22 ms·

Not Just Any Old Geek

398 points by johnwheeler 10y ago

devnonymous 10y ago
Interesting idea whose time perhaps has come. As a 38 year old developer who frequents HN and sees age related posts every once in a while, I am worried about my prospects after turning 40... Although I have no other reason to believe that I've been discriminated against over my age so far. Maybe this is a more of a Valley syndrome, or a US syndrome. In anycase, the fact that our industry itself can be thought of being around 40-50 years old now, something like this is perhaps a good thing.
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
I love it. Good luck!
jmspring 10y ago
I got invited to a YC event - meet companies, they pitched - a recruiting event. More than a few pulled the "we work hard, play hard, are a family" card. If you have friends/family, avoid such. Cultural fit is bull shit. It's about getting people to work more at a fixed rate. I've been there, done that, ran away to better things. As someone expected to write code - make sure "operations" isn't a hidden requirement - devops - could meaning call duty. If you were not required to be operational when hired, and suddenly fall into the roll, start looking around. Operations takes planning, but some use "culture" as an excuse for lack of planning.
- osullivj 10y ago
  Claiming "we are a family" in a business environment is always a reg flag for me. Team is a much better metaphor. Sports teams back each other up, but ultimately underperformers get dropped. You don't get fired from a family, you don't stop being a brother, sister, father or mother.
  - dfsegoat 10y ago
    This. The most tight knit people I've met are in military special operations: Nothing comes close to the combination of technical skills, teamwork and ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. The telling thing is: Not once have I heard these folks refer to themselves as a "family" - almost like it is an insult to what family really is (separate and sacred). Only have I heard them refer to themselves collectively as a "team" or a "community".
    - porker 10y ago
      > military special operations: Nothing comes close to the [...] ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. Any training material, courses or books on this? I need to improve my handling of "interpersonal friction".
      - spitfire 10y ago
        MCDP-1
      - dfsegoat 10y ago
        Check out any books / articles relating to the Marine Corps' "The Basic School" - It is where newly commissioned officers (and warrant officers) learn how to lead Marines. My fav is: "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" - by Nate Fick. Long story short - The Basic School and training cadre are so effective at producing outstanding leaders, that MBA programs like Harvard and Wharton have built in a number of aspects of it to their "team building" courses / sequences: http://news.smeal.psu.edu/news-archive/2014/united-states-marine-corps-offers-mba-students-unique-glimpse-into-leadership http://news.smeal.psu.edu/news-archive/2014/united-states-ma...
  - bigtex 10y ago
    Thanks for the great analogy. My employer had layoffs recently but has always referred to employees as family. always thought that was a terrible analogy as you said because you don't fire your mom or dad.
  - 10y ago
AdeptusAquinas 10y ago
It seems to me that, as others have suggested, this might be just a silicon valley bias, real or perceived. At 32, my skills in both hard and soft outstrip anything a developer in their early twenties could match, no matter how passionate or innately skilled they are. There is a certain 'momentum' you pick up as you get older, especially if you have been constantly feeding it with new experiences, learnings and failures. Having confidence and the skill to back it up can only be obtained with a decade or two in the industry. And if my contracting rates and employment prospects are anything to go by, employers recognise that.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I would say that in my late 30's I was hitting my peak in terms of raw ability and experience. At least as far as ability is concerned, I really didn't hit a downturn until much later. Now, getting on to 50, I'm noticing that my ability to deal with complexity is quite a bit diminished. But my tolerance for complexity is likewise diminished. When I would have accepted a poorly factored solution, now I scratch my head until I find a way that allows me to understand it. When you get down to it, do you really want to tailor your code base to the top 1% of coders? How will you sustain that practice? By paying people 4 times as much? Even then you aren't going to nab all the amazing people. Hire some people who know how to dumb down your code base. It pays dividends.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    Yup. The "we only hire the best" thought process is delusional and irrational.
  - initram 10y ago
    >When you get down to it, do you really want to tailor your code base to the top 1% of coders? I think I agree with your sentiment, but to me a "top 1% coder" is someone who knows how to make things simple and readable, and knows the best abstraction to use for the goal. It's not the person who can write and/or follow the most complicated code. To me complicated code is generally a sign of a poor coder. There are exceptions, but they're rare.
epalmer 10y ago
I will be 63 in a few days. If 37+ makes you an old geek I must be ancient. At least I am employed.
- njloof 10y ago
  If you remember fixing a Y2K bug, you must be an old geek.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    There are plenty of people who worked on Y2K bugs who are not even old enough to be a US President.
    - pc86 10y ago
      I mean that sounds neat but the math doesn't match up. You have to be 35 to be President, so being generous let's take a 35 year old now, so they were born in 1982 give or take (2017-35). They would have had to get a programming job right out of HS and even then best case it would have been halfway through 1999. More accurately, they likely didn't enter the workforce until 2004 or 2005.
      - ccallebs 10y ago
        Y2K bugs didn't disappear when the clock struck midnight on December 31. Many appeared for the first time.
        pc86 10y ago
        Who was fixing Y2K bugs in 2004/5?
      - auntienomen 10y ago
        Or they'd have to have been programming as college students. This wasn't uncommon when I was in school.
jkot 10y ago
> I’ve published a dozen articles ... build software with thousands of paying customers. ... work on open source Python. ... read almost 40 business books, and I live and breathe HackerNews. Why not start your own business or become CTO? Why work for someone less experienced?
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Risk, amount of work hours?
- yetihehe 10y ago
  Not everyone want's to be a CTO, I'm thinking about that but I would prefer to be a programmer. I'm only 32.
  - wruza 10y ago
    32 too. Recently I suddenly got CTO-like responsibilities and at first glance it was not what I wanted to do. There was fear whether employees will understand and do it right way. Otoh, I think it is what we actually should do -- merge our experience and vision into the team at high level, because it allows to build something bigger and greater than just yourself. As I read recently in some book, good leader doesn't control things, but provides correct context of thinking, allows others to participate in their way to the common goal. I missed these context constraints when I was young, so many efforts simply lost in unnecessary details.
- Insanity 10y ago
  Starting your own business always entails some risk. Some people are not comfortable taking that risk, surely if you have a family to support it might not be feasible. This depends a bit on the country where you live, but where I live you are liable for your company - which means that what you own privately is shared. I don't know how it's like where he lives, but the risk might not be worth it. It also takes a huge amount of dedication and work to make it work, I can imagine that at his age, his priority would lie with his family. (Hell, I'm a decade younger and my priority lies there, wife + kids should be a priority). Of course, the CTO option seems good in that case :-)
mrschwabe 10y ago
If Jaromir Jagr, at 44 years of age, can play at the highest level of professional hockey in the world, leading his young team in points (and 2nd in goals) last season [1] just imagine what a programmer can do with the same level of focus and determination at that age and beyond. [1] https://www.nhl.com/panthers/stats/regular-season/skaters/p https://www.nhl.com/panthers/stats/regular-season/skaters/p
- arethuza 10y ago
  Chris Terril completed Royal Marine Commando training at 55! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Terrill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Terrill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmlHxIqVoxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmlHxIqVoxE NB He did this so that he would feel fit enough to accompany them as a reporter to Afghanistan - I think the normal upper age limit is 27.
  - whatusername 10y ago
    Cliff Young won an Ultra Marathon at 61! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)
- onion2k 10y ago
  Isn't the main argument against employing older developers that they won't have that level of focus and determination? Pointing to an statistical anomaly and suggesting that older people can be that focused is easily countered with an argument that, while that's true, it's far more likely that a younger person will have the traits you're looking for, so you should employ them instead. A rare example of a hyper-focused older person[1] isn't a reason to hire older people. Hiring is about filling a position with someone capable of doing what's necessary. It's not about finding someone exceptional. You want to get someone in and get them up to speed as fast as you can in order to move on to doing things that drive your business forwards. To that end, older, experienced people are very often better than younger people because they've already proven they can do the job. [1] 44 isn't old.
  - 10y ago
kranner 10y ago
Great idea but I'm not sure it's a good idea to post non-green jobs at all.
amcrouch 10y ago
This is an AWESOME idea and I totally appreciate both Tim's original article on the subject and your efforts on this job site. As a CTO I have long appreciated real world knowledge and experience over inexperienced, cheap, eagerness. Our employee's are all 30+, most have families and I believe that leads to well balanced and focused employee's. That is not to say I would not hire a younger employee but with age comes the kind of experience you need when building a new company quickly. To be honest the "we work hard and play hard - we are a family" line would have put me off of a role even in my early 20's. Just because I want to work hard, it doesn't mean I want to always be hanging out with a team, I want a life as well. I actually think that the ageism in tech is a result of it being a young industry. As more and more dev's go grey the problem will resolve itself. One final note I have seen here and on other places - The why not become a CTO or Start your own company suggestion is fine for those that want to but there are a large number of developers who actually _love_ being a developer and have no interest in moving up into management. That's great and I hope that as the industry matures people realise that being a developer for your whole career is a choice and not a failure.
- peterbonney 10y ago
  > I actually think that the ageism in tech is a result of it being a young industry. As more and more dev's go grey the problem will resolve itself. Tell that to devs who worked in the dotcom boom, or the PC boom before that.
  - amcrouch 10y ago
    Perhaps then the issue is that all developers see a path to management as the only way to progress their career and in actual fact there is only a minority of developers who love their job enough to want to do it for their entire career?
    - other_herbert 10y ago
      I think this is true of a lot of devs... I have seen friends who who have gone into management because they didn't really love coding.. I've been doing this stuff since I was 9 and don't ever want to stop
daemonk 10y ago
