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Yes, when 50 years old applies as a senior engineer, 25 years old senior engineers get uncomfortable. You might not notice it in any public conversation, but th

Yes, when 50 years old applies as a senior engineer, 25 years old senior engineers get uncomfortable. You might not notice it in any public conversation, but there is still a resistance: * will they be on-call? * can they work long hours? * how do I delegate to them? * are they going to resist new tech?

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
How much experience does it take to be "senior" in that case? Has the 25 y-o engineer been working for 10 years or are they just diluting the "senior" term?
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  From my experience the "senior" term has been significantly diluted in the zero-interest-rate period.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Yeah people started calling me senior when I had 3 years of data experience so I totally agree.
adamredwoods 1y ago
Recently, I've had a co-worker be "okay" with alerts in the middle of the night. I refused because I have to drive my child to school at 7.30am.
- paxys 1y ago
  This is really the crux of it. Companies want to hire young engineers without responsibilities so they can burn them out. And there's a long line of new grads who will happily fit into that culture.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  If your kids school is more important than your job is, that only means your job is extremely unimportant. Like my job. Your kid is better off not going to school for a day, or arriving late. They're not doing anything important in school. Depending on company, maybe they need to hire people to do important things and have responsibility for important things. Somebody who would prioritize things like driving their kids to school over that is a no-hire. They should work a job which is less important, like I myself do.
  - abeppu 1y ago
    I think one seriously broken thing is that every company seems convinced their work is important, and scales their sense of how important work items are relative to the company as a whole. Orgs and teams do the same. You can be on a team that runs a service that's a small part of the overall company product offering, which may be a convenience rather than mission-critical to its clients, who themselves may be doing something BS, and that team may still want you to wake up at 3AM when something alerts. Making a blanket statement that just because a job wants you to wake up at 3AM means it must be important (nevermind more important than family responsibility) places way too much trust in the judgement of employers.
    - carlosjobim 1y ago
      All of us here have been to school and know how utterly unimportant it is. If not, that is a serious case of amnesia. It's a storage unit for kids, guarded by the most dim-witted people from the community. So when somebody says they can't work because of their kid's school, then either that person does not care about their job, or the company is asking for something out of line. It's either of those two options, depending on what actually is the job. My job is unimportant, so I can leave the phone off at night. If I had an important job, then the case would be different.
      - jaennaet 1y ago
        "I didn't learn anything in school, therefore nobody learns anything in school. Q.E.D."
- sameoldhn 1y ago
  do school buses not exist anymore? what in the world?
mindtricks 1y ago
This is basically ageism. It's not accurate and should be coached out. Flip the question for a 25 year old: * Will they be on on-call or out partying with their friends? * Are they committed to the work or will they hop to another company once trained? * Are they able to work within our codebase or just jump to the next hot thing? These types of questions are ridiculous for both sides.
- tuyguntn 1y ago
  > should be coached out No, it won't work. Biologically, 25 years old without a family responsibilities will not get it anyway. If you are 25 years old, single and your friends are similar to you, what would you do? Most I know are working 12-14 hour/day, because they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Worth noting that this basically doesn't work long term, and is much easier to maintain if it's different work (a job and a new enterprise). You'll notice that you become less efficient over time. I recommend taking a long weekend and coming back and keeping to 8 hours. It's a great discipline if you want to go further in your career.
mixmastamyk 1y ago
As the fifties version of myself, I won’t need to be on-call or work long hours because I did it right the first time. Reply to below: Of course. But if you plan ahead properly, it will be extremely rare. To the point where it isn’t economical to have people on call. Because the downtime was caused by a meteor or maybe AWS. If it is truly mission critical, have a night shift.
- tuyguntn 1y ago
  > I did it right the first time. Maybe you are writing libraries/frameworks? Any service running on production can fail anytime, whether you did everything right or not, things break sometimes.

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago

How much experience does it take to be "senior" in that case? Has the 25 y-o engineer been working for 10 years or are they just diluting the "senior" term?

Nextgrid 1y ago
From my experience the "senior" term has been significantly diluted in the zero-interest-rate period.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  Yeah people started calling me senior when I had 3 years of data experience so I totally agree.

adamredwoods 1y ago

Recently, I've had a co-worker be "okay" with alerts in the middle of the night. I refused because I have to drive my child to school at 7.30am.

paxys 1y ago
This is really the crux of it. Companies want to hire young engineers without responsibilities so they can burn them out. And there's a long line of new grads who will happily fit into that culture.
carlosjobim 1y ago
If your kids school is more important than your job is, that only means your job is extremely unimportant. Like my job. Your kid is better off not going to school for a day, or arriving late. They're not doing anything important in school. Depending on company, maybe they need to hire people to do important things and have responsibility for important things. Somebody who would prioritize things like driving their kids to school over that is a no-hire. They should work a job which is less important, like I myself do.
- abeppu 1y ago
  I think one seriously broken thing is that every company seems convinced their work is important, and scales their sense of how important work items are relative to the company as a whole. Orgs and teams do the same. You can be on a team that runs a service that's a small part of the overall company product offering, which may be a convenience rather than mission-critical to its clients, who themselves may be doing something BS, and that team may still want you to wake up at 3AM when something alerts. Making a blanket statement that just because a job wants you to wake up at 3AM means it must be important (nevermind more important than family responsibility) places way too much trust in the judgement of employers.
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    All of us here have been to school and know how utterly unimportant it is. If not, that is a serious case of amnesia. It's a storage unit for kids, guarded by the most dim-witted people from the community. So when somebody says they can't work because of their kid's school, then either that person does not care about their job, or the company is asking for something out of line. It's either of those two options, depending on what actually is the job. My job is unimportant, so I can leave the phone off at night. If I had an important job, then the case would be different.
    - jaennaet 1y ago
      "I didn't learn anything in school, therefore nobody learns anything in school. Q.E.D."
sameoldhn 1y ago
do school buses not exist anymore? what in the world?

mindtricks 1y ago

This is basically ageism. It's not accurate and should be coached out. Flip the question for a 25 year old: * Will they be on on-call or out partying with their friends? * Are they committed to the work or will they hop to another company once trained? * Are they able to work within our codebase or just jump to the next hot thing? These types of questions are ridiculous for both sides.

tuyguntn 1y ago
> should be coached out No, it won't work. Biologically, 25 years old without a family responsibilities will not get it anyway. If you are 25 years old, single and your friends are similar to you, what would you do? Most I know are working 12-14 hour/day, because they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  Worth noting that this basically doesn't work long term, and is much easier to maintain if it's different work (a job and a new enterprise). You'll notice that you become less efficient over time. I recommend taking a long weekend and coming back and keeping to 8 hours. It's a great discipline if you want to go further in your career.

mixmastamyk 1y ago

As the fifties version of myself, I won’t need to be on-call or work long hours because I did it right the first time. Reply to below: Of course. But if you plan ahead properly, it will be extremely rare. To the point where it isn’t economical to have people on call. Because the downtime was caused by a meteor or maybe AWS. If it is truly mission critical, have a night shift.

tuyguntn 1y ago
> I did it right the first time. Maybe you are writing libraries/frameworks? Any service running on production can fail anytime, whether you did everything right or not, things break sometimes.