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> Older software engineers (40+) won't be discriminated against if they are doing cool stuff and are doing different stuff than they were doing a few years back
by OldHand2018 6y ago
> Older software engineers (40+) won't be discriminated against if they are doing cool stuff and are doing different stuff than they were doing a few years back.
But I don't do cool stuff. What I do is to keep a ~$25 million per year money printing system from falling over while the youngsters are in year 7 of the 18 month project to replace it with super cool tech. Making money is so overrated these days.
- fecak 6y agoMaybe what you do IS cool, but you expect others don't think it is, or you don't make it sound cool when you talk about it. I've made some pretty mundane work sound cool, but it's not always easy.
- OldHand2018 6y agoYou may be right about that. I should note, however, that I am not out there looking for a new gig. I have kids, am getting a master's degree part time, and have a small side business. Yet I still have time to read books at night. Find me another job where I can do all that :)
- sdoering 6y agohaving been part of many candidate interviews you would have massively scored in my book with this comment. you have values other than work. that's something I value very highly. wish there were more like you these days to interview (I am just 42, so take it with a grain of salt) but the youngsters, straight from college with a streamlined CV are sometimes difficult to deal with imho.
- viklove 6y agoYou sound like you hold a lot of disdain for "the youngsters," and you'd be a liability on a team if you had any younger teammates. Oldies can be hard to work with, and you're sort of proving it right here.
- OldHand2018 6y agoI have a disdain for people that don't finish what they've started and don't satisfy requirements. I don't feel as though that has much of anything to do with age. Anyway, if that makes me hard to work with, so be it.
- arp242 6y agoWait, are you telling me that you develop software to solve business needs and not as a personal art project?! What kind of crazy talk is this?!
- viklove 6y ago> I have a disdain for people that don't finish what they've started and don't satisfy requirements. And everyone younger than you fits this criteria? You're quite bigoted, I hope you realize that.
- halbritt 6y agoYou'd be surprised how little corporate bureaucracy values the act of "keeping the lights on" for an existing and stable revenue stream. Obviously, keeping the money hose going is good for the business, but it only gets recognized in the case of failure. To put it simply, it doesn't create new value, which is what corporate culture in the US is all about.
- joshspankit 6y ago^this is a really underrated statement. Coming from “sysadmin”/tech/keeper of the lights on: there is no win at the bottom line. Keeping the lights on always costs money, they always wish it could cost less (except when inter-company bragging about having the new hot tool), and when you’re doing your best possible job they will forget you exist. If something happens on your watch they can just as easily assume you have not been working at all. One thing I’ve distilled from all this: Always keep at least some focus on how much your work costs vs how much value it’s providing.
- heymijo 6y agoNo one pays for prevention. Few pay for maintenance. Everyone pays for the fixes required from the lack of investment in the former.