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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Sadly in manager buzzword bingo they are a success, they "built a team" and delivered " thousands of lines of code."

Everyone needs to stay current. And people who do stuff in their own time often have no trouble finding work because the "off time" work often is more relevant in the next job than their 10 years of experience on their employers proprietary system.

The warning sign should be if all you do when you get home from work is watch tv or play video games, you are falling behind the skill sets of those entering the market.

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So, in effect, you should work all the time. Half of the time you should work for free, so you can get hired again after you get laid off, and half of the time you should work for pay at your current job.

What a wonderful industry we work in.

I don't think that's what Chuck meant. I think you need to have a passion for the industry and show it in some way. If you're not passionate about tech then maybe you should switch to some other industry.

BTW Chuck I remember NIS+!

We're professionals paid 6 figures or more. It's reasonable to expect we 'work' (study, learn) outside of the office.

The extra time, 10 - 15 hours a week, keeps you current. Would you want to visit a doctor that only put in 40 hours a week seeing patients, and never studies recent medical advances? Or a lawyer whose case law knowledge did not extend beyond their own experience?

If you work in tech and honestly expect to only put in 40 hour weeks for your profession, as you get older you will end up in a dreary IT department -- not a software company -- and eventually be laid off.

An interesting way to look at it, but no. In any professional career (Law, Medicine, Accounting, Engineering, Etc.) the field is constantly evolving and changing. To stay current you have to go to conferences, read papers, experiment. You need a 'learning lifestyle' which, for folks who are passionate about what they do, is natural. An Electrical Engineer who stopped learning after they left school in 1990 is not a desirable hire, just like a lawyer who hasn't bothered to keep abreast of the changes in the law for 20 years.

What I'm saying is that if you're a professional and you're not keeping current, then your lack of currency, more than your age, will hinder your employment.

That being said, there are age biases out there. Young managers can be intimidated by hiring an older person, especially if they are insecure. And like the antecendent of this post older people who have 'been around' can sometimes see the reality of things which are uncomfortable for others to admit are true.

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