6 ms·

I am 47. 27 years of professional experience. Got hooked in Basic. Fell in love with Pascal, C, C++, Smalltalk, Perl, and Java. Most new technologies are a re-e

by huherto 11y ago

I am 47. 27 years of professional experience. Got hooked in Basic. Fell in love with Pascal, C, C++, Smalltalk, Perl, and Java. Most new technologies are a re-encarnation of something that I did already the first time or second time around. I don't think my resume looks trendy. Still, I feel my skills are better than almost all of my friends and coworkers. They are 21-35. But, I see things that they don't. Subtle things like code organization, error handling, readability. I have a better CS background (compilers, networking,theory of languages,operating systems, relational theory, machine language). I know 100 ways in which a project can fail. My code is terse, I have been working on it for a long time. Yet, I am scared to loose my job. I don't know if the recruiter will look past my age and lack of trendy technologies in my resume.

sosuke 11y ago
If you want to feel more assured start interviewing now. See what questions they ask and feel more familiar with it. You don't have to go on site anywhere or actually take another job. The questions you'll be asked might be academic, things you never think about anymore but the wrong answers can bar you from the next step.
zippergz 11y ago
This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definitely have control over whether someone is biased against me because I haven't kept up with technical developments.
- halite 11y ago
  > I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. Is that weekends are for? I do that too but do wonder at times...
  - zippergz 11y ago
    No. I really, really wish it weren't what weekends were for. Believe me. And I don't spend all of my weekends doing projects like that. But the reality of the industry is that not being up to date on technologies handicaps you in a job search. So as long as my day job isn't providing me the opportunities to learn these things, I feel like I have no choice but to use my spare time to do it myself.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    My parents are doctors. They are in their 60s. And guess what: they still spend evenings and weekends reading medical journals, attending conferences (around the globe) and doing whatever else is necessary to keep up with new developments in their specialties. That's just what it takes to remain relevant in fast-moving fields. I think what software developers need is some perspective. We aren't the only ones who have to spend time outside of work on keeping our skills sharp and learning new stuff.
    - underpantsgnome 11y ago
      slacker hat: perspective is one of those words they use when they want something from you, like "duty" or "contribute". Doctors get so much more job security, prestige, and straight-up money than software developers. By the time we're in our 60s, many of our classmates who went into medicine will be living in neighborhoods and moving in social circles that are completely inaccessible to us.
    - halite 11y ago
      Don't you think there's difference between reading about surgeries and performing those surgeries (Or POC surgeries :))? I do get what you are saying, not trying to be mean. What I'm saying is the effort and time commitment to do weekend apps sometime end up taking whole weekends including nights...all because we love doing this.
    - edwinnathaniel 11y ago
      I see this all the time but you can't compare apple (doctor) to orange (software developer). Doctor is more "trustworthy" (perception-wise) as they get older while Developer is more in-demand when they're younger. Doctor also technically made way more money than Developer (in general though, the statement may not stand if you compare Silicon Valley but you get the idea, even in other countries, Doctor probably made more than Developer). Doctor also keep their job longer than Developer. Doctor can read but does not necessarily have to demonstrate that to their prospective employers while Developer can't just say "I read Objective-C for Dummies therefore I am an expert of Objective-C". These were just ones of many things that I can think of.
- zippergz 11y ago
  Also, to be clear. I think that having many years of experience, hard-won judgement, really strong foundations, and experience with a variety of technologies (even if they aren't the newest) SHOULD be enough to be seriously considered for a job. Someone who has been in the industry for 20 years and knows a bunch of languages and frameworks is most likely going to be able to pick up a new one quickly. And he or she will bring with them experience that a younger programmer with more knowledge of some specific new technology can't provide. In a perfect world, companies would understand that, and take it into account when they're hiring. But in reality, that doesn't always happen, and all I can do to prevent myself from being impacted by it is make sure I have the right keywords on my resume, along side my years and years of experience.