Is 40 The New 60? - Hacker News

Is 40 the New 60? | Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?
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Is 40 the New 60? (neverworkintheory.org)

185 points by luu 1 hour ago | hide | past | favorite | 174 comments
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SkipperCat 1 hour ago [–]
40 is not the new 60. Not even close.

At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has
only gotten better.
Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I
had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer.
The only way that age becomes a detriment is if you do not grow. I worked with someone my age who only strong skills are
a large enterprise storage system. He is a dinosaur and his future is limited. That's not his age, its the way he chose to build
is CV.
I focused on learning new tech; Python, Go, Kubernetes, Cloud, etc. I've also spend a lot of time learning the business
aspects of my industry and I've learned to be less of a jerk to people and how to communicate. At 52, I have recruiters
contact me all the time.
Age is just number guys. Stay current, keep learning and stay strong.
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jasode 48 minutes ago [–]
>At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done [...] Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of
the tech,
The blog post isn't about self-reported cognitive ability getting stronger (or not declining). It's about the job
marketplace.
Maybe it's instructive to compare/contrast different professional careers that depend on mental abilities and how age
affects marketability:
- computer programming : oft-reported industry bias against age 40+ and active recruitment (especially by software
companies) for 20-somethings.
- corporate executive manager (e.g. CEO, COO, CFO, etc) : age 40+ is typically the target hire age. Being a younger
20-something actually works against being hired for these roles. (To be CEO at age 20, you'd have to be the founder
of a startup.)
- surgeon : age 40+ doesn't seem to bother patients. They may rather have a 55-year old do their heart bypass rather
than a young 30-year old just out of residency.
Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old
programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of programming"
doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO candidate has. Why?
I have pet theories on that but I'd rather hear what others think.
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jnorthrop 26 minutes ago [–]
I agree with your sentiment. I was 51 when I last applied for a job at a new company. Initially I was getting
very little interest in my resume. Then I cut out the first 10 years of my career from my resume (and LinkedIn),
and downgraded the oldest position listed from a Senior Lead to just a developer -- essentially making me
appear 40 instead of 50. Within a couple of weeks I started getting responses.
And it is not like my work from 1990-2000 wasn't valuable. I worked on a complex large scale analytics system
in the early 90's and migrated to large scale web-based applications in the later half of the decade. I'm proud of
1 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
Is 40 the New 60? | Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757964
that work and have some interesting lessons and stories from that time period, but they are telltale of my age
and were working against me.
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quadrifoliate 38 minutes ago [–]
> Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-
year old programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of
programming" doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO
candidate has. Why?
I'll bite – I think it is because instead of licensing and regulating our profession like surgeons, we have opened
it up to creativity and inclusion like artists or fashion designers.
As a result, programming job trends are far more similar to fashion or art than medicine. You always want the
clothes from the hip new designer, but a few stalwarts (Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, etc.) are evergreen
and always in demand. They even end up influencing the larger trends of fashion. If you ask Ralph Lauren how
things are going, he'll say "I'm 81 and I have no problems finding work!". You might even have individual
designers who are discovered at 81 and become a hit. But that is not the condition for the average fashion
designer who is 81.
Similarly, you'll hear from plenty of older programmers for whom things have worked out as they get older. My
hypothesis is that they are also the ones who have kept up with changing fashions and paradigms.
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syshum 27 minutes ago [–]
hmm there are a lot of old brands and designs out there in clothing, and I dont think I have ever owned
anything from a "hot new" fashion brand
My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wrangler, Dickies, etc...
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> My clothes are either no name, or old old companies like Carhartt, levis, Wangler, Dickies, etc...
You are wearing designer clothes! Just by a designer from 1873 [1]. The equivalent programmer
would be John von Neumann, maybe.
--------------------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss
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syshum 18 minutes ago [–]
Exactly my point. the Comment I responded to was "No one wants old designers they want
the Hot New young designers"
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Also from the comment:

