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It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

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Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#201

Post by wott »

stcredzero wrote: post #161
api wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience older devs really fall into two categories with a pretty sharp division between them. One group has continued to learn and keep up with their skills. These developers are extremely skilled and experienced and can in many cases be far more productive than younger developers with more shallow knowledge. What they lack in appetite for workaholism they make up for in ability to do more with less work and…

The second group decided at some point that they knew all they needed to know, and they've gotten really rusty and out of date. How do you know this? Have you been in a good position to evaluate the performance of many older devs? If so, how much diversity in languages/environments is in your sample? Most of the negative attention I've gotten from younger devs in work settings has been in the form of constant interru…

When I was younger, I had a co-worker who was quite older than others. I must confess I fell from my chair when I saw him going to his editor menu to perform a copy-paste. He did not know about the most known shortcut ever.

But I kept that for myself despite the itch to insist on telling him to use the damn shortcut instead of going to the menu each time. After all, he was as productive as the younger ones as far as quantity was concerned, and more productive as far as quality was concerned.

Your mouse thing is funny, it makes me think of touch typing evangelist maniacs. They probably allot a specific budget for spare backspace keys. In my experience, that's the key they use the most.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#202

Post by chillingeffect »

thenewwazoo wrote: post #100
DonCarlitos wrote: post #57

Try being over 60 & gettind cred. "How could you possibly understand bleeding edge tech and emerging trends?" Well...I've lived there for four decades, you?

Someone here recently pointed out the irony of the term "digital native", which you illustrate nicely. The people who aren't "digital natives" built everything the "digital natives" purport to understand so deeply. Which knowledge is deeper? That of the user, or that of the builder?

Speaking for myself, there are two trends with aging. One positive, one negative.

1. (positive) Big picture wisdom increases. You learn when to call in help, when to use a library instead of rolling it yourself, when to stop hacking, retreat, document, how long to architect, etc. I get a little frustrated with younger people who e.g. over-optimize some aspect of a system before making the whole thing work adequately. I am waaaaaaay more organized and consistent than the young person who hasn't inherited enough code or faced the spectre of their own code when they forgot how it works.

2. (negative) I often forget how easy some formerly difficult tasks have become. Just take a library like three.js.... or building a compiler from source or using a library instead of writing an XML parser or SDL and so on. To stay on top, I often have to check in with others to see what surprising tools "young people" :) have made. This is critical because it affects estimates of time and resources needed to meet a goal.

So it's excellent to be around for a long time, IMO, as long as you are good at forgetting/unlearning some obsolete ways of doing things.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#203

Post by wott »

oldmanjay wrote: post #98
albertop wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you talk about women in computing industry, you advice them to get a good professional headshot?

No. I advise them to become as good at what they do as they can, if they happen to ask me for advice. Otherwise I avoid pontificating. If you're insinuating that I'm some sort of tech sexist, to be frank, you can fuck right off. You know nothing about me or my situation.

He didn't write anything like this.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#204

Post by hnbroseph »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #174
donretag wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company is undergoing a big diversity initiative. Although the company is 75% female, the first task to is increase the number of women in tech. Race is also a factor. When asked about what is being done about age discrimination, there was a roundabout answer that did not address anything. Age diversity is not trendy. EDIT: I should clarify that I have nothing against the diversity initiative in general, just poin…

Most diversity initiatives are discriminatory by nature. Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill.... In order to artificially balance certain ratios your company must discriminate on who they hire. In the educational world this is called affirmative action.

> Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill

i would wager the number of individual hiring events that (at least ballpark) quantify "skill" is negligible.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#205

Post by rdiddly »

Older people, please: Never "play young" for a paycheck. It's sad as shit. If you're not a professional clown and don't want to be seen as a figurative clown, why would you ever act like someone who is less than yourself? (Along the same line men, don't take Viagra, it's pathetic. Just enjoy and cherish the fact that for once you're not obsessed with mating, and can finally get some damn work done instead of chasing every nice ass. Another perspective young dudes won't understand.)

Turn to crime before you get a FACELIFT (are you shitting me) for any job. Heck, older people make great criminals - they've accumulated cunning and horse-sense which are great for gulling young people out of their money. And young people have many things that can be used against them: enthusiasm, idealism, energy and a tendency to waste it (also see Aikido), insecurities, inexperience, a preoccupation with mating (see above). Best of all, young people's tendency to think they're smarter than they really are, means that you can be the superior adversary while your adversary thinks the opposite (see Aikido again, and Sun Tzu).

Young people if this kind of talk scares you, think about hiring some of these people! ;)

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#206

Post by wott »

michael_h wrote: post #184
kragen wrote: post #79

"Michael Peredo, a 55-year-old auto engineer dismissed from Mercedes-Benz in February 2015, says he had trouble giving up his bow ties for T-shirts, as some he met at ProMatch suggested. ‘I feel like myself wearing them,’ he says." Yeah, you're going to have a really hard time getting a programming job in Silicon Valley if you show up in looking like a security guard in a tie, let alone looking like a waiter in a bow…

The number of bowties I've seen recently has increased dramatically...among younger workers. This is in a research focused environment, so there's a little more fashion leeway. Things are cyclical. For better or worse, I think we're on the rising edge of a rebellion against the nerd-frump affect. Thank you Matt Smith!

I hope the ruff comes back!

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#207

Post by gmarx »

taylodl wrote: post #164
rb808 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually found the opposite. The guys in 30's and early 40's have young children which makes it hard to stay away from home. I've worked with people in their 50's who are now empty nesters and happy to work late and/or be on call overnight.

Exactly. Older folks whose kids are self-sufficient are able to focus their time and energy into their work - even more so than twenty-somethings who are still wrapped-up in life's dramas associated with being young. And they have a lot of experience to boot.

and, let's face it, many of them like having the excuse of long hours to stay away from a family they have grown tired of. My brother told me once he had kids he finally understood the joy of mowing the lawn; you get time away from the kids and wife and its so loud they never think to come bother you and it's work so they don't have the excuse that you are just goofing off

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#208

Post by hx87 »

pfranz wrote: post #143
SapphireSun wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason IPA is so popular is because for so long the american beer landscape was dominated by brews like Budwiser that are quite weakly flavored. This was an artifact of prohibition destroying most of the competitive landscape with the survivors dominating the market for decades and in turn using anticompetitive laws to their advantage. IPA is a reaction against that flavor profile. You'll be starting to see new f…

Why not flavor with malts? I haven't looked into the history of American beer, but many styles seem to come from the price of local ingredients and qualities of local water. That makes me things hops were cheap and plentiful and caused the IPA trend.

I have wondered about the same thing--both hoppiness and maltiness are good reactions against bland mass market beers, but somehow big malts never took off the way hoppy IPAs did. Is it difficult/expensive to make malty beers?

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#209

Post by temuze »

"Peredo spent 18 months looking for work before he took off his bow tie and landed a job."

It's hard to identify causality here. You could say that there's a correlation with casual attire and job offers in the valley. Alternatively, he got better in those 18 months...

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#210

Post by DaveMebs »

ksk wrote: post #47
DigitalJack wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craft beer in portland just means "more hops." I call it crap beer. Fully agree with your post, just felt like griping about "craft" beer here.

On that note, why are there so many new IPAs in PNW? I like IPAs, but I doubt most people want them.

80% of hops in America come from the Yakima Valley, which is in Eastern Washington. They even have a large hop festival every year. I think this presence influences the beer scene dramatically.
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