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Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

I find that “age discrimination” in the industry not to be a myth. But it is more nuanced. If you’re older and have the skills and experience, “you should have”, the world is your oyster. I am 51 and found a job quickly both in 2023 after being Amazoned and last year.

Admittedly, I wouldn’t make it through a coding interview even though my jobs have always involved some coding. But at 51 years old, if I were still competing for jobs based on my ability to invert a btree on the white board, I’ve done something horribly wrong in my life.

I can do a system design interview with my eyes closed though. It’s been part of my $DayJob to come up with real world system solutions on the fly in front of clients.

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> Amazoned

We have a data point.

I came from a world-class company, but it wasn't a MANGA, so I wasn't given the "implicit points" for coming from an environment with the right perfume. I was a radioactive 55-year-old. I almost never got to a second interview. As soon as someone figured out my age, the process stopped cold. I was usually ghosted.

As for coding interviews, I spend exactly zero time practicing. I've seldom practiced for tests, and have usually done well. I do pretty well, under stress. That's been my life, since I was 22, or so. I do suck at simple college tests, like balancing btrees, because I have never encountered one in my work. I do well at the stuff I encounter regularly.

As someone with no college degree, I found that absolutely no one has ever cut me slack, or given me the benefit of the doubt, so my entire career was having to prove myself, over and over again, with almost no room for error. I worked with top-shelf engineers and scientists, and they didn't really suffer fools.

Bit exhausting, frankly. But my entire adult life has been about getting high-Quality deliverables out the door, and being personally held to account for the work.

That doesn't really seem to be what today's companies want, though. Pissed me off, for a while, but it has ended up being a very good thing for me.

I doubt my degree in CS from 1996 where I learned COBOL and FORTRAN at a no name college in south GA makes a difference. Heck I doubt it made a difference after my first job, let alone after my second looking for my third in 2008z

I didn’t get a job at a company that anyone has heard of until I was 46 (AWS). My career before then was a journeymen enterprise developer until 2016 when I started leading projects. Now I still do hands on coding. But it’s now strategy cloud consulting specializing in “modernization” (ie app dev) with 50/50 client facing post sales architecture and coding and leading larger implementations.

Now admittedly, one of my secrets is that I keep completely clean shaven of all facial hair so there is no signs of balding or grey and I’m in decent shape. No one can tell my age.

According to Bill Burr it’s probably the lotion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sSSrtbujO4)

> “modernization”

Glad to hear this isn't just something I'm encountering in isolation. My role at a BigTechCo (and I'm barrelling right through my mid-40s) could be summed with exactly that same word.

> No one can tell my age.

My beard finally started to grey and after about 2 years of that steady progression I shaved it off and now people treat me so differently. Even people who already knew me treat me differently. It's been quite the experience.

I always say that our school gets us our first job, then that gets us our next job, and so on.

But having a college degree on your CV does make a difference. Often, it's the HR screeners that are impressed with it; not the techs. I found that I usually got past the screeners, but the techs didn't like me. The educational creds didn't have anything to do with that. It was the lack of "cultural fit."

The company I worked for, was a top-tier Japanese photographic equipment manufacturer. The Japanese are tough taskmasters. You don't last almost 27 years at a joint like that, on brown-nosing and jargon.

But since I accepted my lot, I have been happier n' a pig in shit. I get to do code, seven days a week, ship regularly, and not have managers screwing up the party. Never knew it could be this good.

> But at 51 years old, if I were still competing for jobs based on my ability to invert a btree on the white board, I’ve done something horribly wrong in my life.

And yet some of us in our 60s still like to be down in the nuts&bolts of the code. I don't think that means we did something wrong. It's just what we prefer.

It doesn’t matter what “I like”. I saw the writing on the wall at 40 that development was going to be a commoditized race to the bottom and it was going to be hard to stand out and that developer salaries were going to plateau and they largely did in second tier cities aside from the large tech companies.

If you look at the leveling guidelines of any major tech company or even smaller companies with real leveling guidelines. “Coding” is only the differentiator between junior and mid. After that it’s about “scope”, “impact” and “dealing with ambiguity” is.

When I was looking for a job in 2023 and last year, it was much easier for me to stand out from the crowd based on my architectural experience, leading strategy, being comfortable hopping on a plane and talking to CxOs than it was as a pure developer.

I still do my share of development but only for smaller POCs/MVPs where it doesn’t make sense to bring in a lot of specialists since I am pretty good in a lot of areas.

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