wwww4all

There is ageism in tech, it’s very real and people have to plan for it. It’s not as old as people think it is. It’s way lower than official retirement age.

It’s like any other problem, there are solution options. Some people switch to management. But ageism affects management too.

Focusing on the age doesn’t help I any matter. Age is simply proxy for stagnation to most people. The common euphemism is you can’t teach old dog new tricks.

Focus of solving problems and delivering solutions utilizing latest tech stack and design patterns. Effectively demonstrate these dynamic abilities and open the doors to opportunities.

There’s a phrase I heard while back, I don’t live to work, I work to live.

High performance software engineers negotiate for higher salary and the type of work environment and type of projects. They work to live by taking control over their salary and project assignments.

Sometimes, they have to work on less interesting projects. They deliver solutions. At the same time, they regularly have conversations on other more interesting projects. Make sure they line up more interesting projects in the roadmap.

There’s more risk in stagnating position than taking control and regularly switching jobs for higher salary and more interesting projects.

There are significantly more software engineering problems than people that can deliver solutions. High performance software engineers can have their cake and eat it too.

My plan to minimize ageism is straight forward. Continuous improvement in latest tech stack. Demonstrate delivering solutions. Regularly interview with recruiters for positions at or above my level.

When the full time offers slows down, I’ll take on vendor and contract positions. When the contract positions slow down, I’ll start my own vendor or consulting company. I’ll hire younger sales and product people to be the face of the company.

I always look for solutions to problems, implement the solutions and make adjustments when needed. This is the kind of solution oriented mindset that helps get offers and land clients.

There are so many software engineering problems and so few people that can deliver the solutions. There’s no real competition, younger or older. There are enough to go around for everyone.

Good luck to you.

There definitely is ageism in tech. However, there are ways to minimize impact.

Become an expert in latest tech stack and experience in delivering solutions to clients. These positions are extremely difficult to fill, so recruiters are more open to older software engineers.

Open the door to yourself by expanding opportunities, vendor companies, contracts, freelance, start your own company, etc. There are so many problems in software and so few high performance engineers, globally.

Sometimes, you may be the only person in the world with that specific tech stack and experiences. Demonstrate the solutions and many companies will have to bring you on board, FE or contract at least.

For most companies, the age thing isn’t the issue. It’s that older software engineers have stagnated and won’t be able to keep pace. When you demonstrate high performance and solution delivery, age becomes less of an issue.

Companies look for expertise in older software engineers.

They want senior level to help them maintain legacy systems or lead the upgrade to latest tech stack.

If backend is your specialty, market oneself as expert in backed solutions using latest stack. The fundamental CS principles never change. Learn the basics of cloud, containers, orchestration, micro services, and inform recruiters about experiences delivering solutions in latest stack.

The recruiters will be rushing to your profile and demanding interview slots.

Good luck.

I've been wrangling software bytes for a while and I am pragmatic about the business.

Software engineering is extremely difficult. High performance engineers are rare and valuable. Some times, they become jaded and burn out.

This is my career and my craft, so I'm inclined to ride the waves and trends in software engineering. Negotiate for above average salary while maintaining my tech stack and producing at above average output.

Most people don't understand what it takes to develop and deploy software solutions. They only see the unicorns like Google, Facebook, and think software engineers are common. They don't see the vast swaths of land of failed software startups and dreams and incompetence in software engineering.

Most people in software engineering doesn't know or comprehend basic data structures and algorithms, which form basis for all software solutions at scale. Yet, they are filled into dev position slots by HR/management and asked to develop complex systems.

To have long term career in software engineering is like any other trade. Observe how the game is played, learn to play the game and play the game right.

A software engineer with basic skill stack and right long term view can ride the software wave for decades, just by understanding basic CS principles and utilizing them to develop solutions. Switch jobs regularly and negotiate hard for salary and levels.

High performance software engineers need to demand higher salary. More Compensation for use of home office space, internet, utilities, etc.

