
You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch - denzil_correa
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/opinion/sunday/youre-how-old-well-be-in-touch.html?_r=0
======
hirundo
I'm a grey beard who applied to a company specifically advertising for young
developers. Got the job without mentioning my vintage. That was six years ago
and they still haven't seen my face. I waited a while to gently break the news
to them. If you're a technological senior citizen remote work is your friend.

~~~
ourmandave
Ah, "Grey beard". The term Microsoft used to separate the old from the young
at a conference when they first introduced the .NET framework. Classic "old
bad, good new" sales.

As in, "you Grey Breads remember using C++ and MFC, etc."

Yes I remember. Because it was yesterday just before I came to your
conference!

I still went home and started learning what the hell XML was though. =(

~~~
newjersey
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we have developers who work on
.NET and have never touched either WinForms or WebForms.

And I am relatively young.

~~~
douche
WebForms can die in a fire, and thankfully has, for the most part, but
WinForms is still plenty good enough for cranking out quick and dirty tools.
Maybe I'm old, or it's just because I started out in high school doing VB6
forms applications, but I still prefer it unless I have a good reason, over
WPF.

WinForms is also a pretty thin layer over Win32 controls, as well, so if you
have to switch between .Net and native C/C++ Windows dev, it's less of a
context switch.

~~~
themartorana
WebForms changed the game. ASP was a sub-subset of VB, but WebForms with C#
made websites full-scale eventful and stateful programs for the first time. I
had never felt such power and freedom programming for the web.

Yes, some people would put humongous data structures in view state, and yes,
more-better solutions have arisen, but WebForms deserves your respect!

~~~
robin_reala
It really doesn’t. I’ve never seen a good WebForms site / app and I’ve always
dreaded working with them. They were a regressive step.

------
Animats
Jobs for "Digital Natives" from Indeed.com [1]

 _" You’re a digital native with a demonstrated interest in startups,
technology, social media, and shaking up industries...."_ \-- Laundry Locker
customer support lead. Not exactly a job that requires extensive
qualifications.

 _" Digital Native - You can find anyone's email address anytime, search the
depths of the web with ease, and possibly format basic HTML without skipping a
beat...."_ \- Marketing and social media intern

 _" Are a "digital native" \- social platforms, Google, ordering online, etc.
are all second nature to you. Upserve is the smart restaurant management
assistant..."_ \- Sales position. Must be able to order food online.

 _" Consider yourself a digital native. As an Account Executive, you will be
responsible for fully immersing yourself in the clients’ business, products,
consumers..."_ \- Young and Rubicam advertising, multiple positions. Gotta
keep out those old print media people.

We're not talking about understanding the technology here.

[1]
[http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22Digital+Native%22&l=](http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22Digital+Native%22&l=)

~~~
vazamb
I feel like "Digital Natives" is a term non-technical, business people (most
in entry level positions) use to make themselves feel better about the fact
that their jobs don't require any kind of special skill or knowledge.

~~~
gaius
Its a term popularized by the BBC, they use "digital native" to mean people
not old enough to remember a time before the web, and "digital immigrant" to
mean anyone older.

The fact that "digital immigrants" built all this stuff and "digital natives"
are just users of it, is too subtle for their journos to grasp.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
The term has invaded the education system over here in Northern Europe as
well, mainly for use by politicians as justification for not putting together
proper computer courses in schools: "they're all digital natives, they know
how computers work", meaning they can work YouTube and Flappy Bird on a
touchscreen.

------
sien
This is a market failing that anyone who is hiring can exploit.

I've worked for a guy who hired young, smart guys without much experience who
he felt had potential and who also had some 55+ year old developers who he
thought could do things. He was one of the best managers I've had.

So be smart and realise that people who don't fit into what you expect might
find it a bit harder at some places to find a job and that you can get better
people if you consider people who were not initially what you expected to
hire.

~~~
bbcbasic
Or hire remote, smart, Haskell developers from cheap countries.

~~~
ekiara
Is there a market for remote Haskell developers?

I've found a pretty distinct lack of functional developer jobs in my region.
Though I was surprised to find a local software company that has specifically
recruited several Clojure developers.

