4 ms·

I think there is always a market for someone with demonstrated competency an an in-demand skill. I've never had a problem getting a job in tech. Last time I wa

I think there is always a market for someone with demonstrated competency an an in-demand skill. I've never had a problem getting a job in tech. Last time I was hired was in my late 40s; I'm now early 50s. I don't work the 50, 60 hour weeks that I used to when I was younger. So if that is what someone is looking for in a candidate I can see why an older person might get passed over. But I accomplish more in 20 hours now than I did in 60 hours when I was 25. The kind of jobs I would want, would not hesitate to hire a 50 year old. At least in my experience.

nikanj 9y ago
You’d be surprised how many companies choose “culture fit” over skills.
- pleasecalllater 9y ago
  I'm almost 40, and I have problems with getting through the recruiters wall. They usually tell me two things: "the company is looking for someone more culturally fit (younger)" or "you are almost 40, and you still are not at manager". The thing is I want to be a programmer :) So looking for a job is harder, but when I finally get one, it's funny to work with those young people, who usually have no idea of many things. Example from this week: when you connect to 127.0.0.1 from your machine, it's not connecting you to the testing server. I think that if you are "old" and you are looking for a job, just don't give up, and ignore all those "young" companies. Btw, I was always wondering what they will do in 10 years, when all those "young" people will be "too old for them to hire". Will they fire them?
  - ozim 9y ago
    Nope all those young guys after 2 years will move somewhere else for better salary. Then they will recruit new young ones. Seems like long term employees are burden. They get old, sick, know their rights. Maybe even start having demands and don't just leave when those are not met making them grumpy.
    - fao_ 9y ago
      > Nope all those young guys after 2 years will move somewhere else for better salary. Then they will recruit new young ones. Which tells you about how well the code is maintained, at the very least.
- devonkim 9y ago
  It bothers me that so many otherwise intelligent managers will opt for cheaper labor with higher turnover and oftentimes worse efficiency.... to save money. I just don’t understand how all the micro-inefficiencies or lack of experience can be made up for with maybe another 10 - 15 hours / week. Maybe if a lot of your technical problems are due to nobody young or old having deep knowledge (read: new language and platform) but we all know that new stuff doesn’t skip a generation of knowledge - it’s built on the foundations of what works previously and tries to throw away what is not relevant anymore. I can understand hiring simply smarter people though in lieu of experience. It’s just that so many things I’ve lost efficiency on would not have been improved with mere smarts, so only raw, direct experience could ever get past it.
  - psyc 9y ago
    I've seen a pattern that makes this self-fulfilling. The normal mix of junior/mid/seniors, plus the rush to market, creates a ton of paralyzing tech debt. Then the tech debt itself levels the playing field, so that the seniors actually are only marginally more productive than the juniors.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Worse, senior folks have to mentor new folks because they are the experts. Then they have to fix the horrible snafus because only they can. They stop do interesting development entirely as these other duties take over their lives. Then there's turnover and they do it all again until they burn out and leave. Leaving only junior folks and a dumpster fire. And don't get started on how 'agile' fuels this! In a constant panic mode, there's only ever sprints for small fixes and isolated features. Never time to address what's really wrong in a systematic way. So the flames burn higher...
      - ryandrake 9y ago
        This is one of the reasons why I pretty much moved to only writing code at home as a hobby as I’ve aged. In “professional” programming it’s always this insane race to puke out as many half working features as fast as possible no matter what the code ends up looking like. The craftsmanship is gone. The focus on quality and correctness is gone. The opportunity to refactor or redo at will is missing. On my hobby projects, I can take my time. I can have 100% test coverage if I want. I can compile cleanly with -Wpedantic if I want. I can move whole modules around if I think it’s best. No need to deal with forced collaboration, change control bureaucracy, or the constant drumbeat of ship ship ship! The current hiring preferences out there are a perfect fit for the industry’s insane “ship crap as fast as possible” product preferences.
dennis_jeeves 9y ago
ams6110 , can you please list those companies/organizations, which in your opinion, do not hesitate to hire older techies? As others pointed out your experience is an exception than a norm.
- bradknowles 9y ago
  Whole Foods is one company with a fair amount of older people. Experience seems to have some value there. Our biggest problem currently is finding people who actually have real experience doing the things we need to do. Recruiters provide plenty of resumes, but there isn’t any real meat there.

