361–370 of 408 posts
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He has severe dementia unfortunately. I just thought it might be interesting to people to see what technologies were in use at those times. My dad loves to play catch with his stuffed doggie (or whatever you will throw to him) but activities more complicated than that are not feasible.
> 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…
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…
>Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. I work for a competitor to General Dynamics in practically the same field (as close as you can get in 2018) as Mr. Ray Livesay. Counting the acquisition, I've been with the same company for 11 years, having worked my way up from being a technical writer to programmer to systems engineer. When I wanted to transition fr…
I recently went to a startup but I don't know if they will make it, and I would love a company with private offices and a bit of stability. But I'm afraid I'll be left looking at the other companies left i haven't de-FAANG-ed yet. What is the name of your company?
Is your dad for hire? We have this legacy toolchain in cobol and IBM assembler running on a bunch of mainframes and are just not ready to migrate to our brand new Itanium servers we have ordered a while ago. Our engineers are busy porting all the logic but need help understanding the inner workings of the old setup. While they're at it, we have this small list of features we'd like to have added to the old version...…
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…
>Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. I work for a competitor to General Dynamics in practically the same field (as close as you can get in 2018) as Mr. Ray Livesay. Counting the acquisition, I've been with the same company for 11 years, having worked my way up from being a technical writer to programmer to systems engineer. When I wanted to transition fr…
However, it also sounds extremely expensive to run a business with everything you described. It might only be possible because you appear to work in the group of large corporations that exist off of a government contracting system that has been criticized as being fundamentally broken. Projects cost way too much, take too long, and are frequently late and over budget anyway. I've heard a lot of that has to do with the government constantly asking for changes and asking for too much, but whatever way you slice it the only reason it works is because it is basically non-competitive. Does your company create successful consumer products?
Spacex is aerospace too, but they are disrupting their industry. I wonder if all the engineers there get their own offices and stay in the same roles for years, with the same technology.
I don't have enough experience to know which works best, letting engineers become professionals in their niche, making the business not very adaptable but having some deep strengths, or moving fast and breaking things, being adaptable and fast moving, but have some crappy code gluing things together that will need replacing in a few years.
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.
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…
>Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. I work for a competitor to General Dynamics in practically the same field (as close as you can get in 2018) as Mr. Ray Livesay. Counting the acquisition, I've been with the same company for 11 years, having worked my way up from being a technical writer to programmer to systems engineer. When I wanted to transition fr…
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For what it's worth, my resume to this day is still this style. I'm around 40, been in various forms of IT since end of high school. My resume has never been more than a bullet point list of my skills, and my experience. I've gotten almost every job I've applied for based on that + the interview. The few I haven't gotten, weren't because of the resume (I've always asked why, so I could improve).
If you get every job you ask for maybe you are aiming too low.
The company is getting a steal and I’m learning. I have one more aggressive jump I can do in the next 3 years before I top out in my market without going into management.
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Alas, it is trivial for employers to guess a candidate's age with resonable accuracy, as most people have their education timeline in their resume.
I'd think most people who are worried about age discrimination would drop their matriculation year from their resume.
I always go completely clean shaven with a bald head when I interview.
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Not always. Folks can obtain a degree later in life to throw off the ageism detector.
Yes. But you usually don't do that to trigger an aegism detector. Also, if you include previous work experiences (with dates obviously) one can still determine how old you are. Nevertheless, once you go there in person for your interview, people will notice anyway.