Age-friendly companies for older developers?

A

Aquarians

Read and be scared: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23320974

Synopsis: "I've spent last year interviewing only to find out that I'm considered too old (I'm 45) for most shops around. They won't spit it out directly of course but people talk and what they say is that I need to be stellar or young to be hired. Companies won't invest in me the slightest bit, so the moment I miss a question in the long interview process I'm out of the door without second thought."

The relevant part (been there, done that, countless times): THE MOMENT I MISS A QUESTION IN THE LONG INTERVIEW PROCESS I'M OUT OF THE DOOR WITHOUT SECOND THOUGHT.

Note this didn't happen in my 20s or 30s, although I know now much much more stuff than then, both useful and useless. Like the tooling to make a damn "Hello World" appear on screen has evolved from my plugging in the ZX Spectrum and typing 'PRINT "Hello, World!" RUN' to:
- git clone
- git checkout branch
- try building the C++ library using a combination of Python, CMake and Ivy
- inevitably the build failing to compile and me crossing fingers it's just a C++ issue and not a build system one
- spend two days asking around how to fix the god damn issue or at least two hours fixing it myself if I'm lucky
- lately add Docker on top of that, which to my experience so far is just another layer of stuff breaking down than needs to be fixed
- fire up a test and have it crash due to incompatibility between various libraries from various teams
- spend two weeks asking around how to fix the god damn compatibility issue or at least days figuring it out by myself if I'm lucky
- finally have the library built and ready to test on Android
- fire up Android studio, import the native library, compile, deploy to an Android phone and test with a debugger (if I'm lucky and nothing breaks in between)

Coming back to interviews, between that algorithm on Codility that I almost got right (meaning it works fine but since it's the first time I heard about the problem and only had 30 minutes on ot along other 3 problems, I only made it work optimally and not optimally-optimally-optimally and though it passes the tests I got with the problem, it fails some 0.0001% corner use case that the guys making the test kindly prepared and never told me about), there's an exponentially increasing layer of pure crap.

So next time you buy a software from a company you trust and love, be even more confident on it since it's made by youngsters who pass the palidrome algo tests with flying colors. Yet the last time Windows made an update I never asked about, the external monitor ceased to work and it wasn't until I pulled out some forgotten oldies that it worked again. And my brother bought a shiny phone, working just fine but obviously you gotta install every OTA update they push to you because "better" and otherwise "falling behind", and afterwards it's all crashes, resets and lags. Can't roll back to previous OS version since there's no such thing in the progressie world we live, only hope is either they fix most crap without breaking other in the next OTA or he just buys a new phone that he never upgrades (assuming it's better tested on launch than on update).

So what's your experience with computers?
 
You age out of the industry around 40-45.

There is no respect given for people with significant experience because the stacks change so frequently these days there are no real experts anymore. Older senior developers don't want to put up with the bullshit run around that comes with interviewing now because they have lives, houses, and kids to worry about. It's not enough to be hired on your merits. Junior developers will cut your throat for a chance to develop a shitty CRUD app for a company.

What's my experience? I'm not 40 yet. I don't plan on being in the industry after I turn 40 and am actively learning other skills to pivot in case the industry ages me out quicker. I'll continue to consult where I can but I fully expect to be unemployable after around 45 years of age. I can already see it coming. I know a handful of languages very well. I don't want to learn whatever is the new hotness anymore. I want to focus on actually having a life and living it. I have no time to study for leetcode anymore. I've been in the industry 10 years and I still feel like I'm starting from ground zero with every single company's interview process.
 
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I currently contract with a team, average age probably 45.

Its not web development, more lower level desktop software that cant be done in a browser.

Interestingly they just hired a younger guy in his twenties for our team as they could not find anyone good in the older demographic that was their preference for experienced developers.

Every firm wants to hire the top 1% of programming talent, so regardless of how old you are if you are in the top 1% of performers they will probably want to hire you.

Younger people are generally cheaper and will work longer hours. So they have that advantage over older people.

But performance is more important.

With Git you can see the performance of every programmer, every line of code they have ever written while working for the company is all there only a few mouse click away.

By doing that i saw some developers were producing 50x the output of others.

In Boom times there is a shortage of talent and big budgets needing to be used. That is the time when average devs can easily find work regardless of age.

But during recessions it is very tough for everyone and even harder for older people.
 
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southall said:
Every firm wants to hire the top 1% of programming talent, so regardless of how old you are if you are in the top 1% of performers they will probably want to hire you.
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Got admitted *the fucking first* at the hardest university in the city some 20 years ago. Used to work for the only capital markets company here a while ago, battling for "the hottest" with a banking one, left them and now I work for what's probably the hottest startup here - directly competing with Goo^H^H^H and a few I won't name.

So maybe I shouldn't be *that* worried but .. Dunning-Kruger :P
 
Where i contract they cant find good talent regardless of age.
And they have to settle and hire sub standard contractors they are would not normally touch. Skilled but lazy fuckers with only want to do a minimal amount of work.
 
gaussian said:
I've been in the industry 10 years and I still feel like I'm starting from ground zero with every single company's interview process.
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My experience too and I think there's two things at force here:

1) As you say, exponential proliferation of crap to learn. If there was 1,000,000 things to learn when I made it fucking first at the university admission exam some 20 years ago, now there's 1,000,000,000,000 of them. Sorry but human mental FUCKING CACHE doesn't go beyond 1,000,000 crap things to learn so see my #2.

2) Cache vs memory vs hard storage vs over the network.

If you're generally fucking intelligent CPU like me, then you can solve any problem, just like me. But any of those cache 1,000,000 lines of memory hits the CPU in 200ns. If you need to go to RAM memory, that's geological age compared to interview requirements. Not to mention you having to look at your notes or read some book stored on hard storage. That's the age of the universe compared to just memory (not cache) access. And if you need to question the universe (over an impossibly fast network), that's something universes away speculative territory and no candidate ever has survived and, like noone has returned from death.
 
guru said:
No young developers want to learn C, C++ or COBOL. Learn those and you won’t have any competition.
Most C++ developers have disappeared and moved onto C#, while lots of older C++ applications go unmaintained. I have one of those but my team has moved onto more modern apps and technologies, and the product is languishing without upgrades.
As for COBOL: https://news.yahoo.com/why-government-desperate-programmers-know-201600124.html
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I hate C++ with my guts and do my personal projects in Java (and some scripting in Perl / Python) but you're right. It's C++ that puts a daily bread on my table.

Still hate it.
 
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