19 ms·

Getting hired after fifty

235 points by legrande 4y ago

kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
The guy in the top picture looks like he's just cleaned out his desk after being laid off.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Caption is: a man is smiling while holding a box outside of an elevator Either he is relieved and happy to go elsewhere or he is still shocked (as he seemingly forgot his jacket). More seriously, while I can understand how to "fill" the page an image is sometimes needed, I seem to notice that lately a lot of pages sport these "vague" stock images that mean nothing or nothing connected to the actual article/theme discussed.
  - karmakaze 4y ago
    I was once 'laid off' early from a consulting contract that was renewed too many times. I was approached very sensitively to be handed the 'bad news' and my immediate response was "fantastic" since I'd been bored to tears for months at my desk looking/waiting for more work. The odd bit was that they had used some data of my web browsing habits during this downtime as being against policy to cover their asses. So technically I was let go for 'doing math' at work found on Project Euler[0]. [0] https://projecteuler.net/ https://projecteuler.net/
- zeusk 4y ago
  Maybe it's his first day at the new job
- kylehotchkiss 4y ago
  The smile says he welcomed the severance package though!
black_13 4y ago
sarchertech 4y ago
> While there is little you can do to hide your physical age, you might consider tweaks to your wardrobe or hairstyle to show that you are up to date on current styles and able to adapt. This might be good advice, but it’s absolutely terrible that it’s required. I’m really starting to think we should do voice only interviews, maybe even with voice changers (or maybe slack only interviews). Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac...
- rdl 4y ago
  I try to do voice-only calls wherever possible, especially for hiring. (and text > voice!). Especially for initial screening; less annoying as the hiring manager, and also protects us somewhat from some discrimination claims (obviously only one element of that, and neither necessary nor sufficient on its own)
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
- changoplatanero 4y ago
  nowdays you have the new york times advocating to get rid of blind auditions because they don't produce enough diversity! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
  - bumbledraven 4y ago
    https://archive.ph/b5f9s https://archive.ph/b5f9s To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions If ensembles are to reflect the communities they serve, the audition process should take into account race, gender and other factors.
  - jquery 4y ago
georgia_peach 4y ago
Surprising / not surprising how woke coastal hiring practice coincides with blatant age discrimination. It wasn't that long ago that being on the wrong side of 25 put everything on "hard mode". Now it's more like 35-45, if only because the powers-that-be got older. https://www.mo4tech.com/the-father-of-java-cant-escape-age-discrimination-what-else-can-the-average-programmer-do.html https://www.mo4tech.com/the-father-of-java-cant-escape-age-d...
- 1048576 4y ago
  Surprising / not surprising how woke coastal hiring practice coincides with blatant age discrimination. "Woke" has nothing to do with it. That's a completely separate thing. Also, it doesn't exist. Black people don't use it anymore ("woke" came out of AAVE, before it became something for Tucker Carlson to trigger the right with) and most ardent leftists recognize that "woke capitalism" is strictly a performance. Companies aren't going "woke" because they want to impose blue-state social justice on the population. They're doing this because (a) it's a way to make themselves look better in a country that is 2:1 against racism, sexism, transphobia, et al, without actually changing anything about how they operate, and (b) this "woke"/CRT bugbear is just another tool the very rich use to divide working people against each other. Ageism is similar. Nothing makes capitalists happier than for us old working people and the young working people to hate each other. But we shouldn't. We're on the same team.
  - georgia_peach 4y ago
    - ljp_206 4y ago
      A "strongly implied message," whether it's truly there or not, does not "clear cut hypocrisy" make. This reminds me of a similar meme in recent/current cultural memory: 'Anti-woke' types love to claim that "Black Lives Matter" means or strongly implies that 'all lives' do not. There are many discussions about why this simply isn't the case. To some, though, it may very well be true. But that's an issue with today's slogan- and owning-the-other-side- based discourse. For what it's worth, I agree with you that merits alone should make the hiring decision. As someone you'd probably label "woke," I think we should also acknowledge that it is entirely possible and common that inherent bias makes that difficult for white people in hiring positions. Yes, that can happen with ageism as well.
1048576 4y ago
None of this addresses the real reasons why it's hard to get hired after 50 (actually, it starts in the mid-30s). It's not that older people are always at technology (they aren't) or that young workers don't want them around (they do). It's that bosses assume that anyone who isn't one of them by a certain age is either embittered or was anti-authoritarian from the start. Which isn't false. To be honest, the old people who are obviously fading might be an easier sell to bosses than the ones who are 50, 60, 70+ and still rock solid, because with them, you really have to wonder what went wrong that they're still in the running for subordinate positions. (I mean, there could be—often are—a million reasons why an excellent person's career might go sideways, but bosses aren't usually the forgiving type. They still want to believe the system works, because they are the system.) Bosses want to feel young again, but they also know that workplace subordination is humiliating and that older people are likely to have figured this fact out, while young people still think they're going to be invited to join the execs within 3 years (which the vast majority of them won't).
- kodah 4y ago
  > To be honest, the old people who are obviously fading might be an easier sell to bosses than the ones who are 50, 60, 70+ and still rock solid, because with them, you really have to wonder what went wrong that they're still in the running for subordinate positions. (I mean, there could be—often are—a million reasons why an excellent person's career might go sideways, but bosses aren't usually the forgiving type. They still want to believe the system works, because they are the system.) Actually, you're engaging in the bias right now. I don't ever plan on getting out of IC/Engineering. Stop assuming that's something everyone wants to do.
  - bestouff 4y ago
    I did it already ("because of my expérience" it was presented to me as the natural way forward). Had to fire someone, lost my sleep for a few days because of that. Back to engineering roles which I enjoy much more anyway
    - kodah 4y ago
erwincoumans 4y ago
Good tips, and also: * Stay up-to-date on the latest tech * Stay curious * Keep working with colleagues of all ages, from interns to older colleagues.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Don’t forget * Be open and admit the areas you’re expert in even if they’re not popular - Java and COBOL still get hired
  - ja27 4y ago
    I was on-site at a power company. One of their older COBOL programmers was retiring that week. The person taking over his COBOL job? His son.
    - mallets 4y ago
      That's the kind of nepotism I like. Elders passing on arcane knowledge that would be lost otherwise.
  - steelframe 4y ago
    > Java and COBOL still get hired I work for a fairly well-known and successful tech company that's only about 10 years old, and Java is the main language for the company's flagship product. It's strange to me to see it lumped together with COBOL.
synergy20 4y ago
