
“We Love Older Programmers” - fecak
https://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2016/09/27/olderlove/
======
johnwheeler
It's not a matter of age. It's a matter of experience.

I'm 37 now, and a year ago I was working with a 20-something project lead with
a lot less experience than me who insisted we create a robust system for
reporting errors in a SaaS product we were launching.

He wanted to associate codes with our error messages, create a searchable
index where people could type in the error code to get the message, and do
sophisticated instrumentation and metrics in the code, so we knew how many
errors we were getting, etc.

The effort would've taken a while, so I told him we shouldn't worry about
_any_ of that and just focus on launching the project to generate the
customers who would generate the errors--then we'd know how to prioritize
their importance. I explained his robust error system might evolve naturally
from that.

Turned out, we butted heads on so many on things, and I decided to leave. More
time went on, and they never ended up launching anything--I suspect because
they didn't focus on what mattered, and I attribute that to a lack of
experience.

FYI - I'm the creator of [https://OldGeekJobs.com](https://OldGeekJobs.com),
which I've been iterating on for about two weeks.

It's a real problem--the idea that older, experienced programmers are
inflexible. I've only grown more flexible with age. When you're wrong so many
times, you can't help but be. I'm also better at weeding out the good ideas
from the bad. I don't think I'm perfect at it by any means.

~~~
huherto
I pretty much agree that has been my experience. Taking a project from zero
and knowing where to push at every stage to have a successful project.

Question. What makes the jobs in OldGeekJobs.com a good fit for older
developers?

~~~
johnwheeler
The jobs highlighted in green were posted by employers on the site knowing
older candidates will apply. Those candidates can feel comfortable applying
knowing they're welcome.

It's hard to build a two-sided marketplace, so I'm aggregating jobs from
StackOverflow and iterating on the UX (I've got some good ideas to test).

I'll keep highlighting the jobs in green from the employers who go there and
post directly though.

What are your thoughts on this?

~~~
huherto
Great initiative. This is very much needed.

I would like to participate in a social group of veteran software developers.
So we can share experiences and do networking. Promote blogs from developers
like this one. [http://blog.markwatson.com](http://blog.markwatson.com). I saw
this on the other thread.

This is not just helping ourselves. It is opening the future for the current
generation of young developers.

------
gravypod
Old programmers, like the person who taught me, are very good to have in any
team. They know something that all of us "youngsters" don't.

    
    
       - This has been done before
       - [New technology] is a fad and will die out
       - Being "cleaver" isn't making something un-maintainable
       - Here are all the cases that you need to look out for. I've done this before
       - A replacement isn't an alternative and a replacement is feature complete
    

When I get to the point where I start a company, I don't think that I'll ever
form a team without at least one 40+ member. It's a waste of resources to do
otherwise. Saves you a lot of time and energy of fixing mistakes when someone
on your team can predict all of the mistakes you will be making.