> ...but a few stalwarts (Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, etc.) are evergreen and
always in demand. They even end up influencing the larger trends of fashion.
The "old" brands you are wearing are all the result of stalwart designers from the
past.
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alexwebb2 23 minutes ago [–]
The implicit assumption powering this is that programming experience from 35 years ago is not only irrelevant
to today’s challenges, but undesirable due to having the wrong habits and patterns of thinking; this stands in
contrast to surgery or management skills which are widely perceived to be more timeless with candidate value
compounding with experience.
It’s plainly false for all sorts of reasons, but that’s the source of the disparity.
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xedrac 2 minutes ago [–]
I've met plenty of older developers that refused to adapt and keep learning. On the other hand, the best
developers I've known have all been older. It's not about the skills you acquired at age X. It's about you
attitude towards continual learning and improving, regardless of your age.
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seanmcdirmid 38 minutes ago [–]
Older programmers are judged more on their experience, a 55 year old candidate is expected to have 35 or so
years of experience, but interviewing for that is tough. Instead, reputation is more important (having a bunch of
people vouch for you so you be hired in as a staff/principal IC), but not everyone will have that, actually a lot of
people won’t. So the 20 year old is an unknown quantity, they are all potential, a 55 year old candidate has to
be the exact opposite (known quantity, not much accommodation for potential), and so…well, I’m sure we can
see the problem with that.
And if you change your career late in life, you are even more screwed by these kinds of standards. A 40 or 45
year old can’t just get into the industry via an entry level position. Even if they would have a 20 year career
ahead of them.
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brandall10 22 minutes ago [–]
As mentioned elsewhere in the this chat, I'm a 45 yo principal engineer at my current company who has seen
nothing but an increase in attention from recruiters since turning 40.
I'm also directly involved in hiring for my team, having helped add 15 members over the last year, working
directly w/ the director to review all resumes, handling maybe 30% of the screens, and usually the veto vote.
We've interviewed a number of engineers in their 40s and 50s.
Experience is great and we're always welcoming of older devs... but there is a caveat. If that experience is
tempered by a somewhat pessimistic attitude, which is often the case, there is rarely a chance to move forward.
It's not being old - it's being worn out.
AFA the resumes of older devs, we often cut them out because they're an objectively terrible, wall of text mess
that goes on for 4+ pages. Like 2/3 of the time this is the case.
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I understand the need to fake overwhelming optimism to get by interviewers with mindsets similar to
yours. Too much honesty can be bad in this industry, especially at higher levels, where diplomacy and
soft skills are very important.
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I have that optimism and it certainly is not fake. I love what I do. Yes, I bring experience to the
table but not bad energy.
WTF would you want to hire someone who poisons the well? It doesn't matter what the
job/industry is, in what situation would that be remotely desirable?
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If you say so. But just as you doubt the vigor of the “somewhat pessimistic” candidate (in
your words, you didn’t say they were toxic), others will doubt the sincerity of your
overwhelming optimism. So is life.
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When we discuss these types of candidates, that is always the tone of the discussion.
It's good to discuss the pluses and minuses of an approach, we encourage this in our
architecture section of the interview loop and during the initial screen when
discussing line items in the resumes.
It's having a general negative attitude... bad mouthing past employers, being
negative to a tech stack (and literally not couching it with any reasoning what-soever
when we try to dig in), things like that. Sometimes it's implied, sometimes it's more
direct, but it there is a distinct lack of social intelligence that seems to happen more
w/ older candidates that just suggests someone is burnt out.
mekkkkkk 32 minutes ago [–]
I think the (sometimes justified) fear is that an older programmer may have stopped learning X years prior, and
gotten stuck in old practices. It's probably really easy to fall into a groove and say "it worked back then, and it
still does". This attitude may be detrimental in a workplace that strives to innovate and wishes to test new
technologies.
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swader999 22 minutes ago [–]
Experience at that level is expensive and companies are less inclined to pay that much. They also are less likely
to believe you'll be comfortable with taking a lower rate for a long duration. This is true for both CEO and high
end programmer with decades of experience.
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I’m 45 and have never gotten more attention from recruiters, despite the fact I entered the job market during the
height of the dot com era. My graduation date is clearly marked on all resumes in circulation, as is my experience
showing my first internship all the way back in ‘96. It’s not only the number of ops that hit my plate, but the sheer
aggressiveness of the recruiters. Very often am I contacted repeatedly, sometimes up to 5 times, by a recruiter for an
op. Many times it’s directly by the hiring manager, the director, cto, or even ceo of the company.
In fact, only in my 40s have most of the major tech companies reached out to set up interviews (Google, Facebook,
Amazon, and Apple), and a ton of pre-IPO unicorns. During the pandemic I had the former CEO of Zelle personally
interview for his new venture and Brian Acton personally reached out to schedule an interview for One Signal.
I’m just a principal dev who does React and Rails. Been a tech lead in a few startups, never held a title above that,
never a de facto people manager and certainly not a director.
I remember the sheer terror I was feeling toward the top of the my 30s because of discussions like this on Hacker
News. Had a taste of management in my early 30s and decided it wasn’t for me, and remember toying with ideas for a
career switch because surely, I would be dead as a programmer soon. The exact opposite happened.
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namelessoracle 27 minutes ago [–]
The key here is Principal. 40 plus is considered fine and good for Architects/Managers and people in leadership
positions. Try to get a senior engineer or below job where you are expected to be grinding out code instead.
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pjmlp 10 minutes ago [–]
About the same age as the one you are replying to, usually the best way to work around that is
consulting, where you are expected to be business analyst, architect, devops and coder in one package.
Granted, not everyone enjoys doing it, and it comes with lots of politics as baggage as well.
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I was a senior at my last 4 roles - IOW, I was a Sr. dev turning 40, and didn't get another higher level
role until turning 43.
But yes, I have that experience in my background. I had my first principal role back when I was 32 (but
prior to switching away from .NET development) and 2 other lead roles in my 30s.
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throw4765433 15 minutes ago [–]
I think the stack is important. I know a lot of older Java and .Net developers that are hired to grind out
code.
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So we're just going to move the goal posts then? Yes, having desirable skills is a given.
We have a bunch of .NET devs (our BE is .NET) and the average age of these folks probably right
around 40, because in general they're going to be older devs who do that.
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twox2 42 minutes ago [–]
Are the recruiters targeting YOU specifically or are they just taking the spray-and-pray approach reaching out to
everyone who fits certain keywords?
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oriolid 34 minutes ago [–]
Even if they're taking the spray-and-pray approach, it certainly doesn't look like they'd be filtering for
age. To compare, I'm 43, not even a tech lead and I've received more recruiter contacts over last couple
of years than the 20 years before. Many of them were even somewhat relevant to my work experience.
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Most refer to specific aspects of my experience, some specifically referencing my current role (ie. they've
read my LI, which also clearly shows my grad date)... some are spray and pray. Probably 80% of things
that come my way are applicable to what I do both in skillset and title (Lead/principal/staff/director
roles).
Does it matter? If there is some way that recruiters are filtering based on age, my age is clearly
discernable.
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mosburger 39 minutes ago [–]
During my last job hunt a little over three years ago, I encountered what I think was some subtle ageism or at least
discrimination based on family status (lots of questions about my family life when interviewed by the CTO and CEO,
ultimately turned down because they didn't think I had the energy/disposition to be devoted enough to the company
to put in extra effort when needed).
I ultimately got a job at a better company anyway and probably dodged a bullet, but it's pretty naïve to think it
doesn't happen sometimes, especially at startups or places that pride themselves on a "startup mentality."
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cyberlurker 35 minutes ago [–]
Isn’t that technically illegal?

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wedn3sday 31 minutes ago [–]
Lots of technically illegal things happen the first time an interviewer sees your face.
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sundvor 18 minutes ago [–]
I (closer to 50) always straight up say I've got two young kids and that I partake actively in their
upbringing. One of them with special needs, even.
For me that helps filter out workplaces that would not be a good fit for myself.
There are a number of workplaces where a good balance is actively supported! When needed,
everyone will put in extra but the expectation and in fact reality is to keep things 9-5:30 as much
as possible.
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mosburger 34 minutes ago [–]
Yeah, it is, but honestly what am I gonna do about it? :/ I suppose I could've reported them to...
somebody? Sue them for a job I didn't even really want?
In retrospect I probably should've left a bad review on Glassdoor explaining what happened, but it was so
long ago I just sorta forgot about it.
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willvarfar 51 minutes ago [–]
The point isn’t that techies over 40 can’t do good work or keep current or invent the future, it’s that they can’t get a
job.
As someone a few years north of 40 and recently went looking for a new job, I can identify with much of the article.
Although for me, in the market I’m in, I kinda felt the pay for a ‘senior dev’ didn’t really cut it either. The whole pay
structure is for younger folks and veterans have a hard job finding work.
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mihaaly 5 minutes ago [–]
Still, despite ambitions and knowledge you are less employable in the eye of HR/Recruiters. They seek very specific
set of current tech stack and very recent experience posessed, as well as familiarity of specific management styles just
yesterday, for specific tasks. For cheap! On the bulk. Ability to push them around and lower tolerance to eat any bull*t
fed to them by (potentially incompetent or clueless) management is also highly valued.
Ideally more senior emloyees worked in multitude of situations and team structure and project is better for
productivity, they also have more even performance in long term, but hiring practice seems to be unideal.
Perhaps they have a shorter attention span in mind, promoting replaceablity over long term stability and
predictability?
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giantg2 13 minutes ago [–]
"I worked with someone my age who only strong skills are a large enterprise storage system. He is a dinosaur and his
future is limited. That's not his age, its the way he chose to build is CV."
I suppose everything is a choice. I have worked on tech that doesn't have a future because the company needs
someone to fill those shitty positions. I naively believed the company when they talked about them taking care of
employees and being able to make a career out of it.
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lifeisstillgood 1 hour ago [–]
>>> I've learned to be less of a jerk to people and how to communicate.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh..............
But that bit is so hard !
:-)
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bacro 59 minutes ago [–]
Indeed, I keep being a jerk to junior developers that constantly comes to me with the same questions after I
explained to them 10000 times and they say "Yeaah, I got it now". It is so hard to avoid being a jerk. What
should I do?
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thechao 54 minutes ago [–]
I was the only English-speaking TA (&, thus backup lecturer) to "Intro to C 101" at a major mass-
population state university. Class sizes were ~800 students. I had an open-doors/open-lab/open-office
policy. By the 4th semester, I remember laying on the floor in front of the class, and yet another bro
(blond hair; blue eyes; chiseled jawline; backwards cap) came up to ask me a, frankly, very well thought
out question — and I just said "I know I've taught this to you, already". I had; I'd taught it to him & all
his bros for years.
What's the quote? "Every year I get older, but the junior devs stay the same age."
That's when I knew I couldn't teach undergrads.
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newsclues 47 minutes ago [–]
The trick to teaching the same thing over and over, is to use each time as a way to master and
refine your understanding of the topic.
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Aeolun 36 minutes ago [–]
> I remember laying on the floor in front of the class

Is there a nuance to this I’m missing? If my professor suddenly decided to lie down in front of the
class I would not casualy amble up and ask a question, I’d be more likely to call an ambulance or
burst out laughing.
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mooreds 57 minutes ago [–]
Two options:
* Ask why they keep coming? Maybe you aren't understanding their question, they want
to build the relationship, or it's a really risky operation and they don't want to
undertake it alone. This might be worth digging into.
* Write the answer down to the questions (wiki, internal doc, whatever). When they
ask, point them to what you've written down. Will still take some time and interrupt
you, but hopefully they will learn they can just go to the doc.
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hpcjoe 38 minutes ago [–]
I'd say "both".