I am getting to old geek status myself. From a more cynical perspective, I am not sure if we can compete with early twenty-somethings who are unjaded and buy into the silicon valley mystique. They are willing to work 12 hour days and still do the faux-japanese salarymen afterwork socializing that supposedly builds "culture". Older geeks don't buy into this ping-pong table propaganda. Tech companies probably won't be able to squeeze all the extra work out of us in the name of passion and culture. I guess the question is, can experience/skill/efficiency really out-produce a legion of young programmers who are willing to work 1.5-2X the hours? I have no idea.
- Jean-Philipe 10y ago
  > ping-pong table propaganda Thank you for enriching my vocabulary with this wonderful word!
  - bballer 10y ago
    Uh, that's a phrase, not a word...
- Swizec 10y ago
  A [decently managed] team of 5 will always outproduce you. No matter how little they work or how much better you are individually. But 1-on-1? Experience wins evey time. I'm not old old yet, but I do have the most experience[1] in my team. Spend the least time at work, strictly 8h/day, and am easily the top contributor by any engineering metric you can think of. Wish I could explain why or how, but the best I've been able to surmize is "I just get more done and spend less time going down wrong rabbit holes". [1] most experience with our particular stack/domain, not necessarily most general irl software engineering experience
  - narag 10y ago
    A [decently managed] team of 5 will always outproduce you. I wouldn't be so sure. It depends on the problem you're solving. Of course for routine work it would be like that.
Jean-Philipe 10y ago
I didn't feel this kind of bias here in Berlin. When founding FitAnalytics.com, we were three young students fresh from university, but all of us highly appreciated more senior programmers (40+) joining the team. Even if their language didn't fit our stack (C++ for a JS position), my experience was extremely positive, feeling that some programmers just get better with age, no matter the language du jour. Regarding pay, I feel that it's actually rising with age. I'm now myself heading towards the mid-30s and I'm not concerned at all. Some of my older programmer friends make more money than me and have more fun as well.
- kbart 10y ago
  I think this young programmers cult is more US centric problem. Or should I say SV centric problem. I didn't notice such widespread age discrimination in Europe. I'm not that old yet (30), but I've worked with many older programmer/engineers (40+) in several companies and most of them were highly respected, well-paid and got tons of other job offers. Sure, if you are stuck in eighties programming with Assembler only and dismiss C as high level language, don't blame anybody but yourself..
  - Practicality 10y ago
    Yeah, I am not having any trouble with it outside of SV. Employers see 17 years of experience and trip over themselves to hire me (and my peers, some of whom are older). The just-out-of-college kids can build you a website, sure, but they don't get the fun (or well paying) jobs.
- alpeb 10y ago
  It seems to me Berlin's startup ecosystem is heavily optimized for very young people. It's awesome the immigration process is so easy, but the minimum wage requirement for IT jobs is just 38,688 EUR. Lots of companies sponsoring visas, but with wages rarely above 50k EUR, even with a relatively low cost of living, they're only attracting young singles willing to sacrifice in order to get a blue card. And from the job pages videos I've seen (like Zalando), they explicitly state they're looking for young talent, and of course the ping-pong table propaganda (love that term!) is pretty standard.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Hey, is it possible to add the ability for other countries to post? We are a young and small British company who are getting very frustrated at having too many inexperienced applicants!
- onion2k 10y ago
  Posting things like that and not having a URL/email in your profile is a missed opportunity.
buro9 10y ago
This is neat, I would request that it could be international though. Restricting jobs to just US states is limiting, especially as many of the companies listed do hire internationally too. Just add "Not applicable / International" to the states drop down, and a Country picker.
Macuyiko 10y ago
Nice idea, but the site itself is clearly copied from https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/new https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/new -- even down to the segment headers. The only notable change is setting the font family to monospaced...
- buro9 10y ago
  They look nothing alike. The HTML structure is different The CSS is different. What limited JS exists is different. The layout of each list item is different. The only similarity, is that it is a list of jobs grouped by location and date. But that is a pretty obvious common pattern for a job site and hardly represents plagiarism.
  - Macuyiko 10y ago
    Check the new post page I actually linked to! All text is almost a verbatim copy. I'm not accusing of plagiarism (I didn't mention the word), but just notice the similarities, even down to "Example: Send a resume to jane@company.com" and the category listing. Here, see them side by side: http://imgur.com/a/9Rclx http://imgur.com/a/9Rclx
    - BatFastard 10y ago
      Macuyiko has a good point.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I don't know who copied who, but it's quite clear that those pages are way beyond just coming from the same idea. That text is far too verbatim.
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  Makes sense. An advantage with us Old Geeks is we don't like to re-invent the wheel ;-)
headmelted 10y ago
I actually love this. I've never worked in the valley, and honestly I feel no pressing urge to based on what I hear with regards to the bias in favour of twenty-somethings who can work 15+ hour days and live off of ramen. I'm pushing into my mid-thirties this year, I'm married with two young children, and I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. The thing is, I didn't do it then either, even when I could. I've always had the mentality that if I'm going to commit to your project, you're going to compensate me in cash or equity. It may also be why I'm happier in my career now that I contract than I ever was before. A days (genuinely hard) work for a days pay. I simply never understood why someone would give so much of themselves for free in the pursuit of someone else's goals without a substantial slice of the pie. I still don't. And I suspect this is in large part why older developers are looked over (although maybe there's more to it). Good job on the site, it certainly looks like its getting a lot of traction!
- EliRivers 10y ago
  I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. I find this is true in two ways; not only do I have better things to do now than donate free overtime to my employer, I am far better at not needing to. My best work in recent memory involved reading and thinking and sketching for a day and a half, and then adding six characters and a space to the front of one line of code; a decade ago, there is a real chance I would have ploughed into the problem with rewrites and architecture changes and all sorts of bad ideas. This does not solve the perennial problem that a less-skilled programmer thrashing away for days appears to be doing a lot more for the company than someone who sits unmoving for a morning and then strokes the code with a feather.
  - DeltaWhy 10y ago
    What were the six characters? Reminds me of the old joke/parable about the mechanic charging $1 for turning a screw and $499 for knowing which screw to turn.
    - philbarr 10y ago
mynameislegion 10y ago
How is 35 considered old?
- paganel 10y ago
  My question exactly. I'm 35 and do not consider myself to be old, far from it.
  - fecak 10y ago
    Part of this depends on where you are, if we're strictly talking about "old" in the engineer sense. 35 wouldn't be considered old in most parts of the country.
- smrtinsert 10y ago
  Within the Silicon Valley bubble. No other place would think like that.
superJimmy64 10y ago
(Not that it really matters, but I'm 27...) A few things came to me after reading the post: Firstly, how this situation shared by the OP and many others is pure insanity. That the very people who grew up with this technology during the baby years are now struggling to have a place now that it really has taken off. Secondly, for those in their mid-30's and onward, to realize how immensely skilled they likely are at writing (if not already recognizing this fact). One of my favorite parts of staying up to date in this industry is getting to read every and any type of work/post/article from the older guys (still must admit that 37 doesn't feel old to me). Because your time was spent communicating primarily electronically, this skill has spilled over into creative writing and all other forms, which makes for incredibly well-written pieces which keep me going to this very day. So thank you for that. Thirdly, how amazing it is that a person can now come up with an idea, build out the details and launch the website within 24 hours if truly determined. Loved the website, definitely think that as younger generations start to take advantage of the current tech and build their own on top of it, that there will be a need to differentiate between the various abilities/experience of devs. Nice work.
- cholantesh 10y ago
  >(still must admit that 37 doesn't feel old to me) Same; I find it a bit terrifying that 35+ is considered 'old' in our industry...
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    It's not, but he has to call himself old to give his business idea credibility. (which I think is fair, by the way)
    - superJimmy64 10y ago
      I dont think its as much a business-motivated thought, as it is an observation about there being a very distorted age spectrum associated with working in tech-related industries.
    - grobbles 10y ago
hobaak 10y ago
I am female, over 40 and an engineer with some management experience under the belt. When I go to event in SF (Valley is still better), I know that I am an outlier. One of the odds that deters conformity of the data model. I am happy to break the mold and willing to do it.
DrNuke 10y ago
A competent old geek is able to set up properly and very quickly but the day-to-day huffing & puffing implies a mix of stamina and boredom, that's why ping pong as a culture fit.
rcarmo 10y ago
I'm _so_ going to use that walker image. With luck, I'll remember it if I ever need a real walker later on.
- rootbear 10y ago
  I want make one for my mother! But it needs a blaster mounted on the front...
ThomPete 10y ago
I think Slack and Pando are actively hiring more experienced developers. Think luckily we will see this trend continue.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
9NRtKyP4 10y ago
I'd love to see this expanded to London, as someone who is fast approaching old geek status.
raffandi 10y ago
I find it troubling to hear that a 37 year old calling themselves old. There is no place for ageism in this world. Everyone has their own merit and it's got nothing to do with their age.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mark_l_watson 10y ago
As a programmer in my 60s, my (rather obvious) advice is to save and invest throughout your career so you have financial flexibility as you get older. I still very much enjoy working but when I have unbooked time I really enjoy that also. It also helps to have great hobbies. I enjoy writing (I am finishing up a Haskell book, and I have a partially written book on cognitive science that will get finished some day), I take many online classes, read a lot, hang out with friends and family, hiking, kayaking, etc. As we get older we do slow down. I don't charge very much money anymore as a consultant and I am careful to only take work appropriate to my skills. Now when I write, I do so at a slower pace. There is a natural order in life and I accept that.
- tome 10y ago
  > I am finishing up a Haskell book I'm really interested to hear that! Have you announced this at all or written anything about it?
  - mark_l_watson 10y ago
    https://leanpub.com/haskell-cookbook https://leanpub.com/haskell-cookbook
    - lubonay 10y ago
      Hey, I noticed a couple of things you might wanna improve in your leanpub profile page: 1. The first sentence has the word "Consultant" twice in a row 2. The first paragraph mixes first and third person, i.e. "Mark Watson is an awesome programmer. I use a bunch of techs" 3. The profile pic is stretched horizontally