~~~
bbcbasic
That's part of the joke. Lots of devs keen to do Haskell, so market forces
reduce the pay of such jobs, especially if they are not expert in nature
(typical back/front end stuff). Yet you get someone who took the time to learn
Haskell.

I watched some great videos from India Haskell meetups, which gives me the
impression you can go to one of those and get "cheaper" developers. Not saying
they'll work for odesk rates but certainly could be cheaper than a cubicaled
SF worker.

------
dijit
I don't see many old sysadmins in companies I've worked in. Even fewer older
developers, I have a slight worry that this career path has an affinity for
youth- which I won't have for much longer.

So this is disheartening to read.

~~~
aswanson
Tech fields have an inherent disuse for seniority. Beyond five years, no one
gives an f how long you have worked with a given toolchain/language. It's the
hunger games. Medicine, finance, law, accounting...rightly or wrongly respect
decades of experience. Tech is Logan's Run. Plan accordingly.

~~~
borvo
Here we go again, getting confused between SFO/Startup Bro culture and the
majority of the productive software industry.

~~~
aswanson
Nah, take a look at the general listings for anything from embedded to .NET to
the javascript library de jour. You'll see the magical 5 year number pop up
across the board for a reason. I've never worked in the SFO/brospace. Strictly
old-school, east coast, precambrian hardware environments. Rules still apply.

------
czep
This is a world where job posts for "Senior Engineer" ask for _three_ years of
experience.

~~~
quantumhobbit
And job posts for "Junior Engineers" somehow ask for the same three years of
experience.

~~~
czep
Squeezed at both ends! At some point I passed from too young to too old, but
never got to enjoy the supposed middle period. I remember the struggle of
trying to prove myself during my early career and then suddenly found myself
in "mid-career" and being pinged by recruiters for entry level positions.

Noe, despite my self-confidence, articles such as this make me uneasy for the
future. I don't really want to "graduate" to a management job. I love writing
code and solving problems. I just hope there will continue to be enough level-
headed hiring managers to let me do the job I love.

------
WalterBright
Nobody would pay me to invent a new programming language, so I had to start my
own business.

------
shultays
This kinda makes me remember this quote from "Primer"

    
    
      You know what they do with engineers when they turn forty?
      [to Aaron, who shakes his head]
      They take them out and shoot them.

------
jimmywanger
A lot of older programmers seem to think they have 20 years of experience,
when they only have the same year of experience 20 times.

If you don't keep up to date and current, it's not ageism.

~~~
drtse4
> A lot of older programmers seem to think they have 20 years of experience,
> when they only have the same year of experience 20 times.

A lot of younger programmers seems to think they have 3 years of experience,
when they only have the same month of experience 36 times.

Experience is made up by the experiences you had, if you have never worked in
a proper environment or never actually tried to improve your craft, years
doesn't matter much.

And the myth of "being up to date", it can mean different things for different
people. Sadly sometimes it just means that you need to have played with the
latest fad that will disappear in a few years. In that case i'd prefer someone
that's not up to date but can learn something different and it's used to do
things the proper way.

~~~
jimmywanger
I agree, a lot of younger programmers think they have 3 years experience when
they've had the same month of experience 36 times.

And this is not a dig against old people per se. But it's the sunk cost
fallacy.

If you've only been doing something for 3 years, and it's wrong, it's easier
to convince them that it's wrong, vs. if you've been doing something for 20
years, it's a lot harder to convince somebody that they're doing it wrong.

Especially if they've been successful doing things their way for 20 years.

------
hoodoof
When this becomes an issue I'm planning to just leave the industry. Do
something else.

------
MrLeftHand
The common job spec:

Have a degree in CS + everything else that is vaguely related to IT.

Have at least 3+ years commercial experience in:
C/C++,Java,Perl,Python,Javascript,Node,AngularJS,React,Linux,Windows,Mac,Maven,Agile,LAMP,Ruby,Bash,RegExp,SQL,NoSQL,C#,Android,Photoshop,AWS,Swift,iOS,Docker,rkt,UX,UI,Backend,
Frontend, Salesforce, CRM, CSM, MVC, Scrum, Waterfall, JUnit, TDD, Cobol,
Fortran, BASIC, UML, Git, SVN, CVS, JQuery, Assembly.

Fluent in English and three other languages.

Good communication skills. You have to be able to explain everything to
illiterate shareholders and customers over the phone or Skype.

Be proactive and willing to take risks, but only the ones we approve of.

Desired is everything else not on the list.

Oh, you are 45? Sorry but we are a young dynamic team. We only take people
under 25 or androids with 2TB+ RAM and an expandable storage unit.

------
seizethecheese
Lots of folks commenting here on there not being many older developers around.
Well considering there are at least 10x more developers now than there were 30
years ago, and people generally get into it when they're young, this is
completely expected.

