12 ms·

I'm only in my 50s, but this is very relateable. Did a couple dozen interviews a year or two ago before finally getting a bite. Somewhat amazingly, even passe

I'm only in my 50s, but this is very relateable. Did a couple dozen interviews a year or two ago before finally getting a bite. Somewhat amazingly, even passed the hiring committee at a FANG, only to get swatted down by a rare strike from the executive level. In one interview, was asked to produce a class that could serialize and deserialize a list of numbers, to/from a string of chars. Sure, it's not that hard. Took maybe ten minutes? A few tests, it worked fine. They declined--"your skills seem rusty". Huh? I'm in good health and much better financial situation than the guy in the story. But without being too grim, I've accepted that someday I might run completely out of money. If I can't get hired in tech, I'll give McDonald's a shot--it's honest work. Failing that, I'll make my graceful exit.

goalieca 8y ago
i'm not really understanding the tech sector. There's often the criticism that we keep reinventing solutions to old problems. And here you are, with presumably 30 years of experience, and no one wants to take a chance?
- eecsninja 8y ago
  Maybe the people complaining and the ones doing the hiring aren't the same.
crispyambulance 8y ago
I find it disturbing he can't find work as a project manager. If anything, that's one role where the practitioners typically know fuck-all about nothing and where good ones are worth their weight in gold. I LOVE to work with ADULT project managers who have a clue about how projects actually unfold and how things actually get done with a wide variety of personalities in the mix. Instead, more often than not, you get 20-30-something "management fast-track" wannabe's who could not solve a problem to save their lives.
- perryh2 8y ago
  In today's world of agile development, I haven't met any project managers worthy of anything. I feel that strong product managers are capable of managing development as well. I can't believe there are actual people getting paid to move JIRA tickets around full-time.
  - Justsignedup 8y ago
    Good project management is invisible. They just make projects happen. They make sure everyone is talking. They make sure decisions are made. Everyone knows what to do when to do it. Etc. I seen good project management. It is magical. Then the manager left. Everything slowed down to a crawl.
    - bfdm 8y ago
      Yep, it's the thankless job that when done well nobody notices.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
      Invisible makes it sound intangible. If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? Making sure "the right people are talking", "decisions are made", etc. do sound like things that can be tracked to confirm if a PM is indeed adding value.
      - kamaal 8y ago
        >>If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? At some point in time recurring wins can look like a perpetual machine. The problem is when you get there, people think like, Now that we got what we want why do we need this person? It's only after the person goes and a few months down the lane you begin to see things falling apart. Of course by then things just become the new normal.
      - crispyambulance 8y ago
        > If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? The problem with that line of thought is that it's not at all easy (or even possible) to quantifiably measure performance on an individual basis. This is especially true for roles like PM's whose job is to enable the labor and talent of others.
warent 8y ago
I sincerely hope you were just being facetious in the last line. There's a ton someone with your experience could do such as write books, consultation, coaching, etc.
- olalonde 8y ago
  Remote work too. Your employer doesn't need to know your age.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    Do you say that from experience? I've always wondered how the legal stuff works in remote work, including, for example, international workers. I mean, how anonymous can one be in one of those jobs?
- towaway1138 8y ago
  Not exactly, but it's not an eventuality I expect to come to pass any year soon.
csa 8y ago
Check out jobs with the federal government and/or with government contractors. The work might not be as sexy or as lucrative (although sometimes it is), but the pay is stable (lolol... shutdowns notwithstanding) at a middle-class level. The government is desperate for people who can code.
- a3n 8y ago
  The last month should demonstrate that the government is a terrible steward of jobs. Shutdowns and dysfunction are on a bad trend. Half the board (Congress) won't talk to the other half, and the CEO (President) is a narcissist at best. I don't think anyone who relies on a paycheck should work for the government, unless God himself touched their heart with his finger and made that their calling. Although the man in the article is probably desperate enough to give that a shot.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    I don’t think the shutdowns are quite that bad yet (unless you’re a contractor). Everyone—except contractors—got back pay when the government re-opened. A vouple months delayed pay can absolutely be devistating to someone at a certain income level, and I don’t want to discount the hardship the recent shutdown has caused. But, I imagine most people well-off enough to have a programming job wouldn’t have too many cash flow issues, given proper financial planning.
