5 ms·

I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda hard

I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda hard to tell what's a fad and what's not. I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility, and I can't fathom having the kind of arrogance to discount the experience and wisdom that comes with age.

aswanson 7y ago
programming is a daily exercise in epistemic humility You are wise beyond your years, young padawan.
alxlaz 7y ago
> I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. I've observed this first-hand while doing interviews. Even in companies that insist there's no bias against age, and even with people who insist they don't have any bias, there is nonetheless a preference for hiring: * People who don't have a clear understanding of how much their work is worth and therefore have difficulties negotiating a high salary * People who openly display enthusiasm -- and this is especially true among HR and higher-level managers, who can't really discern technical expertise so they look at things they can assess themselves. Enthusiasm is obviously good to have but it's no substitute for expertise, commitment and discipline, all of which are hard to evaluate if you have little or no technical experience. * People who have no strong personal commitments and don't mind doing overtime on a short notice * People who are enthusiastic about new technology, because they enable ambitious team leaders' and managers' experiments and pet projects instead of skeptically cautioning against them. * People who have no trouble buying into a new company's culture, even when it's of questionable value (i.e. people who can quickly assimilate and integrate in even the most toxic working environments, as opposed to people who can recognize one, understand what kind of damage it does, and quickly go fsck it, this ain't worth it!) Experienced programmers know their worth and aren't twenty year-olds that you can walk all over if you have a fancy title. So there are a lot of hiring managers who would be okay with hiring a 50-year old candidate, but have difficulty finding a 50-year old candidate that they'd be willing to hire.
- tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
  Wow that's a fascinating breakdown, I never thought about it with that level of granularity.
  - sanderjd 7y ago
    All of that rings true to me, but I think there's a corollary that if you're willing to pay people in accordance with the value of their depth of experience, and you can evaluate expertise without being biased by enthusiasm, and you can build a stable team that executes on a plan instead of requiring tons of overtime to scramble from emergency to emergency, and if you value choosing the right technologies for a problem over following trends, and if you don't have a toxic culture, then there is a treasure trove of people out there with experience and expertise, who you have less competition to hire.
    - alxlaz 7y ago
      Definitely -- but while most places don't actually suffer from all those things at once, a lot of them do worry about most of them, and will bring them up if they're out of criteria based on which to differentiate candidates. I've seen places where availability for sudden overtime was a big deal, even though it was rarely needed. The reasons were completely stupid but it was a big deal and it played a big role in deciding hires. The projects were well-executed and deadlines were rarely missed, but management quirks meant that every team lead and manager was afraid of not being able to cope with crunch. Also, a lot of these problems aren't "global" -- a company may actually run into all of them, but not everywhere and not with the same people. Companies that do value choosing the right technologies over following trends will nonetheless have one or two people who would like to be more bold. They may generally aim for building stable teams that executes on a plan and delivers things on time, but they nonetheless won't be devoid of newly-hired managers who don't have experience running things like that, or who might be willing to compromise on this side of things for a volatile, but high-potential project. Even toxicity can be surprisingly well isolated.
- tacostakohashi 7y ago
phkahler 7y ago
On fads. In spite of the hype, I believe Rust is not a fad. It's going to be doing extremely well in 50 years. I cant condense the background that goes into that statement into a single comment. But a few other languages are valuable too and will be for a while.
- twic 7y ago
  I think the ideas that Rust is demonstrating are valuable, and will be around in 50 years. I'm not sure if Rust will be. I sort of hope it won't be, because that implies it'll be replaced by an even better realisation of the same ideas.
gilbetron 7y ago
> Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility I'm 48, been programming since I was 8, professionally since I was 16, and I feel the same way.
bradleyjg 7y ago
There's two different, but related, things going on: 1) Is regular, ordinary age discrimination. This is why tech companies won't hire people starting second careers into entry level programming roles. 2) The widespread notion that more than about 5 years programming experience is not valuable, maybe even counterproductive. (Firm specific knowledge is a different story, tech companies do value that.) Hence all the "senior" programmers with 3 years experience. -- The first one is illegal and in my opinion immoral. The second one to my mind an empirical question--it doesn't seem to be true based on my experiences and observations, but I'd be willing to have my mind changed by evidence.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > The first one is illegal Partially illegal. I'm 39, and it is perfectly legal for companies to tell me they won't hire me because I'm too old. Next year it becomes illegal for them to do so.
  - bmarquez 7y ago
    They'll never actually admit it though even if it was legal though. Companies would prefer to say they're looking for a better fit or something equally vague.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    When you say "Next year it becomes illegal for them to do so", what specifically are you referring to? I didn't catch the reference.
    - mjm65 7y ago
      US law (ADEA) that forbids discrimination for 40 and over.

