Not Just Any Old Geek • Hacker News Board

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#241

Post by Tistel » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

Ugh. This is so me. I turned 40 last year. Did CS, writing code is still the fun part of the job. Anyway, I used to maintain a fashionable amount of stubble. This year I noticed my beard was starting to go grey. Now I shave a lot more to hide it. This is the first time in my professional life I have started worrying about being judged on how I look. I also need to change the way I dress. I am too old to keep doing the tshirt, jeans and running shoes thing. I think I will go with: polo shirt, jean and leather shoes. Ha! Those damn whippersnappers won't spot me!

try searching for: "kids in the hall He's Hip. He's Cool. He's 45!"

If the story about Gosling is even 10% accurate, that is shocking.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#242

Post by odonnellryan » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

I would absolutely _love_ to have some more experienced people on my team.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#243

Post by spitfire » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #122

dfsegoat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The most tight knit people I've met are in military special operations: Nothing comes close to the combination of technical skills, teamwork and ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. The telling thing is: Not once have I heard these folks refer to themselves as a "family" - almost like it is an insult to what family really is (separate and sacred). Only have I heard them refer…

> military special operations: Nothing comes close to the [...] ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. Any training material, courses or books on this? I need to improve my handling of "interpersonal friction".

MCDP-1

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#244

Post by headmelted » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #51

headmelted wrote: post #34

I actually love this. I've never worked in the valley, and honestly I feel no pressing urge to based on what I hear with regards to the bias in favour of twenty-somethings who can work 15+ hour days and live off of ramen. I'm pushing into my mid-thirties this year, I'm married with two young children, and I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. The thing is, I didn't do it then either, even…

> I simply never understood why someone would give so much of themselves for free in the pursuit of someone else's goals without a substantial slice of the pie. They believe what they are told - that hard work will be rewarded by salary increases, ability to work on interesting stuff and much respect.

I must admit there was a time I believed that nonsense myself, so I shouldn't really judge!

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#245

Post by sjclemmy » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

As long as you're interested in software development and that's why you get up in the morning, it doesn't matter how old you are.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#246

Post by audleman » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

nlh wrote: post #213

Every time I read a post on here about ageism and that sort of crap in SV, I feel obligated to gloat ever-so-slightly that not all VC-backed, small, fast-growing, interesting startups out here fall into that mold. I've been extremely lucky to have joined what I see as the least ageist group of people I've ever worked with. Our CEO is in his late 40s. One of our engineers is in her 20s. One is in her 50s. I'm 38 and o…

I'll chime in here. I work for a startup with two co-founders, one in his 50s and one in his 40s. I'm in my 30s and have two developers in their 20s.

The founders are smart and know how to interview for talent, not age.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#247

Post by jaysonelliot » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

When a 37 year old has to say he's "old," there's something terribly wrong with our industry.

How is any industry supposed to build a repository of expertise and wisdom if we're telling people they're washed up before they're even old enough to have their student loans paid off?

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#248

Post by scoates » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

daemonk wrote: post #15

I am getting to old geek status myself. From a more cynical perspective, I am not sure if we can compete with early twenty-somethings who are unjaded and buy into the silicon valley mystique. They are willing to work 12 hour days and still do the faux-japanese salarymen afterwork socializing that supposedly builds "culture". Older geeks don't buy into this ping-pong table propaganda. Tech companies probably won't be…

The jading goes much deeper than 12 hour days and "culture", in my opinion.

It's "easy" to get stuff done if you have no strong feeling of responsibility for the longevity of the things you're working on, or if you've never experienced the pain that comes with this lack of planning/implementation. The first 90% is easy, but the last 10% is what makes things stable, performant, maintainable, deployable and secure (not advocating for doing this last; just saying it's easy to ignore).

It's also easy to be excited about things when you['re naïve enough to] expect them to work "properly". People who've been doing this for a long time recognize that it's really rare that software Just Works™, and for that reason, things need to be architected to make room for failure. Building things without an acceptable failure mode is super fun until it fails, and then it's even worse than not doing it in the first place.

Doing stuff right takes a long time and is hard. It's truly satisfying to nail it, but it's certainly not always fun/exciting.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#249

Post by auntienomen » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #117

dexterdog wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of people who worked on Y2K bugs who are not even old enough to be a US President.

I mean that sounds neat but the math doesn't match up. You have to be 35 to be President, so being generous let's take a 35 year old now, so they were born in 1982 give or take (2017-35). They would have had to get a programming job right out of HS and even then best case it would have been halfway through 1999. More accurately, they likely didn't enter the workforce until 2004 or 2005.

Or they'd have to have been programming as college students. This wasn't uncommon when I was in school.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#250

Post by kyberias » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #112

jwr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry. We can actually Get Stuff Done, which at the end of the day is what really counts. Inexperienced young programmers working 2x the hours do not necessarily produce Output That Works (I know, I've been one myself). Sure, not every company will realize that, but then again, you don't necessarily want to work for every ping-pong table company, either. Cultural fit and all that.

Ignoring the Very Smart Capitalization, I haven't seen any correlation between age and {skill, productivity, intelligence, results}. I've worked with very smart, cutting-edge literal graybeards who could code circles around me, and guys who have been at the same company in the same entry-level or mid-level programming job for 25 years yelling in a meeting about "this damn web shit."

Even though you personally haven't observed any correlation, wouldn't you think that experienced people can make better judgement calls when designing software? Because of their experience (age), that is. Personally I feel like I'm 10x the developer I was 20 years ago. And that is 100% because of the experience and years. One learns while doing you know.