  - johnny22 8y ago
    most governments in the world don't have shutdowns like the US though. The US doesn't need to have them either.
- Novashi 8y ago
  >The government is desperate for people who can code. Not desperate enough to teach people to code who want to learn though. But I bet half the need is from mountains of shit code anyway. The contracting and procurement processes are fucked (source: friend who works in gov't IT contracts -- stay far away from any dev positions involving Dept. of VA). Demand for good devs is going to be won by companies. We clearly can't even fill private sector roles even at these salary levels. I'm not sure how anyone can look at our really picky labor market with the government's lack of salary and perk offerings and think "yeah we can fill these if we just try a bit harder". Government really needs a different approach to solve their staffing needs in this regard. They aren't competitive.
agumonkey 8y ago
Serving food is more than honest IMO, but still a bit of a waste.. Also it seems a lot of capable coders are struggling with harsh if not inhuman business structures. Maybe regroup and form a nice company of nice people.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  I like this comment; seems like you could make a pretty good company from the older talent that isn't picked up by the young companies. In terms of pure competition, you could give them all a run for their money with the lifelong knowledge bit.
  - ilovetux 8y ago
    I've seen something similar where a company made a spot for themselves hiring aging cobol programmers and making pretty good money contracting with other companies. I will try to find a link to the article I read.
    - ilovetux 8y ago
      I found the link. The company is called COBOL Cowboys. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scramble-to-fix-old-systems-as-it-cowboys-ride-into-sunset-idUSKBN17C0D8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scr...
      - brobdingnagians 8y ago
        Thank you, that's cool
  - jammygit 8y ago
    The company I worked for last year was about 1/4 older gentlemen in engineering roles. I'm disappointed that other companies are not as keen to hire them, but they had so freaking much experience and it was a pleasure to work with them
jolmg 8y ago
You could also look to start your own business to not require the approval of any hiring committee. Customers are not going to care, and you can probably get them to buy into your product/service without them even knowing much about you, let alone your age. The difference between being hired into a business and working on your own is that you'll have to create stability on your own, but the benefits seem worth it. Making a change like that probably takes time to adapt, but fuck me if I ever fail to make use of the skills I've honed throughout my whole life and that I know are useful for people. One just has to bridge the gap between what one can provide and what people need. If someone gets in the way of that because of their own misjudgments, sidestep them and prove them wrong!
- sjg007 8y ago
  It’s not easy to start your own company. Sometimes you have no choice but it’s not for everyone.
smnplk 8y ago
By graceful exit, do you mean Smith and Wesson retirement plan ? I think it's still better to become a street beggar.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- towaway1138 8y ago
  Yes, but however you feel about suicide, I would never recommend that method. Way too unreliable for me. That's like two nines and you want ten or twenty nines. Failure is not an option. (For the forseeable future, I have lots to live for. Promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.)
scarface74 8y ago
So did you try finding a job just in Silicon Valley on the West Coast at a FANG or did you expand your search? It’s hard to believe as hungry as people are for developers that no one in the entire US including remote work, contracting, or consulting would hire you assuming you had marketable skills. I’m in my mid 40s, was just looking for a job last year and it took me two weeks and from the time I started looking until I had an offer. That’s been about the speed for the last 10 years across 5 jobs.
- quicklyfrozen 8y ago
  In my experience, there's a pretty big difference between mid 40s and over 50. Companies may be hungry, but they've also become more selective.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    How will they tell the difference between if I am 45 and 50 before they make an offer? I haven’t put my date of college graduation on my resume since I was 35 and now I only put the last ten years worth of work experience. Let’s say I’m back in the job market when I am 50 in 2024 and I just keep my experience from 2008 or 2012 depending on the company I am interviewing for.
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      Heck one of friends only puts the last 3 jobs he had on his resume, keeps it approachable.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Given a choice, I’ll go straight W2 contracting or work for a consulting company after I leave my current job whenever that is.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      >>How will they tell the difference between if I am 45 and 50 before they make an offer? They have eyes, and age shows. Wrinkles, greying hair etc. Its not that hard to spot old people.
