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I think these jobs exist. Mine does. We’re a small company that makes high value physical items with a large software component. We encourage remote working but

I think these jobs exist. Mine does. We’re a small company that makes high value physical items with a large software component. We encourage remote working but not remote only. I know this is not a popular view on HN, but I think there is huge value with regular irl interaction. It doesn’t need to be every day, but it does need to be regular. We also offer mostly single person offices (interns are currently 2 per room). We also have a culture of opensuggestions and critique regardless of official positions. I’ve always worked this way so maybe it is survivor bias. I fully admit I could make more money elsewhere but that is not my primary success metric. I already make more money that most in my area (though it is easy to believe I don’t based on some of the material things I see around my general location). My only concern hiring older engineers is that they are stuck in a rut. But I’m my area most senior devs work for huge defense contractors. So maybe that is more an environmental factor.

platz 8y ago
What does a rut look like, like what is the last recent tech rut folks use. And what is an example of tech that non-rut folks have that rut folks don't have?
- WalterSear 8y ago
  At a large, well known software company, I worked with senior engineers, with a decade's more development experience than I, who couldn't use React properly, or even understand Redux. These are not difficult tools. They had been working on the specific codebase for over a year, fwiw.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - platz 8y ago
    They should learn to use React & understand Redux
    - WalterSear 8y ago
      They should be reading the fucking source code. Redux isn't big. But they are stuck in a rut. IMHO, from the outside, senior developer rut looks like a fear/resistance to change or learning. I'm not sure if what is really going on inside, though. Probably career burnout. I am the around same age as the guys I'm referring to here, fwiw. So, it's more than just physiological aging.
      - firebones 8y ago
        Out of curiosity, what was their primary technology background before being expected to use/learn React?
        WalterSear 8y ago
        Javascript :(
- mwfunk 8y ago
  I think the rut being referred to is an inability (rooted in complacency and habit, not actual inability) to learn, change, or adapt. Nothing to do with specific technologies, or even new vs old technologies. Just a far too strong inclination to stay in one’s comfort zone, and for that comfort zone to never expand. I’m pushing 50 and know many older engineers. An occupational hazard is getting complacent and ceasing to evolve and learn as an ongoing part of one’s career. This is a hazard with life in general as people get older, but if we’re not wary of it, it can have professional consequences too. As far as what does it look like- they go to a new team or employer, which naturally has different tools and practices and technical domains, and they expend titanic amounts of effort to continue working just like they used to in the new surroundings, rather than simply making an effort to adapt and learn new skills. I’m not saying this is a common problem when hiring older engineers, just something we all have to grapple with as we age. I think that’s all that was meant by a rut. Resistance to all change, regardless of whether that change is good or bad.
- matt_the_bass 8y ago
  Great question. IMHO the ruts we are trying to avoid are sticking only to a previously used solution because of the fear of trying new things. Of course that needs to be balanced with the risks/costs of trying new things too. As a mentioned previously we’ve found a lot of senior sw candidates who have 20+ years experience working on a huge legacy technology in a huge beaurocratic organization. Some of those people have no problem applying their experience and skills to general software engineering efforts. However others are only fluent and comfortable in that one legacy technology and are not really experienced in the fundamentals. A surprising number of those people exist. That’s who we want to avoid. Skills we do want are: ability to apply fundamentals to general solutions, ability to consider the costs of various approaches, ability to plan and architect, ability to organize well, ability to communicate well, ability to learn, etc.
  - oscargrouch 8y ago
