4 ms·

> Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old programmer would have 35 more years of exper

> Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of programming" doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO candidate has. Why? I'll bite – I think it is because instead of licensing and regulating our profession like surgeons, we have opened it up to creativity and inclusion like artists or fashion designers. As a result, programming job trends are far more similar to fashion or art than medicine. You always want the clothes from the hip new designer, but a few stalwarts (Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, etc.) are evergreen and always in demand. They even end up influencing the larger trends of fashion. If you ask Ralph Lauren how things are going, he'll say "I'm 81 and I have no problems finding work!". You might even have individual designers who are discovered at 81 and become a hit. But that is not the condition for the average fashion designer who is 81. Similarly, you'll hear from plenty of older programmers for whom things have worked out as they get older. My hypothesis is that they are also the ones who have kept up with changing fashions and paradigms.

syshum 5y ago
hmm there are a lot of old brands and designs out there in clothing, and I dont think I have ever owned anything from a "hot new" fashion brand My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wrangler, Dickies, etc...
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wangler, Dickies, etc... You are wearing designer clothes! Just by a designer from 1873 [1]. The equivalent programmer would be John von Neumann, maybe. -------------------- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss
  - syshum 5y ago
    Exactly my point. the Comment I responded to was "No one wants old designers they want the Hot New young designers"
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      Also from the comment: > ...but a few stalwarts (Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, etc.) are evergreen and always in demand. They even end up influencing the larger trends of fashion. The "old" brands you are wearing are all the result of stalwart designers from the past.
- stonemetal12 5y ago
  Carhartt produces clothes designed by others. If you look at their wikipedia page, all the designers mentioned are either old and famous, or the young "hot new thing".
- jjk166 5y ago
  Something tells me you're not in the fashion industry. The average customer doesn't give a shit about the hot new thing, be it fashion or web framework, but the customers aren't the ones hiring talent and shaping the industry.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
greyhair 5y ago
I always tell people that software development, as a career, is like being in college forever. You have to be in the learning mindset your whole career. Part of that learning, is learning technology, and part of that learning, is learning people and organizations. Organizations are very different, today, than they were in 1990. Less change than the underlying technology, but changed none the less.
mgkimsal 5y ago
Indeed, one of the things you'll hear from "older" developers is "you gotta keep learning new stuff" and "learn how to learn". You might find yourself with some extended contract for maintaining a legacy codebase that is too big or important or risky to migrate... then you may be "set" for some years, but that's certainly not a majority of cases I see. And... if you're early 50s and have some in-demand niche skills that might be out of fashion in say, 5-10 years, but you have work lined up right now, that may be enough to just double down and stay put, vs trying to learn a bunch of new tools. You'll still be 'behind' on the new tools, and you'll still be competing against some degree of implicit ageism.
- bumby 5y ago
  The problem I've witnessed is this creates a perverse incentive to keep the organization using old tech even when its against the organizations best interest. I've seen developers essentially lie to non-software-minded managers as a means of not being forced to learn a new platform.
  - lowercased 5y ago
    There's a lot of factors at play. Yes, there's incentives to 'lie' and say "this can't be upgraded". There's also incentives to say "this is old and is bad and we have to rewrite!" - I've seen a lot of resume-driven-development. There are people who will lie to avoid having to learn an old platform as well.
    - bumby 5y ago
      Very true. In my experience the rationale to lie to upgrade has a higher burden because it has to overcome the inertia of a status quo that has at least worked for some time. It tends to be easier to advocate for a past solution than an unproven one.
      - lowercased 5y ago
        if/when the aforementioned 'non-software-minded managers' are the audience that needs to approve requests... all bets are off, ime.
bumby 5y ago
This falls inline with what I was going to respond with, but your response puts a better angle on it. I was going to suggest that the nature of software moves much faster than many other disciplines, even other STEM ones. At least in industry*, a mechanical engineer isn't as likely to have to un-learn and re-learn like a software engineer. This tends to make those industries a bit more slow moving which, in turn, makes experience in the traditional ways of doing things a bit more valuable. I know NCEES toyed with the idea of a software engineer professional license, but it died on the vine because so few people took it up. I suspect the outcome would have been different if industry or regulation made it a priority, like it is for civil engineers. >My hypothesis is that they are also the ones who have kept up with changing fashions and paradigms.* This is my thought as well, but I think a lot of bias comes because of other life events. The SWEs I knew who felt left out just didn't have enough bandwidth to spend extra hours each week learning when they had many of the other commitments that generally start creeping in in one's 30s onward. *(In academia, there's a bit more emphasis on 'state-of-the-art', I presume).