1st, you need to help them get the RCA on why this question, and what context (that isn't often
brought up). Its often that framing the question in context elucidates the actual problem they are
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working on solving, and they are seeing a misfit in concepts with the solution you've gone over
with them. This is one (of many) areas where being a senior (experienced) dev/manager/leader is
so critical in developing the less senior folks.
2nd, curation of notes, experiences, techniques is absolutely critical for team capability growth.
Capture the problems, explain the use case/back story, explain the problems in explicit detail,
explain the thought processes around the solution, and the solution. Cut-n-paste examples help. I
did this when I ran my company, and found that it was quite helpful to the team. And they
followed the example, and documented their own efforts.
Please don't be snide or dismissive with the less experienced. One of the reasons I see many orgs
hire older/senior folks is to provide a calming, thoughtful, intentional influence on other team
members.
As others have pointed out here, you need to continuously grow, learn new skills, add new
capability. This should be a given. I don't want to bring "lifers" (people who hide in a company,
doing only one thing, never interested in developing). I want to bring curious, intelligent people,
with capability, and experience. Or if lacking experience, then a strong attitude of wanting to get
their hands dirty.
Age doesn't factor into this.
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mnsc 47 minutes ago [–]
About that first point, that to me seem like a genuine and emphatic thing to do but I want to flag
that this has the potential to go into the "soft" areas where feelings exist. For a crash course in
"feelings and needs" read non-violent communication to be appropriately humbled by how hard
(but important) this skill is.
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drclau 44 minutes ago [–]
Write a knowledge base, or Wiki, or FAQ, or whatever. A place where they can re-read the same thing
10000 times. Maybe add some examples too, in cases where it makes sense (i.e. code).
Even better, make them write it, and you just review it. It'll help them learn faster.
If you have a junior who already understand problem X, ask them to explain it to someone else too. It'll
help solidify the knowledge, and at the same time offload you too.
Take my comment as wisdom that came with age and experience, if you will :). I don't think the above
would have been my first thought 10 or 15 years back.
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jimlikeslimes 46 minutes ago [–]
I think this needs to explicitly be handled by a role in the team. A common team might comprise of a
project manager, architect, 1 to 4 more senior devs, some representation from a test team, and a
number of juniors, interns etc.
One of the senior devs needs to handle onboarding new people and communicating the ideas of the
architects and seniors over and over again to juniors. This is tiresome and boring to some. You need
patience and empathy. It can be fun though as you get to meet lots of people and help them when they
need it most. Most importantly you give the other seniors the time to work, without them getting
involved in yeah just "make clean build" that away type issues.
I actually like the role and if the team doesn't have too much churn, you're just another senior dev.
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dkdbejwi383 27 minutes ago [–]
Stop giving them the full answer and only lead them part way there. They will then (hopefully) learn how
to look up documentation for themselves. Essentially "teach a man to fish". They don't necessarily want
to know the answer, but they want to know how you know the answer.
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That is what I am trying unsuccessfully to do. I made a sugestion the other day and did not write
the code. He understood the idea but implemented poorly. When I asked why did he implement it
that way, he said "it was your suggestion". I tried very very hard to not explode here...
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Xevi 45 minutes ago [–]
Document it somewhere. Unless it's basic knowledge that they should be able to find out on their own
easily.
I've recently started mentoring new developers, and whenever someone asks me for help I always ask
them what they have tried before asking me. If they haven't done shit, then I kindly ask them to try
solving it on their own first. Sometimes I give hints and tips, but I'm not going to give them the answer
every 15 minutes when they get stuck. They wouldn't learn anything if I did.
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plutonorm 58 minutes ago [–]
Get a stress ball. Practise screaming inside your head. Works for me.
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I need a punch bag

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marcus_holmes 43 minutes ago [–]
Work out what you're doing to make people prefer to lie to you and tell you they've understood when
they clearly haven't?
If you're having the same communication problem with multiple people, then I'm afraid that's you not
them.
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Unfortunately, it is not only me that has these problems. But I agree that I am not the best
teacher in the world. However, I do believe that they are not trying very much and keep calling me
or stopping the team with meetings for small problems. I get it when you are new to the company,
but for god's sakes when you have 2 years+ and you still keep asking trivial questions, there is
some other problem here.
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sundvor 33 minutes ago [–]
Getting closer to 50 here and finding value in looking after my health. Quit all alcohol nearly a year ago, kept my
lifting steady and am now getting close to setting some life long PBs for strength. (Barbell Prescription, garage gym).
This has really helped ground me and keep my focus in tumultuous times.
I feel like my tech and ability to see the bigger picture is only getting better. And I still maintain the same child like
joy of tech that I had when I opened my Vic 20 not too far away from 40 years ago.
Never stop learning, indeed!
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dgb23 53 minutes ago [–]
> The only way that age becomes a detriment is if you do not grow.
There has been research about this as well under the term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity. Might be
interesting to look at.
My understanding is that you are exactly right. It seems to be common that we tend to stop learning and pushing
ourselves, get comfortable or maybe even afraid. To each his own, but I think it is more fun and fruitful to keep at it.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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I call it the "grumpy old fart" syndrome. I've (M50+) felt it - the urge to stop learning and complain at
everything that changes.
It is a struggle to continue learning at this age. But it is worth it. Being a grumpy old fart sucks all the joy out of
life.
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dgb23 14 minutes ago [–]
As I understand the research the "struggle" is more cultural than inherent/biological.
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It just so happens that a good chunk of people tend to stop learning and pushing themselves for what
ever reason. But if you keep at it, or get back to it, your brain adapts over time and becomes more
flexible to to speak.
And by "learning" they mean things that are just slightly outside of your comfort zone.
Anecdotally, people who do that for a very long time, tend to be really smart and interesting I found. It's
such a wonderful thing.
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Aeolun 34 minutes ago [–]
So does keeping up with all the latest hotness when you already know it won’t fix your organizational
problems.
Hell, I’m only 33 and when asked today what I currently want to learn, had to seriously consider that I
didn’t want to learn anything new in particular.
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dkarl 19 minutes ago [–]
> I worked with someone my age who only strong skills are a large enterprise storage system. He is a dinosaur and
his future is limited.
At 52, that can be a good move, if that enterprise system will be around somewhere for the next ten years. Remote
work makes it an even safer bet. During that time, he can devote more attention to his family, community, and
hobbies, instead of trying to make sure he is employable by the maximum number of businesses. You only get paid for
one job, no matter how many you're prepared for.
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switch007 55 minutes ago [–]
> You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer.