burtonator 8y ago
Link to your resume and I'll take a look. All this bullshit about inclusivity. What we SHOULD be doing is blinding the candidate and interviewer. No name. Just the last 2 years of job history. That's it. You don't know their gender. Don't know their age. Don't know their race. Just complete meritocracy.
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  Will this work for on-site, particularly because "do I think I could get along with this candidate/does this candidate seem like a team player/can this candidate communicate effectively" is a significant part of the hiring process? I think many teams may struggle to have completely anonymous hiring due to the desire to meet their potential teammate and assess based on the teammate's easyness to get along with.
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    It’d be interesting if a proper study was done. It could turn out to be better. We won’t know till we try.
- snotrockets 8y ago
  It won't be, because different groups answer questions differently. One famous result (http://web.pdx.edu/~mev/pdf/PS471_Readings_2012/Lizotte_Sidman.pdf http://web.pdx.edu/~mev/pdf/PS471_Readings_2012/Lizotte_Sidm...) is that woman hold themselves to a higher threshold of certainty before claiming to know something. An interesting solution would be to score differently based on known biases; but that would be a can of worms in itself. Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged. There is no such thing in the real world.
  - burtonator 8y ago
    > Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged. There is no such thing in the real world. That's absolutely untrue.. you really discredit yourself when you say provably false things like this.
Kinnard 8y ago
Have you ever tried creating your own community? Like through meetup?
sephoric 8y ago
We're at that point too. My solution is a combination of downsizing our life and making my own app business. So far the only app I released (Autumn) was a bust because I stupidly released it on New Year's Eve so practically nobody knew about it, also it's too niche. But everyone loves the quality, so I figure I'll just keep writing more apps. I've got a lot of ideas and a lot of energy. I may have to work at Walmart or something, but I can keep doing this in my spare time. As long as there's at least some food on the table, even if ramen noodles, my family can keep going.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  "So far the only app I released (Autumn) was a bust because I stupidly released it on New Year's Eve so practically nobody knew about it" Virtually no businesses work like this. Maybe NY Eve wasn't the best date, and it's great if you get a boost from the announcement, but you need to follow up with marketing, continue talking to customers, sales, calling people, etc. Most users will not hear about your business from the initial announcement. A lot of times when you see a business take off after an announcement, it's because they worked for months prior to build an audience. Sometimes that's the developers audience (if you have a lot of twitter/blog/etc followers), or it can be because you preannounced it, collected emails, and kept them engaged as it was being developed. You still need a game plan for after the announcement though. Good luck... try not to get discouraged if it's not an immediate success. (Your other point, about it being too niche, can be a problem if that niche isn't valuable enough.)
- DenisM 8y ago
  This is going to be harsh but it’s for your own good. You have no idea what you’re doing and you are blindly digging yourself deeper into the hole by writing more apps. I wrote a couple of quality apps and I had seen some success financial success with them, you are not moving in the right direction. You can’t write an app and think up a marketing plan afterwards as an extension, it’s the other way around - you find an audience with a need you can satisfy and a loudspeaker to reach them about it, only then you add an app as an extension to that. If you want to write quality apps as a hobby then go for it, but don’t expect financial stability from that or you will face emotional ruin on the heals of financial struggle. Just don’t. If you’re looking to make a living then go be a consultant to small-medium businesses. Fire bad clients asap, make unexpected treats for good clients. Repeat business accumulated over a few years will set you up for life.
snorkel 8y ago
One of FANGs I interviewed at, I couldn’t help noticing they totally avoid asking practical questions that require field experience to understand and instead just focus the entire interview on CompSci college homework problems that recent grads can easily relate to. I wonder why. Hmmmmm ...
- fnrslvr 8y ago
  To be fair, recent grads also have an enormous amount of trouble breaking into the industry. The prisoner's dilemma of training up the graduate at a negative return for 2 years before watching them get poached is an issue that's been thoroughly canvassed around here. I think it's beneficial to the health of the industry that tech giants are at least somewhat willing to calibrate their hiring processes towards that class of applicant and take on that risk, and I hope they don't move away from that just to even further pad the career prospects of people with 5-10 years' experience.