Learn to negotiate better based on performance impact to position. The demand for high performance software engineers are vastly greater than the supply.

The government made the decisions that results in rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. The rich oligarchs are getting great returns on their investments and owning government. While millions of people are facing declining quality of society.

California had millions of people without power during summer fires. Texas just had millions of people without power during winter cold. These are third world type events, society can’t deliver basic life infrastructure.

The rich owned government is responsible for declining quality of social structures for millions of people. They don’t care, they can just distract with BLM and social strife, instead of improving quality of society and preserving job opportunities for

Monoliths are solution in search of problems. Micro services are solution in search of problems.

Generally, focus on solving the problems first.

Can the problem be solved by some static rendering of data? Monolith is better solution.

Does the problem require constant data updates from many sources and dynamic rendering of data changes? Micro services and reactive architecture are better solutions.

There’s no one size fits all solution. The better software engineers recognizes the pros and cons of many architecture patterns and mix match portions that make sense for the solution, given schedule, engineering resources, and budget.

Rich get rich by paying software engineers to develop applications that deliver efficiencies. Efficiencies usually mean getting rid of workers.

Newspapers used to be big local employers, newsroom employees, print workers, packaging workers, delivery workers. Software engineers developed news applications for rich people and many newspaper workers lost jobs.

The increase in legal and illegal immigration has cause labor supply increase, while jobs have fluctuated, resulting in stagnant or decreasing salaries.

Offshoring manufacturing and services to China also led to decrease in employment opportunities.

I’m curious that any Tech company allows multiple full time employment. All tech companies require employees to sign work for hire intellectual property assignment. You must disclose any other intellectual property agreements with other entities.

Even taking on a side job contract has IP issues. Most companies claim full ownership of any IP produced by employees at any time, on any devices.

There’s also workman’s comp and medical insurance, unemployment insurance and all other issues that conflict with multiple full time employment.

I know people that work full time and do a side gig. Either their own business or a part time under the table contract job.

I’ve never known anyone work multiple full time SE jobs. That leaves easily discoverable paper trail.

This has more to do with negotiation skills. Anthony Levandowki also negotiated deal with Uber to pay him more money. He knew his value and negotiated hard, and got paid by 2 companies.

Every engineer should learn from Anthony about understanding the value and negotiating hard with companies. Companies will pay up for in demand skills.

Most engineers at startups get very little equity and most end up worthless due to dilution or failure.

Even if engineers hit the startup lottery, the payout for most are not that much. Very few end with multi million dollar payouts.

Statistically, financials are better with big company offers for most engineers.

Some engineers that get in early with a unicorn can hit the jackpot. This is mostly combination of timing and luck and network. Some just happened to be in the right place at the right time with right group of people. PayPal engineers, early Google engineers.

Early Apple engineers were not so lucky.

Sure, there are different calibers of senior engineers, some are better than others. Some are better leaders, some are better writers, some are better instructors, etc.

But, principal, staff, lead, and senior are all pretty much the same tech skill level. Promotions to higher levels are mostly based on subjective attributes, like leadership qualities, personable qualities, innovation qualities, etc.

It’s mostly HR process to keep more rungs in individual contributor career track. Way to retain high performance engineers in the career ladder, and show that there are more opportunities for advancement.

They are HR designations to shift salary ranges for senior engineers.

Tech skills top out at senior level, but companies want to be able to pay some senior engineers more than average. Without affecting the senior level range.

It’s also form of title inflation and way to seem like advancing in career ladder.

Some companies have to have a growth track, so it’s a way to give senior level people some form of goal to attain. It’s mostly HR process than any engineering principle.

Software engineering is extremely difficult and there are very few people that can deliver solutions.

High performance software engineers are rare and valuable.

That is the reason why some software engineers make tons more money than others.

BTC is similar to art paintings or Pokémon cards in many regards. The intrinsic value is based on scarcity and perception of people in BTC network.

The main driver of BTC is belief and hype, as more people believe in BTC there’s more hype and increase in demand and price.