Am I being uncharitable to question if that’s ageism?
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danso 36 minutes ago [–]
Sure, it’s ageism by definition — i.e. discrimination/stereotyping based on age.

But in the current context (of employment), ageism usually refers to discrimination against older people.
For example, the main U.S. federal law on age discrimination:
https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination
> * It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if
both workers are age 40 or older.*
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klohto 37 minutes ago [–]
You're not. It completely diminishes the whole point. I have met many younger developers who went through
different struggles and are more mature than most 40-years old.
Opposite ageism is also real, this one is a proof of it.
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geoduck14 48 minutes ago [–]
>only strong skills are a large enterprise storage system

Are you describing uploading data to and S3 bucket? Or maintaining tape decks? Depending on how to interpret this,
this could be an advanced skill.
For context, I'm learning about how to build a Data Lake that supports a Feature Store for an ML platform. Feature
Stores are relatively recent (4ish years?) and only make sense in Enterprises
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joelbluminator 30 minutes ago [–]
But still, what is your added level in say Go over a 35 year old who does Go for 5 years already? Wouldn't it have been
better to just stick to one or two techs throughout your career?
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chrisseaton 36 minutes ago [–]
> You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer.

What makes you think that?
It's absolutely possible for a 25-year-old to be a more experienced, more technically competent, and more mature
than a 40-year-old.
Some 40-year-olds have 20x 1 year of experience, compared to some 25-year-old's 5 years of experience.
If you think you're inherently better as a 40-year-old developer than all 25-year-old developers then I think you're
deeply mistaken.
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Veen 20 minutes ago [–]
> It's absolutely possible for a 25-year-old to be a more experienced, more technically competent, and more
mature than a 40-year-old.
It's also absolutely possible for a pig in a jetpack to fly past your window. Many unusual things are possible, but
that doesn't make them any less unusual. In the vast majority of cases, older developers will have more
experience and be more mature than younger developers.
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slingnow 24 minutes ago [–]
Great. What did any of this have to do with the article? Did you just read the title and get fired up?
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jollybean 1 hour ago [–]
The question is one of perception, trends, hiring - not one of materiality. In fact, the point is really about the likely
dissonance between perception and reality.
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ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago [–]
Don't even get me started (just take a shufti through my posting history on this very site. You'll see this is a subject that has
my attention).
> while the experience that comes with age is valued in fields like music, it counts against you in tech.
Yup. The Jurassic-scale disasters that are becoming increasingly common, these days, are evidence of unsteady hands at the
wheel.
I'm not saying that older folks are better. In many cases, we can be overconservative and overcautious, but that isn't such a
bad thing, when the stakes for a blowout are so high.
I have always felt that tech needs to follow the same model as every other damn industry since the start of history, which is
to have experience work with youth. They balance each other out.
I feel that when one of them gets too much power, Bad Things Happen.
In my case, I was finally laid off, after a 27-year run at one of the world's marquee imaging companies (which I think was
overbalanced by experience). I started looking around for more work, as I wasn't really up for retirement (which I was quite
capable of doing).
I was absolutely shocked at how shabbily I was treated, and fairly quickly gave up the search.
I find it offensive, that companies are so self-destructive; especially smaller companies, where a top-shelf employee could
"make or break" the company. I have a fairly unique confluence of skills that would have made a startup very happy (I've
been ARCHITECTING and SHIPPING software, since my very first engineering project, in 1987. I am quite used to production
engineering. I've been doing it my entire adult life. I've heard that could be useful, to some companies). I was also quite
willing to work for a lot less money than most, as my retirement was set, and I was looking for work that interested me.
Instead, I was rather quickly told -in no uncertain terms- "Go away, old man. No one wants you."
I took the hint, and found some non-profit folks that were doing work I find interesting, and started working with them, for
free.
They are quite happy with my work.
reply
gwbas1c 0 minutes ago [–]
> In my case, I was finally laid off, after a 27-year run at one of the world's marquee imaging companies (which I
think was overbalanced by experience). I started looking around for more work, as I wasn't really up for retirement
(which I was quite capable of doing).
10 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
Are you "out of practice" in the job search?

This comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28758320) states:
> Delete the first 10 years of your work history and take the date off your CS degree
> I started getting significantly more responses to applications and inquiries from recruiters on LinkedIn
reply
Icathian 32 minutes ago [–]
You post this all the time. You did 27 years at one single company, as you point out so proudly and often. After a stint
like that, anyone would be unhireable. It isn't your age, as so many others on this chain have pointed out. You didn't
build your CV to be attractive to new employers at all, and when eventually that became relevant again, you were out
of luck.
I read your posts whenever I see them, it's obvious you're quite bright. I really don't understand how you don't see
this.
reply
ChrisMarshallNY 1 minute ago [–]
> so proudly and often

Not proudly, but often. Be nice. I thought we were supposed to be nicer to each other here, than in other
Internet venues, but I'm often wrong.
> You didn't build your CV to be attractive to new employers at all
I see things differently. Don't forget that I was a hiring manager for most of that time. My CV reflects what I
would have considered to be a "dream employee" for most of that time. It is not one that current companies
find attractive, and that's actually (IMNSHO) a real problem, in today's industry. In most other industries, it
would have been a "We need to get this guy on board right now" kind of thing. In tech, it's "He spent all that
time at one company? He must be terrible, and insecure."
I am quite aware that having spent 27 years at one company is actually considered a bad thing. I really do see
how the industry works. I won't change my expectations to meet the new reality.
If no one wants me, then I'll do my own thing. I'm very grateful to have that option, and my heart goes out to
the folks that don't have that option.
reply
> You did 27 years at one single company, as you point out so proudly and often. After a stint like that, anyone
would be unhireable.
Next time you hear someone complain about why programmers jump jobs ever 2 years, point them to this
cynical and stereotyping comment.
In my opinion this is no different from saying "What, you didn't graduate from college? Well, obviously you are
unhireable", but I bet 'Icathian would be much less likely to say that to a non college-educated programmer
looking for work.
For some reason, stereotyping based on tenure, which correlates strongly to age, just seems to fly wild in our
industry.
reply
I said nothing about what is fair, or what should be. I'm describing what is. Programmers jump jobs
every 2-4 years (myself included) because it's the best way to reliably get good pay increases, and
because staying more than 10 years at one company often makes it harder to get hired at the next place.
You can blame me for recognizing that all you want, but it's a pretty well-known truth of our industry. I
want it to always be easy to find lucrative, interesting work, and I'm willing to play the game to keep it
that way for myself. I'm not sure what about that you object to so strongly.
reply
ChrisMarshallNY 0 minutes ago [–]
> but it's a pretty well-known truth of our industry.