- lsc 8y ago
  Yeah, but... CompSci college homework... really isn't that hard? I mean, with some coaching and effort, I can study enough get most of those questions even though my math abilities top out somewhere around high school trig. I mean, they are gating some incredibly high-paying jobs. Sure, you gotta jump through some hoops to get it, but I'd argue that the coding tests are... well, they certainly aren't the hoops I find difficult.
  - EADGBE 8y ago
    > Yeah, but... CompSci college homework... really isn't that hard? Don't know. To me, college CompSci material might as well be greek. But I somehow get by programming... Now - if we want to talk about contrapuntal music composition techniques - I'm your guy.
shams93 8y ago
"I'll make my graceful exit" is an option far too many people are taking out there. Our industry is in the top 10 industries where workers commit suicide. There is no discussion in this country about how our economy forces many working people to actually commit suicide because we have prematurely aged them out. Often to be replaced by a kid who doesn't even have 1% of the skills and knowledge of the person judged "too old" but still too young to qualify for social security.
segmondy 8y ago
This defeatist attitude is what's going to make this come true for you. McDonald? really? How about consulting? Starting your own shit? Perhaps looking outside of the West Coast and other places you might be appreciated? How about the govt, schools, hospitals, banks, big ol boring enterprises? How about other countries? Seriously, you have option and everyone does. If you are smart enough to pass the hiring committee at FANG, you are obviously smart enough to accomplish anytime you put your mind to. I often see these stories and it's often, "poor old me, woe unto me..." and you know what? Yeah, woe unto them indeed. If you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can't, you can't.
- democracy 8y ago
  It is a good motivational speech however things can be much more complex at some stage...
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  This unrealistic anti-pep-talk isn't helping anyone but yourself. When you're actually painted into a corner in life, and really are facing a bad situation with no support whatsoever, you get defeatist. It happens. Human beings have feelings, and no amount of vapid self-actualization bullshit is going to make you stop feeling those feelings. And sometimes there really aren't any other options. If you have no money, and nobody is hiring you, and you have bills to pay, and you have no money, you will have to accept a "lesser" job. This isn't "defeatist", it's real life. You can't wish yourself out of a bad situation. People often have to work hard, from the bottom, until they get a foothold, and then slowly, slowly work back up. But it's still massively more difficult to do any of this when you're older, because nobody wants anything to do with you. You're the awkward old guy at networking events, in job interviews, virtually anywhere anyone can see or hear you. Nobody - govt, schools, hospitals, banks, enterprises - nobody wants to hire an old person. Also - "starting your own shit" ? "other countries" ? How is somebody with no money, no contacts, and no collateral, supposed to pull those off? Just wander into a bank and bullshit your way into a loan? Corner some VCs at a cafe in the valley and win $50K off an elevator pitch?
  - 8y ago
TomMckenny 8y ago
>swatted down by a rare strike from the executive level Was this someone you spoke to in anyway? Or was there any rationale hinted at?
- towaway1138 8y ago
  It's what I heard from my internal recruiter (who had little reason to mislead on that). Through a back channel, I heard something that sounded like a euphemism for "too old" or "too family oriented". I take that with a grain of salt, though. Most likely just the operation of pure chance.
i_am_nomad 8y ago
Many great men and women didn’t embark upon their greatness until their fifties. And quite frankly, if you are leading a life of dignity, principles, and continual learning, you are living up to the true potential of what humans are meant to be (yet so few humans attain). Your life will be a victory whether you’re flipping burgers, houses or companies.
- towaway1138 8y ago
  Yes. One good thing about getting older is having better perspective on stuff like this.
siruncledrew 8y ago
This is observational, but I notice older hiring managers are more ok with hiring older applicants. Maybe there’s some kind of relatability or something, but the older hires actually turned out to be cool, insightful people. It’s even pretty funny when they joke about age in a self-deprecating sense. Consequently, I’ve seen that younger people are more wary of hiring people too far removed from their own demographic like there’s a forethought a 40+ dev is going to be some burdensome fart from an AARP commercial.
- badpun 8y ago
  > Consequently, I’ve seen that younger people are more wary of hiring people too far removed from their own demographic like there’s a forethought a 40+ dev is going to be some burdensome fart from an AARP commercial. Younger people often find it awkward and uncomfortable to manage someone who's closer to their dad than to them. I suspect in such cases they just filter them out if they have other candidates.

