Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Hire an Oldster

tryoldster.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 308 posts

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#221

Post by logicallee »

kaishiro wrote: post #172
logicallee wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right: to the best of my current understanding, there is nothing wrong with ever taking a salary vastly under market in one's twenties, including literally performing CTO-level work worth half a million and equal to the work of many developers under you (or hell, even leading or directing them), for $30,000. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's not a bad life choice. Especially if one's social life is also i…

I don't think you're wrong , per se, but barring that I'm really unclear on what point you're trying to make.

my only point is that the supply at that price is greater than 0 - that some people will do it. who are in their twenties. you won't find someone even over thirty willing to do it though. it's a descriptive statement.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#222

Post by logicallee »

taco_emoji wrote: post #195
logicallee wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right: to the best of my current understanding, there is nothing wrong with ever taking a salary vastly under market in one's twenties, including literally performing CTO-level work worth half a million and equal to the work of many developers under you (or hell, even leading or directing them), for $30,000. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's not a bad life choice. Especially if one's social life is also i…

I feel like you're not fully articulating your point here; in what circumstance would prioritizing leisure entail working for 6% of one's market value?

doesn't really matter. as I just wrote, my only point is that the supply at that price is greater than 0 - that some people will do it. who are in their twenties. you won't find someone even over thirty willing to do it though. it's a descriptive statement.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#223

Post by jordanpg »

What about appearance?

I'm a 37 year old self-taught backend dev (a fallen physicist) and I seem to be able to talk myself into a job with relative ease, both big and small companies.

I worry sometimes that a significant factor in this is that I still look and dress relatively young. I think this body has about 5 more years before it starts to look unambiguously like a grownup.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#224

Post by debt »

many huge tech companies in SV are predominately marketing companies(fb, google, etc.)

they wanna hire the youths. it sucks but it's reality.

also, you get more bang for you buck by hiring young workers(no family, kids, house, obligations, etc.)

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#225

Post by DrNuke »

I think hire an oldster is a flawed argument per se. In fact, once escaped the hourly rate trap, forever escaped. Think in terms of providing added monetary value and charge your clients a well deserved 20% instead of asking for a salary. That way, if you are so smart you will work many less hours for a much higher return. This comes natural as we get older because we grow both human and technical benchmarks, but I concede it may not be the best setup for a fast burning startup (headless chickens environment it seems to us). That's why this kind of posts here on HN, recently.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#226

Post by debt »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #43
JorgeGT wrote: post #13

Apart from the particular technical knowledge an older guy may have, the accumulated human experience (this is, how to interact, trust, judge, understand, influence and work with other human beings) is always a very valuable factor that they may possess, for while technology changes very fast, basic human nature remains the same. In my country we have a saying: the Devil knows more from being old than from being the…

Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time. I love that line. It's featured in a neat writeup by ridiculousfish: http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and-treachery.h...

this is probably the most accurate adage in the thread.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#227

Post by danieltillett »

tshadley wrote: post #217
danieltillett wrote: post #204

As a slightly older person (I am 46) and employer the issue I have found with older employees is they don’t cope well with frequent change. I have always hired the person I thought was most qualified for the position and so have hired quite a few older people over the years. What I have observed first hand is that if the job requirements are relatively stable then older people are fantastic, but if the requirements c…

A fluid intelligence decline is not necessarily age-related, see for example "The effect of age on fluid intelligence is fully mediated by physical health." 2013, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23540273 : "Our findings imply that improving health by acting against the common age-related circulatory- and nervous system diseases and risk factors will oppose the decline in fluid intelligence with age."

I know this this is why I said there are exceptions - the problem is identifying the exceptions at the recruitment stage.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#228

Post by logicallee »

carlisle_ wrote: post #176
logicallee wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right. I'll be honest, I forgot what thread we were on, I was just in awe at all of the sites you run. My next thought was, "man, I wish I could use some guy like him, but he is just too expensive." One thing is for sure: there are definitely, 100%, no-questions about it, over 1 people who can be reached and who, at least for a few months, would take over 15,000 pages and 154+ sites. (An early 20s hacker). For un…

This is honestly the strangest logic I've read on this site. You're basically arguing for exploiting workers by undervaluing them and saying it's ok because people's lives change?

it's just a descriptive statement about the market. for that matter, how many 50+ year olds even apply to be barristas at starbucks? perhaps nobody should work at a starbucks as a barrista, but we're not exactly going to blame everyone who does so in their twenties.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#229

Post by mreiland »

danieltillett wrote: post #216
DougWebb wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you detecting an inability to shift gears quickly, or is it a reluctance to shift gears quickly based on hard-won experience where management-driven frequently-changing requirements led to project failures that were then blamed on the development team? As much as we'd like our job to be engineering, it's usually more like craftsmanship. Craftsmanship goes back a LONG ways, and the traditional approach for learnin…

Are you detecting an inability to shift gears quickly, or is it a reluctance to shift gears quickly based on hard-won experience where management-driven frequently-changing requirements led to project failures that were then blamed on the development team? That is rather an impossible question to answer as the two causes ultimately have the same end outcome. I certainly never introduce change for changes sake - 95% o…

> When the market tells you that you need to change you must change.

That doesn't explain why you're pulling the rug out from under employees on a monthly basis. What market really needs that over a long period of time?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#230

Post by peteretep »

pc86 wrote: post #57
aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. If you're hiring 40-60 year olds you cannot simply hire a 25 year old and get an "acceptable tradeoff of competency" unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place. Also if you're 50 and are relying on a new job's retirement program you're probably…

    > If you're hiring 40-60 year
    > olds you cannot simply hire
    > a 25 year old and get an
    > "acceptable tradeoff of
    > competency"
I'm a much better developer than I was 10 years ago, and I was pretty damn good then, but even when I'm 50, there will be people whose talent and ways of thinking about programming at 25 will be much superior to mine.

And every year, my intuition about what constitutes bloat vs developer convenience, and when to just throw hardware (physical or cloud) at a problem that could be fixed via developer time, gets slight slightly more out of date.

Post reply on HN