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    At 37 I'm somewhere in the middle and I think there are two major factors at play in terms of SV age bias. The first is a proliferation of young founders who have no experience and thus no frame of reference to evaluate older developers, so they just pattern match on the new tech they are familiar with. Nothing really to be done about that since convincing twentysomethings (particularly SV funded ones) of their hubris is a sisyphean task, and in any case it leaves talent on the table for those of us who actually know the value of a dollar. The second, more troubling factor is founders who actually understand the value of experience, but prefer to take advantage of ambitious kids who are willing to work extreme hours for little equity and less salary. All else being equal, it's easier to find strong talent that isn't aware of (or bad at negotiating) their own value at a young age compared to when they get old and jaded. As slimy as that is, I think it's a somewhat self-correcting problem in that good programmers are still too thin on the ground and startups who pass over old or minority candidates that are actually good will be at a competitive disadvantage. There is certainly a flood of young people going into technology via bootcamps or other means, but my experience so far is that there is a natural and unquantifiable talent component to being a good programmer which can not be solved by education. I firmly believe anyone can learn to program, but only a minority can ever learn to program well. At the moment, I interpret having learned to program before "startups" became a career move as a strong positive signal; chalk one up for the olds!
wrong_variable 11y ago
hey man ! Do not worry too much. Its much easier to "hack" dumb recruiters then C code. As someone who recently graduated and is "one of them damn kids" - a lot of people from my graduating class know a lot more about marketing then actual programming. Since 2008 - the world has became a much more cruel place - and that has forced many of us to graduating since then to play an arms race with "trends" - switch jobs constantly and be selfish. The way I see anyone who has been writing production code since 1990 is a WW2 veteran. You guys have been through the PC revolution, Internet revolution, survived the dot com bubble, shipped code before git, stackoverflow. I think if you projected that experience into confidence you could easily do whatever you wanted - you deserve it !
fecak 11y ago
Recruiter here, just a couple ticks younger than you, and the less experienced recruiters probably won't look past your age. The key for you is delivering a clear marketing message that can't be misinterpreted by even the dumbest of recruiters (or avoiding those gatekeepers entirely), while knowing that your experience will have much more appeal to the more experienced engineers internally. The resume doesn't need to 'look' trendy, but it can't look stale either.
ryandrake 11y ago
I'm right behind you! Some ideas I've tried, who knows whether they work or not: 1. Remove everything from your resume past 6 or so years in the past. Put a little note at the bottom saying that your extended work history is available upon request. Nobody wants to read a resume over 1 page anyway. 2. Don't list any years on your education--just list the institutions. That's an easy way to leak your age. 3. Regularly scrub for "outdated" technologies and topics. Instead of writing perl scripts to parse log files and output reports with Tcl/Tk, you were a full-stack developer who processed data analytics from critical business infrastructure.
CuriouslyC 11y ago
To be honest, if I were looking at a resume that reads like I expect yours would, I would probably pass on it unless I was looking for an architect/principal software engineer, and in that case I would need to see interesting technical accomplishments and leadership experience as well. Less experienced developers are cheaper, probably have a more current education, and are less set in their ways (e.i. more trainable). I recognize you will probably make fewer dumb mistakes than a younger developer, and your experience probably enables you to learn new technologies faster (though I'd wonder if you didn't list any trendy technologies on your resume). On the flip side, if your resume showed a long period without any significant career advancement I might question your competence.
- slindsey 11y ago
  It's difficult to codify "career advancement". What does it mean? To whom? I've been a "programmer", "analyst", "database administrator", "developer", "consultant", and "manager". What order shows advancement?
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    Well, it is a bit of a red flag if you list them in non-chronological order (unless you wrote a functional resume that was tailored specifically to the requirements for my position, in which case you get bonus points). You should be able to show career advancement via the achievements you list for each position. There should generally be a trend towards increasing responsibility and successively more impressive feats at each stage. Some lateral movement is fine, but if that's all you've got it suggests that you lack focus/get bored easily.
    - slindsey 11y ago
      True. The description/achievements are key. I guess my point was that the distinction in my titles was largely a result of HR practices at the organizations and not an indicator of advancement. For example, at most companies an "Analyst" position is higher than a "Programmer", yet I had that first. And if I didn't choose to become a manager, showing growth at my current position would be difficult.