Article about recent cancellation attempt on Pedro Domingos.

https://quillette.com/2021/01/27/beating-back-cancel-culture...

AI requires analysis of natural patterns to learn and understand reality. This is unacceptable to far left, since many natural patterns display inconvenient truths.

Therefore, AI research is unacceptable and they are trying to cancel AI research and censor and deplatform AI researchers.

It’s similar to rampant doping in competitive sports, where everyone knows what’s going on. When there are millions of dollars at stake in contracts, prize money, and sponsorships, people will cheat and take risks. Even if they’re caught, the payoffs are usually greater than consequences.

The incentives and payoffs are far, far greater than any type of consequences to the seller. Worst case, they can shut down and start another shill store.

Most people know which countries developed stuxnet and used compromised human agents to place the infected drives into the target system.

The sophistication of the malware required state powers and assistance of the industrial company that manufactured the control systems. Those systems are not cheap and reverse engineering the control system software required detailed knowledge of the embedded hardware and software.

Everyone should google MS Frontpage. And COBOL.

As the saying goes, “What has happened before, will happen again”.

Soon enough, there will be a new scripting language to simplify managing all no code services from the terminal. NoBash.

The latest scientific, technological, engineering, financial innovation is becoming more ruthless, efficient, rent seeking middlemen.

Is it good for science that the richest, most valuable companies in the world, that are worth Trillions of dollars and generate Billions in revenue, are basically slum lords renting out some pixels on screen?

Is it good for society that thousands of engineering hours are spent on getting the boner pill ad faster to you by few milliseconds?

Does Twitter have right to kick someone out for being gay or being Asian or for belonging to some LGBT group?

According to your logic, Twitter can do that.

The company will pay you the lowest amount you are willing to accept. Location has nothing to do with salary rates. If they could find someone at lower salary, anywhere in the world, they would hire that person. They can’t, that’s why they are paying the current salary rates.

The company may use it as an excuse, but you can choose to walk. When enough top level people refuse pay cut, the company will drop the charade quick. Even if just 10% of high performance engineers decide to walk, that would cause major disruptions in the roadmap and cost millions in development costs.

Simply demand higher salary and negotiate. The company will make adjustments to fill the in demand positions. Be prepared to walk away and find the company that will pay the higher salary.

Interesting concepts.

Let’s see if any FAANG companies or standards bodies or top tier open source frameworks adopt the extensions.

Diet is the most important aspect to healthy people.

The saying “you are what you eat” has much deeper meaning.

Just look at the obesity levels in US. The millions of people with heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Looks at pictures of people from 1930s depression era, when lots of people were broke and down on their luck. The people look better and healthier, even with eating the meager food they ate with depression era economy.

The food back then were truly organic and natural, real meats and fats. What we call food now are processed blocks of chemical concoctions with added sugar.

What is the crime rate in Chicago?

Has the crime rate increased or decreased in Chicago?

Does people feel safer living in Chicago ?

The role of police is to reduce crime in Chicago. Is it working?

The lies go on because the establishment media is paid to do propaganda for establishment big business.

Jeff Bezos owns Washington Post. The biggest companies own the media distribution channels, Disney, google, facebook, etc.

Think about that fact when you see all the people being censored and deplatformed.

Think about why the establishment media shouts out racism 24/7, when using anti trust to break up big companies will help all races by improving their economic status?

Why is establishment media fermenting animosity amongst the lower classes, while the establishment people are getting richer by the second?

I’m curious as to why you think it’s brilliant response?

Was it the lack of initiative to do simple google search on gut brain physiological connections? The common phrases gut feeling, gut check, gut intuition are related to the gut brain connection.

Was it the lack of insight into the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on prescription drug propaganda? Google how pharma company marketed Oxicontin, which was huge part of opioid addiction crisis.

Was it the lack of clarity in the scientific community reproducibility crisis? Especially in the drug development fields, where Big Pharma has big incentives to push through dangerous drugs on people? Please Google prescription drug called Vioxx.