      - mark_l_watson 10y ago
        Thanks, I will edit that right now.
- huherto 10y ago
  Awesome. Golden advice. We need role models to make this a fulfilling career in the long run too.
jensC 10y ago
I wished something similar would exist in Germany too. Maybe I should start a oldgeekjobs.de!
mathattack 10y ago
My 2 cents... 1 - The key to avoiding age discrimination is looking for a boss your age or older. Nothing stops the applicant from pre-selecting companies this way. This is also true if you have kids. 2 - There's less age discrimination ("cultural fit") in the Peninsula than SF because execs are more likely to have families.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  >The key to avoiding age discrimination is looking for a boss your age or older. // So age discrimination is how you avoid age discrimination ... hmmm.
emodendroket 10y ago
How much do people figure this problem is specific to the Bay Area?
losteverything 10y ago
Any jobs? I know: Format c: /s FWA BSS 0 \027&l10 And I have my own laplink (with cables!) and will let you borrow my Compaq portable laptop.
- kbob 10y ago
  Yeah? I know how to invoke IEFBR14 and could probably reimplement it from scratch.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
djb_hackernews 10y ago
Interesting idea, and I see age discrimination at my tech company every day, but I think the name is pretty lame and I can see it probably exacerbating the issue.
hellweaver666 10y ago
Nice site but it's very US-centric. Opportunities are available all around the world, why limit to only US states/cities (I have a whole bunch of jobs in Amsterdam that I could share if only it was possible!)
jontas 10y ago
At 33, with over a decade of experience as a professional software engineer, I have no interest working for a team that values long hours over steady productivity, elegant solutions, and thoughtful architecture. I know that plenty of companies have been built "quick and dirty", but honestly I think any company, regardless of size or stage, can benefit from someone with experience gained from building real applications. I live in NYC, not the valley, so maybe attitudes are a little different here, but I have no trouble finding work at companies that value my experience.
gwbas1c 10y ago
My experience is that a lot of the companies in the valley that are run by young people are very immature. The good companies hire a wide spectrum of experience levels. "Reading between the lines," I think the original poster needs to be a bit more selective about where he applies.
dejv 10y ago
If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road. I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do freelancing and work strictly alone. It was blast, but once my stream dry out I don't think I will ever find actual job: guy in late 30s/early 40s with string of trivial or dead end projects for unknown companies, no experience working in team and such. I am ok with it and I am having awesome time (and always had). Everybody just have to know on what career path they are and have plan B in their pocket.
- dvirsky 10y ago
  What makes you think your stream will dry out? Why wouldn't you be still doing this 10-20 years from now?
  - dejv 10y ago
    Who knows, my main income streams are developing Delphi 5 applications (dead market), iPhone apps (market is changing and I see much less new gigs for solo developers) and Rails apps. Low hanging fruits seems to be picked and each new app needs to be much better, which require bigger teams.
    - dvirsky 10y ago
      You should definitely invest in your skill set then, and learn new technologies if you want to stay in the game - but age is not the critical factor here. Perhaps you've lost your passion? I'm about a decade older than you and I'm still continuously working on evolving my skills and learning new languages and technologies. I do it primarily because it excites me, and as an added bonus it keeps me ahead in the game :) Actually, the career path of a consultant is from I'm seeing around me, a very solid path for older guys who love programming. I know a couple of 50+ year old guys who still get tons of work, and it seems like since they are consultants, no one cares about their "cultural fit" etc.
coldtea 10y ago
The fact that 40yo is considered "old" in this industry is why we have such shallow culture and so much cargo cult and rediscovery of stale (or even discarded) techniques as the latest BS fad. Consider a law firm or hospital with no professionals over 40... It fits with SV, because it just needs code monkeys to build what's basically simple apps in whatever language du jour. Things that are touted as big solutions in web-land for example, have been done, tried and are commonplace in all other parts of IT. Places and firms that build important stuff, where Computer Science matters (embedded code, OSes, databases, critical systems, etc) do hire "older" people, and some even mostly older people.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  E.g. - "No-SQL" reeks of the "Codasyl" model from the 60s, which relational databases replaced for good reason, whether or not Structured Query Language is the only way to interact with the tuples/tables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL Ad nauseam...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Exactly, NoSQLs are nothing new -- they are the tried and failed old, that got replaced by RDBMS for good reasons (unless you also have a good reason, e.g. you run at Google's scale). People do "data science" and don't even know the various canonical forms (which are mathematical notions that apply to all kinds of data models, not just SQL DBs).
    - Roboprog 10y ago
      Then there's a "nuance" aspect you could use: maybe we do want a hierarchical model -- in a "middleware" level, for a specific app, just not for the operational data store used by multiple applications. But your "yellow belt" coder might not do this, or, might build out a bunch of layers for something trivial, because that is what was in The Book. Amen! (preaching to the choir, at this point, sorry)
zackmorris 10y ago
I'm pushing 40 and am starting to measure my productivity by how much code I remove in a day, not how much I write. Is anyone else feeling that way? That much of what we do is a waste of time, that perhaps software is evolving in wrong directions due to issues like income inequality (wealth and expertise being at opposite ends of the spectrum) or worse is better? Sometimes I stare at the ceiling realizing that the entirety of what I'm working on can be represented by a symlinking filesystem or Excel spreadsheet. I'm not.. tired, more like, I'm tired of witnessing everything I've ever worked on being obsoleted in 3 years because yet another framework reinvents the wheel or proprietary solution opens a new market due to vendor lock-in. How did the web of declarative interoperating data become walled gardens and SAAS? There is money to be made yes, but is this progress? At some point, the problems fall away and it all starts to look more like the wheelings and dealings of Mad Men than computer science. Then the choice seems to be whether to make the most of things (find meaning in the unfulfilling) or take an early retirement. I'm not worried about finding work after I'm over the hill.. I'm worried about the very real possibility of my legacy being a portfolio instead of a real contribution to the betterment of humankind - building an R2D2 or software that actually frees people from labor. Anything short of that real progress feels like a waste of time, and I understand why it might not be prudent to hire someone who doesn't have profit as a primary motive. What really keeps me up at night is the thought that the idealism I’m feeling is nearly identical to what I felt as a youth, and I don't know if something has gone terribly wrong with the state of things or if the world just passed me by. P.S. I love my job. Really! I’m just running out of time for the future to arrive when I could be working on it now.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I feel very similar at times. I don't mind re-inventing the wheel if it's a much faster wheel, but typically... they hit the same pitfalls that the first wheel-builders hit. I do love my job, but I also don't want to move to the next new, hot framework because it's new and hot. I keep wondering if this is what burnout feels like, but then when I get home and I can work on any project I want, I find that there is so much cool stuff to learn that I get excited.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
hanginghyena 10y ago
Another old geezer here (43!); had a good run in my twenties and wound up in technical management a few years ago. A couple of tips: - The "hands on" technical skills that launched your career have capped (top salary) and declining value - If you take time to learn / think about how the underlying technology works (vs. just cut / paste / edit code), you can master related new technologies faster than the average bear. - It is also worth noting that technical challenges tend to repeat every couple of generations; the software developer community is operating within the same set of fundamental constraints (coder time, CPU speed, network, data, etc.), the main thing that changes is which constraint matters. And they repeat: at some point, CPU will be the constraint again and all ninja coder tricks of my twenties will matter again. - Architecture, process design, and people herding skills only grow with time; 80% of my value as a manager consists of making unnecessary work go away (without drama). I am much better at using these skills at 42 than I was at 24. - If you ever see an opportunity to build a side project that could turn into a business, take it. Even if you don't replace your income, this gives you additional control over the direction of your late career and skills you acquire. Note that I said side project and not startup; the intent to get more control over your direction without walking away from your day job and associated income / benefits.
- cerrelio 10y ago
  I'm 38, and I now find myself being coaxed into management. I was away from the Valley for about a decade and returned 4 years ago. My career has basically continued from where I left it despite not knowing most of the hot technologies when I returned. I simply learned them, and avoided the fads. Experience definitely helps you sidestep cargo cult development, spinning your wheels and wasting company time. I've worked with many junior devs over the years and I can see two axes along which engineers develop: those who know/learn actual computer science and software design (the math, software patterns, etc.) and those who don't; those who learn new technologies, and those who don't. If you're in both of the "don't" categories, your career stalls after about 4-5 years. Learning processes rather than technologies is very valuable, because processes produce things. Technologies are just the building blocks. I've seen too many developers who are one-trick ponies. They build the same systems over and over, only changing what technologies they use. "Sure, I can build you an MVC content management system in PHP!" -> "Sure, I can build you an MVC CMS in Rails!" -> "Sure, I can build you an MVC CMS in Node.js!" Those developers don't age well. Also, like you mentioned, I highly recommend trying your hand at entrepreneurship. If you have enough process skills, you can eventually handle designing and pushing a product. You might feel uncomfortable moving away from your vim window into the meeting room, but that's where the greater rewards are. And those 20-somethings are going to help you do that.
ensiferum 10y ago
Ok, so this is an advertisement. It'd be nice if people could clearly label things for what they are.
Futurebot 10y ago