Doesn't make it right.
Just sayin'...
11 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
Dumblydorr 24 minutes ago [–]
Why does doing 27 years at one company make someone unhireable? It's one thing if he used the same old
tech for 27 years, but without that assumption, seems like ageism to say 27 years at one company is an
obvious ground for disqualification.
reply
After a thousand threads on why tech hiring is hard, I don't think I need to re-hash that getting signal
from noise is complex and imperfect. Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different
companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is
going to get hired?
It isn't ageism, again go read the rest of this thread. It's the nature of making yourself an attractive
candidate. If you don't care to play the game, you can't pout and cry "ageism" when you lose the game.
reply
tlamponi 1 minute ago [–]
> After a thousand threads on why tech hiring is hard, I don't think I need to re-hash that getting
signal from noise is complex and imperfect. Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at
8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do
you imagine is going to get hired?
One can also take this as: "this person jumps jobs often, everything I invest item will probably
have not a good/long ROI" vs. "this person was a loyal employee that was so good he was kept for
decades"
A few jumps surely do not hurt, are even good to get some different POVs and such, but if we get
people that were barely one or two years at a company at max it always rings a few alarm bells.
But, either way its generalization, the reasons for why either situation happened are relevant to
make a sensible decision.
I.e., the answer to "why switch so often?" or "why stuck for so long and why now?" are key.
inimino 8 minutes ago [–]
> anyone would be unhireable

So since you are defending the practice, please explain what is it about spending your entire career at a single
company that makes you unemployable anywhere else.
And please don't assume that that means never learning anything new during 27 years.
Can you name another career where holding one job too long makes you unemployable, and where people
actually defend this?
reply
You're conflating recognizing reality with defending a given hiring practice. I've responded to other
comments with more detail.
reply
encloser 6 minutes ago [–]
It really depends on what those experiences were at the same employer. I'm not the OP and not in the same
boat. But I've been at the same employer for more than 30 years.
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thiago_fm 55 minutes ago [–]
This is a very American centrist point of view. In Europe everywhere I worked there were a bunch of 40+ year olds writing
code, it's just yet another profession. No big deal.
I've found even a good amount of people at that age that were career switching(to development) and haven't had big issues
entering the job market.
But of course, you have to be flexible. Move elsewhere, or where the jobs are. Your white hair doesn't matter as much as
your attitude. If you feel entitled for good job positions just for the fact you wrote a library, I don't believe this can be
positive. It isn't about your age. How long have you been looking for a job? Which city? Are you easy going?
I've moved to another country and city for a better job market and I'm willing to do over and over again. Can't make big
commitments to where I live, me and my wife move, find new jobs and learn new languages and culture, that's just life. We
can't buy a property and never feel at home really, but it isn't a hard life, to be honest.
12 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
Of course, we don't ever expect to make these american salaries, but we do have jobs. In America, it makes me think that a
lot of management and business typey people who make decisions about hiring are very individualist folks that believe that
one great person that works like a slave is better than a few average well-lived people, which is completely wrong.
reply
neves 15 minutes ago [–]
I'm in Brasil and I think it is worse than USA. There are just bad jobs for new hires.
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_joel 33 minutes ago [–]
That indeed echos my experience here in the UK. I've worked with some fantastic senior programmers and learnt a lot
from them, they were treated with prestige by HR (and therefore I'd assume recruiters, although I have no data for
that)
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atemerev 20 minutes ago [–]
"it's just yet another profession. No big deal".

