4 ms·

I'm an engineering manager in my 40s and I've hired engineers older than me. I appreciate you're absolutely correct, age discrimination does happen. One thing

I'm an engineering manager in my 40s and I've hired engineers older than me. I appreciate you're absolutely correct, age discrimination does happen. One thing to consider for older engineers is that, though your technical expertise improves through the decades, it's not just technologies that you have to keep up with but also cultural practices. That is, the bad culture fit isn't necessarily code for "We don't want you because you're old." but could be a genuine reason. As an example, consider the book The Phoenix Project which dissects the reasons for discarding segregation of roles like developers, QA, and ops in separate teams into service teams of DevOps / T-shaped engineers. If you haven't worked in that environment or don't appreciate the difference, you may be judged accordingly.

fridif 5y ago
The only algorithm for hiring someone should be as follows: if (candidate.canCode && !candidate.isAsshole) return true; return false;
- lifebeyondfife 5y ago
  I agree with you, those are absolutely fundamental. The bar should be set higher though, especially for senior engineers. https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2021/04/10/dont-hire-top-talent-hire-for-weaknesses/ https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2021/04/10/dont-hire-top-talen... This is why I stress the importance of culture. I got into engineering because I loved coding, I loved problem solving, I loved writing programs and making things happen on the screen. It's so easy for the team sport aspect of software engineering to become a blindspot if it's something you're not interested in.
- zo1 5y ago
  What about candidate.can_work_in_a_team? Or follows_requirements_instead_of_doing_their_own_thing? It's a huge problem and there are so many difficult personalities out there that one has to look at "culture" and personality.
  - Yiin 5y ago
    you clearly can not work in a team as the original codebase was in camel case and yet here you are pushing snake case. /s
  - fridif 5y ago
    are your requirements written as test cases? cause if so, there's no arguing about if the work is done or not (except for performance requirements, sonar qube, etc)
  - palerdot 5y ago
    > What about candidate.can_work_in_a_team? Or follows_requirements_instead_of_doing_their_own_thing? In a way, all these are part of `!candidate.isAsshole`

fridif 5y ago

The only algorithm for hiring someone should be as follows: if (candidate.canCode && !candidate.isAsshole) return true; return false;

lifebeyondfife 5y ago
I agree with you, those are absolutely fundamental. The bar should be set higher though, especially for senior engineers. https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2021/04/10/dont-hire-top-talent-hire-for-weaknesses/ https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2021/04/10/dont-hire-top-talen... This is why I stress the importance of culture. I got into engineering because I loved coding, I loved problem solving, I loved writing programs and making things happen on the screen. It's so easy for the team sport aspect of software engineering to become a blindspot if it's something you're not interested in.
zo1 5y ago
What about candidate.can_work_in_a_team? Or follows_requirements_instead_of_doing_their_own_thing? It's a huge problem and there are so many difficult personalities out there that one has to look at "culture" and personality.
- Yiin 5y ago
  you clearly can not work in a team as the original codebase was in camel case and yet here you are pushing snake case. /s
- fridif 5y ago
  are your requirements written as test cases? cause if so, there's no arguing about if the work is done or not (except for performance requirements, sonar qube, etc)
- palerdot 5y ago
  > What about candidate.can_work_in_a_team? Or follows_requirements_instead_of_doing_their_own_thing? In a way, all these are part of `!candidate.isAsshole`