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What's going to get you rejected as an older or experienced dev is whether you fall or don't fall for the typical recruitment cons and how well you play along with the usual interview game theory tactics i.e. prisoner's dilemma scenarios.

Last summer I interviewed at a ton of companies and truly I rejected them way before they rejected me but what I learned essentially is that if you fall for the typical recruitment razzmataz as a more experienced dev then they'll assume you're stupid and if you don't fall for it they'll assume you're too smart, if you catch my drift.

Where once we were meant to show enthusiasm now we're supposed to play cool. How many companies lead with "We're pretty casual around here" as if that doesn't actually mean "we'll fire you on a dime"

You have to tread a very fine line that shows you're willing to play dumb while at the same time showing you have the chops -- it's more about how much cognitive dissonance or doublethink you can stomach than anything to do with your vital statistics and all these technical interviews are bollocks compared to fourth year courses in a world where most devs barely speak English but I digress

I have literally seen everything in this industry from from y2k to working with distributed overseas teams to getting tattooed in San Francisco and there's nothing new under the sun except for rife imposterism and rampant entitlement.

They're sizing you up the same way you're sizing them up with respect to the developer stereotypes and management dramas and all that toxic crap while testing you to see if you're willing to play along with their dysfunction and so called "culture fit" aka groupthink mentality.

You can probably tell I have no love left for this lost generation of code monkeys, after having fathered them along with an entire generation of misfits and dreamers whereas now they're all trying to fit in and losing themselves to the machine.

Once they learn how to do adulting maybe they'll learn to have more fun. Until then they're just a bunch of lemmings at the gate.

I'd go further into this downward spiral but I'll show myself out. Think about what you'll look like as a sixty year old wearing hoodies and t shirts and ask yourself whether you've made the right life choices.

Cue the downvotes you filthy scoundrels.

Not much disagreement, except that I plan on wearing hoodies at 60 because hoodies are great.

If you're real you'll rock a tonsure and cincture as well

Exactly! If a hoodie is good enough for the cloistered ecclesiastical devotee of yesteryear, it's good enough for the cloistered epistemological devotee of today.

Bless you! This comment has saved my eternal soul

Where can I begin but by offering you my sincere prayers and grateful brotherly affections

By the power of the holy spirit of Alan Turing allow me to humbly devote my entire life to the pursuit of divine knowledge and wisdom through the study of information technology

In the name of the the computer, the algorithm, and the data amen

Are we all not naked in the eye of the Webcam?

Funny because talk about hoodies always reminds me of my mother as a senior citizen. She was always cold and wore a hoodie even in summer.

Yeah I am 42 and I thought that was an awesome rant except for the part about hoodies and t-shirts.

I have always preferred hoodies over hats and scarves because they are easier and more effective.

And to me t-shirts are also easier and more comfortable than dress shirts. I am from California so maybe that has something to do with it.

Retro or inside-joke t-shirts do a great job of communicating "hipness". Your co-workers don't have to know that the vintage & aged Commodore 64 t-shirt you wear was bought new @ Kmart in '85

As a semaphore the humble necktie existed way before the advent of these newfangled printed T's and quite frankly it harkens back to the origins of computing technology way better but you know I'm just an anachronistic egotist so what do I know?

The whole t-shirt and hoodie scene basically started in California and emerged from the nexus of homebrew computing and the engineering culture of the day which was basically a mix of academic, surfer and hippie culture (yes I know drastic oversimplification) but if I had to pick a moment in history it was when the commodore 64 engineering team went rogue and challenged the 'suits' by wearing t-shirts to the office that the whole idea that engineers wear downright casual clothing began

I feel like it doesn't serve us any more and the younger generation is getting lost in the toxic sauce and we've just become the same as the suits but with way less professionalism but that's probably a romanticized notion of what corporacy is based on my own experiences running early software from Apple when it still kind of was a shirt and tie corporacy (before the black turtleneck became the standard)

Anyway, you'll probably defend your right to wear a t-shirt to the death while claiming 'what you wear doesn't matter' so ask yourself whether what you wear actually does matter?

Reminds me of the suits are back submarine article by PG.

That is an awesome connection and very grateful for it (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

However it's also way off the mark because it doesn't treat the professional dress from a technologist standpoint but rather a socio-cultural one and doesn't go into the history of the shirt and tie (notice I didn't say suit and tie) as a communication medium

There's enough information here for a whole volume but whatever it's worth humans require signals to communicate and in the absence of something definite they'll use anything at hand

The traditional professional dress deals with social communication concerns we're no longer even aware of let alone leveraging to advantage and it's a pity to watch a whole generation of would-be professionals on a level the world has never seen in its billion year history lose the thread as it were and bring their shabby hand me downs to the arena when they could stand on the side of tradition and button up like their ancestors in the arts and sciences did for centuries before them

> a pity... side of tradition

Not sure what to make of this really. You're not wrong, there is something to the subject of course.