I'm glad someone created this service and I hope it succeeds and sticks around. Since it won't/can't fix everything, here are my suggestions for dealing with ageism in technology: 1) Try to make your fortune early. Most won’t, but try anyway. Better to have given it a shot in your twenties/thirties/maybe forties, than to sit around at 56 wondering what you’re going to do with yourself. 2) Never stop learning. Everyone has to become lifelong learners in this new hyper-competitive economy. Even moreso for those with traditional “disadvantages” like being considered too old. Keep up with trends, keep reading those whitepapers, go back and review the basics every so often (this is a good idea anyway, IMO), learn at least the basics of the new whiz-bang thing that comes out (even if it’s just the “hello world” equivalent), and generally keep yourself “interview ready.” 3) Physical appearance matters. They may not be able to ask your age, but they can look at you, and they’ll form an opinion either consciously or subconsciously; though many find this incredibly distasteful, it is the reality. That means consider carefully whether smoking/alcohol/other intoxicants that affect your physical appearance are worth it. It behooves you to keep a regular exercise schedule. Cosmetic surgery is also an option; there are many tells for age you can fix: eyelid and eyebrow droop, under-eye and various other facial lines, hanging chin. Hair dye and grafts are also worth considering, as a receded hairline and whites/grays are obvious tells. 4) It probably goes without saying to keep up your professional network. 5) Another distasteful one, but perhaps worth thinking about: if you’re someone who is in the age bracket that is often considered “very likely to have a family,” but you don’t (especially if you don’t ever plan to), state it. Signaling that you don’t have large, difficult-to-discharge obligations could give you the edge you need; you might get mentally re-bracketed. I haven’t tried this one, since I’m not yet in the bracket nor do I appear to be, but I would probably do so if I were. 6) Companies that are truly hard up for good people (and not just the “we can’t hire (at the wage we wish to pay)” companies) will just have to be more flexible. Maybe they already are. Until we can fix the social / economic issues that underlie (some parts of) ageism, the above might help someone dealing with it on the ground.
BatFastard 10y ago
If I had a few millions under my belt, I would start a company that only employs empty nesters. Kids are out of the house usually. So you have a lot more free time. You have great experience, you know how to work with people, you know how to get things done, you have probably worked in 40 different techs. If you are writing software at this age you do it for love, not for money. I love to create, and software leads to the least cuts, burns, and pulled muscles of any career or hobby I have pursued!
pavlov 10y ago
A particularly strange thing about SV ageism is that some of the same people who think a 40-year-old is useless also hope to live forever. (Singularity, longevity breakthroughs, whatever.) What do they expect to be doing at 1000 years old? The explanation that springs to mind is that young techies lured by longevity expect to be part of "the only generation". Anyone older is too out of touch, and younger generations basically won't happen as immortals can't have kids nilly-willy. So the world would be eternally ruled by a cabal of geriatric techies born around 1990. Now that's a dystopic thought!
nlh 10y ago
Every time I read a post on here about ageism and that sort of crap in SV, I feel obligated to gloat ever-so-slightly that not all VC-backed, small, fast-growing, interesting startups out here fall into that mold. I've been extremely lucky to have joined what I see as the least ageist group of people I've ever worked with. Our CEO is in his late 40s. One of our engineers is in her 20s. One is in her 50s. I'm 38 and on the younger end of the curve, and that's totally, totally cool. We have lives outside the office and go home at night. If we feel like working on the weekends, we do, and if we don't, we don't. We have the occasional happy hour after work (like, every few months), and nobody is ostracized if they have other plans. Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I think it's important to remind everyone that the culture of 20s-or-bust has exceptions, the culture of work-or-die has exceptions, and the culture of your-life-is-your-startup most definitely has exceptions. I wish more startups followed suit. (ps - https://www.scalyr.com/company https://www.scalyr.com/company in case you don't believe me!)
- audleman 10y ago
  I'll chime in here. I work for a startup with two co-founders, one in his 50s and one in his 40s. I'm in my 30s and have two developers in their 20s. The founders are smart and know how to interview for talent, not age.
matthewowen 10y ago
I don't know if this has already been observed... but that fateful hiring decision (the lack of cultural fit with the 20-something brogrammers) sounds like a great one: there evidently was poor cultural fit. I know that you believe your experience is valuable and your perspectives correct. If you didn't, you wouldn't hold those perspectives. But likewise, the exact reason these people are starting their own company versus going and working under you at Xerox is probably because they disagree with your approach. I don't profess to know what the right answer is here. But I am very skeptical of claims of age discrimination when the author also says that these young 20 somethings don't know what they're doing and don't appreciate the hard won lore an older developer can bring. This clearly undermines the age discrimination notion, because it indicates that there is an attitudinal difference, and that difference could well be a net negative and a thoroughly reasonable thing to hire based on. Again, this isn't intended as a judgement on who has the right perspective. I think many (not all) younger engineers would have fuller perspectives if they had more hard won experience, but I also think many (not all) older engineers may have a bias toward BigCo approaches that are at a different place with regard to the trade of between quality and speed to first version. But a lot of people start companies because they want to do things their way. Complaining about the way they choose (outside of things that are actually illegal) seems futile.
nathan_long 10y ago
> It’s not easy getting a job at a Silicon Valley startup of twenty-somethings when you’re a 37 year old programmer like me. [CTO drives up in an Uber, lowers the window] CTO: "Old woman!" You: "Man!" CTO: "Man, sorry. Who here knows React?" You: "I'm 37, I'm not old!"
iandanforth 10y ago
Blog - "Post your jobs free" Actual website - "Post a job for $50"
okreallywtf 10y ago
I don't work anywhere near silicon valley but I am in a very small (<10 people) dev shop on the east coast and my experience has actually been exactly opposite. Out of the 4 developers I am currently the youngest at 32 (we had a 23 y/o at one point though for a period of time). The IT/dev industry here seems to be older on average with lots of devs in the 40-50 range. I have noticed some minor ageism towards younger developers but it tends to be more jovial teasing and joking about how lucky younger devs are to have the tech ecosystems that we do as opposed to 10-20 years ago. Most of the ageism I see is related to popular culture (music, movies, etc) which can still be somewhat toxic when any age group assumes that only the media from their generation was good and everything else is crap. I have noticed more bias against devs without formal education (which everyone else has with either bachelors or masters in CS) but if a well self-taught dev without a degree came in I don't think it would be an issue. For the most part though the "older" (its hard to think of people in their early-mid 40's as old right now) devs have a wealth of experience from whom I parasitically absorb as much as I can. It doesn't hurt that they are as competent in new tech stacks as most younger devs (even if they are more conservative about when to adopt new tools, giving them time to mature). The culture here is that someone has to make a really good case for why we should pull a ton of overtime, more often than not someone made promises they shouldn't have and its not our job to deliver on timeframes we were not consulted on. What OT work I have done I have been compensated extra for but it is partly the influence of the older devs that makes me feel like I should expect compensation when I go above and beyond. Thats not to say I'm not willing to do it to help the company (which helps us all), but I think I was able to pass the naive stage a lot quicker and I could have been taken advantage of much more in a bigger company without our developer culture.
Tistel 10y ago
Ugh. This is so me. I turned 40 last year. Did CS, writing code is still the fun part of the job. Anyway, I used to maintain a fashionable amount of stubble. This year I noticed my beard was starting to go grey. Now I shave a lot more to hide it. This is the first time in my professional life I have started worrying about being judged on how I look. I also need to change the way I dress. I am too old to keep doing the tshirt, jeans and running shoes thing. I think I will go with: polo shirt, jean and leather shoes. Ha! Those damn whippersnappers won't spot me! try searching for: "kids in the hall He's Hip. He's Cool. He's 45!" If the story about Gosling is even 10% accurate, that is shocking.
odonnellryan 10y ago
I would absolutely _love_ to have some more experienced people on my team.
sjclemmy 10y ago
As long as you're interested in software development and that's why you get up in the morning, it doesn't matter how old you are.
jaysonelliot 10y ago
When a 37 year old has to say he's "old," there's something terribly wrong with our industry. How is any industry supposed to build a repository of expertise and wisdom if we're telling people they're washed up before they're even old enough to have their student loans paid off?
inanutshellus 10y ago
When I was a 20-something I'd scratch my head at having hired guys that had never heard of version control, and didn't think in OO terms. I turned my nose up to procedural programming they wrote with ease. I wrote them off at the time out of tech-bias-myopia that is intrinsically age-based. Question is, what will I be written off for that I can then blame on age? What if I disagree with the new trend? "These young whipper-snappers with their javascripts on the servers! Fools, the whole lot!"
agentultra 10y ago
I think it takes all kinds to make a good team. Young, old, men, women, and everyone across the spectrum. As an older geek now it's easy to look back at how naïve and energetic I was in my youth... but I did a lot of good work then too. I'm not much slower now but I'm much more calculating and tactical. I work on a team with an unbalanced mix of age... but working with my younger colleagues is always a pleasure. We help each other back and forth with various aspects of the problem.
awt 10y ago
I have achieved some consolation for pouring years of my life into technologies which I should have known would become obsolete by spending the last few years studying classical languages (mostly Attic Greek), the knowledge of which will never be obsolete. I believe there is also some value in studying the classics of Computer Science as well (Turing, Shannon, McCarthy, Graham, Dijkstra, etc.), and doing CS archeology (building retro computers from old parts, etc.). This knowledge won't help me get a job as a coder at an SV startup, but it does help me to understand why I shouldn't try to get it, and to ease the discomfort of a fate of relative poverty.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bsder 10y ago
My one comment would be: GET OUT OF THE VALLEY. People have far less resistance to hiring people of various ages outside of Silicon Valley.
zem 10y ago
37 (!) ironically, 37 was the last age at which i felt "young", for some vague psychological reason 38 was the year that tipped me into "sliding towards middle age".
- zackmorris 10y ago
  Same here (now 39). Also same initials but with an "s" in the middle :-)
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Ageism is definitely a thing but its also an interesting strategic advantage. Historically the company with the best mix of experience and energy have been the ones that succeed in the long run. That said, for the first 2 - 5 years of their life a company is pretty much a random series of experiences teaching the employees what they don't know. They have to get to the point where they can actually see that there is a lot to learn and not enough time to learn it before they can value someone who has that experience. Old engineers are like security enhancements, they seem to cost more than they are worth until you experience an event that would have killed your company if they hadn't been there.
gopi 10y ago
Goodluck with your YC application

