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Comment by pickledcods | Hacker News Reader

And then age...

I'm an eighties whizz-kid, educated hardware and software background with borderline epiphanic understanding of computer technology. From firmware to systems where peoples lives literally depend on. In 2000 jumped on a plane to Taiwan to develop the first Arduino/RaspberryPi class devices. Still up to date and currently busy polishing a ShowHN which will blow you off your socks.

Everything nowadays is shrink-wrapped out-of-the-box, hidden behind layers of frameworks. Programming languages becoming a fashion statement. Everyone seems to copy-paste stack-overflow and even then the answers are like "Why?" because it seems nobody reads specifications.

But...

Finding a job position is impossible. The excuses for rejection range from unbelief to insulting. It is so bad that I have now seriously considered leaving the field, taking 40+ years experience with me.

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> It is so bad that I have now seriously considered leaving the field, taking 40+ years experience with me.

Please don't. We need more people like you to infuse much needed energy in a field/profession that is becoming mundane and steadily going downhill day by day.

> The excuses for rejection range from unbelief to insulting.

I was once rejected because I did not know inane crap like what "this" is bound to at the top-level in JavaScript. Their answer: "the window object". a) Yeah, okay, if your code only runs in the browser. But not nodejs. And b) if anyone uses a top-level "this" it's an instant reject in code review from me.

Ultimately, a lot of these interviewers are waving huge warning flags saying "stay away!"

Even FAANG. Every single algorithm there is a "trick" to it. Once you memorize that trick, every leetcode becomes trivial. But it took a guy like Knuth some 30 fucking years to come up with that "trick". It's so goddamn stupid memorizing bubble sort when every language has a built in sort you're going to use. And if you ever see a developer writing their own algorithm for bubble sort at work, you're going to think something is wrong with this person. What the fuck are you doing guy? You're going to get it wrong and there is a library for all of this, used by thousands of people with hundreds of bug fixes.

I left two years ago and have been largely pursuing my own extended interests. One result is that 90% of the HN postings seem to be absolute wastes of time (to me at least.)

Stay curious.

> Finding a job position is impossible. The excuses for rejection range from unbelief to insulting. It is so bad that I have now seriously considered leaving the field, taking 40+ years experience with me.

Before you do, are you up for a Zoom call or something? Talk about anything you're passionate about, and perhaps we'll post it as a show HN.

I'm 31 myself and at the beginning of my career (I've been longer in the education system than most).

My email is in my profile.

Talk to people you know. Should help find a job without the inane interviews. Blessings to you friend.

> Finding a job position is impossible.

What's your email? I'd love to reach out to you and discuss some openings that we have on our team.

Thank you. It's mailto:xyzzy%40rockingship.org

I love the %40, that's a great way of obfuscating an email address that I've never seen before.

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