industry though.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#196

Post by bradlys »

ein0p wrote: post #180
devwastaken wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting because IMO and other peers - it's not that the interviews are hard, it's that the market is clearly saturated. They either don't get interviews, or even if they "do well" employers ghost and never give feedback.

All of the bigtech is still hiring, folks with good track record have no trouble moving around. Perhaps even _too little_ trouble, as evidenced by attrition in my neck of the corporate woods of folks who are going to be darn near impossible to replace. A large segment of bigtech is hiring and firing thousands of people pretty much at the same time. It's psychotic, inhumane and counterproductive (IMO), but that's curr…

Big tech is definitely not hiring like it used to. I’m not sure where you’re getting your source but big tech has been doing most of the layoffs for the last 18 months and not rehiring to fill.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#197

Post by carlmr »

edanm wrote: post #191
carlmr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I kind of doubt I could be very intelligent about it without a bunch of catching up. I doubt you'd need to catch up because of expired knowledge. Rather things you forgot or areas that you didn't deal with yet. I think embedded can have a lot of depth if you get into certain details. There's basically no framework churn like in webdev, though. C and C++ are still very much current. Rust is becoming more of a con…

> C and C++ are still very much current. So it's interesting you say that. I worked extensively with C++ back then, and I did have occasion to do a few small C++ projects about 10 years ago, and C++ seems to have changed quite a bit. It was actually really impressive. I'm not saying it would be very hard to learn the differences, but I definitely needed a primer back then of "here's how C++ has changed", because code…

C++11 was quite a break, C++14 very minor, C++17 a little bit more, but not as major.

C++2x is doing a lot of changes, but I haven't seen much of it in the embedded world yet. Mostly because C++17 is still considered new-ish in most safety-critical realms.

But say you have some C++<11 experience I think you would need a few weeks to get up to speed max.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#198

Post by twojobsoneboss »

pojzon wrote: post #186
twojobsoneboss wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is work life balance really better when you have to worry bout finding your next gig and also that everything’s on you (don’t have a team/others to fall back on)?

When 3 months of one gig pay for your whole year of expenses - yes its better.

You must live outside the US. In the US If you’re only looking at expenses many full time jobs can get there in 3-6mos too. And not even big tech

Sure it’s nice to have the choice to not work between engagements but again you’ll be back to finding the next one

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#199

Post by edanm »

jghn wrote: post #194
edanm wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thing is if you’ve been around the block and have a decent understanding of fundamentals…it just doesn’t matter what the fad of the week is. It’s just noise. Old principles repackaged with different conventions. This is just not true. Entire fields exist today that didn't exist or barely existed even a few years ago. As an example, the field I've been working in for ~7 years is Data Engineering, and it was "relativ…

> know that the field exists and what's different about it This is closer to what I was trying to get at regard skills. I don't give a flip if someone knows Airflow, or DBT, or whatever. Besides, both of them are transitioning to the rear view mirror anyways. However I have found that it can be a surprisingly difficult jump for people to shift to directed graph based, data workflow thinking - some backgrounds more th…

Agree with everything.

> Besides, both of them are transitioning to the rear view mirror anyways.

I wonder why you say this? What do you think is replacing Airflow and dbt?

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#200

Post by ein0p »

bradlys wrote: post #196
ein0p wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the bigtech is still hiring, folks with good track record have no trouble moving around. Perhaps even _too little_ trouble, as evidenced by attrition in my neck of the corporate woods of folks who are going to be darn near impossible to replace. A large segment of bigtech is hiring and firing thousands of people pretty much at the same time. It's psychotic, inhumane and counterproductive (IMO), but that's curr…

Big tech is definitely not hiring like it used to. I’m not sure where you’re getting your source but big tech has been doing most of the layoffs for the last 18 months and not rehiring to fill.

Not "like it used to", but it's hiring, for sure. And it's not "rehiring" mostly - it's hiring in different places than the ones from which they lay off.
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