Exactly, in Europe software engineering is just another profession, with pretty average compensation. Which is not
exactly motivating.
reply
WriterGuy2021 1 hour ago [–]
I've seen a few people fall off the career ladder to their doom in different fields. I once was a member of a local hackerspace
and the place was like the Island of Misfit Toys. So many interesting and talented people biding there time there in between
jobs and struggling to get back on the ladder. Lots of horror stories -- a homeless mechanical engineer, a couch surfing old
programmer, etc. I think most of us are quite insulated from what really goes on around us, and the people that fall down
hard often aren't heard from ever again. As Bukowski wrote:
"... our educational system tells us that we can all be big-ass winners.
it hasn't told us about the gutters or the suicides.
or the terror of one person aching in one place alone
untouched unspoken to
watering a plant."
reply
adnmcq999 48 minutes ago [–]
I’m basically one of those people. I appreciate the post because it’s good to at least acknowledge this.
reply
WastingMyTime89 40 minutes ago [–]
I don't know. At some point, it's also a question of perception and attitude.
Falling off the career ladder is in itself a strange idea. As I get older, it seems to me that the concept has little actual
reality. Few people have linear career nowadays.
At some point, things tend to take a turn for the unexpected. It can be failing to reach the position you were aiming
for or suddenly finding yourself unemployed. It can also be becoming in charge of something you weren't expecting
and finding you like that more than you thought.
You have to find an equilibrium between playing the card you are given and stiring your life in the direction you want.
It's not always easy but you can find interesting things to do from many positions. I can't stop thinking that to you
they were horror stories but that might not entierely be the case from their point of view: hanging out at an hacker
space, meeting people, working on new things, that's not the worst place to be if you want to rebound.
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WriterGuy2021 6 minutes ago [–]
Here's a concrete example. There was a guy that had a PhD and worked for big pharma as a researcher all his
life. The company he was working for downsized and he was left unemployed at 54. He looked for another
position somewhere else, but he could not find a position at his pervious level of seniority: he had fallen off the
career ladder. He was thus stuck in a strange limbo: he was capable of doing things below his level of
experience, but companies were looking for someone at the right level of the progression system to fit the slot.
The worst thing about this case is that his wife had multiple sclerosis, and so his health insurance was of the
utmost importance to him. This caused him incredible stress as he continued to look for work to no avail.
The problem with the modern workplace is specialization. Some people are extraordinarily specialized. The man
13 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
I spoke of was highly talented, but also highly specialized. It's hard for someone to adapt at 54 to another
specialization. I actually helped him pick up python, and he learned quickly, but it was clear that the man was
not in his spry years. Any college kid could beat him in productivity in some code monkey role -- which is what
he eventually started trying to hunt for.
I could also tell you about a guy that had a masters degree in chemical engineering working at Best Buy
alongside me when I was in college. I've met so many people in my life that have not been privy to the
dynamically lateral career system you seem to be aware of.
I know from direct experience that some people do indeed fall off the ladder. To me it isn't a concept: it's the
reality I've observed.
reply
throw1234651234 20 minutes ago [–]
When I studied for the Chartered Financial Analyst exams I tried to find out who got a job after the 3-year, 750 hr
minimum commitment (GCP professional architect looks like a joke in comparison). EVERYTHING I read was positive.
Once I passed, I found a ton of people in the same boat as me - unable to find work in finance. No one wanted to
admit it though.
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stripline 1 minute ago [–]
I don't think this is due to a perception of older developers not being as good as younger developers. I think most people
would agree that a more experienced dev would have better skills and be more efficient.
I believe it all comes down to pay. The experienced developer commands a higher salary than a 20 year old, rightfully so.
But employers fail to see the added value they bring, just as they have trouble identifying the 10x programmers out there.
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mindvirus 1 hour ago [–]
I don't doubt this, and I'm truly sympathetic to the author's experience. However it doesn't match my experiences. At this
age I find I'm getting better and better job offers. Too senior has never been a problem, these offers have been at principal
or senior staff levels.
I don't think I've been managing my career particularly well (15 years in and 5 jobs), and I've avoided management as best
I can, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down. Looking at my peers, there are plenty of people 10+ years older than me in IC
positions.
I'm curious what the difference is. Is it 40 and only one job? Industry or programming language focus? Location?
reply
cbm-vic-20 56 minutes ago [–]
Why is one job a problem, as long as that job keeps you up-to-date with the current state of the art?
reply
dagw 35 minutes ago [–]
as long as that job keeps you up-to-date with the current state of the art?
That is of course the crux. If you're the person that knows how the old stuff works (because you where there
when it was the new hotness), you risk being responsible for the old stuff. Had a friend of the family I spent his
entire career at a Fortune 500 company. Started programming their back office mainframe systems in the 80s
and spent the rest of his career working on those same systems. He knew those systems back to front and was
revered as the local mainframe guru. 2002 he lost his job when the company decided to retire that old system
and move on to something else. He could not get hired anywhere and ended up having to take a job a petrol
station for while.
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mech422 46 minutes ago [–]
same here - over 40 years experience and have more options, better pay, and people stopped looking at me funny for
saying 'WFH' :-)
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300bps 1 hour ago [–]
Agreed. I continue to work at the third job I've had over the past 25 years.
I also do side work for a local company doing programming. I recently got 3 AWS certifications and honestly I could
work 24 hours per day if I wanted to - there is just that much demand out there.
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14 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
MontyCarloHall 1 hour ago [–]
I wonder how much ageism is due to the fact that basic coding skills can really atrophy in senior developers who quit writing
code years ago and are full-time architects/managers. I’ve interviewed more than a handful of highly accomplished people
with decades of experience as developers and then engineering managers who couldn’t answer extremely basic coding
questions (I’m not talking about Leetcode-esque BS, I mean stuff closer to FizzBuzz). Places that are looking to hire senior
developers who are actually still proficient coders will of course pass on those people, which can lead to a self-perpetuating
cycle of ageism.
I have no doubt that when these people were actually still coding, they could have answered my questions in their sleep.
Quitting coding for engineering management really does one a disservice IMO. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with
people with decades of experience who never quit coding even as senior managers and their level of competence and
productivity is astounding.
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freewilly1040 42 minutes ago [–]
It’s baffling to me that managers are given coding screens. As an IC I really don’t want to deal with a manager’s half
thought out PR’s slapped together in between meetings.
Perhaps some shops give a light meeting load. But “manager code” has a stigma for a reason.
reply
MontyCarloHall 17 minutes ago [–]
I think there are way more companies than you think that give manager-level devs a light enough management
load that they are able to (and are expected to) write extremely high quality code (indeed, some of the highest
quality code in the whole company). They are also expected to carefully review code written by their
subordinates.
When hiring, these people are given coding tests just as a pulse check to make sure they can actually code,
since so many manager-level devs have apparently lost that ability.
I think there is a disconnect between manager-level devs who expect a glorified project manager position with
zero coding requirements (and are thus insulted and shocked when they’re given coding tests they cannot pass)
and companies that expect their principals to hack on code until retirement. And while blatant ageism is clearly
a problem in the industry, I’d bet that at least some of it stems from this disconnect.
reply
A lot of managers go back to being ICs because they don’t get enough time to code. Also, spending too
much time in people management can set your career back as switching jobs is much harder (its easier
to switch jobs as a senior SWE than a senior manager since people management cultures change a lot
between companies). At some point, people managers specialize beyond coding into something else
other than a SWE…they are no longer acting also as tech leads.
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Quarrelsome 38 minutes ago [–]
IMHO management should fix at least one bug per annum. I've suffered way too many management types who
fold to business pressures which result in friction to development volition. I feel like if they maintained a small
level of experience in dev they wouldn't fold so easy.
reply
robin_reala 1 hour ago [–]
Charity Majors wrote a couple of blog posts on the subject that I’ve tried to bring in to my workplace with varying
levels of success. But still I’ve had colleagues express surprise that as an engineering manager I still wanted to get my
hands dirty with the code of the systems I own.
https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...
https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pe...
reply
secondcoming 50 minutes ago [–]
Do EM's own systems? Or do they own the teams that own the systems? It's a pretty vague role. We had an EM
for about a year, but when he left we didn't replace him. Nothing much changed.
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robin_reala 9 minutes ago [–]
Depends on the team I guess, but if I’m going to be responsible for the quality of the technical
implementation then I’m definitely going to understand the implementation, and have input on the
15 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
choices behind that (even if I will defer to the engineers for most of them).
reply
moron4hire 41 minutes ago [–]
I've had similar experiences interviewing candidates, but it's been across the age range. I've never interviewed
anyone who has forgotten how to code, but I have interviewed a lot of people who never learned in the first place.
reply
jollybean 1 hour ago [–]
The 'I can't code architects' is definitely a common thing, but I suggest it's kind of a different problem.
But for dudes that are coding though, it's cool to see how 'I have solved this problem 100 times already' comes
through in solving a problem sometimes.
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biddit 1 hour ago [–]
My anecdotal experience:
I'm ~40 with ~15 years of dev experience and 4 of management experience. I last year I decided to return to IC dev work
and started applying for full-stack dev roles.
After two months and not getting few responses to applications, I put my resume in front of my tech recruiter friend:
"You sound ancient. Delete the first 10 years of your work history and take the date off your CS degree."
Whaaaat? I was incredulous at first, but eventually did as he said.
It would seem he was right though. I started getting significantly more responses to applications and inquiries from
recruiters on LinkedIn.
reply
Of course, taking the date of the CS degree is now a signal you're "old".
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biddit 32 minutes ago [–]
Haha, after having the same train of thought, I debated just taking the degree off entirely...
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keyle 1 hour ago [–]
I went to a few interviews during covid. The only companies hiring during lockdowns were startups.
I went to 6 interviews. Every time, I was the oldest at the table, sometimes by 10 years.
The music always went the same... "We need experience, you have a lot of it", 2 weeks later "You don't know React like we
do". Best one was "you didn't use an env variable here in the front end".
I've been building the web since 1999. I'm 40. I got a job in a large company, much better pay, WFH most days, predictable
timelines.
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PragmaticPulp 1 hour ago [–]
> which made [Baltes2020] a particularly interesting read. Its subtitle is, "How popular media portrays the employability of
older software developers," and the first blow is what the tech press considers old
Do we have any better sources than a small survey of tech press articles?
I always feel like ageism in tech articles are borderline clickbait: They aim to induce outrage by implying that ageism is
rampant in the tech industry but the best we can do for evidence is a few anecdotes and, in this case, a survey of other tech
press articles.
Ageism is a thing in the software industry. However, every company I’ve worked for that has had an ageism problem has,
not coincidentally, been a terrible place to work with long hours, unreasonable demands, and bad management. Ageism is
the perfect tool to select for hires who are too inexperienced to recognize that the situation is bad.
Most of the good companies I’ve worked for have had a broad distribution of ages. Again, not by coincidence, but because
experienced developers settle in to roles at companies that are reasonable and treat people well.
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EToS 5 minutes ago [–]
Being 40 shouldn't be an issue, however there are a few things to keep asking yourself to stay relevant on the way:
16 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
-- What is your goal?