On the other hand I have 3 colleagues in their 70s working in a silicon design startup, they can still design even do some coding debugging, well paid too. They're all technical and bored at retirement, I feel they're like those college professors that are old but capable, so they can be employed, some are actually sought after. sure it's challenging to get into FAANG(due to their leetcode barrier) but there are many other companies 50s/60s can work for.
- ransom1538 4y ago
  FAANG hiring is just different. They have a vast system of middle management ready to intake juniors, spit out the bad, promote the good. At this point it's a machine. Really senior people (by position) don't fit into this mold. There are exceptions, eg if the senior has a famous product or following -> as this will help intake more juniors into mega corp.
  - synergy20 4y ago
    that makes sense, startup and many others companies do not have lots of those middle-level management, so you're expected to be self-reliant from the start, where senior and experience hires fit well.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    So someone in their 40s or 50s shouldn't do the leetcode grind and take a shot at a FAANG job? I hear it argued both ways, sounds like you're suggesting it's pointless.
    - compiler-guy 4y ago
      I got into Google in my forties and it wasn’t a big deal at all. I do have a fairly specialized skill set and the demand is always high, but as far as I can tell, age didn’t come into it.
      - ransom1538 4y ago
shadowofneptune 4y ago
The article doesn't really mention what fields it's concerned about. Healthcare trends much older, for instance (https://www.journalofnursingregulation.com/article/S2155-8256(21)00027-2/fulltext https://www.journalofnursingregulation.com/article/S2155-825...). I'd think be helpful to know which fields have it worse, no? Some of the advice also seems odd: "For instance, if your résumé still includes your street address or an older email account (such as AOL or Yahoo)." Yahoo is the second-most popular email provider and I doubt it would really send off an alarm bell for a recruiter. Why not include your street address on a formal document like a résumé, anyway?
- rikroots 4y ago
  > Why not include your street address on a formal document like a résumé, anyway? Sadly we live in a world where people still run the risk of being judged on the basis of the neighbourhood they live in, rather than the skills they can bring to a job. By including a street address or postcode in our résumés, we invite people (or more often, nowadays, ML-based algorithms) to make sweeping judgements about us before we even reach the first stage of the hiring process.
kodah 4y ago
I've openly heard managers talk about "experience" in sub for age, eg: "I think this person has too much experience for this role" (when talking about a very senior role). My best advice is to engage HR right away if you hear this kind of stuff. A fair amount of HR folks are older and will jump right on this kind of behavior.
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  Why work for/under people who would do you that way? There's plenty of money to be made out there. If I have too much "experience," they'll just have to miss out on it.
  - kodah 4y ago
    I'm a lead. Getting another lead role would be difficult. Managers in tech are uniformly bad in my experience. If I don't tolerate this then I'll have to tolerate some other form of ridiculousness, but while I'm young I can listen for the dog whistles and report them. Edit: these kinds of managers will always screw you one day; usually that day is a day when your interests aren't as useful to them. It's a mentality (and behavior pattern) that Succession does a fantastic job of roasting. The trick is to read the writing on the wall and the room, find a new job, and bring all the homies. This is why I refer to software as a team sport.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  It's funny because I would interpret those exact words "I think this person has too much experience for this role", as "The budget I have for the position is not enough to afford this person". But maybe you're right that it's ageism and I just assume the best in people.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    I second your take. I have a lot of experience. I want to get paid for it. If you don't need that much experience, you probably don't want to pay my price.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
roschdal 4y ago
The capitalist society in USA is ageist.
brian_cunnie 4y ago
[for the record, I'm 58 & and an active software developer] There are two points I'd like to add: My brain isn't as elastic as a younger programmer's. My brother, a software developer close to my age, once said, "It's as if I used to have 20 registers, and now I'm down to 12". I can't keep as much in my head as once. My twenty-something co-worker, Belinda, once remarked, "It takes you a while to read code & understand what it's doing". She was right. Using solely that metric (elasticity), I'd have to say that the forty-year-old version of myself was faster than the fifty-eight-year-old version. The other point I'd like to make is that there's a certain class of developer who has grown tired of developing & learning new skills, but doesn't want to retire. I remember my co-worker Larry would spend far too much time reminiscing about 640k computers and showing pictures of his grand kids. He didn't seem to want to work much. They let him go, and though I liked him personally, I think management made the right decision.
- hirundo 4y ago
  I'm 59 you young whippersnapper, and one thing I've learned in all those extra months is that my inelastic brain has some useful ruts carved in it, such that I can bang out much code in a fraction of the time that I used to, just because I've done so many similar things before and have grown my toolkit. And it's lower stress/effort work at the same time, almost on autopilot for swaths of it. Maybe I'm at a disadvantage to a young dev in some greenfield on a fresh stack. But I've been in a lot of greenfields and fresh stacks too, and the patterns repeat. That said someday my utility will drop below my cost. I may not _want_ to notice, but my compiler will tell me. I can't lie to the compiler. When my brain can't build any more my commits won't build anymore, it isn't very subtle.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  What about abstract thinking ? at 23 I used to rush through never ending streams of programming ideas, most of them were shallow if not stupid. I'm "slow" now, but in a "make haste slowly".. I take time to grasp higher level, more precise ideas instead of running head down. The bit about the existential shift in priorities rings true to me. At 20 you dream about mastering the future, at 40 you couldn't care less.
inside_out_life 4y ago
I'm considering myself lucky, but I've got hired two months ago, remotely, without revealing my age or anyone caring how I look. I'm 41. Meetings are voice only. I'm yet to meet anyone from the team face to face, yet I'm not worried about it, as I've been preserving myself well.
somethoughts 4y ago
I have to think there is some sort of decently lucrative niche that could combine a legacy software stack plus cloud deployment knowledge. Something like: - Deploy an enterprise Cobol banking application using Kubernetes and add support for bitcoin transactions - Java Struts to support iOS/Android Mobile Apps for a Healthcare Insurance app - Legacy Windows Apps to Azure Particularly in the banking, finance and medical fields.
netfortius 4y ago
US centric article. I am over the article mentioned age by quite a few years, and since arriving in France I got job offers (and accepted one), without "hiding" anything in my resume (education w/dates, complete experience w/dates + up-to-date picture in resume). BTW: I was member of AARP until last year, in the US. Wasted money + junk mail every once in a while...
- gniv 4y ago
  How did you find these offers? I'm planning to move to France (from US) and to look for jobs once I learn French well. Feel free to email me if you don't want to share publicly.
  - netfortius 4y ago
