

Santa, I'll be 55YO in a few days. All I want is a better job. Thanks. - bjpcjp


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MichaelCrawford
Me Too.

I'll be 51 in a couple months.

Age discrimination is widespread in this industry. I get lots of interviews,
but quite commonly I find that my interviewer starts finding reasons not to
hire me, the very instant they see me in person, and so can see I have grey
hair.

Discriminating against employees or candidates over 40, for reasons of age, is
flatly illegal under US Federal Law, as well as the laws of all the States
that I know about. However, such age discrimination is quite widespread.

~~~
smoyer
I turned 50 last summer and the last time I was looking, I had no problem
finding a good job ... perhaps the best job I've ever had. But to survive the
interview process, you can't act 50 (or 55 or 51). You need to be current and
make it obvious you've kept yourself up-to-date.

To a lesser degree you can't look 50 either - I'm fortunate to have been dirty
blond when I was younger and my hair doesn't seem to be greying yet but if it
was and I was interviewing, I'd change it. Five hundred pounds and rolled into
the interview in an oversized Aeron chair? You probably look older than you
are to the interviewers.

I don't think most age discrimination is conscious but even where it is, don't
help them out by acting or looking old/older.

Note: Since I have no idea how @MichaelCrawford looks or interviews, this
comment is not aimed at him but is rather responding to a pattern I see when
we interview people my age.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
Many young people simply assume I am not up-to-date because of my age.

In reality I invest a great deal of money in technical books, as well as time
in reading them, and writing code for the exercises in the books.

~~~
japhyr
That sounds good, but it sounds hard to show that to a potential employer and
impress them. Have you built anything with what you've learned?

I'm 42, and I performed unimpressively in an interview two years ago. That
gave me some motivation to go back and polish the projects I'd been working
on, so the projects would speak for themselves. Since then a number of
professional opportunities have come up, largely based on the quality of the
projects I've been building. It has a snowball effect as well; it's become
easier to pick the work I want, and get work in that area.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
I've built quite a lot with what I've learned, however it's not always
possible to demonstrate that. Consider that I am not permitted to tell anyone
at all what my most-recent project was, other than that it had something to do
with OpenGL.

This because the product was an in-house tool for a client of my client. The
very existence of that tool is a closely guarded trade secret.

I read Robert Ward's excellent "Debugging C" back in the day. In part as a
result of that book, I am better at debugging just about anything than just
about anybody. But what can I show to a potential employer or client? "Here's
some code that doesn't have bugs in it." Similarly with Scott Meyers'
"Effective C++" series.

Three times I have applied to a certain company to write Mac OS X I/O Kit
Kernel Extensions - what Apple calls device drivers. All three times, their HR
refused to forward my resume to the hiring manager, unless I removed all the
experience that wasn't directly related to Mac OS X.

All three times I refused; I first learned to write device drivers by hand-
coding LSI-11 assembly into octal, then entering the code into the LSI-11
kernel with an octal keypad and a profoundly primitive debugger called ODT,
for "Octal Debugging Technique".

That was in an Intro to Computer Architecture class at UC Davis that I took
over the summer of 1981, while I was still in high school.

Whoever it is who keeps telling me to remove my non-OS X experience, clearly
does not understand how computers work. Each time I have refused; I don't want
to work for idiots.

~~~
nostrademons
As a side note - I wish more interviewers would ask debugging related
questions. I had a couple coworkers at Google who would try them ("Here's some
code with some bugs in it. Identify them, or talk me through how you would
identify them"), but they were definitely in the minority. Debugging is its
own skill, very different from writing green-field code, and yet a large
portion of the time we spend as professional software developers is spent
debugging.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
I understand that ten times as much time and money go into maintenance work,
than in writing the original product.

Now some of that is adding features but much of it is fixing bugs.

I work very very hard to promote myself as a debugging specialist, but it is
quite uncommon for potential employers to even care.

The most common requirement for "Debug" \- not "Debugging" just "Debug" \- is
for really low-level embedded work. Not even kernel nor device driver work,
stuff like board bring-up.

However I have gotten a few jobs specifically as a debugger. My very first
retail coding job got me the title of "Product Development Manager", but in
reality I was hired to debug a product that my predecessor made a smoking
crater of. I've also been a "Debug Meister" for Apple, and a "Man in Black"
for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, where I worked on what is now the
Sony Mobile XPeria Play.

------
trcollinson
I certainly don't want to debate that there is age discrimination in this
industry. There is. It's entirely illegal. I worry about it myself, a lot!
However, a few key people in the industry are amazing and give me hope. In no
particular order:

Israel Gat, Diana Larsen, David Spann, Woody Zuill, Ward Cunningham, Robert
Martin

Actually, as I make the list, it just keeps getting longer. Those are all
people I have worked with or associated myself with in the last 12 months
professionally. They are all extremely fantastic engineers as well as
speakers, managers, and educators. Each one of them. The difference between
them and the standard engineer is they have built a personal brand around
themselves. They write, speak, and help with open source projects. Instead of
being thought of as "older" they are thought of as the sages of the industry,
filled with wisdom that can only be purchased with decades of industry
experience. And companies bang down their doors to hire them. I happen to
personally know that one person in that list makes a day rate of $10,000 and
honestly, that person wishes they would get FEWER calls for work.

Keep going! Build your personal brand and you'll get the job you want.

------
stblack
This resonates profoundly.

But I'll tell you who I REALLY feel sorry for. I feel sorry for today's 20-
and 30-somethings who will likely never know the $1000-$2000 days many of us
knew in the 80's, 90's and 00's.

Back in the days when FedExing diskettes across the planet was a normal thing.

Take today's 20 and 30-somethings and project forward 20-years, I wouldn't
want to trade positions.

