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You are talking rubbish. > Younger people will often be willing to work more... Younger people have to work more, because they don't have enough experience to

You are talking rubbish. > Younger people will often be willing to work more... Younger people have to work more, because they don't have enough experience to work efficiently, yet. > Young people have a greater percent of their experience on the most modern platforms So, 1 year of "shiny new tech" > 1 year of "shiny new tech" + 20 years of other relevant experience? Riiiight. > homogeneity is valuable to an early startup Wow. Homogeneity is a killer for any team. The whole point of building a team is to find people who can work together, and become more than the sum of their parts. For that, you need people whose strengths cover for their team-mates' weaknesses... the very opposite of homogeneity. OK, it's not all rubbish. I agree with this... > Very young employees can sometimes be too aggressive about "what is this legacy garbage? we should rewrite it all in RoR and JS

bilbo0s 13y ago
"...> Younger people will often be willing to work more... Younger people have to work more, because they don't have enough experience to work efficiently, yet..." You conveniently glossed over his main point... that young people will work for less money. I think that's a HUGE selling point.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Young people work for less money because they are inexperienced. The older worker has to provide the same value for their higher pay via experience. And this is where the problem comes into play: the potential employer might not see the older worker as being worth it, especially if it doesn't appear that they can do more than the younger worker. They might also see potential (room for growth) in the younger candidate that they can't see in older ones. And this is all quite reasonable....also remember that most companies are pyramids, with lots of openings in the bottom and much fewer as you go up.... So you as the tech employee must be aware that your life is short if you don't continuously grow your skills so you don't become an unjustifiable expense later in life. Not only that, but you have to become an expert in marketing these skills.
  - Systemic33 13y ago
    For anyone it's a matter of working your strengths, and there is nothing a young employee can do against very deep specialist knowledge in a senior employee. Maybe the problem with the senior workers, is that they are too generalist for the pay they expect. And maybe in too many cases, the expectations to the products produced are not high enough to warrant the pay of a senior developer, which there is nothing to do about, other than raising expectations.
- ojbyrne 13y ago
  Except that ageism is so prevalent, and the demand for younger employees so dominant, that's it's no longer really the case. New grads are getting stupidly large salaries and signing bonuses.
- gutnor 13y ago
  If you fire them fast enough yes. Otherwise, young people expect to work for less but to rise high. Otherwise all the energy you see in the beginning is very fast disappearing. Also, not all young people actually like to be in tech. They don't know it yet that they should be in sales, business analysis, ... You lose them on a regular basis. Older developer on the other hand are going to be at the place they want to be.
pmichaud 13y ago
I don't think you're be fair at all. Young people don't work more because they suck, they work more for a variety of reasons including: they aren't yet jaded or burned out, they don't know how to pace themselves, they have fewer family obligations, they are more excitable. Second, no one has 20 years of relevant experience. Maybe computer science fundamentals have stayed about the same, but it was 1993 20 years ago, and what we do now looks nothing like what those of us who were around then were doing. Further, all those years of experience could have, and often do, entrench very bad habits. I've seen some atrocious code from people switching from older workhorse languages to more modern ones, it's not pretty. Finally, /the data suggests/ homogeneity is valuable in early startups. You're not wrong about needing a team with different strengths, but you also need a team that really understands each other intuitively and agrees on fundamental values and principles. There's too much friction otherwise.
- jtbigwoo 13y ago
  >> Second, no one has 20 years of relevant experience. Depends on what level you're talking about, I suppose. I'll grant that nobody has 20 years of experience in JSON. However, a guy with twenty years of experience in services through CORBA->SOAP->REST and could be invaluable on an API project, for example. Especially if it's a project that should be built to last.
- robterrell 13y ago
  > what we do now looks nothing like what those of us who were around then were doing 20 years ago I learned some Objective-C. That's still fairly relevant. I recently used an obscure bit of Foundation knowledge no one else around me knew, so to some extent it was even valuable. Design patterns from 20 years ago may be looking a little long in the tooth, but if you learned the principles as well as the pattern (i.e. what matters most is separation of concerns) that still serves you well today.
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  >no one has 20 years of relevant experience I've been designing game APIs for 20+ years, actually. And that's what I'm doing now as a contractor. I'm still working in C++ like I was in 1993 as well. I first learned C++ in 1989, so that's also 20+ years experience. >all those years of experience could have, and often do, entrench very bad habits. Working exclusively with languages like PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript can entrench some pretty atrocious habits as well. I would put my "started with assembly language and moved eventually to high level scripting languages" habits up against a "started with JavaScript" programmer's habits any day. >Finally, the data suggests homogeneity is valuable in early startups. What data? I think compatibility between developers is important. But I'm working on a project right now where the median developer age is about 25 (I'm more than twice as old as some team members), and I'm making crazy fast progress on my part of the project, keeping everyone happy. Beyond happy, really; no one expected me to get as far as I have this quickly. And yet I'm putting in 30 hours a week or so. I think being awesome is valuable, on any project, startup or otherwise, and that "fundamental values and principles" is a red flag indicating "OK working tons of overtime", which is clearly not necessary if you have the awesome.
criley2 13y ago
You returned rubbish for rubbish. Younger people have to work more because they don't work efficiently? Absolute garbage. I've met my fair share of older devs writing terrible code and taking their sweet ass time to do it. They just clock out on time and go home, safe in their assumption that their mission-critical piece will need their personal maintenance for another decade.
- knieveltech 13y ago
  Really? I've been coding for almost 10 years and I haven't met that guy yet. I have several coworkers now who are young, energetic, and have a nasty habit of grossly over-engineering everything they touch.
  - criley2 13y ago
    Work for Microsoft or Oracle and you'll find them?
ivanhoe 13y ago
Actually younger people will work more because: A) they have more free time, (usually) more passion and are, well, younger (physically just can take more stress) B) they don't have enough experience to stand up for themself and to negotiate the better deals...