If you don't know where you're going, the chances are your career trajectory could be plateauing, or even going backwards.
-- Are you progressing?
Pick a metric aligned with your goal and then measure yourself against it (e.g what you can measure, you can manage).
Whether its specializing technically or moving vertically into management, its really important to keep moving in that
direction, and to ensure that you are "compounding" your skills and successes along the way.
-- Are your skills transferable?
At all costs, ensure your skills are transferable. This will give you endless options and freedom to take breaks and move
companies at will. NEVER allow yourself be the highly paid person on an obsolete project/system, not even for a year.
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gjvc 4 minutes ago [–]
This willingness to ignore the experience of older computerists is a symptom of the wider problem that Alan Kay has referred
to when he says that computing is a "pop culture" -- one that ignores much of the historic work gone before it, and only
gives value to that in recent / living memory.
On the other hand, few (younger) people have got the sensibility/ability to befriend an older person in the workplace and
learn from their experience. I have, and it's been valuable in getting the perspective.
If you're lucky, you too will get old in life, and be subject to the ills that you now see around you perpetrated on older
people.
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giantg2 1 hour ago [–]
I'm 30s and feel old. The biggest thing is that I don't have the motivation to be fast and work extra hours. I look at the new
college grads and remember those days when I didn't have a family and could put in extra hours, believing I had a career.
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mindvirus 1 hour ago [–]
Trust me you have plenty of time, and your family is more important. Kids grow up fast though, so don't blink - you
don't want to miss a thing.
Best skill is to manage your work time well and set boundaries. Working overtime is a sign of not having the right
structures in place, and being disciplined about those boundaries is a force multiplier - it'll force you to be rigorous
about what's valuable. You can make up for the lack of discipline by working overtime to an extent, but it's less
effective.
reply
That sounds good, but my company measure your readiness for promotion by your dedication, and uses extra
hours worked as a proxy for that.
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kilroy123 4 minutes ago [–]
I'm in the latter half of my 30s and I too feel old. Especially, when I talk about being in tech in the last 2000s. I sound
like an old gray beard.
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taf2 1 hour ago [–]
Yeah at around 35 - pulling all nighters actually just kinda starts to hurt… like for more then a day. Also I think no
matter the age you’ll always feel old but just remember your not actually old until literally no one else is older then
you… think 90s then appreciate being 30s you have 60 years left at least!
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The stress and sedentary nature of the job makes it seem like 30 years remaining is a more realistic timeframe.
reply
taf2 2 minutes ago [–]
Knowing is half the battle- get up and walk around, you have at least 30 years to figure it out
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17 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
scotty79 49 minutes ago [–]
You are not old, you are just burning out. Pace yourself and pick your battles.
It has nothing to do with age. Child prodigies can burn out at 20 because they are suffocated with work.
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I'm already told I'm slow at work, so I don't think I can reduce the pace any further.
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robertlagrant 1 hour ago [–]
> If my generation hadn't made tech such a toxic work environment by ensuring that people had little or no recourse when
treated unfairly by employers, I'd be tempted to feel sorry for us. Instead, all I can say is, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap."
This feels like a category error.
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I just got a new job in my 50's. Everyone assumed I was a senior, despite me telling them "I don't have experience in the
technologies you're using, so I'm probably not a senior in your organisation despite my decades of experience in the
industry". Only one organisation actually listened to that and recruited me at the right level. The rest (that interviewed me)
tended to recruit me at a senior level and then fail me for not knowing the technology well enough. Which got annoying.
Apart from that, I found the experience remarkably straightforward. But then, I haven't seen a tech recruitment market this
hot since Y2K (in Berlin at least). It's a good time to switch jobs.
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nickdothutton 57 minutes ago [–]
The greatest software engineer I ever hired was 60 and I kept him from retirement for 5 years before finally having to let
him go when his wife became ill and needed his help more. The guy never under-delivered in 20 years. No drama, no
exaggeration, no personality quirks, just experience and solid delivery.
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nbzso 1 hour ago [–]
I am 47. Contemplating to close my office and go to work full-time as a design->frontend person for big corporation. Ageism
is real, but I see it as a use-case experience.
If a company cannot utilize my professional experience as ex owner of business, PM or design specialist in general, it means
that they prioritize "cultural fit" criteria over real performance evaluation.
This is not a problem for me. I don't have expectations every business to be "mature enough" to know the value of effective
professional work over "power of the young mind".
The idea that after "40" you are having "cognitive difficulties" or you are "out of fashion" comes from companies who exploit
trough "overtime" or extreme performance prerequisite.
Working in this kind of environments is a suicide. Burnout is real and avoiding it is the only effective countermeasure.
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myspy 1 hour ago [–]
Employees need to tell employers to f** off with all the overtime, extra work, working on weekends, etc. The video game
industry is loosing its creative people for years, the film industry is milking their 3d artists dry, and the normal software
companies have unrealistic expectations how long someone should work.
On top of that we have weak seniority ranks. Products and tools are not developed as good as they could be. Topics like
security still show that honing products and skills are needed, but this is not happening when we don't build a layer of
experts that still want to program and dig into these problems.
Excellence comes with experience and that is only developing over time with making the mistakes and fixing them.
reply
jmfldn 1 hour ago [–]
I feel like this comes up a lot and it's something I think / worry about as a developer at the 'old' age of 40. I posted this
comment below on a similar thread
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28294734
Essentially I think this is hopefully a temporary effect of the doubling of programmers every five years for the past twenty
plus years. I expect this to level out and thus shift the ratio in favour of older developers.
18 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
reply
AnIdiotOnTheNet 1 hour ago [–]
I'm not so confident that's true. There's seemingly this prevailing attitude in IT that new is always better. The latest
gadgets, the latest complicated tech stacks, and the latest languages. Rewrite everything again so it's all fresh and
free of 'legacy cruft'. Don't fix bugs, prioritize slapping a new "modern" GUI on it so people don't think it's old. Why
wouldn't that same mentality apply to people?
reply
Even here on HN we see plenty of articles that are "Like X, but written in Go!", which seems to have been
replaced with "Like X, but written in Rust!".
reply
jmfldn 1 hour ago [–]
True, but it might not be a zero-sum argument. I think the point I'm making might not explain ageism in it's
entirity but I feel it's a factor. Time will tell I guess.
reply
runnr_az 1 hour ago [–]
Yeah… I mean. I’m in my mid-40s and I feel like I’ve got a lot of productive / happy peers. Numbers-wise, sure, there
are Devs older than me, but in raw numbers, not that many.
reply
FrankyHollywood 1 hour ago [–]
I'm in my 40s, and I build software at a scale-up.

They explicitly searched more mature developers, because of several failed projects with large over spending the past years.
Management had enough of it, and now wants a more experienced dev team.
And it works quit well I must say, code quality is very high and we make our deadlines. Our product is stable and
atmosphere in the office is great actually. Not much stress here, because we don't spend months building some never to be
used generic-multipurpose-framework and we don't jump into every new technology which comes around..
Not hiring experienced developers is a big mistake! :)
reply
darkerside 7 minutes ago [–]
Is snarkiness the new toxicity?