aswanson 7y ago

programming is a daily exercise in epistemic humility You are wise beyond your years, young padawan.

alxlaz 7y ago

> I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. I've observed this first-hand while doing interviews. Even in companies that insist there's no bias against age, and even with people who insist they don't have any bias, there is nonetheless a preference for hiring: * People who don't have a clear understanding of how much their work is worth and therefore have difficulties negotiating a high salary * People who openly display enthusiasm -- and this is especially true among HR and higher-level managers, who can't really discern technical expertise so they look at things they can assess themselves. Enthusiasm is obviously good to have but it's no substitute for expertise, commitment and discipline, all of which are hard to evaluate if you have little or no technical experience. * People who have no strong personal commitments and don't mind doing overtime on a short notice * People who are enthusiastic about new technology, because they enable ambitious team leaders' and managers' experiments and pet projects instead of skeptically cautioning against them. * People who have no trouble buying into a new company's culture, even when it's of questionable value (i.e. people who can quickly assimilate and integrate in even the most toxic working environments, as opposed to people who can recognize one, understand what kind of damage it does, and quickly go fsck it, this ain't worth it!) Experienced programmers know their worth and aren't twenty year-olds that you can walk all over if you have a fancy title. So there are a lot of hiring managers who would be okay with hiring a 50-year old candidate, but have difficulty finding a 50-year old candidate that they'd be willing to hire.

tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
Wow that's a fascinating breakdown, I never thought about it with that level of granularity.
- sanderjd 7y ago
  All of that rings true to me, but I think there's a corollary that if you're willing to pay people in accordance with the value of their depth of experience, and you can evaluate expertise without being biased by enthusiasm, and you can build a stable team that executes on a plan instead of requiring tons of overtime to scramble from emergency to emergency, and if you value choosing the right technologies for a problem over following trends, and if you don't have a toxic culture, then there is a treasure trove of people out there with experience and expertise, who you have less competition to hire.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    Definitely -- but while most places don't actually suffer from all those things at once, a lot of them do worry about most of them, and will bring them up if they're out of criteria based on which to differentiate candidates. I've seen places where availability for sudden overtime was a big deal, even though it was rarely needed. The reasons were completely stupid but it was a big deal and it played a big role in deciding hires. The projects were well-executed and deadlines were rarely missed, but management quirks meant that every team lead and manager was afraid of not being able to cope with crunch. Also, a lot of these problems aren't "global" -- a company may actually run into all of them, but not everywhere and not with the same people. Companies that do value choosing the right technologies over following trends will nonetheless have one or two people who would like to be more bold. They may generally aim for building stable teams that executes on a plan and delivers things on time, but they nonetheless won't be devoid of newly-hired managers who don't have experience running things like that, or who might be willing to compromise on this side of things for a volatile, but high-potential project. Even toxicity can be surprisingly well isolated.
tacostakohashi 7y ago

phkahler 7y ago

On fads. In spite of the hype, I believe Rust is not a fad. It's going to be doing extremely well in 50 years. I cant condense the background that goes into that statement into a single comment. But a few other languages are valuable too and will be for a while.

twic 7y ago
I think the ideas that Rust is demonstrating are valuable, and will be around in 50 years. I'm not sure if Rust will be. I sort of hope it won't be, because that implies it'll be replaced by an even better realisation of the same ideas.

gilbetron 7y ago

> Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility I'm 48, been programming since I was 8, professionally since I was 16, and I feel the same way.

bradleyjg 7y ago

There's two different, but related, things going on: 1) Is regular, ordinary age discrimination. This is why tech companies won't hire people starting second careers into entry level programming roles. 2) The widespread notion that more than about 5 years programming experience is not valuable, maybe even counterproductive. (Firm specific knowledge is a different story, tech companies do value that.) Hence all the "senior" programmers with 3 years experience. -- The first one is illegal and in my opinion immoral. The second one to my mind an empirical question--it doesn't seem to be true based on my experiences and observations, but I'd be willing to have my mind changed by evidence.

vonmoltke 7y ago
> The first one is illegal Partially illegal. I'm 39, and it is perfectly legal for companies to tell me they won't hire me because I'm too old. Next year it becomes illegal for them to do so.
- bmarquez 7y ago
  They'll never actually admit it though even if it was legal though. Companies would prefer to say they're looking for a better fit or something equally vague.
- wyclif 7y ago
  When you say "Next year it becomes illegal for them to do so", what specifically are you referring to? I didn't catch the reference.
  - mjm65 7y ago
    US law (ADEA) that forbids discrimination for 40 and over.