    No secret :-) I changed my profile in LinkedIn to mention new location (France) and added "Freelance/Consulting in sabbatical". Had absolutely no intention to get a job, originally (my sabbatical was in fact a sort of pre-retirement/FIRE), but when I started getting DMs in LinkedIn I became curious. A few calls with some folks, with one thread of conversations which seemed too interesting to not pursue - job offer.
    - gniv 4y ago
      Thanks! I'm in a similar situation. Good tip with "sabbatical". I should do the same.
vmception 4y ago
For developers, I mostly see non-consensus opinions getting them axed. Like okay, you can’t really claim age discrimination when you spent the last 20 minutes railing against javascript and single page applications
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  OTOH, I wouldn't hire anybody who thought JS was some kind of perfection and that chasing frameworks was the way things should be. I may not want to hear 10 minutes of bitching about SPAs, but I'd love to have a two minute rant about how much callbacks suck sometimes, and how promises are better but not better, and async is lipstick on a pig. I like skepticism as long as it doesn't result in refusal to work with a particular technology, and when it's backed up by knowledge.
m0llusk 4y ago
Interesting dissonance here in that being over fifty means care needs to be taken while currently there is also talk of a hiring crunch because of a lack of qualified talent. It seems fairly obvious that something is going wrong, likely with genuinely qualified people's resumes getting spit out of the funnel prematurely.
- sombremesa 4y ago
  The genuinely qualified people in tech are probably not the ones finding this article organically. TFA is not even industry specific...just think of the target audience, and then consider whether this is a cause for concern.
diavelguru 4y ago
I’ve found it interesting that smart young startup entrepreneurs see a resume that has over 20 years experience and instead of seeing a dinosaur they see the experience and future guidance to help them in their endeavors.
parhamn 4y ago
Trung Phan recently wrote an article on the rise of pseudonyms in social media and how it leads to meritocracy [1]. I think a similar thing will be huge for this sort of ageism and odd interview practices. I think the next job board we'll see is "hiring anonymous". Still remains to resolve the legal part, perhaps some intermediary company can handle the anonymization(verify identity and credentials and handle govt paperwork). I think there will be corporate incentive to do this as it completely gives companies plausible deniability around their hiring practices. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-27/don-t-fear-the-coming-pseudonymous-economy https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-27/don-t-...
largbae 4y ago
#4, use your network, should be #1. If you are 50 and you did not just make a drastic career change, you probably know some former colleagues who enjoyed working with you in the past. It often feels awkward to directly ask someone for work. So instead, ask if they can refer you to their friends, and you may be surprised how many volunteer a leg up on a position to work directly with them instead.
- abirch 4y ago
  I agree about the network. If you're not mentoring younger people and helping them in your 30s and 40s the future may not be so bright.
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
I don't know about secrets, but this is my five-part plan for getting hired after fifty: 1. Know Cobol 2. Know JCL 3. Know ISPF 4. Know Rexx 5. Know EZY Oh, btw: >> 5. Polish Up Your Appearance Wahahahaha. A joke, right?
rufus_foreman 4y ago
How do you do fellow kids?
t_mann 4y ago
This advice is far too generic to be of much use to software engineers or any other specific profession, I'm afraid. The only probably useful hint is to not look old by using means of communication that peaked in popularity long time ago.
travisgriggs 4y ago
Just last night, I listened to my son explain the long and rigorous process that he watched senior faculty at a top 10 university go through in selecting post grad students and research assistants. I’ve been part of the “try to pick the best candidate” process for many years in professional, church, and community institutions. Of late, I’m beginning to suspect that there are basically two camps in this whole game. 1. The optimistic one that believes rigorous evaluations and screening are worth the effort. They may even accept some of the failures, but basically believe we’re still getting there, we’ll figure this out. It’s better than doing nothing. 2. The near nihilistic group that basically worries the whole process creates a lot of heat but sheds very little light. That often these choices backfire on us, that our prejudices are our own worst enemies, that while we have some wins in steering the “right” choice, taken overall as a net, it’s not really any better than just random luck of the draw. For many years I think I was camp 1. I worry of late that camp 2 is looking more and more like the reality. Maybe I’m just down about this whole process today.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  Every place I've ever worked says "we only hire the best". I don't recall anyone saying "we intend to hire average people". It's sort of like Lake Woebegon where all the children are above average.
  - mrj 4y ago
    I worked at a Bank before at this was the hiring plan. Simply fill the seats and expect a strong(er) manager to guide the output. Hiring the best simply wasn't an option in most cases, but one good hire was expected to closely monitor and correct the output from many. This didn't work out very well in practice. The efforts of one bad programmer's output can easily max out two people to clean it up. So the Bank had mostly given up on producing its own code and tried to outsource or buy everything it could.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Culturally, I like the emphasis on "every hire increases the average in the long run." When the project or product has the capacity, then when I hire folks I am way less concerned with what they can do immediately today and more interested in what they can do after 3 to 6 months of consistent, earnest growth. If they have critical skillsets and capabilities that are crucial and needed immediately, that's a wonderful thing too, but cross-skilling and training are really needed to prevent those kinds of situations from occuring generally.
LiquidPolymer 4y ago
I'm 58 and have to turn down work (I'm a photographer/producer for over 30 years). Obviously personality and looks can combine for a powerful effect in the hiring process. But one thing we do have control over is physical fitness. This comes from a man who does not like exercise, and has a genetic tendency to severe obesity (if family is any indication). Five days a week you will find me sprinting up hills around my neighborhood, using bands and weights for resistant training, and doing breathing exercises. I eat one or two meals a day. I'm lean, toned, and walk with speed, energy and purpose. I'm not exactly good looking, and I can occasionally be socially awkward - but I'm fit, respectful and wear tasteful attire. Personally, I think this gives me a giant advantage in my age cohort where most men waddle around like they are 11 months pregnant and you can hear their breathing from 60 feet away. I hear a lot of guys in this category counting down the days till retirement. I dislike exercise but have practiced fitness training for decades. The physical and mental benefits are well known. I think the impression it makes is off the charts when you present as an older man with discipline and intellect. I have an aunt who is deeply concerned for my health because I'm too small in her opinion (food = love). Yet her son, my cousin (who she considers a strapping example of manhood), just went on SS disability after being a tow truck driver for decades. He just got too fat to do the job. Nobody would hire him - they just see a giant medical liability. We have control over fitness regardless of looks, and it can make a difference.
- graderjs 4y ago