~~~
wyldfire
I'm confused: $1000-2000 days? Are you suggesting that there are "many of you"
who pulled down ~250-500k USD per year back in the 80s/90s/00s? Which
industry(ies)/career(s) are you referring to?

~~~
davelnewton
It depended... $1k days weren't terribly unusual back then, _or_ now, if you
have specific skill sets.

~~~
bshimmin
Or even if you only happen to have a pretty standard skill-set, but are
reasonably good at what you do, good at selling yourself, and happen to be
connected with the right sort of people. (Though making $2000 a day might also
require being quite hard-working, depending on what you do.)

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kasey_junk
Not to downplay the age discrimination angle (because I believe it is a real
problem) but what constitutes a "better" job?

Is it a compensation issue, a work/life balance thing, a new technologies
thing?

Conversely, are you willing to lower your compensation, work/life balance,
technology choices, etc. to accomplish that?

Hard for Santa to fix these problems without knowing the tradeoffs...

~~~
mud_dauber
Hi Santa, thanks for asking.

It's a lack-of-challenges (read culture) thing. My employer unfortunately
tolerates mediocrity & isn't under investor pressure to improve. It drives me
crazy, but can't leave until I have a new gig lined up.

I live in Austin & work as a product manager, FWIW.

~~~
smoyer
You're in a position where you can improve your own job ... don't tolerate
mediocrity in yourself, then don't tolerate it in your work products. There's
nothing to say your employer would complain if things improved - in fact, it's
likely you'll be able to point to an ROI on those improvements eventually.
Most employers _WILL_ notice when the money improves and will want to do more
of whatever caused it.

------
smoyer
There are truly horrible jobs - I said it just to get it out of the way but
...

 _The rest of this comment doesn 't apply to convenience store clerks with
degrees in computer science._

Many times when I hear people say something like this, they're working in a
job they hate because they're making good money. If you can't make job change
because you're expecting the same wage, that's a different problem (Dear Santa
- please include personal budgeting software).

Fortunately, unless you have one of those truly horrible jobs, there's a
better way to get the job you want. Change your own job - and you start with
changing your own behavior. This method requires a lot more work than sitting
in your cube all day (playing with your red Swingline stapler) but broadly try
this (not every problem will require all the steps):

1) Exceed your bosses expectations but still be on time.

2) Change how you do the job so that you're enjoying yourself.

3) Learn something new in the process of doing 1 and 2 above.

4) Use an appropriate new technology to replace something old - make sure you
can justify why you replaced the old (presumably working) way.

5) Teach others in your office how you achieved more by doing things this new
way.

This makes a few changes:

1) You think differently about your job and the enjoyment you get from it.

2) Your boss thinks differently about you.

3) Your coworkers think differently about you.

Don't underestimate the important of your perceptions - you can probably do
your current job in a way that you find enjoyable if you tweak the job and
change your attitude!

~~~
mud_dauber
Upvote for the Swingline ref. I needed that.

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rip747
That is why i'm working to get all the certifications I can to become a full
time DBA (database administrator). For some reason companies want young
programmers, but old time database administrators. I guess when it comes to
data integrity, experience and being stuck in your ways counts more.

~~~
bsg75
DBAs tend to be a little less to jump on the bleeding edge. Development is
(sometimes) about trends, being closer to the marketing, where DBA are the
keepers of the gold.

That said, being a DBA is not always a stable life. Depending on the
organization (or the lack of it) there can be late night firedrills, off hours
maintenance / migrations, calls to fix data wounded by bleeding edges. A good
DBA can mitigate these problems, given adequate support by management - IOW
given the authority to do so.

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sph130
Just make sure you stay current with the latest trends, technology, usability,
target demographics for your space. Kids out of college and recent grads
inherently have this because it is what they learned. So when putting two
people side by side regardless of their metrics - looking at what they know.
Far often the person who is in the know and up to date rather than complaisant
will have the edge. (At least in my experience)

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eyeareque
Good luck, I hope you find something that makes you happy.

~~~
mud_dauber
Thanks. Appreciate it.

