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Inexperienced people are just cheaper. There are two types of young software companies: - Some companies hire a smaller amount of experienced people who reall

Inexperienced people are just cheaper. There are two types of young software companies: - Some companies hire a smaller amount of experienced people who really know what they're doing, know what they're worth, and compensates them appropriately. - Other companies hire a larger amount of bright, motivated young people that don't know how to do anything, trains them up quickly, then tries to milk them for 1-3 years until they smarten up enough to leave. I don't think it's as exploitive as it sounds. The young people get a slingshot early in their career and a good bullet point on their resume, and they're free to leave whenever they want. And most do leave in due time to do bigger and better things.

Dhirvish 5y ago
Right, but what about us 43 year olds in the middle? There's a couple 10s of millions of us. I'm trying to move into the tech field, have a decade of migrating paper documents for law firms into databases & doing other simple ETL, but that is disappearing. I saw it coming years ago and am almost done with my masters in data analytics, but all of those jobs pay $10-20k less than what I was making before. There is no where for me to transition into because I don't have 5 years of DBA experience and am not willing to work for $40k just spewing out simple code for 3 years, not that anyone would hire me for it anyway. I'm a member of Mensa, skipped 3 grades of math when I was younger, am almost done with my 4th degree, and nobody wants me because I'm not in either of those two groups. 2-3k resumes, 4 interviews made it past the initial phase for Analyst/PM positions. It's a problem, trust me.
- mriet 5y ago
  Quick tip: leave Mensa off of your resume. I skip any resume that I see where someone "brags" about how smart they are -- I care about teamwork and how open to new or different ideas someone is, and both of those are orthogonal axes to "intelligence" in my experience. It's ludicrous for you not to accept a pay cut if 10-20k given your lack of experience. Get off your high horse!

Dhirvish 5y ago

Right, but what about us 43 year olds in the middle? There's a couple 10s of millions of us. I'm trying to move into the tech field, have a decade of migrating paper documents for law firms into databases & doing other simple ETL, but that is disappearing. I saw it coming years ago and am almost done with my masters in data analytics, but all of those jobs pay $10-20k less than what I was making before. There is no where for me to transition into because I don't have 5 years of DBA experience and am not willing to work for $40k just spewing out simple code for 3 years, not that anyone would hire me for it anyway. I'm a member of Mensa, skipped 3 grades of math when I was younger, am almost done with my 4th degree, and nobody wants me because I'm not in either of those two groups. 2-3k resumes, 4 interviews made it past the initial phase for Analyst/PM positions. It's a problem, trust me.

mriet 5y ago
Quick tip: leave Mensa off of your resume. I skip any resume that I see where someone "brags" about how smart they are -- I care about teamwork and how open to new or different ideas someone is, and both of those are orthogonal axes to "intelligence" in my experience. It's ludicrous for you not to accept a pay cut if 10-20k given your lack of experience. Get off your high horse!