  This is awesome! Haha
- onion2k 4y ago
  Personally, I think this gives me a giant advantage in my age cohort where most men waddle around like they are 11 months pregnant and you can hear their breathing from 60 feet away. Of course you do. We all tend to think that we're living the right way (obviously, else we'd change). It's not really possible to evaluate whether you are actually living the right way by looking at things from your own reference frame though. For what it's worth, I'm a bit overweight, I don't exercise much, and yet I don't seem to have trouble finding a job. In my current role I've never met anyone in the company I work for except over video calls. They have no idea what my level of fitness is, or how fat I am, or even how tall I am. Maybe I'd be better off if I went for a run more than three times a year, but I'm unlikely to ever find out.
cutler 4y ago
COVID and the remote work revolution actually had an upside for over-50s. For the first time you could conduct a full series of interviews without anyone seeing your face. Many companies are happy to conduct the initial interview by phone then send you a code test for stage 2. If you make it to stage 3 the company is in a much more compromised position rejecting you in a face-to-face over Zoom as the ageism would be obvious.
- emrah 4y ago
  I don't agree. If they can't find anything concrete to reject you on, they call it "culture fit" or lack there of and off you go.. How could you possibly prove it was agism?
  - rocqua 4y ago
    I think blaming culture fit is widely known as 'we are discriminating, either explicitly or as a result of our own biases'. Once you have a pattern of bad culture fit with older people, feels like an easy case to make.
  - cutler 4y ago
    I do a bit of screening at the outset. If a company even mentions "cultural fit" it ends there. We all know what "cultural fit" really means.
- bruce511 4y ago
  I guess for companies that have unlimited positions open this could help. But I feel like most companies hire to fill a specific post, and the most obvious reason for not being hired, is that they hired someone else. As an employer I have been in a situation where we had 3 perfectly good candidates for s position, any of the 3 would have been fine at the job, but there's only one post. There was no reason for rejecting 2 of them other than there was only one post to fill. While we didn't have discrimination issues to deal with there, it would be hard to show (if there had been) that we were being ageist or whatever. I can completely see though that hiring someone at say 30 may be more attractive than hiring a 58 year old. I might feel that a 58 year old will retire soon (so I have to hire all over again), or that they might have a "don't tell me how to do it, I've been doing this for 30 years" attitude, which can be unhelpful. That's balanced against greater experience meaning they should be better at the actual job. I can certainly see how over 55 makes you less attractive than compeditors for the spot.
cutler 4y ago
Just learn Perl and you're guaranteed to be surrounded by 40- or 50-somethings at any gig you apply for.
- IronWolve 4y ago
  And here I am happy with Python on openvms.
black_13 4y ago
nso95 4y ago
When I worked in defense aerospace the majority of software engineers were 40+. Plenty in their 50s, a few 60+.
- IronWolve 4y ago
  Analog programmers are typically much older. Last job worked at a production plant, and the engineers came in, worked a project, then enjoyed their time off. We would routinely just deactivate their accounts, because they would come back for the next project. Late 50/60's was the norm.
- cyberpunk 4y ago
  There is a massive shortage of such embedded c developers coming it seems… which is tricky as for a lot of these components you’re legally required to be able to provide patches for the lifetime of the product, which could be decades. I worked for a company who once had to get a vic-20 out of retirement to provide a patch some 25 years after the code was shipped!
- jansan 4y ago
  Let me guess, they were probably not Javascript developers trying to convince thier boss to use Svelte over Vue or Angular.
  - nso95 4y ago
    Thankfully no
RocketOne 4y ago
I found the solution to getting hired a long time ago. Be self employed. My boss is a bit of an ogre and he never gives bonuses, but at least I get to sleep with his wife, so that's a plus.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Jeeze, what does your wife think of that arrangement? :)
  - oblio 4y ago
    > Be self employed. You missed the joke, I think :-)
danbmil99 4y ago
Hard to get past the early 90's primary-colored banner ads clearly targeting Tucker Carlson fans from The Villages, rather than lifelong techie types approaching traditional retirement age but who still retain the bulk of their faculties
01100011 4y ago
HN needs a badging system for these sorts of articles so JS programmers don't have useless debates with Ada devs and so forth... Being a SWE is completely, utterly different in different roles, industries, and even teams. I could give you honest advice based on my 25 years in embedded/systems programming and it would be completely inappropriate if you were looking to write JS at a SF unicorn.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- triyambakam 4y ago
  Try me! I'd be happy to hear your advice. I'm sure it's more relevant than we both think
- phist_mcgee 4y ago
  Giving badges to different programmers would only stratify the programming 'purity hierarchy' further. Having said that, I for one welcome our rust/clojure overlords and humbly submit that I am but a lowly react developer.
killingmehardly 4y ago
jossclimb 4y ago
Tech is rife with ageism, if at least 5% of the outrage reserved for gender issues were pushed to ageism it might progress beyond the dark ages.
jeffrallen 4y ago
There are a thousand reasons not to go in the front door, and ageism is just one of them. Getting jobs by creating relationships where both you and the hiring manager gets their problem solved is the workaround for incompetent HR departments.
batmaniam 4y ago
Honest question: with all the talk about brain elasticity being super slow compared to a twenty year old, how the heck are 50+ year olds able to pass leetcoding? Interviewers expect answers within 30 min to 1 hr. I'd imagine older people would have better things to do with their limited free time than to waste efforts on the computer leetcoding. To me, leetcoding is just another one of those gatekeeping tactics employed by the industry to keep old folks out.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I hate to keep beating the same dead horse. But when I was looking for the next stage of my career after my (step)sons graduated and I could move anywhere, I knew there had to be some kind of way that I could show companies what I could offer them without going through the leetCode monkey dance. By 2014, I was talking to CxOs , directors etc at smaller companies who were looking for experienced individual contributors who could get things done through a combination of technical experience and soft skills. I “put myself out of a job” at three companies once I brought in the process improvements and upskilked the department and then landed a job at BigTech in the cloud consulting department where I still consult/implement “cloud native applications”. I didn’t write a line of code during my loop. I spoke to the interviewers about my experience and we spoke like experienced professionals.
mbrodersen 4y ago
I am 50+ and have zero problems competing with younger developers. While they are busy making things as complex as possible, and spend most of their time fixing self-inflicted problems/bugs, I have already finished my task and moved on to the next. I spend almost all my time adding new features, and have close to zero bugs in production. 25+ years of experience solving hard problems in different software domains is a super power. The secret is to brutally strike down and destroy without mercy complexity whenever it shows it’s ugly head. Complexity is the enemy. Learn to recognise it and be merciless in cutting it out.