~~~
mark-r
It's not about age distribution, it's about the obstacles you encounter when
you're older. Even if it's only a desire by that younger majority to be around
people who are just like them.

~~~
seizethecheese
My point is that the distribution of developer ages at your work place is not
an indication of age-discrimination, not that age-discrimination doesn't
exist.

------
cpprototypes
Recently I got an email about a job that seemed interesting. It's a well known
company that used to be a startup but is now a mature company. I went to the
job description page: 8+ years experience, tech stack I'm familiar with,
mostly backend work, seems ok so far.

Then I get to the last line. Open office, has video games, happy hours, other
typical things designed to attract those in their 20s. It's all a hidden
message screaming, if you're old, don't apply. And they want someone with 8+
years experience! It's ridiculous.

~~~
ardit33
I am sorry, but what is wrong with having video games in the office? At both
my previous companies I played games time to time, with co-workers. 15 mins of
playing Fifa with a co-worker end s up both relaxing, and productive as you
both bond and hash out things, and often much better than boring meeting.

I am 35 btw. Also, our CEO regularly played as well.

I have been at an office/environment (Amazon), with cubicles, or offices,
people coming in, going home at 5:30pm, no social time, nothing interesting. I
thought that was awful, and I would never work in a place that doesn't
understand that creativity requires some play time as well.

~~~
ryanSrich
It's not the video games themselves. It's the culture. It's a way to keep
young employees in the office longer. It's not uncommon for these places to
have people roll in around 10am and stay until 10pm. That's not a place I want
to work at, and I'm not even 30 yet. But you can bet your life savings on a
company firing anyone for not playing this game. That's why I won't work for a
place with videogames.

~~~
baby
That's complete bullshit, I work for one of those company that happens to have
video games around. Not everyone play, but after work, we sometimes get around
and play for a couple of hours and we just have so much fun that we end up
going home late. What's wrong with that?

~~~
hiram112
Nothing wrong with it at all.

But realize that companies do not give you these 'perks' like free food,
games, laundry, etc. as a bonus. It is to keep you at work for more and more
hours.

Honestly, I don't think it is a bad thing if you do enjoy this sort of thing
and are young without kids, wife, etc.

The problem is that it creates the 'bro' culture that turns off anyone who
isn't in the same demographic. When most of the team is staying late, bonding
with COD, those that don't - the 40 year old who needs to pick up his kid, or
the 25 year old woman who doesn't play XBox - tend to be excluded as time goes
on.

To be completely honest, I've always thought the complaints of sexism in tech
were completely bullshit.

But when I look at things as a mid 30's guy who is already seeing hints of
ageism and really have no desire to stay 'till 10pm playing video games, I
have to wonder if maybe I was somewhat wrong, and maybe the typical SV
software environment is somewhat toxic for anyone not a 25 year old guy -
females included.

~~~
baby
> But realize that companies do not give you these 'perks' like free food,
> games, laundry, etc. as a bonus. It is to keep you at work for more and more
> hours.

It's give and take, nothing is for free, and this deal is a pretty good one
imo :)

> The problem is that it creates the 'bro' culture that turns off anyone who
> isn't in the same demographic. When most of the team is staying late,
> bonding with COD, those that don't - the 40 year old who needs to pick up
> his kid, or the 25 year old woman who doesn't play XBox - tend to be
> excluded as time goes on.

