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> If you’re still randomly submitting your resume to an ATS trying to prove yourself to companies by reversing binary trees on whiteboards while juggling bowlin

> If you’re still randomly submitting your resume to an ATS trying to prove yourself to companies by reversing binary trees on whiteboards while juggling bowling balls and riding a unicycle on a tightrope, you’re doing it wrong at 40+ years old. I did that at 45 and landed an interesting job at FAANG (and I'm not the only one). I think it's a bit contradictory to think old programmers are still as capable and sharp as 25 years old, and at the same time insisting to be judged on different standards.

scarface74 4y ago
I didn’t randomly submit my resume to get into a FAANG at 45. When the recruiter reached out to me about an SWE position (that I wasn’t interested in). I kept talking to her and she directed me to a related remote job that I was interested in (cloud consulting - enterprise app dev/cloud architect).
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  > the recruiter reached out to me about an SWE position (that I wasn’t interested in) Then it's your preference not to be a programmer. My point was that it's also possible to be a SWE for those who still dig programming at our age. But you have to play by the rules. That being said, I don't think I'll last in such a position until retirement.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    I spend everyday “programming” doing the same type of work I did before joining - mostly back end APIs, ETL, occasional front end work if I have to etc. I just knew I wouldn’t enjoy being a small part of a large team coming from small companies where I could work up and down the life cycle from pre-sales, to requirement gathering, to implementation, to DevOps [sic], UAT and training. I’m still part of a huge organization in the grand scheme of things. But my projects range from me the sole tech person doing everything to my working with a team where I lead or implement one “work stream” depending on the size of the project.
spfzero 4y ago
I think the point may be that, yes still as capable etc., but also with a ton more life-cycle experience in real-world development. So for someone hiring that values that experience, maybe they ask a bit more about that, and do less whiteboard work to validate that you really did go to CS school. With a string resume, a hiring manager might think "They probably know what a binary tree is because it they didn't, they would not have made it this far."
- scarface74 4y ago
  Actually, three jobs ago back in 2015, I had two interviews. The first hiring manager asked me to do a merge sort on the whiteboard. The second company’s new director told me what problems he was having and that they were on an acquisition spree and what their plans were. He asked me how I would go about helping them. Both interviews were about half a day, I got offers from both the company that asked me to do a merge sort paid slightly more. I accepted the second job. Real business folks have real world problems to solve. They don’t care whether you can reverse a binary tree. As an aside, one of the more junior people that I would be leading asked me how I would parse addresses while the director was in the room. I said I wouldn’t. I would license third party CASS software and explained all of the corner cases and then went into my speech about a company shouldn’t concentrate “on anything that doesn’t make the beer taste better”
  - yodsanklai 4y ago
    > Real business folks have real world problems to solve. They don’t care whether you can reverse a binary tree. I suppose it's all about the role you're applying for. There are "real business" where engineers are hired to solve technical challenges. Being able to solve simple algorithmic problems is a legitimate prerequisite for this type of role.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      It’s not the role you are applying for. I’ve seen plenty of times where interviews were DS&A and the work was yet another line of business CRUD app. The job I turned down definitely was. And let’s not pretend that all developers at BigTech are solving “hard problems”. I do have access to code for one of the major cloud providers.

scarface74 4y ago

I didn’t randomly submit my resume to get into a FAANG at 45. When the recruiter reached out to me about an SWE position (that I wasn’t interested in). I kept talking to her and she directed me to a related remote job that I was interested in (cloud consulting - enterprise app dev/cloud architect).

yodsanklai 4y ago
> the recruiter reached out to me about an SWE position (that I wasn’t interested in) Then it's your preference not to be a programmer. My point was that it's also possible to be a SWE for those who still dig programming at our age. But you have to play by the rules. That being said, I don't think I'll last in such a position until retirement.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I spend everyday “programming” doing the same type of work I did before joining - mostly back end APIs, ETL, occasional front end work if I have to etc. I just knew I wouldn’t enjoy being a small part of a large team coming from small companies where I could work up and down the life cycle from pre-sales, to requirement gathering, to implementation, to DevOps [sic], UAT and training. I’m still part of a huge organization in the grand scheme of things. But my projects range from me the sole tech person doing everything to my working with a team where I lead or implement one “work stream” depending on the size of the project.

spfzero 4y ago

I think the point may be that, yes still as capable etc., but also with a ton more life-cycle experience in real-world development. So for someone hiring that values that experience, maybe they ask a bit more about that, and do less whiteboard work to validate that you really did go to CS school. With a string resume, a hiring manager might think "They probably know what a binary tree is because it they didn't, they would not have made it this far."

scarface74 4y ago
Actually, three jobs ago back in 2015, I had two interviews. The first hiring manager asked me to do a merge sort on the whiteboard. The second company’s new director told me what problems he was having and that they were on an acquisition spree and what their plans were. He asked me how I would go about helping them. Both interviews were about half a day, I got offers from both the company that asked me to do a merge sort paid slightly more. I accepted the second job. Real business folks have real world problems to solve. They don’t care whether you can reverse a binary tree. As an aside, one of the more junior people that I would be leading asked me how I would parse addresses while the director was in the room. I said I wouldn’t. I would license third party CASS software and explained all of the corner cases and then went into my speech about a company shouldn’t concentrate “on anything that doesn’t make the beer taste better”
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  > Real business folks have real world problems to solve. They don’t care whether you can reverse a binary tree. I suppose it's all about the role you're applying for. There are "real business" where engineers are hired to solve technical challenges. Being able to solve simple algorithmic problems is a legitimate prerequisite for this type of role.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    It’s not the role you are applying for. I’ve seen plenty of times where interviews were DS&A and the work was yet another line of business CRUD app. The job I turned down definitely was. And let’s not pretend that all developers at BigTech are solving “hard problems”. I do have access to code for one of the major cloud providers.