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Are there people who only want to spend their lives doing the same thing every day? Decades of experience in C and Java ought to work just fine for someone who

by Lendal 6y ago

Are there people who only want to spend their lives doing the same thing every day? Decades of experience in C and Java ought to work just fine for someone who wants to try something new, like React. I learned React after decades of experience in other things, and I loved it. I don't see why it should matter what I did in the past. Was I successful? Did I enjoy it? Will I come to work every day energized and ready to work on new things? Those are the things that matter.

drchopchop 6y ago
Well, I spent years doing C, then Java, and now I'm a CTO at a tech company that's a React/Typescript/Ruby shop. However, I needed to sit down and spend the time to actually learn those technologies. What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it, and try to fall back to "well I'm an expert at 10 other languages, it's all easy". A lot of companies are looking for that expertise now, not to spend 6 months training you on the job, especially at a big salary and title.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it The problem I encountered as I hit the 10-year mark is that it is hard to get the interview when you have extensive professional experience and none of it is in $TECH the company is looking for.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I'm not sure that's unreasonable in general and it goes beyond just $TECH. I have experience and skills in a lot of different areas and, sure, I could pick up new skills in related areas of business and tech fairly quickly. However, if a company is looking for a senior person to "hit the ground running" in an area where I have at best peripheral experience, I wouldn't seriously expect to get hired--especially as an IC. The details matter of course. If $TECH is something relatively new without a lot of experienced practitioners, it may be reasonable to hire someone with a lot of experience in somewhat related techs. But no matter how skilled the person is, you're probably not going to hire someone for front-end or mobile development who has only ever worked on back-end infrastructure.
    - drchopchop 6y ago
      Right, it's not so much a reflection of age-ism as it is just not having the skills in the job description. It doesn't matter if you're 25 or 45 - if they need X years of language Y, it's for a reason and 20 years of generic dev experience is not usually an acceptable substitute.
      - vonmoltke 6y ago
        I don't understand the point you were making in the original post then. > What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it, and try to fall back to "well I'm an expert at 10 other languages, it's all easy" Of course I would expect someone who claimed professional experience with React to have more than "a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it". In the post that started this chain, though, you said > Decades of experience in C/Java is not going to work at a React shop. Either learn (and be opinionated about!) frameworks built in the last 5 years, or stick to somewhere within your expertise I take that (in combination with the above) to mean that you somehow need to get a job where you can use React in order to get a job where you use React. I'm not sure what the point of that advice is, then. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here.
- hi41 6y ago
  I lost my previous hob where I used to work in C/C++. I tried to get a job in Java because i wanted to work in newer technologies. I found a low paying job and I took it since I couldn’t find another . However, I found the switch very difficult and did not last at that job long enough. Why is it that expertise in one language like C does not translate well to other technology areas?
  - jki275 6y ago
    C is not C++ is not Java. Different mindsets. I haven’t found any of them difficult to learn though, I code in all three along with Python, almost daily. I think it’s mostly just doing - I get the books out all the time.

by Lendal 6y ago

drchopchop 6y ago

Well, I spent years doing C, then Java, and now I'm a CTO at a tech company that's a React/Typescript/Ruby shop. However, I needed to sit down and spend the time to actually learn those technologies. What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it, and try to fall back to "well I'm an expert at 10 other languages, it's all easy". A lot of companies are looking for that expertise now, not to spend 6 months training you on the job, especially at a big salary and title.

vonmoltke 6y ago
> What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it The problem I encountered as I hit the 10-year mark is that it is hard to get the interview when you have extensive professional experience and none of it is in $TECH the company is looking for.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I'm not sure that's unreasonable in general and it goes beyond just $TECH. I have experience and skills in a lot of different areas and, sure, I could pick up new skills in related areas of business and tech fairly quickly. However, if a company is looking for a senior person to "hit the ground running" in an area where I have at best peripheral experience, I wouldn't seriously expect to get hired--especially as an IC. The details matter of course. If $TECH is something relatively new without a lot of experienced practitioners, it may be reasonable to hire someone with a lot of experience in somewhat related techs. But no matter how skilled the person is, you're probably not going to hire someone for front-end or mobile development who has only ever worked on back-end infrastructure.
  - drchopchop 6y ago
    Right, it's not so much a reflection of age-ism as it is just not having the skills in the job description. It doesn't matter if you're 25 or 45 - if they need X years of language Y, it's for a reason and 20 years of generic dev experience is not usually an acceptable substitute.
    - vonmoltke 6y ago
      I don't understand the point you were making in the original post then. > What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it, and try to fall back to "well I'm an expert at 10 other languages, it's all easy" Of course I would expect someone who claimed professional experience with React to have more than "a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it". In the post that started this chain, though, you said > Decades of experience in C/Java is not going to work at a React shop. Either learn (and be opinionated about!) frameworks built in the last 5 years, or stick to somewhere within your expertise I take that (in combination with the above) to mean that you somehow need to get a job where you can use React in order to get a job where you use React. I'm not sure what the point of that advice is, then. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here.
hi41 6y ago
I lost my previous hob where I used to work in C/C++. I tried to get a job in Java because i wanted to work in newer technologies. I found a low paying job and I took it since I couldn’t find another . However, I found the switch very difficult and did not last at that job long enough. Why is it that expertise in one language like C does not translate well to other technology areas?
- jki275 6y ago
  C is not C++ is not Java. Different mindsets. I haven’t found any of them difficult to learn though, I code in all three along with Python, almost daily. I think it’s mostly just doing - I get the books out all the time.