235 points by legrande 4y ago

kwertyoowiyop 4y ago

The guy in the top picture looks like he's just cleaned out his desk after being laid off.

jaclaz 4y ago
Caption is: a man is smiling while holding a box outside of an elevator Either he is relieved and happy to go elsewhere or he is still shocked (as he seemingly forgot his jacket). More seriously, while I can understand how to "fill" the page an image is sometimes needed, I seem to notice that lately a lot of pages sport these "vague" stock images that mean nothing or nothing connected to the actual article/theme discussed.
- karmakaze 4y ago
  I was once 'laid off' early from a consulting contract that was renewed too many times. I was approached very sensitively to be handed the 'bad news' and my immediate response was "fantastic" since I'd been bored to tears for months at my desk looking/waiting for more work. The odd bit was that they had used some data of my web browsing habits during this downtime as being against policy to cover their asses. So technically I was let go for 'doing math' at work found on Project Euler[0]. [0] https://projecteuler.net/ https://projecteuler.net/
zeusk 4y ago
Maybe it's his first day at the new job
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
The smile says he welcomed the severance package though!

black_13 4y ago

sarchertech 4y ago

> While there is little you can do to hide your physical age, you might consider tweaks to your wardrobe or hairstyle to show that you are up to date on current styles and able to adapt. This might be good advice, but it’s absolutely terrible that it’s required. I’m really starting to think we should do voice only interviews, maybe even with voice changers (or maybe slack only interviews). Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac...

rdl 4y ago
I try to do voice-only calls wherever possible, especially for hiring. (and text > voice!). Especially for initial screening; less annoying as the hiring manager, and also protects us somewhat from some discrimination claims (obviously only one element of that, and neither necessary nor sufficient on its own)
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
changoplatanero 4y ago
nowdays you have the new york times advocating to get rid of blind auditions because they don't produce enough diversity! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
- bumbledraven 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/b5f9s https://archive.ph/b5f9s To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions If ensembles are to reflect the communities they serve, the audition process should take into account race, gender and other factors.
- jquery 4y ago

georgia_peach 4y ago

Surprising / not surprising how woke coastal hiring practice coincides with blatant age discrimination. It wasn't that long ago that being on the wrong side of 25 put everything on "hard mode". Now it's more like 35-45, if only because the powers-that-be got older. https://www.mo4tech.com/the-father-of-java-cant-escape-age-discrimination-what-else-can-the-average-programmer-do.html https://www.mo4tech.com/the-father-of-java-cant-escape-age-d...

1048576 4y ago
Surprising / not surprising how woke coastal hiring practice coincides with blatant age discrimination. "Woke" has nothing to do with it. That's a completely separate thing. Also, it doesn't exist. Black people don't use it anymore ("woke" came out of AAVE, before it became something for Tucker Carlson to trigger the right with) and most ardent leftists recognize that "woke capitalism" is strictly a performance. Companies aren't going "woke" because they want to impose blue-state social justice on the population. They're doing this because (a) it's a way to make themselves look better in a country that is 2:1 against racism, sexism, transphobia, et al, without actually changing anything about how they operate, and (b) this "woke"/CRT bugbear is just another tool the very rich use to divide working people against each other. Ageism is similar. Nothing makes capitalists happier than for us old working people and the young working people to hate each other. But we shouldn't. We're on the same team.
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  - ljp_206 4y ago
    A "strongly implied message," whether it's truly there or not, does not "clear cut hypocrisy" make. This reminds me of a similar meme in recent/current cultural memory: 'Anti-woke' types love to claim that "Black Lives Matter" means or strongly implies that 'all lives' do not. There are many discussions about why this simply isn't the case. To some, though, it may very well be true. But that's an issue with today's slogan- and owning-the-other-side- based discourse. For what it's worth, I agree with you that merits alone should make the hiring decision. As someone you'd probably label "woke," I think we should also acknowledge that it is entirely possible and common that inherent bias makes that difficult for white people in hiring positions. Yes, that can happen with ageism as well.

1048576 4y ago

None of this addresses the real reasons why it's hard to get hired after 50 (actually, it starts in the mid-30s). It's not that older people are always at technology (they aren't) or that young workers don't want them around (they do). It's that bosses assume that anyone who isn't one of them by a certain age is either embittered or was anti-authoritarian from the start. Which isn't false. To be honest, the old people who are obviously fading might be an easier sell to bosses than the ones who are 50, 60, 70+ and still rock solid, because with them, you really have to wonder what went wrong that they're still in the running for subordinate positions. (I mean, there could be—often are—a million reasons why an excellent person's career might go sideways, but bosses aren't usually the forgiving type. They still want to believe the system works, because they are the system.) Bosses want to feel young again, but they also know that workplace subordination is humiliating and that older people are likely to have figured this fact out, while young people still think they're going to be invited to join the execs within 3 years (which the vast majority of them won't).

kodah 4y ago
> To be honest, the old people who are obviously fading might be an easier sell to bosses than the ones who are 50, 60, 70+ and still rock solid, because with them, you really have to wonder what went wrong that they're still in the running for subordinate positions. (I mean, there could be—often are—a million reasons why an excellent person's career might go sideways, but bosses aren't usually the forgiving type. They still want to believe the system works, because they are the system.) Actually, you're engaging in the bias right now. I don't ever plan on getting out of IC/Engineering. Stop assuming that's something everyone wants to do.
- bestouff 4y ago
  I did it already ("because of my expérience" it was presented to me as the natural way forward). Had to fire someone, lost my sleep for a few days because of that. Back to engineering roles which I enjoy much more anyway
  - kodah 4y ago

erwincoumans 4y ago

Good tips, and also: * Stay up-to-date on the latest tech * Stay curious * Keep working with colleagues of all ages, from interns to older colleagues.

bombcar 4y ago
Don’t forget * Be open and admit the areas you’re expert in even if they’re not popular - Java and COBOL still get hired
- ja27 4y ago
  I was on-site at a power company. One of their older COBOL programmers was retiring that week. The person taking over his COBOL job? His son.
  - mallets 4y ago
    That's the kind of nepotism I like. Elders passing on arcane knowledge that would be lost otherwise.
- steelframe 4y ago
  > Java and COBOL still get hired I work for a fairly well-known and successful tech company that's only about 10 years old, and Java is the main language for the company's flagship product. It's strange to me to see it lumped together with COBOL.