    > However others are only fluent and comfortable in that one legacy technology and are not really experienced in the fundamentals. A surprising number of those people exist. That’s who we want to avoid. 'The Prince' has a whole chapter about wheter employing mercenary soldiers can be considered a good thing. And he gets into the conclusion that mercenaries must be the last kind of resource you want to employ in an army, and that is better to avoid them. To stitch this with what we are talking about here, in my experience, people that get stuck in a given technology are more conservative types, who do just enough to fit in a given position, and make it as solid as possible, so to garantee their paychecks by the end of the month, and to be perceived as a perfect fit for that position, and consolidate the job for years to come. Its on-pair with mercenary because, theres no cause or love for the tecnology, for what we can achieve with it, but those values get corrupted when they clash with a solid and continuous source of income. More inovative people are more bold, and take more risks, but a lot of companies wont like them, and they wont be perceived as a good fit for the company (in their speech of course they do, but not in real life). I guess the first, is more of the profile you are saying you are trying to avoid. And i think thats good, because this profile tend to have a more parasitic relationship with the company. If your company moves faster, maybe they wont make a good fit in that sort of environment. Also its good to avoid people that have a tendency to game things. There a lot of people in this world, that dont care much about anything else and just do enough to understand the game of a given system and score enough to win in that sort of game consolidating its own position. (For instance, that puzzle based hiring interview iss being gamed right now, and companies are not hiring what they think they do right now.. humans will adapt to the games til they mean nothing anymore) A good fit for a Astronaut for instance, is that kid that was dreaming about the space, and will do everything to make this dream come true. When theres a real problem, or something that requires real passion to be done, that 'kid' will make the difference. Nothing can work as a suplementary replacement for real passion. (From someone that has real passion, and cant understand how people can live without it)
Myrmornis 8y ago
> but I think there is huge value with regular irl interaction a) People vary hugely in the extent to which they find irl interaction helpful. You can’t make a single statement like this and claim that it applies equally to everyone. b) Huge value to whom?
wai1234 8y ago
"My only concern hiring older engineers is that they are stuck in a rut." Wow, better check that bias.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Biased or not, experienced people fighting change is nothing new
  - wrs 8y ago
    Inexperienced people advocating change is not new either. They both have their pros and cons.
    - OldHand2018 8y ago
      Experienced people advocating against good changes is a bad thing. Experienced people advocating against bad changes is a good thing. Inexperienced people advocating for a good change is a good thing. Inexperienced people advocating for a bad change is a bad thing. It's almost like it would be great if we knew what changes were good and what changes were bad before we started arguing about them. Any ideas???
      - xyproto 8y ago
        Ideas just have to be tried out. The problem is when a company have absolutely no process for letting developers, young or experienced, try out a new idea. Many companies have a very random "process", where a few select people can get away with just implementing their ideas, without any testing. Small teams of 2-3 people spending a few days for testing out a new idea, or writing a prototype, may often work out.
      - wrs 8y ago
        One good filter I’ve found is whether the person arguing has a good understanding of both the old thing and the new thing. If an experienced person doesn’t seem to understand the new thing, or an inexperienced person doesn’t seem to understand the old thing, then they probably aren’t making a good argument. Both of those certainly happen —- the inexperienced will follow fads and the experienced will not want to devalue their knowledge.
gcb0 8y ago
have you considered you are in a rut, and it might not be a very good one, so people with seniority call you out, while the freshman/woman you keep hiring and doctronating just reinforce your own bias?
- tyrust 8y ago
  Calling out women separately and grouping them with "freshman" is pretty messed up. No one mentioned gender and women could be part of seniority.
  - demoray 8y ago
    Perhaps they meant "fresh men/women"? Instead of slamming, you could ask.
  - connoredel 8y ago
    Pretty sure he meant "freshman or freshwoman"
    - tyrust 8y ago
      Oh, didn't think of that. I hope that's the case. Avoiding a gendered word would avoid this confusion.
      - elteto 8y ago
        Not jumping to conclusions would have been equally acceptable.
  - richardwardza 8y ago
    I think you're misreading and the op was meaning freshman/freshwomen, shortening it to freshman/women
- matt_the_bass 8y ago
  Yes. I often spend time self reflecting my current solutions and chosen paths to consider if I’m in a rut. This is a common topic of discuss at my office especially when evaluating the cost of technical debt: should we continue editing the old tooling in the old technology or should we invest in a larger project to migrate to a newer solution. We use a mix of older and newer technologies. We try to identify the “best” solution where best is a function of: implementation cost (time and dollars), technical debt, learning curve, future extensibility, performance, simplicity, and personal intellectual interest.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