398 points by johnwheeler 10y ago

Interesting idea whose time perhaps has come. As a 38 year old developer who frequents HN and sees age related posts every once in a while, I am worried about my prospects after turning 40... Although I have no other reason to believe that I've been discriminated against over my age so far. Maybe this is a more of a Valley syndrome, or a US syndrome. In anycase, the fact that our industry itself can be thought of being around 40-50 years old now, something like this is perhaps a good thing.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

I love it. Good luck!

jmspring 10y ago

I got invited to a YC event - meet companies, they pitched - a recruiting event. More than a few pulled the "we work hard, play hard, are a family" card. If you have friends/family, avoid such. Cultural fit is bull shit. It's about getting people to work more at a fixed rate. I've been there, done that, ran away to better things. As someone expected to write code - make sure "operations" isn't a hidden requirement - devops - could meaning call duty. If you were not required to be operational when hired, and suddenly fall into the roll, start looking around. Operations takes planning, but some use "culture" as an excuse for lack of planning.

osullivj 10y ago
Claiming "we are a family" in a business environment is always a reg flag for me. Team is a much better metaphor. Sports teams back each other up, but ultimately underperformers get dropped. You don't get fired from a family, you don't stop being a brother, sister, father or mother.
- dfsegoat 10y ago
  This. The most tight knit people I've met are in military special operations: Nothing comes close to the combination of technical skills, teamwork and ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. The telling thing is: Not once have I heard these folks refer to themselves as a "family" - almost like it is an insult to what family really is (separate and sacred). Only have I heard them refer to themselves collectively as a "team" or a "community".
  - porker 10y ago
    > military special operations: Nothing comes close to the [...] ability to mitigate "interpersonal friction" that those guys have, IMO. Any training material, courses or books on this? I need to improve my handling of "interpersonal friction".
    - spitfire 10y ago
      MCDP-1
    - dfsegoat 10y ago
      Check out any books / articles relating to the Marine Corps' "The Basic School" - It is where newly commissioned officers (and warrant officers) learn how to lead Marines. My fav is: "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer" - by Nate Fick. Long story short - The Basic School and training cadre are so effective at producing outstanding leaders, that MBA programs like Harvard and Wharton have built in a number of aspects of it to their "team building" courses / sequences: http://news.smeal.psu.edu/news-archive/2014/united-states-marine-corps-offers-mba-students-unique-glimpse-into-leadership http://news.smeal.psu.edu/news-archive/2014/united-states-ma...
- bigtex 10y ago
  Thanks for the great analogy. My employer had layoffs recently but has always referred to employees as family. always thought that was a terrible analogy as you said because you don't fire your mom or dad.
- 10y ago

AdeptusAquinas 10y ago

It seems to me that, as others have suggested, this might be just a silicon valley bias, real or perceived. At 32, my skills in both hard and soft outstrip anything a developer in their early twenties could match, no matter how passionate or innately skilled they are. There is a certain 'momentum' you pick up as you get older, especially if you have been constantly feeding it with new experiences, learnings and failures. Having confidence and the skill to back it up can only be obtained with a decade or two in the industry. And if my contracting rates and employment prospects are anything to go by, employers recognise that.

mikekchar 10y ago
I would say that in my late 30's I was hitting my peak in terms of raw ability and experience. At least as far as ability is concerned, I really didn't hit a downturn until much later. Now, getting on to 50, I'm noticing that my ability to deal with complexity is quite a bit diminished. But my tolerance for complexity is likewise diminished. When I would have accepted a poorly factored solution, now I scratch my head until I find a way that allows me to understand it. When you get down to it, do you really want to tailor your code base to the top 1% of coders? How will you sustain that practice? By paying people 4 times as much? Even then you aren't going to nab all the amazing people. Hire some people who know how to dumb down your code base. It pays dividends.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  Yup. The "we only hire the best" thought process is delusional and irrational.
- initram 10y ago
  >When you get down to it, do you really want to tailor your code base to the top 1% of coders? I think I agree with your sentiment, but to me a "top 1% coder" is someone who knows how to make things simple and readable, and knows the best abstraction to use for the goal. It's not the person who can write and/or follow the most complicated code. To me complicated code is generally a sign of a poor coder. There are exceptions, but they're rare.

epalmer 10y ago

I will be 63 in a few days. If 37+ makes you an old geek I must be ancient. At least I am employed.

njloof 10y ago
If you remember fixing a Y2K bug, you must be an old geek.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  There are plenty of people who worked on Y2K bugs who are not even old enough to be a US President.
  - pc86 10y ago
    I mean that sounds neat but the math doesn't match up. You have to be 35 to be President, so being generous let's take a 35 year old now, so they were born in 1982 give or take (2017-35). They would have had to get a programming job right out of HS and even then best case it would have been halfway through 1999. More accurately, they likely didn't enter the workforce until 2004 or 2005.
    - ccallebs 10y ago
      Y2K bugs didn't disappear when the clock struck midnight on December 31. Many appeared for the first time.
      - pc86 10y ago
        Who was fixing Y2K bugs in 2004/5?
    - auntienomen 10y ago
      Or they'd have to have been programming as college students. This wasn't uncommon when I was in school.

jkot 10y ago

> I’ve published a dozen articles ... build software with thousands of paying customers. ... work on open source Python. ... read almost 40 business books, and I live and breathe HackerNews. Why not start your own business or become CTO? Why work for someone less experienced?

pjmlp 10y ago
Risk, amount of work hours?
yetihehe 10y ago
Not everyone want's to be a CTO, I'm thinking about that but I would prefer to be a programmer. I'm only 32.
- wruza 10y ago
  32 too. Recently I suddenly got CTO-like responsibilities and at first glance it was not what I wanted to do. There was fear whether employees will understand and do it right way. Otoh, I think it is what we actually should do -- merge our experience and vision into the team at high level, because it allows to build something bigger and greater than just yourself. As I read recently in some book, good leader doesn't control things, but provides correct context of thinking, allows others to participate in their way to the common goal. I missed these context constraints when I was young, so many efforts simply lost in unnecessary details.
Insanity 10y ago
Starting your own business always entails some risk. Some people are not comfortable taking that risk, surely if you have a family to support it might not be feasible. This depends a bit on the country where you live, but where I live you are liable for your company - which means that what you own privately is shared. I don't know how it's like where he lives, but the risk might not be worth it. It also takes a huge amount of dedication and work to make it work, I can imagine that at his age, his priority would lie with his family. (Hell, I'm a decade younger and my priority lies there, wife + kids should be a priority). Of course, the CTO option seems good in that case :-)

mrschwabe 10y ago

If Jaromir Jagr, at 44 years of age, can play at the highest level of professional hockey in the world, leading his young team in points (and 2nd in goals) last season [1] just imagine what a programmer can do with the same level of focus and determination at that age and beyond. [1] https://www.nhl.com/panthers/stats/regular-season/skaters/p https://www.nhl.com/panthers/stats/regular-season/skaters/p

arethuza 10y ago
Chris Terril completed Royal Marine Commando training at 55! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Terrill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Terrill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmlHxIqVoxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmlHxIqVoxE NB He did this so that he would feel fit enough to accompany them as a reporter to Afghanistan - I think the normal upper age limit is 27.
- whatusername 10y ago
  Cliff Young won an Ultra Marathon at 61! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)
onion2k 10y ago
Isn't the main argument against employing older developers that they won't have that level of focus and determination? Pointing to an statistical anomaly and suggesting that older people can be that focused is easily countered with an argument that, while that's true, it's far more likely that a younger person will have the traits you're looking for, so you should employ them instead. A rare example of a hyper-focused older person[1] isn't a reason to hire older people. Hiring is about filling a position with someone capable of doing what's necessary. It's not about finding someone exceptional. You want to get someone in and get them up to speed as fast as you can in order to move on to doing things that drive your business forwards. To that end, older, experienced people are very often better than younger people because they've already proven they can do the job. [1] 44 isn't old.
- 10y ago

kranner 10y ago

Great idea but I'm not sure it's a good idea to post non-green jobs at all.

amcrouch 10y ago

This is an AWESOME idea and I totally appreciate both Tim's original article on the subject and your efforts on this job site. As a CTO I have long appreciated real world knowledge and experience over inexperienced, cheap, eagerness. Our employee's are all 30+, most have families and I believe that leads to well balanced and focused employee's. That is not to say I would not hire a younger employee but with age comes the kind of experience you need when building a new company quickly. To be honest the "we work hard and play hard - we are a family" line would have put me off of a role even in my early 20's. Just because I want to work hard, it doesn't mean I want to always be hanging out with a team, I want a life as well. I actually think that the ageism in tech is a result of it being a young industry. As more and more dev's go grey the problem will resolve itself. One final note I have seen here and on other places - The why not become a CTO or Start your own company suggestion is fine for those that want to but there are a large number of developers who actually _love_ being a developer and have no interest in moving up into management. That's great and I hope that as the industry matures people realise that being a developer for your whole career is a choice and not a failure.

peterbonney 10y ago
> I actually think that the ageism in tech is a result of it being a young industry. As more and more dev's go grey the problem will resolve itself. Tell that to devs who worked in the dotcom boom, or the PC boom before that.
- amcrouch 10y ago
  Perhaps then the issue is that all developers see a path to management as the only way to progress their career and in actual fact there is only a minority of developers who love their job enough to want to do it for their entire career?
  - other_herbert 10y ago
    I think this is true of a lot of devs... I have seen friends who who have gone into management because they didn't really love coding.. I've been doing this stuff since I was 9 and don't ever want to stop

daemonk 10y ago

I am getting to old geek status myself. From a more cynical perspective, I am not sure if we can compete with early twenty-somethings who are unjaded and buy into the silicon valley mystique. They are willing to work 12 hour days and still do the faux-japanese salarymen afterwork socializing that supposedly builds "culture". Older geeks don't buy into this ping-pong table propaganda. Tech companies probably won't be able to squeeze all the extra work out of us in the name of passion and culture. I guess the question is, can experience/skill/efficiency really out-produce a legion of young programmers who are willing to work 1.5-2X the hours? I have no idea.