Still, I can't help feeling like it's a perspective from a different planet. Different folks are into different things, and that's fine. But hoping that the majority will get serious about a niche subject/behavior is usually a recipe for disappointment.

Personally, I like to dress on the nice side of casual (vaguely similar to Steve Jobs, sans turtleneck) and wouldn't be caught dead in impractical clothing outside of a wedding.

Bro it's the constant struggle between the individual and the group there's nothing new here

Anyone can examine the evidence and agree as to the evidence but disagree as to what the evidence entails

I look at the modern state of corporacy and the rise of working from home and I see we ought to go back to traditional principles whereas the majority view it as an incentive to dress even further down

I'm not sure about you but I don't feel good about siding with the hoi polloi on principle and for that reason alone I'd rather wear a shirt with a collar than a dainty T

Edit: by the way do you believe that every person you see in a shirt and tie is suffering in an impractical outfit?

Yes. I go to DC occasionally on business and the standard dress there is ridiculous for the swampy climate. It doesn't work most of the year in Southern California either, too hot. The thing that enables it is climate-killing air conditioning.

I don't care for anything tight around my neck. Shoes with no traction are another one of my pet peeves.

I think something like the traditional Asian suits would be the most practical.

Asian --> Nehru, Kurta, Mandarin, etc

There's something you haven't thought through all the way I can guarantee it

For me, the T-shirt and jeans became my official 'uniform' back in the 90s. I used to keep a full suit, shirt, tie, and shoes in an office closet. These were strictly for client meetings (on wall st.). When sales no longer cared if I changed (or even asked me NOT to change) I realized the tides had changed, and 'techies' were expected to be dressed to run Ethernet, Haul boxes of mag tape, and be comfortable in front of a screen for 16 hours.

Now, I generally say, sales calls need 1 suit, 1 geek.

Bro I don't identify as a geek and if that's a label you want to put on yourself you'd better ask whether you have a right to call yourself a professional

I don't identify as a 'bro' and if that's a label you want to put on yourself, you'd better ask whether you have a right to call yourself a professional...

See how silly that sounds? To me 'geek', 'coder', 'programmer' are all compliments - I worked dam hard to earn those labels.

Geeks have a shared passion - Geek of Math, Geek of Law, Car Geeks, etc (look up geek code for some much better examples). A geek calling another person a geek is generally a compliment. An acknowledgement that they know what they're doing.

Coders and programmers were out in the trenches grinding code before 'software engineer' was even a thing.

There's lots of words like that but you're ignoring the perception framing the reality.

Usage of the word within the in-group may mean one thing but from the out-group it means a whole different thing.

You're basically calling yourself a slave and justifying it with blissful ignorance.

You're saying 'words mean what I say they mean and I'm ignoring all shades of meaning but the ones I choose'.

and you can't see that in a professional culture if some people are "suits" and some people are "geeks" it's a drastic disadvantage situation in favour of stereotypes over reality.

And plus bro I wouldn't call you bro at the office but you'd surely call me a geek.

dam - lot of assumptions there, not to mention presumption of authority.

Just for the record, I don't feel 'disadvantaged' or 'stereotyped'. If people feel their professional standing/opportunities are based on dress code, title or hanging around hoping to be the first person the boss notices - I'd say they seem more 'disadvantaged' then me. But that's just my opinion.

Seems like we're at an impasse - Let's just call it here. You can be a 'software engineer' and I'll be a 'Geek'.

edit: swap 'bro' for 'software engineer' as I could see 'bro' be taken as condescension.

I'm over 50, and I tend to agree - the perception of ageism seems to far outstrip anything I've seen. I'm also not sure how much of 'ageism' is really 'hire cheap college grads'.

An interesting note: Since I no longer have to raise kids, I actually have a lot more time and a lot less 'drama' then I used to. Makes it easier to keep up on new tech...

I used to think that, but for whatever reason, I slammed into a wall at 52. Don't assume that this will come on slowly.

I guess only time will tell. Though I have been lucky enough to work with a lot of 'grey beards' in my career, so I'm hopeful :-)

Fellows we need to get in touch

I agree with this. I worked at a big company that leaned very young, but that was because we couldn't find enough senior engineers, not because we didn't want them. It's important to have experienced people who can guide the young and enthusiastic away from rediscovering the lessons that experienced devs know by heart.

>unless you're willing to work at entry rates

How do you communicate that though? Isn't it considered wrong to just say it because that indicates a lack of confidence?

Bro don't quote dollars tell them percentiles based on industry averages as published by the Robert Half Salary Guide

Say like I'm willing to start at the 25th percentile for a Cloud Computing Analyst in exchange for an upward career path over the next 3-5 years or something like that

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of talk and recruiters and interviewers will be familiar with it and shouldn't bat an eye when you phrase it that way.

Has anyone besides me tried the "I will work for less than the other guy!" routine?

Never worked for me

Never even thunk about working for me

I actually think salaries for people should follow the bell curve

In part to help olds like me get hired

But maybe also for practical reasons

It never works -- you gotta get them to absorb the sticker shock if you want them to respect you