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Comment by manzanarama | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I am naïve but I don't get this age vibe really. I do backend java distributed system stuff for a large company. A lot of my peers and managers are "older" 40s and 50s with kids. A lot of the work is high collaborative and design focused. Maybe I am just in a bubble of an aging tech stack but it does seem like we are always using "new" (at least different) databases, caching, and network layers to stay somewhat current.

Its hard to imagine that 5,10,15 years of distributed systems and system design experience and knowledge along with domain knowledge and social skills will be all of a sudden be so irrelevant that it is worth phasing all of us "old guys" out for someone who happened to learn the newest programming language straight out of school.

We are constantly expected to learn the new stuff and will just a project assigned with a mandate "okay this is to be done in spring boot, using this DB, this HTTP layer, etc...

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It’s the bubble of very online people and start up culture who think tech people age out at 40. I know plenty of devs in theirs 50s, after that they just take early retirement since they’ve earned enough.

Most devs aren’t terminally online, they treat coding as a job not a lifestyle and for them it’s just like any other industry - so you don’t hear from them.

Also, some devs retire into SQL and DBA like work since you can basically make yourself unfireable if you want to coast out the last decade of your career.

> ... to coast out the last decade of your career.

Here right now the age vibe is coming from ;) It's not like a doctor can coast it out (or maybe I'm also naive).

(I'm an employer as of now)

I would argue that a coasting grey beard could easily be better than a mid level dev with maybe 5 years experience.

I run a contract shop and all my best DB guys are greybeards... coasting. It doesn't matter, after so many years with postgres & MySQL they are amazing.

I take chill in-the-flow steady progress over hyper rah-rah-rah windmill attacks any day, week, and month.

Agree, with DBA or system administration it's possible. Not so with UI/frontend development, for some reason that's always a rush.

I would probably differentiate by work visibility: good work in DBA/sysadmin/security/accounting/quality is invisible, you only notice those folks when they have screwed up.

With product/UX/new features it's the other way around, coasting is not possible.

> With product/UX/new features it's the other way around, coasting is not possible.

That very much depends on the application. I maintain some enterprise solutions for customers. Clients get upset if UI has flow changes. Also, changes don't make me money unless they are required for a new customer. I will do it on request and invoice for the work but no one is interested in change for the most part. I think this is VERY common in enterprise software.

Grey beard here. The last interview I had with a company was with the CEO (no beard) that could barely stay awake because he had been up all night (think Sam Altman with scurvy). I seriously doubt he remembered anything about me. That one experience let me know that I would not be doing the "coasting" being referred to in this thread. Instead I would be losing sleep repairing the mistakes from bad decisions and lack of experience which would ultimately lead to a dead startup. Thank you no.

There was a time when machismo was my middle name (much younger) and would have seen that as necessary for a successful startup. Now that I have several startups behind me I see it as simply bad management which decreases your chance for success which is stacked against you from the beginning anyway.

That was several years ago. I don't think that startup exist any longer.

I have often wondered if any VCs would allow a group of experienced devs to PE zombie startups, roll them up for pennies to see if any have an unexplored nugget of traction

You'd have to pay the experienced devs in real money.

Its the equity cramdown on the existing teams that would be harder

I meant nothing negative with my "retire into SQL" comment :-) some of the most fun I've had in my career is picking through a 25 year old SQL database understanding how it all works.

I've worked with plenty of folks that are well past 40 and are thriving!

Since it is such a pervasive idea I will also drop a message to agree. I'm a mid 30s contractor and one of the youngest members of my team.

At 41 I’m the youngest member of my team across dev, QA, and management.

Exactly, I work in enterprise and there are several guys past retirement age and they're the most productive and valuable guys we have. In other words, it probably makes sense to move away from startups as you age.

> It’s the bubble of very online people and start up culture who think tech people age out at 40

Shhh... please don't tell the tech bros that there is a world outside of the Silicon Valley bubble!

Where you can raise a family and make a good living working 9-5.

Where you are not constantly trying to ruin and exploit the lives of normal people to make a short term gain.

Where most of the actual work keeping the world afloat happens.

It is better for us working dinosaurs that way.

It's still unfortunately common, because there are always young workers in the pipeline.

HP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38043552 ("It took seven years but over-40s fired by HP win $18M settlement")

IBM: https://www.diversityjobs.com/career-advice/team-building/ho... (Control-f "Sources")

https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a... ("ProPublica: Cutting 'Old Heads' at IBM")

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/17/prior-agei... ("Prior Ageism Allegations At Google, Facebook And IBM Raise Concerns About Older Workers Being Targeted For Termination")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932680 ("HN: Ageism is forcing many to look outside Silicon Valley")

https://www.orangecountyemploymentlawyersblog.com/dfeh-90-ag... ("DFEH: 90 Age Discrimination Complaints Filed Against Tech Firms Since 2012")

To be fair, you're comparing 55 year olds with 65 year olds. Every 55 year old in tech I've spoken with is talking about retiring "soon" (although soon always ends up being 2 years later every time they mention it). Every 55 year old doctor I know doesn't even have retirement on their radar and would probably work till they're 70+ if they could.

Ageism in tech starts at 50+ (probably even earlier). Ageism in healthcare probably starts at around 80 and at that point it's only because the doctor's not physically able to perform safely.

Thanks to compound interest, the money you can save early in life is exponentially more important than the money you can make later in life.

Many programmers started making money to invest in their teens, and save those who pursued other careers before pivoting, all were making money to invest by the time they are in their early 20s. Meanwhile, the doctors were racking up the debt until nearing 30. That decade plus is a huge setback – never mind the debt burden on top, and how the tax code greatly favours those who build up savings over a long period over receiving large lump sums in a single year.

In other words, 55 year old programmers are talking about retiring because they can. 55 year old doctors on the other hand, even with a higher income, need to work decades more to financially catch up.

I don't think it's the case that experience is generally useless, but you need far fewer experienced people like this than you do cannon fodder to advance the front line a couple of centimetres.

There are people earning good scratch well into their "golden years" in the tech sector, but the demand for them is much weaker.

Isn’t that always the way? You need far more front line workers (whatever that means in your industry) than you need managers, and at most businesses advancement equals moving to management because there really isn’t far to grow technically..

You hit it in your first para:

It's not "age" it's current-ness.

Since most people aren't expected / empowered to learn what's next 'on the job', currentness decays, making age a stereotypical proxy for dinosaur.

Here at HN, by virtue of being here reading these comments, "this isn't you". You are making yourself aware of what's going on outside your backlog. The stereotype arises because most devs aren't here or anywhere besides chopping wood.

50 years old here and still on the top of my game - but believe me - this is my last high $ gig - after this it will be challenging to find another job at this level given the rampant age discrimination

If you don’t mind asking - what is the order of magnitude for your perception of “high $ gig”? I’m asking because I’ve seen wildly different opinions on what people consider highly-paid (from $100k+ to $1.5M)

People overestimate ageism in tech because the number of tech jobs has grown so rapidly. That means there are a lot more young people in the industry than there are old people, and they wrongly interpret that to mean the "missing" old people were pushed out, when the reality is they mostly were never there in the first place.

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