Jean-Philipe 10y ago
> ping-pong table propaganda Thank you for enriching my vocabulary with this wonderful word!
- bballer 10y ago
  Uh, that's a phrase, not a word...
Swizec 10y ago
A [decently managed] team of 5 will always outproduce you. No matter how little they work or how much better you are individually. But 1-on-1? Experience wins evey time. I'm not old old yet, but I do have the most experience[1] in my team. Spend the least time at work, strictly 8h/day, and am easily the top contributor by any engineering metric you can think of. Wish I could explain why or how, but the best I've been able to surmize is "I just get more done and spend less time going down wrong rabbit holes". [1] most experience with our particular stack/domain, not necessarily most general irl software engineering experience
- narag 10y ago
  A [decently managed] team of 5 will always outproduce you. I wouldn't be so sure. It depends on the problem you're solving. Of course for routine work it would be like that.

Jean-Philipe 10y ago

I didn't feel this kind of bias here in Berlin. When founding FitAnalytics.com, we were three young students fresh from university, but all of us highly appreciated more senior programmers (40+) joining the team. Even if their language didn't fit our stack (C++ for a JS position), my experience was extremely positive, feeling that some programmers just get better with age, no matter the language du jour. Regarding pay, I feel that it's actually rising with age. I'm now myself heading towards the mid-30s and I'm not concerned at all. Some of my older programmer friends make more money than me and have more fun as well.

kbart 10y ago
I think this young programmers cult is more US centric problem. Or should I say SV centric problem. I didn't notice such widespread age discrimination in Europe. I'm not that old yet (30), but I've worked with many older programmer/engineers (40+) in several companies and most of them were highly respected, well-paid and got tons of other job offers. Sure, if you are stuck in eighties programming with Assembler only and dismiss C as high level language, don't blame anybody but yourself..
- Practicality 10y ago
  Yeah, I am not having any trouble with it outside of SV. Employers see 17 years of experience and trip over themselves to hire me (and my peers, some of whom are older). The just-out-of-college kids can build you a website, sure, but they don't get the fun (or well paying) jobs.
alpeb 10y ago
It seems to me Berlin's startup ecosystem is heavily optimized for very young people. It's awesome the immigration process is so easy, but the minimum wage requirement for IT jobs is just 38,688 EUR. Lots of companies sponsoring visas, but with wages rarely above 50k EUR, even with a relatively low cost of living, they're only attracting young singles willing to sacrifice in order to get a blue card. And from the job pages videos I've seen (like Zalando), they explicitly state they're looking for young talent, and of course the ping-pong table propaganda (love that term!) is pretty standard.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

Hey, is it possible to add the ability for other countries to post? We are a young and small British company who are getting very frustrated at having too many inexperienced applicants!

onion2k 10y ago
Posting things like that and not having a URL/email in your profile is a missed opportunity.

buro9 10y ago

This is neat, I would request that it could be international though. Restricting jobs to just US states is limiting, especially as many of the companies listed do hire internationally too. Just add "Not applicable / International" to the states drop down, and a Country picker.

Macuyiko 10y ago

Nice idea, but the site itself is clearly copied from https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/new https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/new -- even down to the segment headers. The only notable change is setting the font family to monospaced...

buro9 10y ago
They look nothing alike. The HTML structure is different The CSS is different. What limited JS exists is different. The layout of each list item is different. The only similarity, is that it is a list of jobs grouped by location and date. But that is a pretty obvious common pattern for a job site and hardly represents plagiarism.
- Macuyiko 10y ago
  Check the new post page I actually linked to! All text is almost a verbatim copy. I'm not accusing of plagiarism (I didn't mention the word), but just notice the similarities, even down to "Example: Send a resume to jane@company.com" and the category listing. Here, see them side by side: http://imgur.com/a/9Rclx http://imgur.com/a/9Rclx
  - BatFastard 10y ago
    Macuyiko has a good point.
wccrawford 10y ago
I don't know who copied who, but it's quite clear that those pages are way beyond just coming from the same idea. That text is far too verbatim.
hackaflocka 10y ago
Makes sense. An advantage with us Old Geeks is we don't like to re-invent the wheel ;-)

headmelted 10y ago

I actually love this. I've never worked in the valley, and honestly I feel no pressing urge to based on what I hear with regards to the bias in favour of twenty-somethings who can work 15+ hour days and live off of ramen. I'm pushing into my mid-thirties this year, I'm married with two young children, and I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. The thing is, I didn't do it then either, even when I could. I've always had the mentality that if I'm going to commit to your project, you're going to compensate me in cash or equity. It may also be why I'm happier in my career now that I contract than I ever was before. A days (genuinely hard) work for a days pay. I simply never understood why someone would give so much of themselves for free in the pursuit of someone else's goals without a substantial slice of the pie. I still don't. And I suspect this is in large part why older developers are looked over (although maybe there's more to it). Good job on the site, it certainly looks like its getting a lot of traction!

EliRivers 10y ago
I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. I find this is true in two ways; not only do I have better things to do now than donate free overtime to my employer, I am far better at not needing to. My best work in recent memory involved reading and thinking and sketching for a day and a half, and then adding six characters and a space to the front of one line of code; a decade ago, there is a real chance I would have ploughed into the problem with rewrites and architecture changes and all sorts of bad ideas. This does not solve the perennial problem that a less-skilled programmer thrashing away for days appears to be doing a lot more for the company than someone who sits unmoving for a morning and then strokes the code with a feather.
- DeltaWhy 10y ago
  What were the six characters? Reminds me of the old joke/parable about the mechanic charging $1 for turning a screw and $499 for knowing which screw to turn.
  - philbarr 10y ago

mynameislegion 10y ago

How is 35 considered old?

paganel 10y ago
My question exactly. I'm 35 and do not consider myself to be old, far from it.
- fecak 10y ago
  Part of this depends on where you are, if we're strictly talking about "old" in the engineer sense. 35 wouldn't be considered old in most parts of the country.
smrtinsert 10y ago
Within the Silicon Valley bubble. No other place would think like that.

superJimmy64 10y ago

(Not that it really matters, but I'm 27...) A few things came to me after reading the post: Firstly, how this situation shared by the OP and many others is pure insanity. That the very people who grew up with this technology during the baby years are now struggling to have a place now that it really has taken off. Secondly, for those in their mid-30's and onward, to realize how immensely skilled they likely are at writing (if not already recognizing this fact). One of my favorite parts of staying up to date in this industry is getting to read every and any type of work/post/article from the older guys (still must admit that 37 doesn't feel old to me). Because your time was spent communicating primarily electronically, this skill has spilled over into creative writing and all other forms, which makes for incredibly well-written pieces which keep me going to this very day. So thank you for that. Thirdly, how amazing it is that a person can now come up with an idea, build out the details and launch the website within 24 hours if truly determined. Loved the website, definitely think that as younger generations start to take advantage of the current tech and build their own on top of it, that there will be a need to differentiate between the various abilities/experience of devs. Nice work.

cholantesh 10y ago
>(still must admit that 37 doesn't feel old to me) Same; I find it a bit terrifying that 35+ is considered 'old' in our industry...
- skrebbel 10y ago
  It's not, but he has to call himself old to give his business idea credibility. (which I think is fair, by the way)
  - superJimmy64 10y ago
    I dont think its as much a business-motivated thought, as it is an observation about there being a very distorted age spectrum associated with working in tech-related industries.
  - grobbles 10y ago

hobaak 10y ago

I am female, over 40 and an engineer with some management experience under the belt. When I go to event in SF (Valley is still better), I know that I am an outlier. One of the odds that deters conformity of the data model. I am happy to break the mold and willing to do it.

DrNuke 10y ago

A competent old geek is able to set up properly and very quickly but the day-to-day huffing & puffing implies a mix of stamina and boredom, that's why ping pong as a culture fit.

rcarmo 10y ago

I'm _so_ going to use that walker image. With luck, I'll remember it if I ever need a real walker later on.

rootbear 10y ago
I want make one for my mother! But it needs a blaster mounted on the front...

ThomPete 10y ago

I think Slack and Pando are actively hiring more experienced developers. Think luckily we will see this trend continue.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

9NRtKyP4 10y ago

I'd love to see this expanded to London, as someone who is fast approaching old geek status.

raffandi 10y ago

I find it troubling to hear that a 37 year old calling themselves old. There is no place for ageism in this world. Everyone has their own merit and it's got nothing to do with their age.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mark_l_watson 10y ago

As a programmer in my 60s, my (rather obvious) advice is to save and invest throughout your career so you have financial flexibility as you get older. I still very much enjoy working but when I have unbooked time I really enjoy that also. It also helps to have great hobbies. I enjoy writing (I am finishing up a Haskell book, and I have a partially written book on cognitive science that will get finished some day), I take many online classes, read a lot, hang out with friends and family, hiking, kayaking, etc. As we get older we do slow down. I don't charge very much money anymore as a consultant and I am careful to only take work appropriate to my skills. Now when I write, I do so at a slower pace. There is a natural order in life and I accept that.

tome 10y ago
> I am finishing up a Haskell book I'm really interested to hear that! Have you announced this at all or written anything about it?
- mark_l_watson 10y ago
  https://leanpub.com/haskell-cookbook https://leanpub.com/haskell-cookbook
  - lubonay 10y ago
    Hey, I noticed a couple of things you might wanna improve in your leanpub profile page: 1. The first sentence has the word "Consultant" twice in a row 2. The first paragraph mixes first and third person, i.e. "Mark Watson is an awesome programmer. I use a bunch of techs" 3. The profile pic is stretched horizontally
    - mark_l_watson 10y ago
      Thanks, I will edit that right now.
huherto 10y ago
Awesome. Golden advice. We need role models to make this a fulfilling career in the long run too.