For all people complain today about the toxic cultures of old, maybe they say least had the advantage of people saying what
they thought in plain terms, instead of dressing over them with sarcasm and hiding them in vagueness.
In a more relevant vein, I wonder how often too senior means too opinionated.
reply
allochthon 25 minutes ago [–]
I can relate. When I lived in the Bay area, I started getting nervous in my late 30s that it would become harder and harder
to find my next job in software development. I've since discovered that this seems to be a regional thing. I have not had
trouble finding remote work in other parts of the US. Now that I'm 45, I still don't worry too much, because I'm seeing
businesses with a good mix of people, including a lot of people in my age group.
reply
bjarneh 10 minutes ago [–]
People who only hire young developers - don't know what they are doing. Experience is very valuable in this field. Choosing
the wrong techology in the early stages of a project can be a huge mistake. You may not even notice what a mistake it was
until years have gone by, and you'll be completely entrenched in it; with a painful backtracking ahead.
reply
gwbas1c 3 minutes ago [–]
TLDR: I'm a 40-year-old developer. It took me a little longer to find a job at 40 than 30 because I demand a higher salary,
and most companies prefer cheap over experienced. There are a lot of mediocre developers who I suspect "age out" of tech
because they can't grow into industry expectations of a highly-experienced software developer.
---
I searched for a developer job just before I turned 30, stayed with it for 10 years, and then searched for another when I
turned 40.
19 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
My experience of ageism is that most companies hiring just don't have the budget to hire an experienced software developer.
They'd rather hire a few more cheap (and inexperienced) developers than hire a few highly experienced, and expensive,
software developers.
To me, this translated in a longer job search. Not unreasonably longer, as it took me about a month to find a job when I was
almost 30, and three months right before I turned 40. (Worth noting, when I was 30 I lived in Silicon Valley, and it's much
easier to find a developer job there compared to where I live now.)
But, I do want to point out something that most articles of ageism don't point out: Expectations of a 40+ year old developer
are quite different compared to a 20-30 year old developer. The kind of handholding that a junior developer has, and
mentorship that a junior developer has, is gone. It's also much harder to change stacks than when I was a junior developer,
because no one wants to pay me big bucks to learn like a novice. Thus, it's hard to change stacks. (Not impossible, but I
really like the job I have now.)
Another thing to point out: There are a lot of mediocre developers who get very comfortable with handholding in the early
part of their career. I suspect these are the developers who really struggle in their 40s, because they can't meet the
expectations of a senior developer.
reply
lordnacho 1 hour ago [–]
I sympathize, but I'm also starting to think there's a fountain of jobs that some devs have discovered and others haven't.
There seem to be two camps of devs, one them is constantly harassed by recruiters and swimming in potential jobs, the
other hardly ever comes across a job they'd want.
reply
Igelau 40 minutes ago [–]
You have a notification from LinkedIn:

(Cute blonde recruiter / bearded hipster recruiter)
with another opportunity to
(get crucified at Amazon / work in the shady industry of sports betting / feed the cancer that we call IoT / drop fire on
people in the name of defending America)
reply
simias 1 hour ago [–]
>one them is constantly harassed by recruiters and swimming in potential jobs, the other hardly ever comes across a
job they'd want.
Both can be true at the same time, and in my experience often are.
reply
zz865 1 hour ago [–]
I'm pushing 50 and its definitely harder to even get interviews compared to 30. As much as I dont like ageism, I get it
because lots of the stuff I did 20-30 years ago is irrelevant. Coding now is completely different and I have to learn so much
to keep up with industry trends I realistically have 5-10 years experience. Of course on the client relationship and project
management side I have a lot of tricks that I think are valuable.
reply
Overtimegoal 17 minutes ago [–]
62 here. Just got hired into principal role at public software company doing Vue & c#. First month has been lots of hands
on... Just like I like it.
reply
freetinker 1 hour ago [–]
Not a fan of the way the author has framed this. The title reads as if it’s condoning that such discrimination is acceptable or
understandable if age 60+.
reply
another-dave 1 hour ago [–]
I read it more than ageism towards 60+ is a well documented problen

reply
freetinker 1 hour ago [–]
Yeah, fair. But framing it that way further entrenches the problem, imo.
reply
20 of 21 10/5/21, 3:25 PM
patycake 15 minutes ago [–]
I feel like I have an interesting outlook considering I'm 20. I actually very much enjoy working with older developers who are
masters at what they do. As long as they keep learning new technology and don't punish me for using new ideas.
reply
stefanve 1 hour ago [–]
Yeah this sounds familiar. A manager at a company I worked for didn't want to hire a 45+ SE because she might be looking
for a job to hibernate till pension. she was highly qualified and a great SE/person.
(after some discussion she was hired and everyone was happy)
reply
sodapopcan 1 hour ago [–]
Hey, I’m 40! And I’ve personally seen very little of this in my little bubble. I’m usually applying for rails jobs which, in these
terms, is an “old person’s framework” at this point. While being proficient in what would be considered an “old person’s
framework” under the terms of this article has actually made things quite easy in my case (there are _tons_ of rails positions
out there) I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to be expected to learn at least _some_ of those durned new technologies that
keep popping up—-I feel like we should have known that’s what we signed up for when getting into this industry.
Of course, I’m well aware I’m speaking purely im the context of a web app developer.
reply
h2odragon 1 hour ago [–]
You can hide your age online for a while, but when the kiddies find out you're an old fart they suddenly begin telling you how
you think and feel about things, and will not listen if you attempt to correct them. The "Old dude" image in their head is so
strong it blocks out the reality.
Its not just tech that has this problem; the rest of the world is getting there. I've seen hardware stores firing older people
that know how to use what they sell; in exchange for young employees who'll work 4hr shifts at short notice.
reply
sebastianconcpt 53 minutes ago [–]
What I'm sure about is that competence is a timeless asset. If you have mastery in the computing universal concepts the
tech stack is a detail.
reply
iros 40 minutes ago [–]
The thing is, senior programmers really aren't always that useful. We want leadership, we want big meaty projects and
problems, we know so much and can do so much... Except that sometimes what needs doing is boring. It's grunt work. It's
some infrastructure migration or a real simple API addition. A lot of coding is actually not that hard depending on where you
are. That work we consider grunt work is a great way for a junior engineer to learn and they don't complain as much as we
would. I've worked with a lot of other senior folks and (like myself) and we have entire abandoned features because no one
wants to own them. It's a gift when someone junior shows up and jumps in.
reply
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Is 40 the New 60? | Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?

Is 40 the New 60? (neverworkintheory.org)

SkipperCat 1 hour ago [–]

40 is not the new 60. Not even close.

jasode 48 minutes ago [–]

jnorthrop 26 minutes ago [–]

quadrifoliate 38 minutes ago [–]

syshum 27 minutes ago [–]

quadrifoliate 20 minutes ago [–]

syshum 18 minutes ago [–]

quadrifoliate 11 minutes ago [–]

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alexwebb2 23 minutes ago [–]

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namelessoracle 27 minutes ago [–]

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brandall10 19 minutes ago [–]

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brandall10 8 minutes ago [–]

twox2 42 minutes ago [–]

oriolid 34 minutes ago [–]

brandall10 38 minutes ago [–]

mosburger 39 minutes ago [–]

cyberlurker 35 minutes ago [–]

Isn’t that technically illegal?

wedn3sday 31 minutes ago [–]

sundvor 18 minutes ago [–]

mosburger 34 minutes ago [–]

willvarfar 51 minutes ago [–]

mihaaly 5 minutes ago [–]

giantg2 13 minutes ago [–]

lifeisstillgood 1 hour ago [–]

>>> I've learned to be less of a jerk to people and how to communicate.

bacro 59 minutes ago [–]

thechao 54 minutes ago [–]

newsclues 47 minutes ago [–]

Aeolun 36 minutes ago [–]

> I remember laying on the floor in front of the class

mooreds 57 minutes ago [–]

hpcjoe 38 minutes ago [–]

I'd say "both".

mnsc 47 minutes ago [–]

drclau 44 minutes ago [–]

jimlikeslimes 46 minutes ago [–]

dkdbejwi383 27 minutes ago [–]

bacro 23 minutes ago [–]

Xevi 45 minutes ago [–]

plutonorm 58 minutes ago [–]

bacro 26 minutes ago [–]

I need a punch bag

marcus_holmes 43 minutes ago [–]

bacro 28 minutes ago [–]

sundvor 33 minutes ago [–]

dgb23 53 minutes ago [–]