8 ms·

I build cool stuff, I have kept up to date on new technologies, and languages. But I don't have a big network of people who "need a website" and I don't build w

by MCRed 12y ago

I build cool stuff, I have kept up to date on new technologies, and languages. But I don't have a big network of people who "need a website" and I don't build websites, so I don't have people constantly calling me offering me work. That doesn't make me someone who has "done the same job for 30 years". My skill is not marketing my skills on a freelance basis. My skill is in engineering.. and a variety of others (like startups, people management, etc.) I hate 80/20 like splits that are so binary. Part of the problem here is that it's very difficult for many people under 30 to imagine someone over 40 is not falling into your %75 category. They already think that most people can't do fizz buzz. I once had an interview with a 20 year old with 2 years of experience. HE was the head of development at one of those startups that raised millions on kickstarter. He asked me the question: "How would you do feature X in language Y?". I pointed out that you couldn't do it in language Y but that you could do these other things that were similar. He then said " In language Z you do this and that's the answer I was looking for". But language Z is not the same as language Y. Flubbing a question? No problem. Everyone can get nervous. Giving a BS question and then using the "wrong" answer as a reason to not hire me? Suspicious. So, why would he try to do that? Well, it turns out we were on a video call. Who wants to hire someone old enough to be their dad? I understand that sentiment. But the Software Industry hasn't developed a pyramid of job titles you can climb.

hcho 12y ago
I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  There are introverts, and then there are introverts. I can easily see somebody who is particularly introverted not developing a deep network after 10, 20, or even 30 years of experience, simply because they are very introverted (or socially maladjusted; the two are different, but in a world run by extroverts it is arguable that they may as well not be). I'm not that introverted, but I'm introverted enough that it is by sheer luck I have more than two people from my first few jobs I could ask for references or even directly for work. My last couple of jobs, however, have been another matter--I "got over it," as they say, and have put more effort into networking. I even recently developed a connection completely outside of work! Leavnig that aside, sometimes people move or switch focus or have to take jobs at crappy "body shop" companies to make ends meet during a bust, etc. Hence the quality of the network isn't necessarily good enough to have the kind of "I need a job, whatcha got" connections you mention.
- shawabawa3 12y ago
  What am I supposed to do exactly? Call up some co-worker from 3+ years ago and say "hi, remember me? Can you get me a job?" I don't have a network. I have friends and I have colleagues, but I don't really have anyone that could get me job leads (maybe a couple of my friends)
  - MrDom 12y ago
    Or you could call them up, ask them how they're doing, meet them for a coffee, then ask if their company is hiring for X and if they could refer you. At the very least this gets your resume put in front of the hiring manager and lets you bypass the HR nonsense. At the very worst, they say no and you go back to talking about his dog or whatever. Keep in mind that most companies offer referral bonuses and programmers like to work with people they know and trust. I used to avoid doing this like the plague because I thought I was being a burden to people I consider friends. In reality, asking for a referral is mutually beneficial for both parties.
    - vonmoltke 12y ago
      > Or you could call them up, ask them how they're doing, meet them for a coffee, then ask if their company is hiring for X and if they could refer you. Every single one of my former coworkers, managers, and other people I dealt with on a regular basis is still at my former employer or retired. How do those contacts help me?
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Quit overthinking it an go for coffee already! They know people; they hear about projects you don't; pick their brains. They will be glad to help, because they obviously are NOT interested in leaving their current job so you're no competition.
        vonmoltke 12y ago
        That might work if my former employer was not a defense contractor. Unfortunately, I left in large part because my co-workers seemed to have little clue as to what was going on outside their own little bubble and little interest in correcting that.