jensC 10y ago

I wished something similar would exist in Germany too. Maybe I should start a oldgeekjobs.de!

mathattack 10y ago

My 2 cents... 1 - The key to avoiding age discrimination is looking for a boss your age or older. Nothing stops the applicant from pre-selecting companies this way. This is also true if you have kids. 2 - There's less age discrimination ("cultural fit") in the Peninsula than SF because execs are more likely to have families.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>The key to avoiding age discrimination is looking for a boss your age or older. // So age discrimination is how you avoid age discrimination ... hmmm.

emodendroket 10y ago

How much do people figure this problem is specific to the Bay Area?

losteverything 10y ago

Any jobs? I know: Format c: /s FWA BSS 0 \027&l10 And I have my own laplink (with cables!) and will let you borrow my Compaq portable laptop.

kbob 10y ago
Yeah? I know how to invoke IEFBR14 and could probably reimplement it from scratch.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

djb_hackernews 10y ago

Interesting idea, and I see age discrimination at my tech company every day, but I think the name is pretty lame and I can see it probably exacerbating the issue.

hellweaver666 10y ago

Nice site but it's very US-centric. Opportunities are available all around the world, why limit to only US states/cities (I have a whole bunch of jobs in Amsterdam that I could share if only it was possible!)

jontas 10y ago

At 33, with over a decade of experience as a professional software engineer, I have no interest working for a team that values long hours over steady productivity, elegant solutions, and thoughtful architecture. I know that plenty of companies have been built "quick and dirty", but honestly I think any company, regardless of size or stage, can benefit from someone with experience gained from building real applications. I live in NYC, not the valley, so maybe attitudes are a little different here, but I have no trouble finding work at companies that value my experience.

gwbas1c 10y ago

My experience is that a lot of the companies in the valley that are run by young people are very immature. The good companies hire a wide spectrum of experience levels. "Reading between the lines," I think the original poster needs to be a bit more selective about where he applies.

dejv 10y ago

If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road. I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do freelancing and work strictly alone. It was blast, but once my stream dry out I don't think I will ever find actual job: guy in late 30s/early 40s with string of trivial or dead end projects for unknown companies, no experience working in team and such. I am ok with it and I am having awesome time (and always had). Everybody just have to know on what career path they are and have plan B in their pocket.

dvirsky 10y ago
What makes you think your stream will dry out? Why wouldn't you be still doing this 10-20 years from now?
- dejv 10y ago
  Who knows, my main income streams are developing Delphi 5 applications (dead market), iPhone apps (market is changing and I see much less new gigs for solo developers) and Rails apps. Low hanging fruits seems to be picked and each new app needs to be much better, which require bigger teams.
  - dvirsky 10y ago
    You should definitely invest in your skill set then, and learn new technologies if you want to stay in the game - but age is not the critical factor here. Perhaps you've lost your passion? I'm about a decade older than you and I'm still continuously working on evolving my skills and learning new languages and technologies. I do it primarily because it excites me, and as an added bonus it keeps me ahead in the game :) Actually, the career path of a consultant is from I'm seeing around me, a very solid path for older guys who love programming. I know a couple of 50+ year old guys who still get tons of work, and it seems like since they are consultants, no one cares about their "cultural fit" etc.

coldtea 10y ago

The fact that 40yo is considered "old" in this industry is why we have such shallow culture and so much cargo cult and rediscovery of stale (or even discarded) techniques as the latest BS fad. Consider a law firm or hospital with no professionals over 40... It fits with SV, because it just needs code monkeys to build what's basically simple apps in whatever language du jour. Things that are touted as big solutions in web-land for example, have been done, tried and are commonplace in all other parts of IT. Places and firms that build important stuff, where Computer Science matters (embedded code, OSes, databases, critical systems, etc) do hire "older" people, and some even mostly older people.

Roboprog 10y ago
E.g. - "No-SQL" reeks of the "Codasyl" model from the 60s, which relational databases replaced for good reason, whether or not Structured Query Language is the only way to interact with the tuples/tables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL Ad nauseam...
- coldtea 10y ago
  Exactly, NoSQLs are nothing new -- they are the tried and failed old, that got replaced by RDBMS for good reasons (unless you also have a good reason, e.g. you run at Google's scale). People do "data science" and don't even know the various canonical forms (which are mathematical notions that apply to all kinds of data models, not just SQL DBs).
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    Then there's a "nuance" aspect you could use: maybe we do want a hierarchical model -- in a "middleware" level, for a specific app, just not for the operational data store used by multiple applications. But your "yellow belt" coder might not do this, or, might build out a bunch of layers for something trivial, because that is what was in The Book. Amen! (preaching to the choir, at this point, sorry)

zackmorris 10y ago

I'm pushing 40 and am starting to measure my productivity by how much code I remove in a day, not how much I write. Is anyone else feeling that way? That much of what we do is a waste of time, that perhaps software is evolving in wrong directions due to issues like income inequality (wealth and expertise being at opposite ends of the spectrum) or worse is better? Sometimes I stare at the ceiling realizing that the entirety of what I'm working on can be represented by a symlinking filesystem or Excel spreadsheet. I'm not.. tired, more like, I'm tired of witnessing everything I've ever worked on being obsoleted in 3 years because yet another framework reinvents the wheel or proprietary solution opens a new market due to vendor lock-in. How did the web of declarative interoperating data become walled gardens and SAAS? There is money to be made yes, but is this progress? At some point, the problems fall away and it all starts to look more like the wheelings and dealings of Mad Men than computer science. Then the choice seems to be whether to make the most of things (find meaning in the unfulfilling) or take an early retirement. I'm not worried about finding work after I'm over the hill.. I'm worried about the very real possibility of my legacy being a portfolio instead of a real contribution to the betterment of humankind - building an R2D2 or software that actually frees people from labor. Anything short of that real progress feels like a waste of time, and I understand why it might not be prudent to hire someone who doesn't have profit as a primary motive. What really keeps me up at night is the thought that the idealism I’m feeling is nearly identical to what I felt as a youth, and I don't know if something has gone terribly wrong with the state of things or if the world just passed me by. P.S. I love my job. Really! I’m just running out of time for the future to arrive when I could be working on it now.

CaptSpify 10y ago
I feel very similar at times. I don't mind re-inventing the wheel if it's a much faster wheel, but typically... they hit the same pitfalls that the first wheel-builders hit. I do love my job, but I also don't want to move to the next new, hot framework because it's new and hot. I keep wondering if this is what burnout feels like, but then when I get home and I can work on any project I want, I find that there is so much cool stuff to learn that I get excited.
pmoriarty 10y ago

hanginghyena 10y ago

Another old geezer here (43!); had a good run in my twenties and wound up in technical management a few years ago. A couple of tips: - The "hands on" technical skills that launched your career have capped (top salary) and declining value - If you take time to learn / think about how the underlying technology works (vs. just cut / paste / edit code), you can master related new technologies faster than the average bear. - It is also worth noting that technical challenges tend to repeat every couple of generations; the software developer community is operating within the same set of fundamental constraints (coder time, CPU speed, network, data, etc.), the main thing that changes is which constraint matters. And they repeat: at some point, CPU will be the constraint again and all ninja coder tricks of my twenties will matter again. - Architecture, process design, and people herding skills only grow with time; 80% of my value as a manager consists of making unnecessary work go away (without drama). I am much better at using these skills at 42 than I was at 24. - If you ever see an opportunity to build a side project that could turn into a business, take it. Even if you don't replace your income, this gives you additional control over the direction of your late career and skills you acquire. Note that I said side project and not startup; the intent to get more control over your direction without walking away from your day job and associated income / benefits.

cerrelio 10y ago
I'm 38, and I now find myself being coaxed into management. I was away from the Valley for about a decade and returned 4 years ago. My career has basically continued from where I left it despite not knowing most of the hot technologies when I returned. I simply learned them, and avoided the fads. Experience definitely helps you sidestep cargo cult development, spinning your wheels and wasting company time. I've worked with many junior devs over the years and I can see two axes along which engineers develop: those who know/learn actual computer science and software design (the math, software patterns, etc.) and those who don't; those who learn new technologies, and those who don't. If you're in both of the "don't" categories, your career stalls after about 4-5 years. Learning processes rather than technologies is very valuable, because processes produce things. Technologies are just the building blocks. I've seen too many developers who are one-trick ponies. They build the same systems over and over, only changing what technologies they use. "Sure, I can build you an MVC content management system in PHP!" -> "Sure, I can build you an MVC CMS in Rails!" -> "Sure, I can build you an MVC CMS in Node.js!" Those developers don't age well. Also, like you mentioned, I highly recommend trying your hand at entrepreneurship. If you have enough process skills, you can eventually handle designing and pushing a product. You might feel uncomfortable moving away from your vim window into the meeting room, but that's where the greater rewards are. And those 20-somethings are going to help you do that.

ensiferum 10y ago

Ok, so this is an advertisement. It'd be nice if people could clearly label things for what they are.

