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How the Valley treats experienced people

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Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#41

Post by tokyodude »

samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time.

I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for the company his insurance was much more expensive than anyone else's. Maybe that only happens in places like the USA but it registered as yet another reason a company might not want to hire an older person.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#42

Post by phkahler »

CPLX wrote: post #33
WalterBright wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that sailing on the ocean is no small feat, but my problem with it is it doesn't actually accomplish anything. I want to do things that matter.

This may be jarring to learn but we all enter the world naked, terrified, and alone, and fairly shortly thereafter leave the world the same way. An individual might find meaning from travel, or meditation, or religious adherence, another from creating a family, another by being the greatest bullfighter to ever live, or creating an electronic simulation of violent war, but in none of these examples should anyone be in…

In the end all we have is our story. Make it a good one.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#43

Post by phkahler »

williamdclt wrote: post #24
daenz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Luck is a huge part of success. The sad reality is, no matter how irrational is, people don't want to be around someone who is considered unlucky. Especially at a startup. I don't agree with this at all, but I'm saying it because I don't want to pretend that that psychological influence doesn't exist.

I've never seen anybody that had a "lucky" or "unlucky" reputation. Some people are considered to "have been lucky" at some point in time, but nobody considered to have a "luck" or "non-luck" trait. In other words, I've never observed what you describe, never even heard of it

Luck is magically transformed into talent when seen by outsiders.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#44

Post by vinceguidry »

perfmode wrote: post #23
WalterBright wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the US and being an able-bodied adult.

The US is one of the least egalitarian of developed nations.

Despite a distinct lack of egalatarianism, the US remains the place where someone born at the bottom can still climb the social ladder. Billionaire-hood may escape them, but they're not doomed.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#46

Post by ianai »

zik wrote: post #11
samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

This kind of ageism isn't really visible to you unless you're the subject of it. Yes, it's real.

Society in general is pretty hard on older people and it increases with age. Think of the way older women are treated as “grandmas”. They can be shoehorned into a role they may not want to play.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#47

Post by gaius »

avip wrote: post #36

Ageism is real in many verticals. It is healthy to acknowledge that. It’s equally important to face facts related to age: I am noticeably less focusable, and my memory is not as good. I slowly become less fluent in adopting new tech, and it shows (or feels). Most importantly, I have many out of work responsibilities - parents (not getting younger) and kids (not getting older in sufficient pace). Consequently, odds of…

slowly become less fluent in adopting new tech, and it shows

For me, it's the exact opposite. Containers? Oh yeah, they're just like zones on Solaris. Kubernetes? Works like a VAXcluster. Cloud? Been there, done that, let's not make the same mistakes. ML? Well we used to call it predictive statistics, the only real difference now is we run it on GPU not CPU. I pick up "new" techs easily because I can step back and see the same patterns repeating.

Experience is the killer app. Ageism is just another prejudice.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#48

Post by Ma8ee »

gronne wrote: post #31
Ma8ee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is faster to build a solution with bad performance, is hard to maintain and a nightmare to test. The manager who doesn’t know the difference is just a bad manager.

I thought that was the definition of a manager?

I’ve had good managers.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#49

Post by christophilus »

tokyodude wrote: post #41
samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for th…

> I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time.

3-5 years is a pretty long stretch in this industry. The longest I’ve ever held a job is just barely 5 years. Most tech employers— at least the smart ones— know the average bounce rate in the industry is high. Older employees tend to value stability, for various reasons. So I don’t buy your argument.

If there’s a reluctance to hire older devs, I suspect it’s because they have higher salaries and maybe because they are (inaccurately) perceived as being unlikely to know or want to learn new tech.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#50

Post by sureaboutthis »

tokyodude wrote: post #41
samatman wrote: post #4

The tech industry has a reputation for being hard on older engineers, and I’m sure there is some of that, but I doubt it’s the problem it’s made out to be. Anectdote, I know, but the older engineers I know are doing fine, one gentleman pushing 70 recently came out of retirement to work on Ethereum. The number of developers has roughly doubled every five years for about thirty years now. Even before you subtract progr…

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for th…

What's funny is that many young people in the industry now would never think of staying at one place for 3-5 years cause they don't want to invest the time.

A neighbor of mine is in his 60s and lost his job the same way. He can run rings around anyone I know but he can't find a job or even get an interview.

Bjarne Stroustrup, the C++ creator, wrote a blog post about going for a job interview and being told he "didn't fit the culture" and he knew what that meant.

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