My dad’s resume and skills from 1980 • Hacker News Board

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#321

Post by jhayward » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

curuinor wrote: post #246

booleandilemma wrote: post #214

Wow, a resume from an era when programming was a respectable job, instead of the circus of group interviews, take home tests, whiteboard tests, and non-stop emails from this new class of people whose sole job it is to find programmers jobs. Before hiring managers asked you if you’re familiar with agile, SOA, TDD, microservices, BDD, Domain Driven Design and that JavaScript framework that came out last year. What a di…

Didn't it pay like, half or less of what programmers get paid nowadays? And technical leadership at companies was much less of a thing.

I started as a 'systems programmer' in 1980 at $18,500/year. I had accepted the job at $17,900 but an across the board raise happened right away.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#322

Post by School-Cotton » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

peter303 wrote: post #307

metaphor wrote: post #55

If I lived through 3 wars and had a strong career alignment with major defense contractors, I suppose I'd be inclined to disclose health and height out of habit...but was this generally expected on a resume back in the 80s?

They used to say never put a picture on a US resume (common in some countries). But a picture is considered essential on LinkedIn to increase the search status. Go figure.

Used to? It's still completely unacceptable to put a photo on a resume in the US.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#323

Post by edgartaor » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #311

iforgotpassword wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just thought it might be interesting to people to see what technologies were in use at those times. It definitely is, not just to see what technologies were in use, but what an exemplary career in that field looked like, so thanks for sharing. It's just that the first thing that went through my head was this joke, since it's really something that isn't too far fetched situation wise (see that one longer reply). F…

Lol. I guess this qualifies as "unethical life hack" ?

"Introduce some bugs in the mainframe code so you can earn a reward 30 years later fixing them"

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#324

Post by dang » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

hkai wrote: post #13

It's regrettable that you have to put a man like this into confinement.

That's a personal attack. We ban users who post uncivilly to HN. Please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#325

Post by phyller » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. And when he needed to learn a new language he actually went to school for it.

I just started a new position, I have to learn at least 2 new languages (on my own time) which I need to be proficient in basically immediately. My very first project was, fix something in this new project which uses a new language, you have 3 days. And I felt lucky to have been given 3 days instead of 1 so I could learn the language. And then dozens of new frameworks and complex tools, complex and evolving architecture. In 2 months I will have my first week as being the point person to fix anything that goes wrong in production. And I feel like this is ok, this is normal.

I wonder if most engineers now are just permanent amateurs hopping around between tools and projects, learning just enough to make it work without breaking, but not knowing how to build things properly. How many years would it take to really become expert in that language? Even if you focused all your time on that, by the time you have mastered it another language will have come along to replace it, or the language itself will have been transformed into something new.

If you stay still and become an expert in something you run the risk of losing your relevance and not being able to get another job in just a few short years. 25 years? Will the company you work for even be around in 25 years? Doubtful.

Then again, back then they didn't have Stackoverflow and all the resources we have now that make it possible to learn so much so quickly.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#326

Post by School-Cotton » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 7:55 PM UTC

clamprecht wrote: post #157

RLN wrote: post #43

Very striking for me is listing of height, health and birth date. I would never put these on a CV. All irrelevant.

Look at current secretary job postings in China. Even if you can't read Chinese, you can see the measurement requirements in centimeters. Yes, those measurements (bust, waist, hip). Here's an indeed.com search for "cm" that pulls them up: https://cn.indeed.com/jobs?q=cm

All the results in that link are height requirements.

You don't need to be able to read Chinese to know that a 160cm bust size requirement is implausible...

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#327

Post by phyller » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

tannhaeuser wrote: post #68

fit2rule wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was 16 in 1986 when I started programming C. Replacing all the old fogeys with their Fortrans and Cobols and .. shudder .. A/PL .. This is not a new thing, this teenage thing. Tomorrow I guide some teenage punk through the wasteland of mobile development. Undoubtedly he's gonna throw some new shit at me. Hah!

I'm baby-sitting Java devs as "senior" atm. They don't know much, but what little they know they're defending with fervor, like "REST", Spring crap, and rubbish pseudo-modularization using "microservices". Worst, taking random architecture astronaut blog posts as dogma, incapable of reflecting whether something makes sense for a given task ("SQL is too old-school and low-level (!)"). Makes you really think about what…

I think the root issue is that there is just simply too much to know and too little time to know it. Everything is completely reinvented every 3 years now it seems, so many of the successful young engineers I know tend to develop a herd mentality, just do what everyone else is doing. You don't need to understand it, just pick your favorite thought leaders, emulate them, and things will usually work out well enough.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#328

Post by oldManRiver » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

phyller wrote: post #325

Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. And when he needed to learn a new language he actually went to school for it. I just started a new position, I have to learn at least 2 new languages (on my own time) which I need to be proficient in basically immediately. My very first project was, fix something in this new project which uses a new language, you have…

JCL, 360/370 ASM, COBOL.

They were still teaching this shit at my school in the 90s. Encouraged you to take COBOL II because "there's so much old code around you'll always have a job" (left out the part about a job you'd rather kill yourself at).

Peter Gibbons was updating code for the Year 2000 switch over.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#329

Post by fitba1969 » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #227

khazhou wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! The trashcan is usually full of crumpled-up failed attempts. But the smell of typewriter ink. Man, I miss it.

I still miss the IBM selectric typewriter :-)

I miss the lined green dot matrix printouts. Best way to read code. But maybe I'm just romanticising.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#330

Post by maxxxxx » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

the_new_guy_29 wrote: post #296

United857 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before hiring managers asked you if you’re familiar with agile, SOA, TDD, microservices, BDD, Domain Driven Design and that JavaScript framework that came out last year. His resume/cover letter still listed off a lot of buzzwords for specific technologies/platforms/languages to get the manager's attention -- they just were different ones from a different era.

Its not about buzzwords but time ranges. Currently new frameworks are created in dozens and few are required for everyday work and they change each year. The amount of information newer programmers have to keep pace with is HUGE... Thats why some companies stop hiring ppl after 30s because they are simply not able (statistically) to keep with all of it. Its also more about not having other responsibilities - family,…

"Thats why some companies stop hiring ppl after 30s because they are simply not able (statistically) to keep with all of it. "

From my experience the young guys aren't keeping up either. They have a very short period where the framework they have learned is the one that's en vogue. 3 years later they are also "behind" because if you do actual long term work you are behind almost by definition. You can't abandon your previous work and rewrite everything every two years because your tech isn't cool anymore.