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Comment by sspiff | Hacker News Reader

Is it that much harder to find a job when you turn 35?

I mean, a lot of my older colleagues have had a hard time finding jobs, but most of them are not very passionate about what they do. They want to work right next to their own front door, they don't want to sacrifice any pay or holiday credit, and they prefer not to learn new things and stick to the familiar. (I know of a few exceptions, and I'm not claiming this is true for all >35yo employees)

I wonder: if you keep learning new things, continue to be passionate about your field etc, is it that much harder to find a new job just because you're older?

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You can't convince an adult to work himself to death to enrich someone else. At least, not that easily.

The problem can also be understood as a lack of demand for experience. Noone realistically needs any experience beyond a few side projects to get started. With abundant open source software, many people's roles are reduced to an assembly line worker who knows how to operte the tool in hand.

>>an assembly line worker who knows how to operte the tool in hand.

This is one problem imho, that stands in the way of more mature developers landing jobs and of juniors advancing. There is a trend to use 3rd party libraries as rad tools even when they don't fully fill the needs, and a tendency to use 3rd party tools to prevent your coders from really needing to code.

Architects know they're going to hand off to code monkeys, so they force designs to fit existing 3rd party libraries and any complexity gets pushed to the design side, not the implementation side. Why hire and pay extra for experience when a grad can do it?

If you're low or mid talent you're competing with fresh graduates and self-learners. It gets harder, because you'll want more pay and work less free overtime.

For high talent or a unique skillset, it's not a problem and you effectively set your own salary. This is where you want to be.

It's an interesting problem. All the cream of the crop 20 somethings now will be 35 one day. Even people like mark zuckerberg will be 35! But I guess the question is relative value.

In baseball or basketball, a younger age does make a difference (since performance is proportional to athleticism). Veterans are still highly regarded for leadership, and sometimes pure skill (setup man, utility infielder, 3-point shooter); Though they're called on less and usually earn less then their heyday. Would we ever see something similar in the code business?! I don't know. In the case of coding, experience goes up, but perhaps desire to not work like crazy goes down (family, done it before, etc).

Maybe we should pay even higher salaries to bright youngins with huge signing bonuses? And let them know that their expected prime is 21-34. And they should manage their money wisely and open a carwash or burgerking or two.... :P

It is an interesting (made up) problem. Older developers exit for hiring paying management roles. At large companies, average developer age is constantly going up.

The market (US) has 2.2% unemployment and every single software company I have ever worked for is CONSTANTLY scouting for people, nonstop, the entire time I have worked there. Keeping standards high is exceptionally challenging... "Good news, this one can do FizzBuzz!"

Age isn't even considered, we just need freaking people and are competing with 5+ other companies to get them. There is a reason we pay recruiters 20k+ per freaking hire.

Age discrimination is a real problem in our industry. It is definitely harder to fund a job when older, given equal candidates at different ages.

They are only equal if the older person changed industry. Else they should have significant experience which is worth its weight in gold. If you have 3 years experience and are 35 and competing against a 21 year old with the same experience, and he will work for half what you do -- he gets the job.

But people with a decade plus experience are not even close to comparable to fresh faced wonders.

This is where it gets tricky: as the older worker moves up the value chain, they become more experienced, more specialized, and more "known." This actually makes it more difficult for them to get a job, since it is then more difficult to find a "right fit." Compare to the generic fresh faced new grad: they can go anywhere, and are also unknown quantities, so you just hire them and hope for the best.

Senior hires are more difficult to make than junior hires, and what is worse: someone who is "old" cannot go back to being junior even if they wanted (e.g. career switch) since our minds seem to be biased (right or wrong) into associating age with expertise. They don't even have a chance at working at the 21 yro salary.

There is also a pyramid to worry about: many companies are much fatter at the entry level and this narrows at each level as employees are lost or weeded out. Now, if you are 40, you have to compete further up that pyramid, meaning fewer spots available, meaning...life is much more complicated. It doesn't really make sense though: where do all those extra young programmers go when they are old? Our industry is killing itself through in its thirst for young blood, since it actually discourages people from entering our field.

If you are in London, contracting is big here and many 40+ folks prefer contracting. This way you are also usually less involved in politics.

> Is it that much harder to find a job when you turn 35? In technology, yes.

The dynamics behind hiring and age are not about passion or salary or any of that. No one ever asks candidates whether they study outside of work or are passionate about their jobs. New employees are usually paid more than existing. It is strictly about power and control. The only question that managers are asking themselves is "will this person help or hinder my stature and quest for power within the company." Yes, it seems shortsighted, but most people would give too much credit to those doing the hiring. People over 35 are undesirable because that is the point where experience and political savvy begins to threaten the legitimacy of the org structure rather than to reinforce it. Companies rapidly devolve into simple, dumb classical political systems once the money starts flowing. The only thing that's confusing is why people seem to think companies exist to reward experience and innovation. If someone is hired on at a company, the only reason is because someone at that company thinks that the person will help them politically to gain more power and thus compensation, product be damned.

... yes, of course we ask EXACTLY those questions. What the hell are you talking about? Those are two of the primary questions I ask everyone I interview (300+ interviews over last 15 years).

I don't know what nightmarish company you are reference, but it isn't the norm for the industry, most programmers get the hire/pass call (or at least veto power) by other programmers.

As for ageism, I really don't see it that much. It is mostly programmers getting annoyed by the "soft cap" around 135k-185k and switching to management to make more in the late 30s and 40s. Luckily, the cap is starting to go away, positions in the 200k+ are becoming far more common.

EDIT: This is only a reflection of experience in the US.

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