goalieca 8y ago

i'm not really understanding the tech sector. There's often the criticism that we keep reinventing solutions to old problems. And here you are, with presumably 30 years of experience, and no one wants to take a chance?

eecsninja 8y ago
Maybe the people complaining and the ones doing the hiring aren't the same.

crispyambulance 8y ago

I find it disturbing he can't find work as a project manager. If anything, that's one role where the practitioners typically know fuck-all about nothing and where good ones are worth their weight in gold. I LOVE to work with ADULT project managers who have a clue about how projects actually unfold and how things actually get done with a wide variety of personalities in the mix. Instead, more often than not, you get 20-30-something "management fast-track" wannabe's who could not solve a problem to save their lives.

perryh2 8y ago
In today's world of agile development, I haven't met any project managers worthy of anything. I feel that strong product managers are capable of managing development as well. I can't believe there are actual people getting paid to move JIRA tickets around full-time.
- Justsignedup 8y ago
  Good project management is invisible. They just make projects happen. They make sure everyone is talking. They make sure decisions are made. Everyone knows what to do when to do it. Etc. I seen good project management. It is magical. Then the manager left. Everything slowed down to a crawl.
  - bfdm 8y ago
    Yep, it's the thankless job that when done well nobody notices.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
    Invisible makes it sound intangible. If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? Making sure "the right people are talking", "decisions are made", etc. do sound like things that can be tracked to confirm if a PM is indeed adding value.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      >>If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? At some point in time recurring wins can look like a perpetual machine. The problem is when you get there, people think like, Now that we got what we want why do we need this person? It's only after the person goes and a few months down the lane you begin to see things falling apart. Of course by then things just become the new normal.
    - crispyambulance 8y ago
      > If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? The problem with that line of thought is that it's not at all easy (or even possible) to quantifiably measure performance on an individual basis. This is especially true for roles like PM's whose job is to enable the labor and talent of others.

warent 8y ago

I sincerely hope you were just being facetious in the last line. There's a ton someone with your experience could do such as write books, consultation, coaching, etc.

olalonde 8y ago
Remote work too. Your employer doesn't need to know your age.
- jolmg 8y ago
  Do you say that from experience? I've always wondered how the legal stuff works in remote work, including, for example, international workers. I mean, how anonymous can one be in one of those jobs?
towaway1138 8y ago
Not exactly, but it's not an eventuality I expect to come to pass any year soon.

csa 8y ago

Check out jobs with the federal government and/or with government contractors. The work might not be as sexy or as lucrative (although sometimes it is), but the pay is stable (lolol... shutdowns notwithstanding) at a middle-class level. The government is desperate for people who can code.

a3n 8y ago
The last month should demonstrate that the government is a terrible steward of jobs. Shutdowns and dysfunction are on a bad trend. Half the board (Congress) won't talk to the other half, and the CEO (President) is a narcissist at best. I don't think anyone who relies on a paycheck should work for the government, unless God himself touched their heart with his finger and made that their calling. Although the man in the article is probably desperate enough to give that a shot.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  I don’t think the shutdowns are quite that bad yet (unless you’re a contractor). Everyone—except contractors—got back pay when the government re-opened. A vouple months delayed pay can absolutely be devistating to someone at a certain income level, and I don’t want to discount the hardship the recent shutdown has caused. But, I imagine most people well-off enough to have a programming job wouldn’t have too many cash flow issues, given proper financial planning.
- johnny22 8y ago
  most governments in the world don't have shutdowns like the US though. The US doesn't need to have them either.
Novashi 8y ago
>The government is desperate for people who can code. Not desperate enough to teach people to code who want to learn though. But I bet half the need is from mountains of shit code anyway. The contracting and procurement processes are fucked (source: friend who works in gov't IT contracts -- stay far away from any dev positions involving Dept. of VA). Demand for good devs is going to be won by companies. We clearly can't even fill private sector roles even at these salary levels. I'm not sure how anyone can look at our really picky labor market with the government's lack of salary and perk offerings and think "yeah we can fill these if we just try a bit harder". Government really needs a different approach to solve their staffing needs in this regard. They aren't competitive.