synergy20 4y ago

On the other hand I have 3 colleagues in their 70s working in a silicon design startup, they can still design even do some coding debugging, well paid too. They're all technical and bored at retirement, I feel they're like those college professors that are old but capable, so they can be employed, some are actually sought after. sure it's challenging to get into FAANG(due to their leetcode barrier) but there are many other companies 50s/60s can work for.

ransom1538 4y ago
FAANG hiring is just different. They have a vast system of middle management ready to intake juniors, spit out the bad, promote the good. At this point it's a machine. Really senior people (by position) don't fit into this mold. There are exceptions, eg if the senior has a famous product or following -> as this will help intake more juniors into mega corp.
- synergy20 4y ago
  that makes sense, startup and many others companies do not have lots of those middle-level management, so you're expected to be self-reliant from the start, where senior and experience hires fit well.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  So someone in their 40s or 50s shouldn't do the leetcode grind and take a shot at a FAANG job? I hear it argued both ways, sounds like you're suggesting it's pointless.
  - compiler-guy 4y ago
    I got into Google in my forties and it wasn’t a big deal at all. I do have a fairly specialized skill set and the demand is always high, but as far as I can tell, age didn’t come into it.
    - ransom1538 4y ago

shadowofneptune 4y ago

The article doesn't really mention what fields it's concerned about. Healthcare trends much older, for instance (https://www.journalofnursingregulation.com/article/S2155-8256(21)00027-2/fulltext https://www.journalofnursingregulation.com/article/S2155-825...). I'd think be helpful to know which fields have it worse, no? Some of the advice also seems odd: "For instance, if your résumé still includes your street address or an older email account (such as AOL or Yahoo)." Yahoo is the second-most popular email provider and I doubt it would really send off an alarm bell for a recruiter. Why not include your street address on a formal document like a résumé, anyway?

rikroots 4y ago
> Why not include your street address on a formal document like a résumé, anyway? Sadly we live in a world where people still run the risk of being judged on the basis of the neighbourhood they live in, rather than the skills they can bring to a job. By including a street address or postcode in our résumés, we invite people (or more often, nowadays, ML-based algorithms) to make sweeping judgements about us before we even reach the first stage of the hiring process.

kodah 4y ago

I've openly heard managers talk about "experience" in sub for age, eg: "I think this person has too much experience for this role" (when talking about a very senior role). My best advice is to engage HR right away if you hear this kind of stuff. A fair amount of HR folks are older and will jump right on this kind of behavior.

georgia_peach 4y ago
Why work for/under people who would do you that way? There's plenty of money to be made out there. If I have too much "experience," they'll just have to miss out on it.
- kodah 4y ago
  I'm a lead. Getting another lead role would be difficult. Managers in tech are uniformly bad in my experience. If I don't tolerate this then I'll have to tolerate some other form of ridiculousness, but while I'm young I can listen for the dog whistles and report them. Edit: these kinds of managers will always screw you one day; usually that day is a day when your interests aren't as useful to them. It's a mentality (and behavior pattern) that Succession does a fantastic job of roasting. The trick is to read the writing on the wall and the room, find a new job, and bring all the homies. This is why I refer to software as a team sport.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
It's funny because I would interpret those exact words "I think this person has too much experience for this role", as "The budget I have for the position is not enough to afford this person". But maybe you're right that it's ageism and I just assume the best in people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  I second your take. I have a lot of experience. I want to get paid for it. If you don't need that much experience, you probably don't want to pay my price.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

roschdal 4y ago

The capitalist society in USA is ageist.

brian_cunnie 4y ago

[for the record, I'm 58 & and an active software developer] There are two points I'd like to add: My brain isn't as elastic as a younger programmer's. My brother, a software developer close to my age, once said, "It's as if I used to have 20 registers, and now I'm down to 12". I can't keep as much in my head as once. My twenty-something co-worker, Belinda, once remarked, "It takes you a while to read code & understand what it's doing". She was right. Using solely that metric (elasticity), I'd have to say that the forty-year-old version of myself was faster than the fifty-eight-year-old version. The other point I'd like to make is that there's a certain class of developer who has grown tired of developing & learning new skills, but doesn't want to retire. I remember my co-worker Larry would spend far too much time reminiscing about 640k computers and showing pictures of his grand kids. He didn't seem to want to work much. They let him go, and though I liked him personally, I think management made the right decision.

hirundo 4y ago
I'm 59 you young whippersnapper, and one thing I've learned in all those extra months is that my inelastic brain has some useful ruts carved in it, such that I can bang out much code in a fraction of the time that I used to, just because I've done so many similar things before and have grown my toolkit. And it's lower stress/effort work at the same time, almost on autopilot for swaths of it. Maybe I'm at a disadvantage to a young dev in some greenfield on a fresh stack. But I've been in a lot of greenfields and fresh stacks too, and the patterns repeat. That said someday my utility will drop below my cost. I may not _want_ to notice, but my compiler will tell me. I can't lie to the compiler. When my brain can't build any more my commits won't build anymore, it isn't very subtle.
agumonkey 4y ago
What about abstract thinking ? at 23 I used to rush through never ending streams of programming ideas, most of them were shallow if not stupid. I'm "slow" now, but in a "make haste slowly".. I take time to grasp higher level, more precise ideas instead of running head down. The bit about the existential shift in priorities rings true to me. At 20 you dream about mastering the future, at 40 you couldn't care less.

inside_out_life 4y ago

I'm considering myself lucky, but I've got hired two months ago, remotely, without revealing my age or anyone caring how I look. I'm 41. Meetings are voice only. I'm yet to meet anyone from the team face to face, yet I'm not worried about it, as I've been preserving myself well.

somethoughts 4y ago

I have to think there is some sort of decently lucrative niche that could combine a legacy software stack plus cloud deployment knowledge. Something like: - Deploy an enterprise Cobol banking application using Kubernetes and add support for bitcoin transactions - Java Struts to support iOS/Android Mobile Apps for a Healthcare Insurance app - Legacy Windows Apps to Azure Particularly in the banking, finance and medical fields.

netfortius 4y ago

US centric article. I am over the article mentioned age by quite a few years, and since arriving in France I got job offers (and accepted one), without "hiding" anything in my resume (education w/dates, complete experience w/dates + up-to-date picture in resume). BTW: I was member of AARP until last year, in the US. Wasted money + junk mail every once in a while...