syshum 5y ago

hmm there are a lot of old brands and designs out there in clothing, and I dont think I have ever owned anything from a "hot new" fashion brand My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wrangler, Dickies, etc...

quadrifoliate 5y ago
> My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wangler, Dickies, etc... You are wearing designer clothes! Just by a designer from 1873 [1]. The equivalent programmer would be John von Neumann, maybe. -------------------- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss
- syshum 5y ago
  Exactly my point. the Comment I responded to was "No one wants old designers they want the Hot New young designers"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    Also from the comment: > ...but a few stalwarts (Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, etc.) are evergreen and always in demand. They even end up influencing the larger trends of fashion. The "old" brands you are wearing are all the result of stalwart designers from the past.
stonemetal12 5y ago
Carhartt produces clothes designed by others. If you look at their wikipedia page, all the designers mentioned are either old and famous, or the young "hot new thing".
jjk166 5y ago
Something tells me you're not in the fashion industry. The average customer doesn't give a shit about the hot new thing, be it fashion or web framework, but the customers aren't the ones hiring talent and shaping the industry.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

greyhair 5y ago

I always tell people that software development, as a career, is like being in college forever. You have to be in the learning mindset your whole career. Part of that learning, is learning technology, and part of that learning, is learning people and organizations. Organizations are very different, today, than they were in 1990. Less change than the underlying technology, but changed none the less.

mgkimsal 5y ago

Indeed, one of the things you'll hear from "older" developers is "you gotta keep learning new stuff" and "learn how to learn". You might find yourself with some extended contract for maintaining a legacy codebase that is too big or important or risky to migrate... then you may be "set" for some years, but that's certainly not a majority of cases I see. And... if you're early 50s and have some in-demand niche skills that might be out of fashion in say, 5-10 years, but you have work lined up right now, that may be enough to just double down and stay put, vs trying to learn a bunch of new tools. You'll still be 'behind' on the new tools, and you'll still be competing against some degree of implicit ageism.

bumby 5y ago
The problem I've witnessed is this creates a perverse incentive to keep the organization using old tech even when its against the organizations best interest. I've seen developers essentially lie to non-software-minded managers as a means of not being forced to learn a new platform.
- lowercased 5y ago
  There's a lot of factors at play. Yes, there's incentives to 'lie' and say "this can't be upgraded". There's also incentives to say "this is old and is bad and we have to rewrite!" - I've seen a lot of resume-driven-development. There are people who will lie to avoid having to learn an old platform as well.
  - bumby 5y ago
    Very true. In my experience the rationale to lie to upgrade has a higher burden because it has to overcome the inertia of a status quo that has at least worked for some time. It tends to be easier to advocate for a past solution than an unproven one.
    - lowercased 5y ago
      if/when the aforementioned 'non-software-minded managers' are the audience that needs to approve requests... all bets are off, ime.

bumby 5y ago

This falls inline with what I was going to respond with, but your response puts a better angle on it. I was going to suggest that the nature of software moves much faster than many other disciplines, even other STEM ones. At least in industry*, a mechanical engineer isn't as likely to have to un-learn and re-learn like a software engineer. This tends to make those industries a bit more slow moving which, in turn, makes experience in the traditional ways of doing things a bit more valuable. I know NCEES toyed with the idea of a software engineer professional license, but it died on the vine because so few people took it up. I suspect the outcome would have been different if industry or regulation made it a priority, like it is for civil engineers. >My hypothesis is that they are also the ones who have kept up with changing fashions and paradigms.* This is my thought as well, but I think a lot of bias comes because of other life events. The SWEs I knew who felt left out just didn't have enough bandwidth to spend extra hours each week learning when they had many of the other commitments that generally start creeping in in one's 30s onward. *(In academia, there's a bit more emphasis on 'state-of-the-art', I presume).