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I'm in my 40s. I interview frequently and the problem with most devs over 40 is that they are slow or dont keep up with technology. I interviewed one guy in hi

I'm in my 40s. I interview frequently and the problem with most devs over 40 is that they are slow or dont keep up with technology. I interviewed one guy in his 60s who went to school at MIT for his phd. I was excited. And then when it came to the coding exercise not only was he using perl, which had no relevance to our stack (which he was informed about) he took 3x as long to complete the question. I interviewed another older person who had no idea what JSON was. "Oh it's like XML, I get it." It makes them look like a weaker candidate when they are slower or less knowledgeable. If you keep up with technology and trends it really makes a difference. It doesn't matter that "I can pick it up quickly" because as a hiring manager why take the risk when someone already has the knowledge?

groby_b 10y ago
Note: JSON is just like XML in that it's a horrible data interchange format ;) And if "knowing JSON" is a key skill you interview for... You possibly might want to ask different questions. Unless you repeatedly build the same thing - see below. Any decent developer, no matter their age, should be able to figure out what JSON is in about as much time as it takes to have a coffee. If they can't do that, you have a real problem. > as a hiring manager why take the risk when someone already has the knowledge? As a hiring manager: Because we're not redoing already solved things, we solve new problems. The person with the knowledge holds the advantage for a few months. And then the person with the problem solving skills catches up. Of course, if you keep building the same type of app over and over - which is fine, and equally necessary - those months are never made up for, and experience matters more than problem solving. Ultimately, you hire for the jobs you need to fill. For my part, I'm happy to take anybody who understands CS and is able to learn over somebody who already knows my tech but is stumped by new problems. (No matter the age) YMMV.
- Animats 10y ago
  JSON is really just like S-expressions, of course. It's trees all the way down. (At least until you have to process so much XML that you have to do it sequentially, rather than parse it into a tree in memory.)
varjag 10y ago
As a tangential remark: it's an insight into our trade that a MIT PhD still have to repeatedly do CS exams some 30 years later.
nul_byte 10y ago
That's why as a 40+ engineer I am always pushing myself to learn new tech. It's evening here in the UK, and while my kids are sleeping and my wife is catching up on her soap operas, I am just taking time out from learning GraphQL to see what's on here.

groby_b 10y ago

Note: JSON is just like XML in that it's a horrible data interchange format ;) And if "knowing JSON" is a key skill you interview for... You possibly might want to ask different questions. Unless you repeatedly build the same thing - see below. Any decent developer, no matter their age, should be able to figure out what JSON is in about as much time as it takes to have a coffee. If they can't do that, you have a real problem. > as a hiring manager why take the risk when someone already has the knowledge? As a hiring manager: Because we're not redoing already solved things, we solve new problems. The person with the knowledge holds the advantage for a few months. And then the person with the problem solving skills catches up. Of course, if you keep building the same type of app over and over - which is fine, and equally necessary - those months are never made up for, and experience matters more than problem solving. Ultimately, you hire for the jobs you need to fill. For my part, I'm happy to take anybody who understands CS and is able to learn over somebody who already knows my tech but is stumped by new problems. (No matter the age) YMMV.

Animats 10y ago
JSON is really just like S-expressions, of course. It's trees all the way down. (At least until you have to process so much XML that you have to do it sequentially, rather than parse it into a tree in memory.)

varjag 10y ago

As a tangential remark: it's an insight into our trade that a MIT PhD still have to repeatedly do CS exams some 30 years later.

nul_byte 10y ago

That's why as a 40+ engineer I am always pushing myself to learn new tech. It's evening here in the UK, and while my kids are sleeping and my wife is catching up on her soap operas, I am just taking time out from learning GraphQL to see what's on here.