agumonkey 8y ago

Serving food is more than honest IMO, but still a bit of a waste.. Also it seems a lot of capable coders are struggling with harsh if not inhuman business structures. Maybe regroup and form a nice company of nice people.

brobdingnagians 8y ago
I like this comment; seems like you could make a pretty good company from the older talent that isn't picked up by the young companies. In terms of pure competition, you could give them all a run for their money with the lifelong knowledge bit.
- ilovetux 8y ago
  I've seen something similar where a company made a spot for themselves hiring aging cobol programmers and making pretty good money contracting with other companies. I will try to find a link to the article I read.
  - ilovetux 8y ago
    I found the link. The company is called COBOL Cowboys. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scramble-to-fix-old-systems-as-it-cowboys-ride-into-sunset-idUSKBN17C0D8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scr...
    - brobdingnagians 8y ago
      Thank you, that's cool
- jammygit 8y ago
  The company I worked for last year was about 1/4 older gentlemen in engineering roles. I'm disappointed that other companies are not as keen to hire them, but they had so freaking much experience and it was a pleasure to work with them

jolmg 8y ago

You could also look to start your own business to not require the approval of any hiring committee. Customers are not going to care, and you can probably get them to buy into your product/service without them even knowing much about you, let alone your age. The difference between being hired into a business and working on your own is that you'll have to create stability on your own, but the benefits seem worth it. Making a change like that probably takes time to adapt, but fuck me if I ever fail to make use of the skills I've honed throughout my whole life and that I know are useful for people. One just has to bridge the gap between what one can provide and what people need. If someone gets in the way of that because of their own misjudgments, sidestep them and prove them wrong!

sjg007 8y ago
It’s not easy to start your own company. Sometimes you have no choice but it’s not for everyone.

smnplk 8y ago

By graceful exit, do you mean Smith and Wesson retirement plan ? I think it's still better to become a street beggar.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
towaway1138 8y ago
Yes, but however you feel about suicide, I would never recommend that method. Way too unreliable for me. That's like two nines and you want ten or twenty nines. Failure is not an option. (For the forseeable future, I have lots to live for. Promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.)

scarface74 8y ago

So did you try finding a job just in Silicon Valley on the West Coast at a FANG or did you expand your search? It’s hard to believe as hungry as people are for developers that no one in the entire US including remote work, contracting, or consulting would hire you assuming you had marketable skills. I’m in my mid 40s, was just looking for a job last year and it took me two weeks and from the time I started looking until I had an offer. That’s been about the speed for the last 10 years across 5 jobs.

quicklyfrozen 8y ago
In my experience, there's a pretty big difference between mid 40s and over 50. Companies may be hungry, but they've also become more selective.
- scarface74 8y ago
  How will they tell the difference between if I am 45 and 50 before they make an offer? I haven’t put my date of college graduation on my resume since I was 35 and now I only put the last ten years worth of work experience. Let’s say I’m back in the job market when I am 50 in 2024 and I just keep my experience from 2008 or 2012 depending on the company I am interviewing for.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Heck one of friends only puts the last 3 jobs he had on his resume, keeps it approachable.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Given a choice, I’ll go straight W2 contracting or work for a consulting company after I leave my current job whenever that is.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    >>How will they tell the difference between if I am 45 and 50 before they make an offer? They have eyes, and age shows. Wrinkles, greying hair etc. Its not that hard to spot old people.