gniv 4y ago
How did you find these offers? I'm planning to move to France (from US) and to look for jobs once I learn French well. Feel free to email me if you don't want to share publicly.
- netfortius 4y ago
  No secret :-) I changed my profile in LinkedIn to mention new location (France) and added "Freelance/Consulting in sabbatical". Had absolutely no intention to get a job, originally (my sabbatical was in fact a sort of pre-retirement/FIRE), but when I started getting DMs in LinkedIn I became curious. A few calls with some folks, with one thread of conversations which seemed too interesting to not pursue - job offer.
  - gniv 4y ago
    Thanks! I'm in a similar situation. Good tip with "sabbatical". I should do the same.

vmception 4y ago

For developers, I mostly see non-consensus opinions getting them axed. Like okay, you can’t really claim age discrimination when you spent the last 20 minutes railing against javascript and single page applications

rootusrootus 4y ago
OTOH, I wouldn't hire anybody who thought JS was some kind of perfection and that chasing frameworks was the way things should be. I may not want to hear 10 minutes of bitching about SPAs, but I'd love to have a two minute rant about how much callbacks suck sometimes, and how promises are better but not better, and async is lipstick on a pig. I like skepticism as long as it doesn't result in refusal to work with a particular technology, and when it's backed up by knowledge.

m0llusk 4y ago

Interesting dissonance here in that being over fifty means care needs to be taken while currently there is also talk of a hiring crunch because of a lack of qualified talent. It seems fairly obvious that something is going wrong, likely with genuinely qualified people's resumes getting spit out of the funnel prematurely.

sombremesa 4y ago
The genuinely qualified people in tech are probably not the ones finding this article organically. TFA is not even industry specific...just think of the target audience, and then consider whether this is a cause for concern.

diavelguru 4y ago

I’ve found it interesting that smart young startup entrepreneurs see a resume that has over 20 years experience and instead of seeing a dinosaur they see the experience and future guidance to help them in their endeavors.

parhamn 4y ago

Trung Phan recently wrote an article on the rise of pseudonyms in social media and how it leads to meritocracy [1]. I think a similar thing will be huge for this sort of ageism and odd interview practices. I think the next job board we'll see is "hiring anonymous". Still remains to resolve the legal part, perhaps some intermediary company can handle the anonymization(verify identity and credentials and handle govt paperwork). I think there will be corporate incentive to do this as it completely gives companies plausible deniability around their hiring practices. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-27/don-t-fear-the-coming-pseudonymous-economy https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-27/don-t-...

largbae 4y ago

#4, use your network, should be #1. If you are 50 and you did not just make a drastic career change, you probably know some former colleagues who enjoyed working with you in the past. It often feels awkward to directly ask someone for work. So instead, ask if they can refer you to their friends, and you may be surprised how many volunteer a leg up on a position to work directly with them instead.

abirch 4y ago
I agree about the network. If you're not mentoring younger people and helping them in your 30s and 40s the future may not be so bright.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

I don't know about secrets, but this is my five-part plan for getting hired after fifty: 1. Know Cobol 2. Know JCL 3. Know ISPF 4. Know Rexx 5. Know EZY Oh, btw: >> 5. Polish Up Your Appearance Wahahahaha. A joke, right?

rufus_foreman 4y ago

How do you do fellow kids?

t_mann 4y ago

This advice is far too generic to be of much use to software engineers or any other specific profession, I'm afraid. The only probably useful hint is to not look old by using means of communication that peaked in popularity long time ago.

travisgriggs 4y ago

Just last night, I listened to my son explain the long and rigorous process that he watched senior faculty at a top 10 university go through in selecting post grad students and research assistants. I’ve been part of the “try to pick the best candidate” process for many years in professional, church, and community institutions. Of late, I’m beginning to suspect that there are basically two camps in this whole game. 1. The optimistic one that believes rigorous evaluations and screening are worth the effort. They may even accept some of the failures, but basically believe we’re still getting there, we’ll figure this out. It’s better than doing nothing. 2. The near nihilistic group that basically worries the whole process creates a lot of heat but sheds very little light. That often these choices backfire on us, that our prejudices are our own worst enemies, that while we have some wins in steering the “right” choice, taken overall as a net, it’s not really any better than just random luck of the draw. For many years I think I was camp 1. I worry of late that camp 2 is looking more and more like the reality. Maybe I’m just down about this whole process today.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
Every place I've ever worked says "we only hire the best". I don't recall anyone saying "we intend to hire average people". It's sort of like Lake Woebegon where all the children are above average.
- mrj 4y ago
  I worked at a Bank before at this was the hiring plan. Simply fill the seats and expect a strong(er) manager to guide the output. Hiring the best simply wasn't an option in most cases, but one good hire was expected to closely monitor and correct the output from many. This didn't work out very well in practice. The efforts of one bad programmer's output can easily max out two people to clean it up. So the Bank had mostly given up on producing its own code and tried to outsource or buy everything it could.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Culturally, I like the emphasis on "every hire increases the average in the long run." When the project or product has the capacity, then when I hire folks I am way less concerned with what they can do immediately today and more interested in what they can do after 3 to 6 months of consistent, earnest growth. If they have critical skillsets and capabilities that are crucial and needed immediately, that's a wonderful thing too, but cross-skilling and training are really needed to prevent those kinds of situations from occuring generally.

LiquidPolymer 4y ago

I'm 58 and have to turn down work (I'm a photographer/producer for over 30 years). Obviously personality and looks can combine for a powerful effect in the hiring process. But one thing we do have control over is physical fitness. This comes from a man who does not like exercise, and has a genetic tendency to severe obesity (if family is any indication). Five days a week you will find me sprinting up hills around my neighborhood, using bands and weights for resistant training, and doing breathing exercises. I eat one or two meals a day. I'm lean, toned, and walk with speed, energy and purpose. I'm not exactly good looking, and I can occasionally be socially awkward - but I'm fit, respectful and wear tasteful attire. Personally, I think this gives me a giant advantage in my age cohort where most men waddle around like they are 11 months pregnant and you can hear their breathing from 60 feet away. I hear a lot of guys in this category counting down the days till retirement. I dislike exercise but have practiced fitness training for decades. The physical and mental benefits are well known. I think the impression it makes is off the charts when you present as an older man with discipline and intellect. I have an aunt who is deeply concerned for my health because I'm too small in her opinion (food = love). Yet her son, my cousin (who she considers a strapping example of manhood), just went on SS disability after being a tow truck driver for decades. He just got too fat to do the job. Nobody would hire him - they just see a giant medical liability. We have control over fitness regardless of looks, and it can make a difference.