by huherto 11y ago

sosuke 11y ago

If you want to feel more assured start interviewing now. See what questions they ask and feel more familiar with it. You don't have to go on site anywhere or actually take another job. The questions you'll be asked might be academic, things you never think about anymore but the wrong answers can bar you from the next step.

zippergz 11y ago

This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definitely have control over whether someone is biased against me because I haven't kept up with technical developments.

halite 11y ago
> I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. Is that weekends are for? I do that too but do wonder at times...
- zippergz 11y ago
  No. I really, really wish it weren't what weekends were for. Believe me. And I don't spend all of my weekends doing projects like that. But the reality of the industry is that not being up to date on technologies handicaps you in a job search. So as long as my day job isn't providing me the opportunities to learn these things, I feel like I have no choice but to use my spare time to do it myself.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  My parents are doctors. They are in their 60s. And guess what: they still spend evenings and weekends reading medical journals, attending conferences (around the globe) and doing whatever else is necessary to keep up with new developments in their specialties. That's just what it takes to remain relevant in fast-moving fields. I think what software developers need is some perspective. We aren't the only ones who have to spend time outside of work on keeping our skills sharp and learning new stuff.
  - underpantsgnome 11y ago
    slacker hat: perspective is one of those words they use when they want something from you, like "duty" or "contribute". Doctors get so much more job security, prestige, and straight-up money than software developers. By the time we're in our 60s, many of our classmates who went into medicine will be living in neighborhoods and moving in social circles that are completely inaccessible to us.
  - halite 11y ago
    Don't you think there's difference between reading about surgeries and performing those surgeries (Or POC surgeries :))? I do get what you are saying, not trying to be mean. What I'm saying is the effort and time commitment to do weekend apps sometime end up taking whole weekends including nights...all because we love doing this.
  - edwinnathaniel 11y ago
    I see this all the time but you can't compare apple (doctor) to orange (software developer). Doctor is more "trustworthy" (perception-wise) as they get older while Developer is more in-demand when they're younger. Doctor also technically made way more money than Developer (in general though, the statement may not stand if you compare Silicon Valley but you get the idea, even in other countries, Doctor probably made more than Developer). Doctor also keep their job longer than Developer. Doctor can read but does not necessarily have to demonstrate that to their prospective employers while Developer can't just say "I read Objective-C for Dummies therefore I am an expert of Objective-C". These were just ones of many things that I can think of.
zippergz 11y ago
Also, to be clear. I think that having many years of experience, hard-won judgement, really strong foundations, and experience with a variety of technologies (even if they aren't the newest) SHOULD be enough to be seriously considered for a job. Someone who has been in the industry for 20 years and knows a bunch of languages and frameworks is most likely going to be able to pick up a new one quickly. And he or she will bring with them experience that a younger programmer with more knowledge of some specific new technology can't provide. In a perfect world, companies would understand that, and take it into account when they're hiring. But in reality, that doesn't always happen, and all I can do to prevent myself from being impacted by it is make sure I have the right keywords on my resume, along side my years and years of experience.
- dasil003 11y ago
  At 37 I'm somewhere in the middle and I think there are two major factors at play in terms of SV age bias. The first is a proliferation of young founders who have no experience and thus no frame of reference to evaluate older developers, so they just pattern match on the new tech they are familiar with. Nothing really to be done about that since convincing twentysomethings (particularly SV funded ones) of their hubris is a sisyphean task, and in any case it leaves talent on the table for those of us who actually know the value of a dollar. The second, more troubling factor is founders who actually understand the value of experience, but prefer to take advantage of ambitious kids who are willing to work extreme hours for little equity and less salary. All else being equal, it's easier to find strong talent that isn't aware of (or bad at negotiating) their own value at a young age compared to when they get old and jaded. As slimy as that is, I think it's a somewhat self-correcting problem in that good programmers are still too thin on the ground and startups who pass over old or minority candidates that are actually good will be at a competitive disadvantage. There is certainly a flood of young people going into technology via bootcamps or other means, but my experience so far is that there is a natural and unquantifiable talent component to being a good programmer which can not be solved by education. I firmly believe anyone can learn to program, but only a minority can ever learn to program well. At the moment, I interpret having learned to program before "startups" became a career move as a strong positive signal; chalk one up for the olds!