burtonator 8y ago

Link to your resume and I'll take a look. All this bullshit about inclusivity. What we SHOULD be doing is blinding the candidate and interviewer. No name. Just the last 2 years of job history. That's it. You don't know their gender. Don't know their age. Don't know their race. Just complete meritocracy.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago
Will this work for on-site, particularly because "do I think I could get along with this candidate/does this candidate seem like a team player/can this candidate communicate effectively" is a significant part of the hiring process? I think many teams may struggle to have completely anonymous hiring due to the desire to meet their potential teammate and assess based on the teammate's easyness to get along with.
- codetrotter 8y ago
  It’d be interesting if a proper study was done. It could turn out to be better. We won’t know till we try.
snotrockets 8y ago
It won't be, because different groups answer questions differently. One famous result (http://web.pdx.edu/~mev/pdf/PS471_Readings_2012/Lizotte_Sidman.pdf http://web.pdx.edu/~mev/pdf/PS471_Readings_2012/Lizotte_Sidm...) is that woman hold themselves to a higher threshold of certainty before claiming to know something. An interesting solution would be to score differently based on known biases; but that would be a can of worms in itself. Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged. There is no such thing in the real world.
- burtonator 8y ago
  > Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged. There is no such thing in the real world. That's absolutely untrue.. you really discredit yourself when you say provably false things like this.

Kinnard 8y ago

Have you ever tried creating your own community? Like through meetup?

sephoric 8y ago

We're at that point too. My solution is a combination of downsizing our life and making my own app business. So far the only app I released (Autumn) was a bust because I stupidly released it on New Year's Eve so practically nobody knew about it, also it's too niche. But everyone loves the quality, so I figure I'll just keep writing more apps. I've got a lot of ideas and a lot of energy. I may have to work at Walmart or something, but I can keep doing this in my spare time. As long as there's at least some food on the table, even if ramen noodles, my family can keep going.

rgbrenner 8y ago
"So far the only app I released (Autumn) was a bust because I stupidly released it on New Year's Eve so practically nobody knew about it" Virtually no businesses work like this. Maybe NY Eve wasn't the best date, and it's great if you get a boost from the announcement, but you need to follow up with marketing, continue talking to customers, sales, calling people, etc. Most users will not hear about your business from the initial announcement. A lot of times when you see a business take off after an announcement, it's because they worked for months prior to build an audience. Sometimes that's the developers audience (if you have a lot of twitter/blog/etc followers), or it can be because you preannounced it, collected emails, and kept them engaged as it was being developed. You still need a game plan for after the announcement though. Good luck... try not to get discouraged if it's not an immediate success. (Your other point, about it being too niche, can be a problem if that niche isn't valuable enough.)
DenisM 8y ago
This is going to be harsh but it’s for your own good. You have no idea what you’re doing and you are blindly digging yourself deeper into the hole by writing more apps. I wrote a couple of quality apps and I had seen some success financial success with them, you are not moving in the right direction. You can’t write an app and think up a marketing plan afterwards as an extension, it’s the other way around - you find an audience with a need you can satisfy and a loudspeaker to reach them about it, only then you add an app as an extension to that. If you want to write quality apps as a hobby then go for it, but don’t expect financial stability from that or you will face emotional ruin on the heals of financial struggle. Just don’t. If you’re looking to make a living then go be a consultant to small-medium businesses. Fire bad clients asap, make unexpected treats for good clients. Repeat business accumulated over a few years will set you up for life.

snorkel 8y ago

One of FANGs I interviewed at, I couldn’t help noticing they totally avoid asking practical questions that require field experience to understand and instead just focus the entire interview on CompSci college homework problems that recent grads can easily relate to. I wonder why. Hmmmmm ...

fnrslvr 8y ago
To be fair, recent grads also have an enormous amount of trouble breaking into the industry. The prisoner's dilemma of training up the graduate at a negative return for 2 years before watching them get poached is an issue that's been thoroughly canvassed around here. I think it's beneficial to the health of the industry that tech giants are at least somewhat willing to calibrate their hiring processes towards that class of applicant and take on that risk, and I hope they don't move away from that just to even further pad the career prospects of people with 5-10 years' experience.
lsc 8y ago
Yeah, but... CompSci college homework... really isn't that hard? I mean, with some coaching and effort, I can study enough get most of those questions even though my math abilities top out somewhere around high school trig. I mean, they are gating some incredibly high-paying jobs. Sure, you gotta jump through some hoops to get it, but I'd argue that the coding tests are... well, they certainly aren't the hoops I find difficult.
- EADGBE 8y ago
  > Yeah, but... CompSci college homework... really isn't that hard? Don't know. To me, college CompSci material might as well be greek. But I somehow get by programming... Now - if we want to talk about contrapuntal music composition techniques - I'm your guy.