bilbo0s 13y ago

"...> Younger people will often be willing to work more... Younger people have to work more, because they don't have enough experience to work efficiently, yet..." You conveniently glossed over his main point... that young people will work for less money. I think that's a HUGE selling point.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Young people work for less money because they are inexperienced. The older worker has to provide the same value for their higher pay via experience. And this is where the problem comes into play: the potential employer might not see the older worker as being worth it, especially if it doesn't appear that they can do more than the younger worker. They might also see potential (room for growth) in the younger candidate that they can't see in older ones. And this is all quite reasonable....also remember that most companies are pyramids, with lots of openings in the bottom and much fewer as you go up.... So you as the tech employee must be aware that your life is short if you don't continuously grow your skills so you don't become an unjustifiable expense later in life. Not only that, but you have to become an expert in marketing these skills.
- Systemic33 13y ago
  For anyone it's a matter of working your strengths, and there is nothing a young employee can do against very deep specialist knowledge in a senior employee. Maybe the problem with the senior workers, is that they are too generalist for the pay they expect. And maybe in too many cases, the expectations to the products produced are not high enough to warrant the pay of a senior developer, which there is nothing to do about, other than raising expectations.
ojbyrne 13y ago
Except that ageism is so prevalent, and the demand for younger employees so dominant, that's it's no longer really the case. New grads are getting stupidly large salaries and signing bonuses.
gutnor 13y ago
If you fire them fast enough yes. Otherwise, young people expect to work for less but to rise high. Otherwise all the energy you see in the beginning is very fast disappearing. Also, not all young people actually like to be in tech. They don't know it yet that they should be in sales, business analysis, ... You lose them on a regular basis. Older developer on the other hand are going to be at the place they want to be.

pmichaud 13y ago

I don't think you're be fair at all. Young people don't work more because they suck, they work more for a variety of reasons including: they aren't yet jaded or burned out, they don't know how to pace themselves, they have fewer family obligations, they are more excitable. Second, no one has 20 years of relevant experience. Maybe computer science fundamentals have stayed about the same, but it was 1993 20 years ago, and what we do now looks nothing like what those of us who were around then were doing. Further, all those years of experience could have, and often do, entrench very bad habits. I've seen some atrocious code from people switching from older workhorse languages to more modern ones, it's not pretty. Finally, /the data suggests/ homogeneity is valuable in early startups. You're not wrong about needing a team with different strengths, but you also need a team that really understands each other intuitively and agrees on fundamental values and principles. There's too much friction otherwise.

jtbigwoo 13y ago
>> Second, no one has 20 years of relevant experience. Depends on what level you're talking about, I suppose. I'll grant that nobody has 20 years of experience in JSON. However, a guy with twenty years of experience in services through CORBA->SOAP->REST and could be invaluable on an API project, for example. Especially if it's a project that should be built to last.
robterrell 13y ago
> what we do now looks nothing like what those of us who were around then were doing 20 years ago I learned some Objective-C. That's still fairly relevant. I recently used an obscure bit of Foundation knowledge no one else around me knew, so to some extent it was even valuable. Design patterns from 20 years ago may be looking a little long in the tooth, but if you learned the principles as well as the pattern (i.e. what matters most is separation of concerns) that still serves you well today.
SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
>no one has 20 years of relevant experience I've been designing game APIs for 20+ years, actually. And that's what I'm doing now as a contractor. I'm still working in C++ like I was in 1993 as well. I first learned C++ in 1989, so that's also 20+ years experience. >all those years of experience could have, and often do, entrench very bad habits. Working exclusively with languages like PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript can entrench some pretty atrocious habits as well. I would put my "started with assembly language and moved eventually to high level scripting languages" habits up against a "started with JavaScript" programmer's habits any day. >Finally, the data suggests homogeneity is valuable in early startups. What data? I think compatibility between developers is important. But I'm working on a project right now where the median developer age is about 25 (I'm more than twice as old as some team members), and I'm making crazy fast progress on my part of the project, keeping everyone happy. Beyond happy, really; no one expected me to get as far as I have this quickly. And yet I'm putting in 30 hours a week or so. I think being awesome is valuable, on any project, startup or otherwise, and that "fundamental values and principles" is a red flag indicating "OK working tons of overtime", which is clearly not necessary if you have the awesome.

criley2 13y ago

You returned rubbish for rubbish. Younger people have to work more because they don't work efficiently? Absolute garbage. I've met my fair share of older devs writing terrible code and taking their sweet ass time to do it. They just clock out on time and go home, safe in their assumption that their mission-critical piece will need their personal maintenance for another decade.

knieveltech 13y ago
Really? I've been coding for almost 10 years and I haven't met that guy yet. I have several coworkers now who are young, energetic, and have a nasty habit of grossly over-engineering everything they touch.
- criley2 13y ago
  Work for Microsoft or Oracle and you'll find them?

ivanhoe 13y ago

Actually younger people will work more because: A) they have more free time, (usually) more passion and are, well, younger (physically just can take more stress) B) they don't have enough experience to stand up for themself and to negotiate the better deals...