Comment by analognoise | Hacker News Reader

Comment by analognoise | Hacker News Reader

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You forgot a huge dimension of those jobs:

As you get older, you are more valuable. No "silicon valley" syndrome about age: you'd never have to dye your hair, wear a hoodie to fit in, nobody will blink if you have to take a day off to take care of the kids.

You can be a real adult - nobody comes into those programs and expects a ball pit or a foosball table, and nobody seriously thinks someone right out of college but who is up on the "latest framework" could take their job - because the jobs are deeply, deeply technical and require lots of experience. If you blow the doors off of everyone else in programming, great! That's one dimension. But it usually isn't the only one.

"The pay is worse" - for software, undoubtedly. For hardware? It's usually a wash after adjusting for cost of living and the benefits are better on the defense side.

I like defense because the systems are usually pretty badass. We have people leave for FAAMG occasionally, so it's not like we don't know who the people who are "that good" are! :)

As someone who has spent many years working in defense / government contracting, I think you're touching on a really big reason a lot of people work in this world.

Many years ago, when my career first started, I was an idealist who thought the way I could give back (as someone who couldn't get into the military for physical reasons) was to work in the defense sector. I also tried very hard to get interviewed by an SV company, but I didn't qualify for an interview due to going to the wrong college and getting the wrong degree.

And I have worked on some seriously badass programs and with some really cool systems and people. In my older age, it's funny because I've come full circle. I'm actually using my experience, and the new all-remote world, to interview with some tech companies. I'm also starting to sour a lot on working with the government and military because my idea of "giving back" has become much more cynical. EDIT- I meant to say here that I've become much more cynical, and working with the government no longer feels like "giving back." Nowadays I give back by working on social issues.

BTW, I'm also upvoting / interacting with your comment because (a) I think you're getting downvoted by people who disagree with you, rather than by people who think you've broken some rule, and (b) I think your perspective represents a pretty common way of looking at SV from the outside world.

Oh same on the interviewing with tech companies remotely. After you've built things that are really badass, it's REALLY hard to be upset about a rejection, and the interviews can be really fun problems, so it's just fun.

It's more about the impression they get from you in five or six 45-minute slots. It's just a numbers game if you're getting that far, so just keep at it right? Take notes, improve, watch some Coursera courses, do some silly coding exercises - basically what we all do for fun anyway.

Glad you could find work on social issues though; I know what you mean about the cynicism, but I think I've gotten around that - I realized it came on with bad programs with lots of waste or highly political teams/programs, so I just avoid those. It was a long road to get there though... :)

I know you're bring downvoted into oblivion for reverse ageism, but my experience mirrors your statements. I think the aggrieved HN masses just don't have similar, or much experience.

+1. Also upvoting the original comment because no one seems to be disagreeing with it with any words.

Solving really hard problems is valuable. Little gets easier, but you can get better at it.

You have me wondering .. Does expertise from experience (whether compressed into a few years or a lot) qualify as reverse ageism? Is anyone being excluded or denigrated?

It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it. Time alone isn’t a measure of experience and expertise but it doesn’t hurt.

It’s just describing what the experience of someone who has been at something for a while.. might end up like.

"Does expertise from experience (whether compressed into a few years or a lot) qualify as reverse ageism? Is anyone being excluded or denigrated?"

No, of course not - isn't it silly that we have to ask if that is "reverse ageism" to say that people who spend time at something are generally better at it? That's universally true of every single human endeavor, isn't it?

"It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it." - Why does it sound like you're shying away from stating something that should be immediately obvious to every single person? Is it because you're afraid of the charge of reverse ageism if you agree? If so...isn't that silly?

"It seems plausible (but not exclusively) that the more time and effort you apply to something, the better you will probably get at it. Time alone isn’t a measure of experience and expertise but it doesn’t hurt." - I agree wholeheartedly - again, I thought that was obvious.

It's kind of bitterly ironic that on this site that comment is considered more inflammatory than someone like the top level commenter who effectively just says "lol only stupid people work for the government."

Thanks for pointing that out and expressing it well, I appreciate it.

If you landed on "they don't have much experience", they'll probably get there, it will just take a few more years...

I appreciate your ability to walk into the middle of the bee hive to knock it over with this comment.

It was amusing to read and I don’t disagree with what you said but I don’t feel super qualified to judge either.

I’ve only seen that silicon valley start up culture from the outside when my partner worked at a YC company while they were going through a later stage fundraising round.

It wasn’t as cartoonish as you make it sound at all but your impression at least seemed in the ballpark of true.

This is precisely my experience, and it's why I've been hesitant to leave this sector for so long. I could undoubtedly make more elsewhere, but the "badass" factor of what I'm working on would plummet significantly.

I feel this.

There have been many times the temptation of “badassery” has sorely pulled against my own moral/ethical stances. Lots of projects I’d have genuinely enjoyed working on, but which I’d have hated myself knowing all the ways the tech I’d have been building could be misused (and too often in the fullness of time, when developed by other people, was misused in exactly the obvious ways).

There is no way to have zero impact - even the act of doing nothing can be interpreted as acceptance or even support of what's happening around you.

There's no way to only have a positive impact as well - there are always side effects.

In HN terms, life isn't functionally pure.

I try to keep my eye out for mysterious gaps, as I know what the defense sector tends to do to job histories. Plus, age-ism seriously pisses me off.

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