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Comment by thiago_fm | Hacker News Reader

No age, but that supposes you do networking, have soft-skills and is likeable.

The amount of opportunities available to me just grow year after year, because I get to know more people (which also move to different companies), that would like to work with me in the future.

Just be a person that ships, makes things work, in a friendly mood and you are set for life.

People you work with also grow in their careers, which means that often enough, they make the calls on who gets hired and who doesn't.

I think that during your 50s, you should have built a good "base," though, like paying off your mortgage. You should have more leeway to actually take life in a less demanding way, so perhaps do some consulting or not work full-time and earn a living to retire in peace.

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> Just be a person that ships, makes things work, in a friendly mood and you are set for life.

This is the biggest lie in tech. Doing this will keep you overworked because you’re reliable. You will never get promoted and when you try to get another job you will be so good everybody will be afraid of you.

So be unreliable and terrible? That doesn’t sound better.

Deliver just enough not to get fired but work on your schmooze game as well.

Aren't you the same guy implying in another thread you haven't been able to maintain the amount or quality of work you'd prefer?

Is this advice in contrast to how you ended up in that spot?

I don’t believe so, do you have a link to the thread? Would be easy to verify. In any case my comment isn’t what I personally do just what I believe the gp comment meant rather than what the comment I was replying to thought it meant.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39708611

I was asking directly about how to get more quantity but I don't think I implied anything about quality as they indicated nothing about that. Really I'm just curious about the specifics of this person's long tenure as it's not been my experience or that of most people I know regardless of individual performance but they offer us nothing other than the knowledge of their existence the implication being that ageism in the industry doesn't exist because they haven't personally been affected by it. Apologies, I should have just stated that directly.

I'm sorry you've had experiences that made you think this.

> you do networking, have soft-skills and is likeable.

No networking, soft skills sure but not social skills, depends?

Asssuming these variables stay the same how does age affect hirability and at what age?

Then good luck.

In any area, you'll suffer "ageism" while doing this because you won't have the same energy and potential as a fresh graduate.

The problem isn't your age(ageism), but the fact that you haven't managed to truly achieve seniority.

Sure, you could have gotten your senior title within 3 years from graduating, but you don't have the soft-skills that are needed to have a longer career. This applies to any area, it is expected in nowadays society that you don't behave like you live in your moms basement as you are older.

If you behave well and is generally nice, clear and have good work ethics, there's no way people won't like you and vouch for you in new positions. Sometimes they will get promoted and will want to have people around them that have worked with them before, and will want to invite you to their company.

Meanwhile a company might be ok with a 22 year old struggling to communicate with others or keep their supervisor up-to-date, they won't have that kind of patience for a 40 year old+ that has been working for decades.

And by the way, anyone can get those skills, just study and practice like you do with coding.

> And by the way, anyone can get those skills, just study and practice like you do with coding.

Thanks, I will. The likeability problem I have is because I am constantly in a position of having to disagree with others on technical grounds. Maybe I need to find a role where that's not the case.

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