Futurebot 10y ago

I'm glad someone created this service and I hope it succeeds and sticks around. Since it won't/can't fix everything, here are my suggestions for dealing with ageism in technology: 1) Try to make your fortune early. Most won’t, but try anyway. Better to have given it a shot in your twenties/thirties/maybe forties, than to sit around at 56 wondering what you’re going to do with yourself. 2) Never stop learning. Everyone has to become lifelong learners in this new hyper-competitive economy. Even moreso for those with traditional “disadvantages” like being considered too old. Keep up with trends, keep reading those whitepapers, go back and review the basics every so often (this is a good idea anyway, IMO), learn at least the basics of the new whiz-bang thing that comes out (even if it’s just the “hello world” equivalent), and generally keep yourself “interview ready.” 3) Physical appearance matters. They may not be able to ask your age, but they can look at you, and they’ll form an opinion either consciously or subconsciously; though many find this incredibly distasteful, it is the reality. That means consider carefully whether smoking/alcohol/other intoxicants that affect your physical appearance are worth it. It behooves you to keep a regular exercise schedule. Cosmetic surgery is also an option; there are many tells for age you can fix: eyelid and eyebrow droop, under-eye and various other facial lines, hanging chin. Hair dye and grafts are also worth considering, as a receded hairline and whites/grays are obvious tells. 4) It probably goes without saying to keep up your professional network. 5) Another distasteful one, but perhaps worth thinking about: if you’re someone who is in the age bracket that is often considered “very likely to have a family,” but you don’t (especially if you don’t ever plan to), state it. Signaling that you don’t have large, difficult-to-discharge obligations could give you the edge you need; you might get mentally re-bracketed. I haven’t tried this one, since I’m not yet in the bracket nor do I appear to be, but I would probably do so if I were. 6) Companies that are truly hard up for good people (and not just the “we can’t hire (at the wage we wish to pay)” companies) will just have to be more flexible. Maybe they already are. Until we can fix the social / economic issues that underlie (some parts of) ageism, the above might help someone dealing with it on the ground.

BatFastard 10y ago

If I had a few millions under my belt, I would start a company that only employs empty nesters. Kids are out of the house usually. So you have a lot more free time. You have great experience, you know how to work with people, you know how to get things done, you have probably worked in 40 different techs. If you are writing software at this age you do it for love, not for money. I love to create, and software leads to the least cuts, burns, and pulled muscles of any career or hobby I have pursued!

pavlov 10y ago

A particularly strange thing about SV ageism is that some of the same people who think a 40-year-old is useless also hope to live forever. (Singularity, longevity breakthroughs, whatever.) What do they expect to be doing at 1000 years old? The explanation that springs to mind is that young techies lured by longevity expect to be part of "the only generation". Anyone older is too out of touch, and younger generations basically won't happen as immortals can't have kids nilly-willy. So the world would be eternally ruled by a cabal of geriatric techies born around 1990. Now that's a dystopic thought!

nlh 10y ago

Every time I read a post on here about ageism and that sort of crap in SV, I feel obligated to gloat ever-so-slightly that not all VC-backed, small, fast-growing, interesting startups out here fall into that mold. I've been extremely lucky to have joined what I see as the least ageist group of people I've ever worked with. Our CEO is in his late 40s. One of our engineers is in her 20s. One is in her 50s. I'm 38 and on the younger end of the curve, and that's totally, totally cool. We have lives outside the office and go home at night. If we feel like working on the weekends, we do, and if we don't, we don't. We have the occasional happy hour after work (like, every few months), and nobody is ostracized if they have other plans. Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I think it's important to remind everyone that the culture of 20s-or-bust has exceptions, the culture of work-or-die has exceptions, and the culture of your-life-is-your-startup most definitely has exceptions. I wish more startups followed suit. (ps - https://www.scalyr.com/company https://www.scalyr.com/company in case you don't believe me!)

audleman 10y ago
I'll chime in here. I work for a startup with two co-founders, one in his 50s and one in his 40s. I'm in my 30s and have two developers in their 20s. The founders are smart and know how to interview for talent, not age.

matthewowen 10y ago

I don't know if this has already been observed... but that fateful hiring decision (the lack of cultural fit with the 20-something brogrammers) sounds like a great one: there evidently was poor cultural fit. I know that you believe your experience is valuable and your perspectives correct. If you didn't, you wouldn't hold those perspectives. But likewise, the exact reason these people are starting their own company versus going and working under you at Xerox is probably because they disagree with your approach. I don't profess to know what the right answer is here. But I am very skeptical of claims of age discrimination when the author also says that these young 20 somethings don't know what they're doing and don't appreciate the hard won lore an older developer can bring. This clearly undermines the age discrimination notion, because it indicates that there is an attitudinal difference, and that difference could well be a net negative and a thoroughly reasonable thing to hire based on. Again, this isn't intended as a judgement on who has the right perspective. I think many (not all) younger engineers would have fuller perspectives if they had more hard won experience, but I also think many (not all) older engineers may have a bias toward BigCo approaches that are at a different place with regard to the trade of between quality and speed to first version. But a lot of people start companies because they want to do things their way. Complaining about the way they choose (outside of things that are actually illegal) seems futile.

nathan_long 10y ago

> It’s not easy getting a job at a Silicon Valley startup of twenty-somethings when you’re a 37 year old programmer like me. [CTO drives up in an Uber, lowers the window] CTO: "Old woman!" You: "Man!" CTO: "Man, sorry. Who here knows React?" You: "I'm 37, I'm not old!"

iandanforth 10y ago

Blog - "Post your jobs free" Actual website - "Post a job for $50"

okreallywtf 10y ago

I don't work anywhere near silicon valley but I am in a very small (<10 people) dev shop on the east coast and my experience has actually been exactly opposite. Out of the 4 developers I am currently the youngest at 32 (we had a 23 y/o at one point though for a period of time). The IT/dev industry here seems to be older on average with lots of devs in the 40-50 range. I have noticed some minor ageism towards younger developers but it tends to be more jovial teasing and joking about how lucky younger devs are to have the tech ecosystems that we do as opposed to 10-20 years ago. Most of the ageism I see is related to popular culture (music, movies, etc) which can still be somewhat toxic when any age group assumes that only the media from their generation was good and everything else is crap. I have noticed more bias against devs without formal education (which everyone else has with either bachelors or masters in CS) but if a well self-taught dev without a degree came in I don't think it would be an issue. For the most part though the "older" (its hard to think of people in their early-mid 40's as old right now) devs have a wealth of experience from whom I parasitically absorb as much as I can. It doesn't hurt that they are as competent in new tech stacks as most younger devs (even if they are more conservative about when to adopt new tools, giving them time to mature). The culture here is that someone has to make a really good case for why we should pull a ton of overtime, more often than not someone made promises they shouldn't have and its not our job to deliver on timeframes we were not consulted on. What OT work I have done I have been compensated extra for but it is partly the influence of the older devs that makes me feel like I should expect compensation when I go above and beyond. Thats not to say I'm not willing to do it to help the company (which helps us all), but I think I was able to pass the naive stage a lot quicker and I could have been taken advantage of much more in a bigger company without our developer culture.

Tistel 10y ago

Ugh. This is so me. I turned 40 last year. Did CS, writing code is still the fun part of the job. Anyway, I used to maintain a fashionable amount of stubble. This year I noticed my beard was starting to go grey. Now I shave a lot more to hide it. This is the first time in my professional life I have started worrying about being judged on how I look. I also need to change the way I dress. I am too old to keep doing the tshirt, jeans and running shoes thing. I think I will go with: polo shirt, jean and leather shoes. Ha! Those damn whippersnappers won't spot me! try searching for: "kids in the hall He's Hip. He's Cool. He's 45!" If the story about Gosling is even 10% accurate, that is shocking.

odonnellryan 10y ago

I would absolutely _love_ to have some more experienced people on my team.

sjclemmy 10y ago

As long as you're interested in software development and that's why you get up in the morning, it doesn't matter how old you are.

jaysonelliot 10y ago

When a 37 year old has to say he's "old," there's something terribly wrong with our industry. How is any industry supposed to build a repository of expertise and wisdom if we're telling people they're washed up before they're even old enough to have their student loans paid off?

inanutshellus 10y ago

When I was a 20-something I'd scratch my head at having hired guys that had never heard of version control, and didn't think in OO terms. I turned my nose up to procedural programming they wrote with ease. I wrote them off at the time out of tech-bias-myopia that is intrinsically age-based. Question is, what will I be written off for that I can then blame on age? What if I disagree with the new trend? "These young whipper-snappers with their javascripts on the servers! Fools, the whole lot!"

agentultra 10y ago

I think it takes all kinds to make a good team. Young, old, men, women, and everyone across the spectrum. As an older geek now it's easy to look back at how naïve and energetic I was in my youth... but I did a lot of good work then too. I'm not much slower now but I'm much more calculating and tactical. I work on a team with an unbalanced mix of age... but working with my younger colleagues is always a pleasure. We help each other back and forth with various aspects of the problem.

awt 10y ago

I have achieved some consolation for pouring years of my life into technologies which I should have known would become obsolete by spending the last few years studying classical languages (mostly Attic Greek), the knowledge of which will never be obsolete. I believe there is also some value in studying the classics of Computer Science as well (Turing, Shannon, McCarthy, Graham, Dijkstra, etc.), and doing CS archeology (building retro computers from old parts, etc.). This knowledge won't help me get a job as a coder at an SV startup, but it does help me to understand why I shouldn't try to get it, and to ease the discomfort of a fate of relative poverty.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bsder 10y ago

My one comment would be: GET OUT OF THE VALLEY. People have far less resistance to hiring people of various ages outside of Silicon Valley.

zem 10y ago

37 (!) ironically, 37 was the last age at which i felt "young", for some vague psychological reason 38 was the year that tipped me into "sliding towards middle age".

zackmorris 10y ago
Same here (now 39). Also same initials but with an "s" in the middle :-)

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Ageism is definitely a thing but its also an interesting strategic advantage. Historically the company with the best mix of experience and energy have been the ones that succeed in the long run. That said, for the first 2 - 5 years of their life a company is pretty much a random series of experiences teaching the employees what they don't know. They have to get to the point where they can actually see that there is a lot to learn and not enough time to learn it before they can value someone who has that experience. Old engineers are like security enhancements, they seem to cost more than they are worth until you experience an event that would have killed your company if they hadn't been there.

gopi 10y ago

Goodluck with your YC application