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We Hire Old People

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231–240 of 303 posts

Re: We Hire Old People

#231

Post by candybar »

ccleve wrote: post #30

I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal re…

You're a borderline public figure in politics and your role in politics seems to have been your primary occupation over the past few years. Does that ever come up in your conversations with tech recruiters? Given these specifics, I'm not sure if your experience generalizes to other old engineers, though I'm sure ageism is a problem for older engineers in our industry.

Re: We Hire Old People

#232

Post by beebeepka »

krumpet wrote: post #134
beebeepka wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started at 31 or about a decade ago. Never managed to get past a single 20 something with the power to hire people. Not a single time. On the bright side, I never had to deal with the environment that breeds such young know it alls. These places usually pay very little and simply inflate positions. Trust me, as an old geezer, you don't want to be on a team of 21 olds. Especially if some of them will have power over…

Appreciate the comment. I'm definitely not chasing startups full of youngsters. I'm way, way beyond having any desire to work for FAANG type companies. I just want to write code and get out of marketing (which has been good to me, but never my passion). I recognize I'm taking a risk making this switch, but I also can't see myself sticking with marketing much longer.

If you can safely afford to give it a proper try, and really want to, then go for it.

I don't miss working for marketing one bit. Programming is so empowering

Re: We Hire Old People

#233

Post by Leherenn »

shock-value wrote: post #32
azhenley wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought is that it might be illegal to do consulting without your employer's approval in some places (like the US).

It can certainly be in violation of an employment contract. What makes you think it would be illegal though?

In some places, it might exceed the allowed working hours, that would be illegal.

Re: We Hire Old People

#234

Post by beebeepka »

bequanna wrote: post #158
beebeepka wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumptuous response. I responded to someone who literally said older guys ask for too much and that's why they don't hire them

Ugh, cmon. You are really straining to be outraged here. That is not at all what I said. In my experience, older people almost always ask for above market compensation regardless of experience. We don’t hire people that ask for too much money regardless of age.

Why would I be outraged?

Who you pick is entirely up to your company. If you don't super expensive people, that's fine. Maybe you already have those?

Re: We Hire Old People

#235

Post by protomyth »

I am glad someone is going for the older set (selfishly since I'm in the older set), but it has been a concern of mine as students get attracted to the technology fields. I work at a TCU (Tribal Colleges and Universities) and most of our students start later than average and graduate much later. Age discrimination is problematic to populations that receive their degree when they are already in their thirties. Tech's love of 20 year olds is a real problem.

Re: We Hire Old People

#236

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

api wrote: post #90
cjohnson318 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at an electric autonomous car company in the Bay Area (not that one) that was crawling with 22 year olds slinging code every which way. Periodically a bug emerge that the younger generation couldn't get their head around. Invariably one of the older guys (in his 50's or 60's) would spend an afternoon looking at it, fix it, and then yell at all the kids in the room. I was somewhere between the two age groups…

I've seen this too, and I really wonder why there is such an age bias toward straight out of college kids. Having some is fine but the whole industry seems heavily biased in that direction. I suspect it's rooted in the historic youth of computer aficionados back during the early-mid PC era in the 1970s and 1980s, and a cargo cult idea that youth was the ingredient that made this stuff happen. Instead it was the other…

Inexperienced people are just cheaper.

There are two types of young software companies:

- Some companies hire a smaller amount of experienced people who really know what they're doing, know what they're worth, and compensates them appropriately.

- Other companies hire a larger amount of bright, motivated young people that don't know how to do anything, trains them up quickly, then tries to milk them for 1-3 years until they smarten up enough to leave.

I don't think it's as exploitive as it sounds. The young people get a slingshot early in their career and a good bullet point on their resume, and they're free to leave whenever they want. And most do leave in due time to do bigger and better things.

Re: We Hire Old People

#237

Post by zarkov99 »

gorbachev wrote: post #214
zarkov99 wrote: post #54

As what some would call an old person (~50), I love this. There is so much knowledge in old workers. Not all is relevant, sure, but there is so much that is timeless stuff that every young Engineer will learn, sooner or later, though varying degrees of suffering. If we could put away arrogance (from both young and old) we could do so much to advance the field.

The thing that gets me is the cookie cutter interviewing approach a lot of places do. They ask about specifics, but that's not what is the really valuable stuff. As an example I've worked with so, so many web frameworks over the years, even created one or two of my own (small, limited functionality things). Most of them nobody uses any more, because newer frameworks are just better. But I bet the majority of recruite…

Hang in there. I had to go through the Leetcode ordeal as well and it gets easier. It feels awful at first, but if you stick to it, read through the solutions, make sure you understand them, after 100 problems or so it all starts to come back and it becomes much easier. Its probably not the interview methodology I would use but I can see how efficient it is from the interviewer's POV.

Re: We Hire Old People

#238

Post by tetrainfo »

In theory, us older folk are cheaper because we have Medicare. Short term memory is reduced, but good note taking and Prevegin fixes that. I have fond memories of older programers when I was a 20 something. Code is more than algorithms.

Re: We Hire Old People

#239

Post by goatlover »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #179
apetresc wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. What "mortal insults" are you regularly subjected to during the course of your job...?

This whole thread is about the hiring process; not working. I wouldn't stay at a job for fifteen minutes, if I was treated in the way that some of these interviewers behave. One big one, is the assumption that applicants are supplicants . The constant attitude that the corporation is the "Dom" in the relationship, and that they are doing us a big favor, by offering us a chance to beg for the job. Other things are obv…

Some of that sounds worthy of a lawsuit. I guess it’s not worth the trouble for most potential hires.

Re: We Hire Old People

#240

Post by crunkykd »

There's putting in tons of hours of effort to uncover an answer. There's knowing all the ways that didn't work before and why, and then knowing where to look for an answer. Certainly depends on the field, but choose which way you want to go.
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