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Comment by vermontdevil | Hacker News Reader

One downside - you have to be able-bodied. NZ will not allow people with disabilities the opportunity to relocate there.

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Able-bodied and young. "You’ll need to be 55 or under when you apply."[0]

[0] https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/options/wo...

I don't mean to be uncouth, but if you are 55 and not retired yet, you are going to have serious employment issues in software industry.

Again, I am not prejudiced or anything. This is just a fact that I have accepted.

Edit: are you downvoting my comment because you think this is bad practice (which I agree to) OR are you saying my view of the reality is wrong?

>I don't mean to be uncouth, but if you are 55 and not retired yet, you are going to have serious employment issues in software industry....

as defined by Silicon Valley. There are plenty of roles outside of SV for the gray hairs.

Not just the valley but in any of the developing nations like India, China, Brazil either. Those populations have a constant stream of educated youth rolling in. It is very hard to compete with youth (not on knowledge but on the aspect of how much work hours you can dedicate at that point in life). But I am happy to hear there are places that respect > 55 year olds. Note that the population of > 55 in software is probably quite small now because this all started only in 1990s proper. So, we will see the real problem only 2020 or so.

55 here. Not a problem.

59, not either. I'd live in NZ for a year if I could, likely be very fun.

Doesn't mean you can't visit; it'd probably be beautiful

Rob Pike, architect and still active maintainer of Golang, was born in 1956:

  https://github.com/golang/go/issues/assigned/robpike

Longevity requires:

1. staying healthy

2. finding inspiration in your work

3. finding an employer that values the strengths and accommodates the limitation of older brains.

Grey of hair, ye need not despair.

Such people are called "exceptions" or exceptional

>I don't mean to be uncouth, but if you are 55 and not retired yet, you are going to have serious employment issues in software industry.

I've only seen this occur to people who failed to keep their skills up to date and failed to keep growing their abilities commensurate to their number of years of experience. Demand is still tremendous for people who are experienced and competent.

To the unjustly downvoted: Consider the possibilities of writing in esoteric rather than exoteric style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

I think I understand the difference between esoteric (my opinion) and exoteric (this is what I think the world is). What is the difference in writing style dictated by the two different types of claims, though?

Neither reading that wiki page nor quick googling helped me find examples of the two different styles.

Why the downvoting?

  *None love the bearer of bad news*  --Sophocles

Because it just ain't true?

Age discrimination exists, but it's not really the reason there are so few 55 year olds in software today. That's simply because very very few people in the 1980s took up a career in software. The industry was orders of magnitude smaller!

I've worked in multiple places that had absolutely zero problem hiring people in their 50s - when we were lucky enough to find people that experienced.

If true, that would be to the detriment of our industry. The systems produced by that generation were typically simpler and more reliable than what we have now.

Perhaps I would come out of retirement if I could move to New Zealand.

I imagine this is one of the downsides of having publicly-funded healthcare. While it sucks (I have a child with a disability so we would probably be denied residency), I can't say I blame them for not wanting to take on the financial burden.

Yep, the reality about social safety nets is you have to have an adult in charge of the accounting for it to be sustainable.

Boo, that's pretty horrible. Lots of disabled people are able and willing to work around their disability.

Yeah but the government doesn't want to be responsible for covering their medical bills.

If they're productive then that shouldn't be a problem. Discrimination based on disability is unethical.

It's quite possible many disabled people will have more medical costs than they pay in taxes. It's reasonable for them to at least be cautious letting them in.

It's unethical to discriminate against your own citizens. They have zero obligation to provide entrance or any service to foreigners. No one has a natural right to enter New Zealand, especially if they aren't providing value to that country.

That's one of the sad costs of public safety nets though. You need to control immigration to keep out people who would take advantage of it. Otherwise this wouldn't be an issue.

I mean if it is a disabled kid and they are supported by their parents who arrive on a high tech skilled worker visa then they should get residency.

Do you have a citation for this?

There have been a couple of high-profile cases of this. A prestigious mathematician had lived in New Zealand for four years, but his autistic son was declined residency, so he and his family left: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/prestigious-ac...

A woman in a wheelchair was declined residency due to her paralysis, despite working and having family in New Zealand: http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=...

New Zealand and Australia are well known for having point systems for migrants. They highly favor young, english-speaking, able-bodied, highly-educated people.

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-...

Or if you have money, you get all the points.

awesome to know since thats one of my primary goals

Is there some age range requirement?

That too - comment above this mentioned 55.

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