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  The problem is you think this is somehow normal. That's not how all engineers work. Maybe you work a job and do good work, but then the team disintegrates, people quit, you lose track of co-workers because they were just co-workers and not friends (even if you had an excellent working relationship). It's not necessarily normal at all to retain close relationships with past co-workers, even less so to routinely network through them let alone retain them as references. The entire reason LinkedIn exists is because most people, even many very highly skilled people in professional career roles, find it difficult to make effective use of such networks, for example. And if you're an engineer who has experienced a rough patch of employment or worked at a company or in a role or under a boss they hated or experienced a period of burnout or underperformed somewhere due to any of those circumstances the whole thing gets that much more difficult.
- danielweber 12y ago
  > Assuming a job change every 3 years There you go. I spent (really too many) years at one small company after moving from a top-5 city to a top-20 city. And some of my contacts have left town. Also, even if I've got people who can vouch for me, how do I tell them I'm looking for work? (This might sound trivial but I haven't figured it out.)
  - hcho 12y ago
    I suspect no amount of networking would protect against moving away from the centres of industry. Given the alternative is being stuck in a boring job, or low pay, or unemployment, what is so difficult in shooting an email asking if they know anyone hiring? What would your reaction be if you got such an email from an ex-colleague?
- mcguire 12y ago
  I'm spectacularly bad at keeping up with previous co-workers. I'll certainly admit to that---it's one of my "listen to my advice, what I'd do, and then do something completely different" points. But then, I spent 8 years at one job and in grad school. Anyone I knew before that would be really hard to find even if they could be a useful network. And I was really bad at connecting with my committee--I graduated, but without a good network there. Then I moved across the country. I've never had any problem finding work, if I shop my resume around to local contractors and "body shops". In fact, I've made a pretty good career out of that. But "exciting" work? Not so much. At this point, I'm considering getting out of the field. And I love what I do. I just hate what I'm doing, if you can see the difference.
- jrjarrett 12y ago
  Yes. I"m 48, and I've worked in software for 26 years. For two companies. I think I'm probably the last generation that looks at long-term employment as a good thing, and the older I get the less risk I want to take in being "the new kid" who would be the first to go if anything went wrong with the company.
- drivingmenuts 12y ago
  My network consists mostly of people who know I'm a "programmer" and that's about it. I hang out with tabletop gamers, artists and costume designers, video editors, etc. We're more connected by our hobbies than our jobs. Most tech people I've tried to hang out with aren't all that into discussing tech when we're not on the job. Heck, my enthusiasm for tech usually ends at 5pm. I also don't talk to former co-workers much because I've moved on to different problems. So, yeah, I'm bad at networking.
sanderjd 12y ago
> Who wants to hire someone old enough to be their dad? I do. They almost certainly know more than I do about anything of any substance. Maybe they don't know node.js and mongodb as well as some young person, but they can figure that stuff much faster than I can learn any of the stuff they've learned throughout their life. I worry more about the opposite: who wants to work for someone young enough to be their child?
- CmonDev 12y ago
  "Maybe they don't know node.js". Exactly, there is nothing magical about implementing the Reactor pattern in a 25-year old language.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    There's nothing magical about any of it. It's all incremental progress. We place way too much value on specific technologies, and not enough on broad experience. If someone has been successfully building software for decades, it is stupid to think they can't figure out rails or play or clojure or {{whatever}}. They may not want to learn, but that's a different issue.
- ilaksh 12y ago
  There are plenty of older developers who are interested in the latest thing. Because us older developers get bored with the old stuff, and we are definitely aware of the issue of falling behind. I am 36 and have been doing Node.js for 3 years. I was just reading a response to this article with someone who was much older, like 50 or 60 or something, also said he was a Node.js programmer. I've actually been really paying close attention to trends, new programming languages, etc. Node.js is kind of old news. The coolest new programming language I know of is Nim. Stuff that I think that matters for the future is higher-level semantic metalanguages for information exchange and information systems factorization, fully distributed computing, connected devices, and custom circuits/electronics.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    It's so absurd that 36 is "older". I didn't mean to imply that no "older" developers are interested in newer things, just that it really doesn't matter if they aren't.

