Too Old for Silicon Valley? Think Again. AI Is Changing the Math | Hacker News Reader

Too Old for Silicon Valley? Think Again. AI Is Changing the Math

kqed.org

I think that the biggest hurdle for older developers right now is getting past the filtering systems that review résumés. I realize this is anecdata, but during the mid-2024 to early-2025 timeframe, this fifty-something developer had a hard time getting to the interview phase, but once I did, getting in was a pretty straightforward deal.

I don't know that it's just the issues surrounding junior-vs.-senior experience. I feel like a lot of what I'm experiencing with talking to kids that are in high school and college, is a lot of what I can best describe as "intellectual ennui" -- a lack of curiosity, an inability to analyze, and a lack of any sort of intellectual pursuits. Again, I'm in my fifties, and I understand that my contact pool with that age group is somewhat limited, so I'm not sure if I'm capable of painting the whole picture.

As someone in industry who also teaches early career engineers once every two years, there seems to be a tailing off of enthusiasm in the latest cohort. Does anyone know of an actual data source from which one could draw actual conclusions about this sort of thing, by the way?

It makes sense to me that someone coming up today would be less enthusiastic about the effects of technological innovation given the experiences of the last decade. Growing up in Silicon Valley a generation or two ago it was an article of faith that innovation was going to bring great things to us. Taking that away ought to have an impact on enthusiasm.

Not just the latest cohort, plenty of folks that grew up with technology in the late '90s (i.e. mid 30s) are jaded by the last 5-10 years. Constantly hearing about dark patterns, grifts, anti-consumer practices (and -worker for that matter) will do that.

> getting past the filtering systems that review résumés.

I've talked to many folks seeing this from the inside. Thing is, many resumes seem to be written by AI using the job description as the source to create a "perfect match".

so AI is changing that too.

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