graderjs 4y ago
This is awesome! Haha
onion2k 4y ago
Personally, I think this gives me a giant advantage in my age cohort where most men waddle around like they are 11 months pregnant and you can hear their breathing from 60 feet away. Of course you do. We all tend to think that we're living the right way (obviously, else we'd change). It's not really possible to evaluate whether you are actually living the right way by looking at things from your own reference frame though. For what it's worth, I'm a bit overweight, I don't exercise much, and yet I don't seem to have trouble finding a job. In my current role I've never met anyone in the company I work for except over video calls. They have no idea what my level of fitness is, or how fat I am, or even how tall I am. Maybe I'd be better off if I went for a run more than three times a year, but I'm unlikely to ever find out.

cutler 4y ago

COVID and the remote work revolution actually had an upside for over-50s. For the first time you could conduct a full series of interviews without anyone seeing your face. Many companies are happy to conduct the initial interview by phone then send you a code test for stage 2. If you make it to stage 3 the company is in a much more compromised position rejecting you in a face-to-face over Zoom as the ageism would be obvious.

emrah 4y ago
I don't agree. If they can't find anything concrete to reject you on, they call it "culture fit" or lack there of and off you go.. How could you possibly prove it was agism?
- rocqua 4y ago
  I think blaming culture fit is widely known as 'we are discriminating, either explicitly or as a result of our own biases'. Once you have a pattern of bad culture fit with older people, feels like an easy case to make.
- cutler 4y ago
  I do a bit of screening at the outset. If a company even mentions "cultural fit" it ends there. We all know what "cultural fit" really means.
bruce511 4y ago
I guess for companies that have unlimited positions open this could help. But I feel like most companies hire to fill a specific post, and the most obvious reason for not being hired, is that they hired someone else. As an employer I have been in a situation where we had 3 perfectly good candidates for s position, any of the 3 would have been fine at the job, but there's only one post. There was no reason for rejecting 2 of them other than there was only one post to fill. While we didn't have discrimination issues to deal with there, it would be hard to show (if there had been) that we were being ageist or whatever. I can completely see though that hiring someone at say 30 may be more attractive than hiring a 58 year old. I might feel that a 58 year old will retire soon (so I have to hire all over again), or that they might have a "don't tell me how to do it, I've been doing this for 30 years" attitude, which can be unhelpful. That's balanced against greater experience meaning they should be better at the actual job. I can certainly see how over 55 makes you less attractive than compeditors for the spot.

cutler 4y ago

Just learn Perl and you're guaranteed to be surrounded by 40- or 50-somethings at any gig you apply for.

IronWolve 4y ago
And here I am happy with Python on openvms.

black_13 4y ago

nso95 4y ago

When I worked in defense aerospace the majority of software engineers were 40+. Plenty in their 50s, a few 60+.

IronWolve 4y ago
Analog programmers are typically much older. Last job worked at a production plant, and the engineers came in, worked a project, then enjoyed their time off. We would routinely just deactivate their accounts, because they would come back for the next project. Late 50/60's was the norm.
cyberpunk 4y ago
There is a massive shortage of such embedded c developers coming it seems… which is tricky as for a lot of these components you’re legally required to be able to provide patches for the lifetime of the product, which could be decades. I worked for a company who once had to get a vic-20 out of retirement to provide a patch some 25 years after the code was shipped!
jansan 4y ago
Let me guess, they were probably not Javascript developers trying to convince thier boss to use Svelte over Vue or Angular.
- nso95 4y ago
  Thankfully no

RocketOne 4y ago

I found the solution to getting hired a long time ago. Be self employed. My boss is a bit of an ogre and he never gives bonuses, but at least I get to sleep with his wife, so that's a plus.

jeffrallen 4y ago
Jeeze, what does your wife think of that arrangement? :)
- oblio 4y ago
  > Be self employed. You missed the joke, I think :-)

danbmil99 4y ago

Hard to get past the early 90's primary-colored banner ads clearly targeting Tucker Carlson fans from The Villages, rather than lifelong techie types approaching traditional retirement age but who still retain the bulk of their faculties

01100011 4y ago

HN needs a badging system for these sorts of articles so JS programmers don't have useless debates with Ada devs and so forth... Being a SWE is completely, utterly different in different roles, industries, and even teams. I could give you honest advice based on my 25 years in embedded/systems programming and it would be completely inappropriate if you were looking to write JS at a SF unicorn.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
triyambakam 4y ago
Try me! I'd be happy to hear your advice. I'm sure it's more relevant than we both think
phist_mcgee 4y ago
Giving badges to different programmers would only stratify the programming 'purity hierarchy' further. Having said that, I for one welcome our rust/clojure overlords and humbly submit that I am but a lowly react developer.

killingmehardly 4y ago

jossclimb 4y ago

Tech is rife with ageism, if at least 5% of the outrage reserved for gender issues were pushed to ageism it might progress beyond the dark ages.

jeffrallen 4y ago

There are a thousand reasons not to go in the front door, and ageism is just one of them. Getting jobs by creating relationships where both you and the hiring manager gets their problem solved is the workaround for incompetent HR departments.

batmaniam 4y ago

Honest question: with all the talk about brain elasticity being super slow compared to a twenty year old, how the heck are 50+ year olds able to pass leetcoding? Interviewers expect answers within 30 min to 1 hr. I'd imagine older people would have better things to do with their limited free time than to waste efforts on the computer leetcoding. To me, leetcoding is just another one of those gatekeeping tactics employed by the industry to keep old folks out.

scarface74 4y ago
I hate to keep beating the same dead horse. But when I was looking for the next stage of my career after my (step)sons graduated and I could move anywhere, I knew there had to be some kind of way that I could show companies what I could offer them without going through the leetCode monkey dance. By 2014, I was talking to CxOs , directors etc at smaller companies who were looking for experienced individual contributors who could get things done through a combination of technical experience and soft skills. I “put myself out of a job” at three companies once I brought in the process improvements and upskilked the department and then landed a job at BigTech in the cloud consulting department where I still consult/implement “cloud native applications”. I didn’t write a line of code during my loop. I spoke to the interviewers about my experience and we spoke like experienced professionals.

mbrodersen 4y ago

I am 50+ and have zero problems competing with younger developers. While they are busy making things as complex as possible, and spend most of their time fixing self-inflicted problems/bugs, I have already finished my task and moved on to the next. I spend almost all my time adding new features, and have close to zero bugs in production. 25+ years of experience solving hard problems in different software domains is a super power. The secret is to brutally strike down and destroy without mercy complexity whenever it shows it’s ugly head. Complexity is the enemy. Learn to recognise it and be merciless in cutting it out.