by MCRed 12y ago

hcho 12y ago

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
There are introverts, and then there are introverts. I can easily see somebody who is particularly introverted not developing a deep network after 10, 20, or even 30 years of experience, simply because they are very introverted (or socially maladjusted; the two are different, but in a world run by extroverts it is arguable that they may as well not be). I'm not that introverted, but I'm introverted enough that it is by sheer luck I have more than two people from my first few jobs I could ask for references or even directly for work. My last couple of jobs, however, have been another matter--I "got over it," as they say, and have put more effort into networking. I even recently developed a connection completely outside of work! Leavnig that aside, sometimes people move or switch focus or have to take jobs at crappy "body shop" companies to make ends meet during a bust, etc. Hence the quality of the network isn't necessarily good enough to have the kind of "I need a job, whatcha got" connections you mention.
shawabawa3 12y ago
What am I supposed to do exactly? Call up some co-worker from 3+ years ago and say "hi, remember me? Can you get me a job?" I don't have a network. I have friends and I have colleagues, but I don't really have anyone that could get me job leads (maybe a couple of my friends)
- MrDom 12y ago
  Or you could call them up, ask them how they're doing, meet them for a coffee, then ask if their company is hiring for X and if they could refer you. At the very least this gets your resume put in front of the hiring manager and lets you bypass the HR nonsense. At the very worst, they say no and you go back to talking about his dog or whatever. Keep in mind that most companies offer referral bonuses and programmers like to work with people they know and trust. I used to avoid doing this like the plague because I thought I was being a burden to people I consider friends. In reality, asking for a referral is mutually beneficial for both parties.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    > Or you could call them up, ask them how they're doing, meet them for a coffee, then ask if their company is hiring for X and if they could refer you. Every single one of my former coworkers, managers, and other people I dealt with on a regular basis is still at my former employer or retired. How do those contacts help me?
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Quit overthinking it an go for coffee already! They know people; they hear about projects you don't; pick their brains. They will be glad to help, because they obviously are NOT interested in leaving their current job so you're no competition.
      - vonmoltke 12y ago
        That might work if my former employer was not a defense contractor. Unfortunately, I left in large part because my co-workers seemed to have little clue as to what was going on outside their own little bubble and little interest in correcting that.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
The problem is you think this is somehow normal. That's not how all engineers work. Maybe you work a job and do good work, but then the team disintegrates, people quit, you lose track of co-workers because they were just co-workers and not friends (even if you had an excellent working relationship). It's not necessarily normal at all to retain close relationships with past co-workers, even less so to routinely network through them let alone retain them as references. The entire reason LinkedIn exists is because most people, even many very highly skilled people in professional career roles, find it difficult to make effective use of such networks, for example. And if you're an engineer who has experienced a rough patch of employment or worked at a company or in a role or under a boss they hated or experienced a period of burnout or underperformed somewhere due to any of those circumstances the whole thing gets that much more difficult.
danielweber 12y ago
> Assuming a job change every 3 years There you go. I spent (really too many) years at one small company after moving from a top-5 city to a top-20 city. And some of my contacts have left town. Also, even if I've got people who can vouch for me, how do I tell them I'm looking for work? (This might sound trivial but I haven't figured it out.)
- hcho 12y ago
  I suspect no amount of networking would protect against moving away from the centres of industry. Given the alternative is being stuck in a boring job, or low pay, or unemployment, what is so difficult in shooting an email asking if they know anyone hiring? What would your reaction be if you got such an email from an ex-colleague?
mcguire 12y ago
I'm spectacularly bad at keeping up with previous co-workers. I'll certainly admit to that---it's one of my "listen to my advice, what I'd do, and then do something completely different" points. But then, I spent 8 years at one job and in grad school. Anyone I knew before that would be really hard to find even if they could be a useful network. And I was really bad at connecting with my committee--I graduated, but without a good network there. Then I moved across the country. I've never had any problem finding work, if I shop my resume around to local contractors and "body shops". In fact, I've made a pretty good career out of that. But "exciting" work? Not so much. At this point, I'm considering getting out of the field. And I love what I do. I just hate what I'm doing, if you can see the difference.
jrjarrett 12y ago
Yes. I"m 48, and I've worked in software for 26 years. For two companies. I think I'm probably the last generation that looks at long-term employment as a good thing, and the older I get the less risk I want to take in being "the new kid" who would be the first to go if anything went wrong with the company.
drivingmenuts 12y ago
My network consists mostly of people who know I'm a "programmer" and that's about it. I hang out with tabletop gamers, artists and costume designers, video editors, etc. We're more connected by our hobbies than our jobs. Most tech people I've tried to hang out with aren't all that into discussing tech when we're not on the job. Heck, my enthusiasm for tech usually ends at 5pm. I also don't talk to former co-workers much because I've moved on to different problems. So, yeah, I'm bad at networking.

sanderjd 12y ago

> Who wants to hire someone old enough to be their dad? I do. They almost certainly know more than I do about anything of any substance. Maybe they don't know node.js and mongodb as well as some young person, but they can figure that stuff much faster than I can learn any of the stuff they've learned throughout their life. I worry more about the opposite: who wants to work for someone young enough to be their child?

CmonDev 12y ago
"Maybe they don't know node.js". Exactly, there is nothing magical about implementing the Reactor pattern in a 25-year old language.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  There's nothing magical about any of it. It's all incremental progress. We place way too much value on specific technologies, and not enough on broad experience. If someone has been successfully building software for decades, it is stupid to think they can't figure out rails or play or clojure or {{whatever}}. They may not want to learn, but that's a different issue.
ilaksh 12y ago
There are plenty of older developers who are interested in the latest thing. Because us older developers get bored with the old stuff, and we are definitely aware of the issue of falling behind. I am 36 and have been doing Node.js for 3 years. I was just reading a response to this article with someone who was much older, like 50 or 60 or something, also said he was a Node.js programmer. I've actually been really paying close attention to trends, new programming languages, etc. Node.js is kind of old news. The coolest new programming language I know of is Nim. Stuff that I think that matters for the future is higher-level semantic metalanguages for information exchange and information systems factorization, fully distributed computing, connected devices, and custom circuits/electronics.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  It's so absurd that 36 is "older". I didn't mean to imply that no "older" developers are interested in newer things, just that it really doesn't matter if they aren't.