wrong_variable 11y ago

hey man ! Do not worry too much. Its much easier to "hack" dumb recruiters then C code. As someone who recently graduated and is "one of them damn kids" - a lot of people from my graduating class know a lot more about marketing then actual programming. Since 2008 - the world has became a much more cruel place - and that has forced many of us to graduating since then to play an arms race with "trends" - switch jobs constantly and be selfish. The way I see anyone who has been writing production code since 1990 is a WW2 veteran. You guys have been through the PC revolution, Internet revolution, survived the dot com bubble, shipped code before git, stackoverflow. I think if you projected that experience into confidence you could easily do whatever you wanted - you deserve it !

fecak 11y ago

Recruiter here, just a couple ticks younger than you, and the less experienced recruiters probably won't look past your age. The key for you is delivering a clear marketing message that can't be misinterpreted by even the dumbest of recruiters (or avoiding those gatekeepers entirely), while knowing that your experience will have much more appeal to the more experienced engineers internally. The resume doesn't need to 'look' trendy, but it can't look stale either.

ryandrake 11y ago

I'm right behind you! Some ideas I've tried, who knows whether they work or not: 1. Remove everything from your resume past 6 or so years in the past. Put a little note at the bottom saying that your extended work history is available upon request. Nobody wants to read a resume over 1 page anyway. 2. Don't list any years on your education--just list the institutions. That's an easy way to leak your age. 3. Regularly scrub for "outdated" technologies and topics. Instead of writing perl scripts to parse log files and output reports with Tcl/Tk, you were a full-stack developer who processed data analytics from critical business infrastructure.

CuriouslyC 11y ago

To be honest, if I were looking at a resume that reads like I expect yours would, I would probably pass on it unless I was looking for an architect/principal software engineer, and in that case I would need to see interesting technical accomplishments and leadership experience as well. Less experienced developers are cheaper, probably have a more current education, and are less set in their ways (e.i. more trainable). I recognize you will probably make fewer dumb mistakes than a younger developer, and your experience probably enables you to learn new technologies faster (though I'd wonder if you didn't list any trendy technologies on your resume). On the flip side, if your resume showed a long period without any significant career advancement I might question your competence.

slindsey 11y ago
It's difficult to codify "career advancement". What does it mean? To whom? I've been a "programmer", "analyst", "database administrator", "developer", "consultant", and "manager". What order shows advancement?
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Well, it is a bit of a red flag if you list them in non-chronological order (unless you wrote a functional resume that was tailored specifically to the requirements for my position, in which case you get bonus points). You should be able to show career advancement via the achievements you list for each position. There should generally be a trend towards increasing responsibility and successively more impressive feats at each stage. Some lateral movement is fine, but if that's all you've got it suggests that you lack focus/get bored easily.
  - slindsey 11y ago
    True. The description/achievements are key. I guess my point was that the distinction in my titles was largely a result of HR practices at the organizations and not an indicator of advancement. For example, at most companies an "Analyst" position is higher than a "Programmer", yet I had that first. And if I didn't choose to become a manager, showing growth at my current position would be difficult.