Hacker News Reader

Comment by fleitz | Hacker News Reader

The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt. You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30. And especially not having 10 years of experience in a technology 10 years old.

Also as you said, young people put up with shit no one over 30 would ever put up with. $30k for 80 hour weeks? No thanks, I'd rather flip burgers because it pays more than $7.50/hr, McDonalds also has free soda.

View on HN

The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt. You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30.

To suggest that one must move into management, and not do a particular job, because of age, is quite possibly the most ageist comment I've ever heard on HN.

Assuming you have a degree, that means you have 6 or 7 years of experience. To think that's the full extent of your development "career" means that our entire industry would be exceptionally shallow skills-wise.

I'm 37, and I love to hack. And no, I'm most definitely not making $30K for 80hr/wk.

And especially not having 10 years of experience in a technology 10 years old. Is this an indictment against those who get in on the ground floor of a technology? Are you suggesting that you should jump to the latest hipster language, never becoming an expert in anything? Not to mention the fact that most languages that drive the web (Java, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, to name a few) are about 20 years old at this point.

But a lot of people finish their PhD in their early 30s and becoming a code monkey is one of the foot-in-the-door ways to get into the tech industry.

You are correct. I know many PhDs who finished their degree around 28-35. Several of them are in a conundrum because they don't have management experience nor do they have professional software development experience. When companies interview these people as senior developers (the level corresponding to the 6 figure salary some PhDs expect), they find the person with a PhD lacking. It is quite a mess really ... I tell people to not do a PhD in CS unless they are independently wealthy or don't want a normal (kids, house, yard) life. Sad but that's life.

If the employer only wants one year of experience or less noobs and excludes anyone experienced as out of date or too expensive, then the recent PHD grad is by definition excluded unless the PHD took less than a year.

But I have seen many recruiters/companies treat a 5-6 year PhD as the equivalent of 1-2 years of industry experience.

The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt.

Where are these abundant management jobs, ready to absorb every programmer over 30? Personally, having had several awful managers who were worker-bee programmers, I find nothing worse than the idea that programmers should move into management. Good managing is a completely different skill set from programming.

You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30.

What an awful attitude to have. Code monkey? Personally, I was just getting good at about 30.

And especially not having 10 years of experience in a technology 10 years old.

It's been my experience that good products tend to end up living to ten or more years. And new technologies tend to only get deeply explored and solid after something like ten years.

>>The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt. You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30.

Said the pointy-haired boss who once used to be a code monkey.

Haha, yep, pretty much.

If you can't be part of the solution, there's plenty of money to be made being part of the problem.

I expect to be a programming primate come 30. Some day I aspire to be a software simian.

> "...in a technology 10 years old..."

Like JavaScript, Python and Ruby :)?

You're right that you shouldn't be a code monkey at 30. You should have graduated to programmer by then.

I'm 30, and largely self-taught.

+1. I graduated "code monkey" at 25 or so, "programmer" at around 28, and feel I'm nearing the top of "software developer" now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com