shams93 8y ago

"I'll make my graceful exit" is an option far too many people are taking out there. Our industry is in the top 10 industries where workers commit suicide. There is no discussion in this country about how our economy forces many working people to actually commit suicide because we have prematurely aged them out. Often to be replaced by a kid who doesn't even have 1% of the skills and knowledge of the person judged "too old" but still too young to qualify for social security.

segmondy 8y ago

This defeatist attitude is what's going to make this come true for you. McDonald? really? How about consulting? Starting your own shit? Perhaps looking outside of the West Coast and other places you might be appreciated? How about the govt, schools, hospitals, banks, big ol boring enterprises? How about other countries? Seriously, you have option and everyone does. If you are smart enough to pass the hiring committee at FANG, you are obviously smart enough to accomplish anytime you put your mind to. I often see these stories and it's often, "poor old me, woe unto me..." and you know what? Yeah, woe unto them indeed. If you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can't, you can't.

democracy 8y ago
It is a good motivational speech however things can be much more complex at some stage...
peterwwillis 8y ago
This unrealistic anti-pep-talk isn't helping anyone but yourself. When you're actually painted into a corner in life, and really are facing a bad situation with no support whatsoever, you get defeatist. It happens. Human beings have feelings, and no amount of vapid self-actualization bullshit is going to make you stop feeling those feelings. And sometimes there really aren't any other options. If you have no money, and nobody is hiring you, and you have bills to pay, and you have no money, you will have to accept a "lesser" job. This isn't "defeatist", it's real life. You can't wish yourself out of a bad situation. People often have to work hard, from the bottom, until they get a foothold, and then slowly, slowly work back up. But it's still massively more difficult to do any of this when you're older, because nobody wants anything to do with you. You're the awkward old guy at networking events, in job interviews, virtually anywhere anyone can see or hear you. Nobody - govt, schools, hospitals, banks, enterprises - nobody wants to hire an old person. Also - "starting your own shit" ? "other countries" ? How is somebody with no money, no contacts, and no collateral, supposed to pull those off? Just wander into a bank and bullshit your way into a loan? Corner some VCs at a cafe in the valley and win $50K off an elevator pitch?
- 8y ago

TomMckenny 8y ago

>swatted down by a rare strike from the executive level Was this someone you spoke to in anyway? Or was there any rationale hinted at?

towaway1138 8y ago
It's what I heard from my internal recruiter (who had little reason to mislead on that). Through a back channel, I heard something that sounded like a euphemism for "too old" or "too family oriented". I take that with a grain of salt, though. Most likely just the operation of pure chance.

i_am_nomad 8y ago

Many great men and women didn’t embark upon their greatness until their fifties. And quite frankly, if you are leading a life of dignity, principles, and continual learning, you are living up to the true potential of what humans are meant to be (yet so few humans attain). Your life will be a victory whether you’re flipping burgers, houses or companies.

towaway1138 8y ago
Yes. One good thing about getting older is having better perspective on stuff like this.

siruncledrew 8y ago

This is observational, but I notice older hiring managers are more ok with hiring older applicants. Maybe there’s some kind of relatability or something, but the older hires actually turned out to be cool, insightful people. It’s even pretty funny when they joke about age in a self-deprecating sense. Consequently, I’ve seen that younger people are more wary of hiring people too far removed from their own demographic like there’s a forethought a 40+ dev is going to be some burdensome fart from an AARP commercial.

badpun 8y ago
> Consequently, I’ve seen that younger people are more wary of hiring people too far removed from their own demographic like there’s a forethought a 40+ dev is going to be some burdensome fart from an AARP commercial. Younger people often find it awkward and uncomfortable to manage someone who's closer to their dad than to them. I suspect in such cases they just filter them out if they have other candidates.