nikanj 9y ago

You’d be surprised how many companies choose “culture fit” over skills.

pleasecalllater 9y ago
I'm almost 40, and I have problems with getting through the recruiters wall. They usually tell me two things: "the company is looking for someone more culturally fit (younger)" or "you are almost 40, and you still are not at manager". The thing is I want to be a programmer :) So looking for a job is harder, but when I finally get one, it's funny to work with those young people, who usually have no idea of many things. Example from this week: when you connect to 127.0.0.1 from your machine, it's not connecting you to the testing server. I think that if you are "old" and you are looking for a job, just don't give up, and ignore all those "young" companies. Btw, I was always wondering what they will do in 10 years, when all those "young" people will be "too old for them to hire". Will they fire them?
- ozim 9y ago
  Nope all those young guys after 2 years will move somewhere else for better salary. Then they will recruit new young ones. Seems like long term employees are burden. They get old, sick, know their rights. Maybe even start having demands and don't just leave when those are not met making them grumpy.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    > Nope all those young guys after 2 years will move somewhere else for better salary. Then they will recruit new young ones. Which tells you about how well the code is maintained, at the very least.
devonkim 9y ago
It bothers me that so many otherwise intelligent managers will opt for cheaper labor with higher turnover and oftentimes worse efficiency.... to save money. I just don’t understand how all the micro-inefficiencies or lack of experience can be made up for with maybe another 10 - 15 hours / week. Maybe if a lot of your technical problems are due to nobody young or old having deep knowledge (read: new language and platform) but we all know that new stuff doesn’t skip a generation of knowledge - it’s built on the foundations of what works previously and tries to throw away what is not relevant anymore. I can understand hiring simply smarter people though in lieu of experience. It’s just that so many things I’ve lost efficiency on would not have been improved with mere smarts, so only raw, direct experience could ever get past it.
- psyc 9y ago
  I've seen a pattern that makes this self-fulfilling. The normal mix of junior/mid/seniors, plus the rush to market, creates a ton of paralyzing tech debt. Then the tech debt itself levels the playing field, so that the seniors actually are only marginally more productive than the juniors.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Worse, senior folks have to mentor new folks because they are the experts. Then they have to fix the horrible snafus because only they can. They stop do interesting development entirely as these other duties take over their lives. Then there's turnover and they do it all again until they burn out and leave. Leaving only junior folks and a dumpster fire. And don't get started on how 'agile' fuels this! In a constant panic mode, there's only ever sprints for small fixes and isolated features. Never time to address what's really wrong in a systematic way. So the flames burn higher...
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      This is one of the reasons why I pretty much moved to only writing code at home as a hobby as I’ve aged. In “professional” programming it’s always this insane race to puke out as many half working features as fast as possible no matter what the code ends up looking like. The craftsmanship is gone. The focus on quality and correctness is gone. The opportunity to refactor or redo at will is missing. On my hobby projects, I can take my time. I can have 100% test coverage if I want. I can compile cleanly with -Wpedantic if I want. I can move whole modules around if I think it’s best. No need to deal with forced collaboration, change control bureaucracy, or the constant drumbeat of ship ship ship! The current hiring preferences out there are a perfect fit for the industry’s insane “ship crap as fast as possible” product preferences.

dennis_jeeves 9y ago

ams6110 , can you please list those companies/organizations, which in your opinion, do not hesitate to hire older techies? As others pointed out your experience is an exception than a norm.

bradknowles 9y ago
Whole Foods is one company with a fair amount of older people. Experience seems to have some value there. Our biggest problem currently is finding people who actually have real experience doing the things we need to do. Recruiters provide plenty of resumes, but there isn’t any real meat there.