So we shouldn't bond and have fun because of these people :D?

~~~
hiram112
No I think you should do what you want; it certainly isn't the job of young
male engineers to make sure everyone else is included in their environment.
God knows that other groups were never especially inclusive to many of 'us'
growing up.

------
bogomipz
This is a strange dichotomy:

There are voices that are stating there is a serious shortage of highly
skilled tech workers in the Valley and as a result the H1B Visa quotas must be
dramatically increased and policies amended to allow for foreign workers.

There are also regular claims of ageism in the Valley against people who are
possibly not only highly skilled but also possess many years of real world,
"rubber on the road" experience.

Are these two things not at odds with each other?

------
Myrmornis
Isn't one way to ensure your continuing relevance to avoid managerial
positions? In my experience a lot of older people are less attractive
employees because after 10 years of management their skills are very generic
and hard to specify.

~~~
dasil003
YMMV but after almost 20 years I try to keep a foot firmly in both camps and
position myself as an early-stage generalist who can also lead and magnify the
productivity of the whole team.

Managers who aren't technically illiterate suck, programmers who can't see
beyond the scope of their own little fiefdom also suck. If you can marry
disparate skills from a few different areas you can really work magic in the
right position.

------
ilaksh
Ageism is endemic in Sillicon Valley and it starts at the top. Look at Y
Combinator -- the founder basically 'ageismed' himself out of his job and put
a kid in charge of the business.

------
damaru
That's one side of the story - I think there is also an imbalance of old folks
in higer ranking job, from politics to multinationals, no?

~~~
terrywilcox
It's as if people have to work their way up through the ranks...

------
beachstartup
we started up when i was 25 and i attribute much of our success to hiring
people older than us, by up to +30 years.

the benefits go both ways. 30-50 year old engineers don't like working for
40-60 year old career-management dipshits who have never done their jobs
before.

------
zaidf
I think it is ridiculous that we have a minimum age for presidency but no max.
age.

~~~
Koshkin
There will always be a minimum age for everything. Simply because age is a
positive number.

~~~
karamazov
It's a non-negative number.

~~~
cperciva
With probability 1, everybody has a positive age.

~~~
reddytowns
With a probability 1, a randomly chosen real number between 1 and 10 is not 3.

~~~
cperciva
Yes.

------
LargeCompanies
I'm thankful to work in for the federal govt. where mid 30s to 60s is the age
range. Also, the pay for fed govt work is comparably to what engineers in
Silicon Valley make, but the cost of living is way lower in this Mid-Atlantic
city/area.

Though if your single and like to mingle with co-workers and make friends your
not going to find that working for the fed; most are married and or recently
arrived in the US.

~~~
argonaut
It's good that you're satisfied, but saying that the federal government is
comparable to what engineers make in Silicon Valley tells me you don't
actually know what engineers make in Silicon Valley.

~~~
LargeCompanies
hmmm here are some salaries for senior level engineers in San Fran ... They
have a wide range...

[http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Senior-Ui-Ux-Designer-l-
San-F...](http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Senior-Ui-Ux-Designer-l-San-
Francisco,-CA.html)

Can you make similar in the fed on the low level... Sure(though I don't make
that myself) based on your negotiation skills. The higher salaries Seen you
can if your a Java developer vs a web developer.

Also if your on a long term hourly contract no benefits as a web dev for the
fed and with today's climate/demand you definitely can make just about
anything in that range.

~~~
LargeCompanies
not sure why i was down voted I was just saying ageism isn't found in the fed,
the money can be just as good as it is in the valley and the cost of living is
incredibly less.

------
ben_jones
Disclaimer: The following are existential questions that do not reflect my own
beliefs in any way, shape, or form.

Why do older people deserve jobs? Why does anyone deserve a job? Are there
instances where we as a society accept people _NOT_ deserving a job? How
different is age as an attribute compared to: Felons, the mentally impaired,
the under-qualified, those lacking physical attributes?

~~~
sillysaurus3
There's a moral argument to be made that people deserve jobs because society
forces you to work. If you don't work, and you're not independently wealthy,
you can't support yourself. Therefore to say people don't deserve jobs is to
say they deserve to be out on the street.

~~~
hiram112
Great answer. And even if you don't buy into the morality bit, those in charge
figured out long ago that giving the little people a job, regardless of how
pointless or wasteful, is better and cheaper than having to constantly deal
with hungry, angry men on the verge of revolt.

And if the plebs get too demanding, the owners just push up the price of basic
goods like housing, taxes, and food via inflation. So now you think you're
doing great, making six figures, but in reality you're worse off than the
previous generation while producing twice as much profit for your masters. But
at least you're not causing trouble.