platz 8y ago

What does a rut look like, like what is the last recent tech rut folks use. And what is an example of tech that non-rut folks have that rut folks don't have?

WalterSear 8y ago
At a large, well known software company, I worked with senior engineers, with a decade's more development experience than I, who couldn't use React properly, or even understand Redux. These are not difficult tools. They had been working on the specific codebase for over a year, fwiw.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- platz 8y ago
  They should learn to use React & understand Redux
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    They should be reading the fucking source code. Redux isn't big. But they are stuck in a rut. IMHO, from the outside, senior developer rut looks like a fear/resistance to change or learning. I'm not sure if what is really going on inside, though. Probably career burnout. I am the around same age as the guys I'm referring to here, fwiw. So, it's more than just physiological aging.
    - firebones 8y ago
      Out of curiosity, what was their primary technology background before being expected to use/learn React?
      - WalterSear 8y ago
        Javascript :(
mwfunk 8y ago
I think the rut being referred to is an inability (rooted in complacency and habit, not actual inability) to learn, change, or adapt. Nothing to do with specific technologies, or even new vs old technologies. Just a far too strong inclination to stay in one’s comfort zone, and for that comfort zone to never expand. I’m pushing 50 and know many older engineers. An occupational hazard is getting complacent and ceasing to evolve and learn as an ongoing part of one’s career. This is a hazard with life in general as people get older, but if we’re not wary of it, it can have professional consequences too. As far as what does it look like- they go to a new team or employer, which naturally has different tools and practices and technical domains, and they expend titanic amounts of effort to continue working just like they used to in the new surroundings, rather than simply making an effort to adapt and learn new skills. I’m not saying this is a common problem when hiring older engineers, just something we all have to grapple with as we age. I think that’s all that was meant by a rut. Resistance to all change, regardless of whether that change is good or bad.
matt_the_bass 8y ago
Great question. IMHO the ruts we are trying to avoid are sticking only to a previously used solution because of the fear of trying new things. Of course that needs to be balanced with the risks/costs of trying new things too. As a mentioned previously we’ve found a lot of senior sw candidates who have 20+ years experience working on a huge legacy technology in a huge beaurocratic organization. Some of those people have no problem applying their experience and skills to general software engineering efforts. However others are only fluent and comfortable in that one legacy technology and are not really experienced in the fundamentals. A surprising number of those people exist. That’s who we want to avoid. Skills we do want are: ability to apply fundamentals to general solutions, ability to consider the costs of various approaches, ability to plan and architect, ability to organize well, ability to communicate well, ability to learn, etc.
- oscargrouch 8y ago
  > However others are only fluent and comfortable in that one legacy technology and are not really experienced in the fundamentals. A surprising number of those people exist. That’s who we want to avoid. 'The Prince' has a whole chapter about wheter employing mercenary soldiers can be considered a good thing. And he gets into the conclusion that mercenaries must be the last kind of resource you want to employ in an army, and that is better to avoid them. To stitch this with what we are talking about here, in my experience, people that get stuck in a given technology are more conservative types, who do just enough to fit in a given position, and make it as solid as possible, so to garantee their paychecks by the end of the month, and to be perceived as a perfect fit for that position, and consolidate the job for years to come. Its on-pair with mercenary because, theres no cause or love for the tecnology, for what we can achieve with it, but those values get corrupted when they clash with a solid and continuous source of income. More inovative people are more bold, and take more risks, but a lot of companies wont like them, and they wont be perceived as a good fit for the company (in their speech of course they do, but not in real life). I guess the first, is more of the profile you are saying you are trying to avoid. And i think thats good, because this profile tend to have a more parasitic relationship with the company. If your company moves faster, maybe they wont make a good fit in that sort of environment. Also its good to avoid people that have a tendency to game things. There a lot of people in this world, that dont care much about anything else and just do enough to understand the game of a given system and score enough to win in that sort of game consolidating its own position. (For instance, that puzzle based hiring interview iss being gamed right now, and companies are not hiring what they think they do right now.. humans will adapt to the games til they mean nothing anymore) A good fit for a Astronaut for instance, is that kid that was dreaming about the space, and will do everything to make this dream come true. When theres a real problem, or something that requires real passion to be done, that 'kid' will make the difference. Nothing can work as a suplementary replacement for real passion. (From someone that has real passion, and cant understand how people can live without it)

Myrmornis 8y ago

> but I think there is huge value with regular irl interaction a) People vary hugely in the extent to which they find irl interaction helpful. You can’t make a single statement like this and claim that it applies equally to everyone. b) Huge value to whom?

wai1234 8y ago

"My only concern hiring older engineers is that they are stuck in a rut." Wow, better check that bias.

tomc1985 8y ago
Biased or not, experienced people fighting change is nothing new
- wrs 8y ago
  Inexperienced people advocating change is not new either. They both have their pros and cons.
  - OldHand2018 8y ago
    Experienced people advocating against good changes is a bad thing. Experienced people advocating against bad changes is a good thing. Inexperienced people advocating for a good change is a good thing. Inexperienced people advocating for a bad change is a bad thing. It's almost like it would be great if we knew what changes were good and what changes were bad before we started arguing about them. Any ideas???
    - xyproto 8y ago
      Ideas just have to be tried out. The problem is when a company have absolutely no process for letting developers, young or experienced, try out a new idea. Many companies have a very random "process", where a few select people can get away with just implementing their ideas, without any testing. Small teams of 2-3 people spending a few days for testing out a new idea, or writing a prototype, may often work out.
    - wrs 8y ago
      One good filter I’ve found is whether the person arguing has a good understanding of both the old thing and the new thing. If an experienced person doesn’t seem to understand the new thing, or an inexperienced person doesn’t seem to understand the old thing, then they probably aren’t making a good argument. Both of those certainly happen —- the inexperienced will follow fads and the experienced will not want to devalue their knowledge.

gcb0 8y ago

have you considered you are in a rut, and it might not be a very good one, so people with seniority call you out, while the freshman/woman you keep hiring and doctronating just reinforce your own bias?

tyrust 8y ago
Calling out women separately and grouping them with "freshman" is pretty messed up. No one mentioned gender and women could be part of seniority.
- demoray 8y ago
  Perhaps they meant "fresh men/women"? Instead of slamming, you could ask.
- connoredel 8y ago
  Pretty sure he meant "freshman or freshwoman"
  - tyrust 8y ago
    Oh, didn't think of that. I hope that's the case. Avoiding a gendered word would avoid this confusion.
    - elteto 8y ago
      Not jumping to conclusions would have been equally acceptable.
- richardwardza 8y ago
  I think you're misreading and the op was meaning freshman/freshwomen, shortening it to freshman/women
matt_the_bass 8y ago
Yes. I often spend time self reflecting my current solutions and chosen paths to consider if I’m in a rut. This is a common topic of discuss at my office especially when evaluating the cost of technical debt: should we continue editing the old tooling in the old technology or should we invest in a larger project to migrate to a newer solution. We use a mix of older and newer technologies. We try to identify the “best” solution where best is a function of: implementation cost (time and dollars), technical debt, learning curve, future extensibility, performance, simplicity, and personal intellectual interest.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]