> I don't really keep in touch with many coworkers due to time. My friends tend to come from outside of work and they're not software devs.

'friend' is a much higher bar than 'somebody in your network'.

plenty of folks i worked with over the years, who i haven't heard from in decades, but i'd move them to the head of the line if they called up asking about work. i remember who got shit done and who didn't, and don't care that they didn't put in a repeating calendar item to take me out for a beer every 17 months.

I'm not even sure it's higher so much as orthogonal.

Like, I have close friends who I still wouldn't necessarily give a special recommendation about simply because I have no idea what it would be like to work with them on a work project. Or even in some cases, I suspect it wouldn't be all that great because they're obvious slackers about work-type stuff; like when we plan things together, I know I'll need to double check their part of it.

Whereas there are work-colleagues I am absolutely not "friends" with but would recommend for almost any role in a heartbeat.

And there are a very small number that are both: a hard-working colleague who has also become a friend. Those are the people I'd consider quitting my job to start a company with.

I think they were implying that their friends do not overlap with work, while your comment seems to allude to friends you've made from work.

please don't put words in my mouth. i said nothing about being friends with anyone. and you've fundamentally misinterpreted what i said.

you don't need to be friends with someone for them to be in your network.

My apologies. I agree you don't need to be friends to be in someone's network and that's all I was pointing out. I deliberately couched my statement in "I think" and "seems to" because I understand how easy it is to misinterpret in this format. Rewording someone's statement is a way to ensure one understands and allows the other person to correct it, it's not meant to "put words in your mouth." I'm not sure why your tone is so defensive, but thank you for clarifying.

>having to "network" to get a job is much harder after you get older.

hard but I'm not sure about harder than a new grad. contacting someone you worked with years ago is still preferable to cold contacting someone you only have a shallow connection to (same school, maybe you talked for a day at a conference, etc.).

They don't have to be friends, just collogues who can vouch for you.

This is just plain ageism; there is nothing “adjacent” about it. It makes a generally untenable correlation between your age with some other trait that has no bearing on your ability to do the job, then bases decisions using that correlation. The result is discrimination based on your age, plain and simple.

> I don't really keep in touch with many coworkers due to time.

It's not hard to connect with people on Linkedin, even if you haven't seen them in years.

But is some random person you worked with 20 years ago reaches out, what are you going to do?

I would send the a link to the careers page, and that's about it. Unless person was a total rock star, you probably can't speak much to their abilities after so much time.

If I reached out a former colleague for a referral, and they just sent me a link to the careers page, I would be trying to figure out at what point I offended them so deeply. You're not saying that this person is a shoo-in for the role and will be promoted within the year, you're saying that you know what the quality of their work was at the time you worked together.

I can think of people from my first real programming job that I would hire or refer in a heartbeat. I am can also think of a couple who I might just send a link to the careers page.

I mean personally I'd refer them if they didn't suck. Yes, 20 years is a long time but I find that people generally don't change, and successful people are likely to continue being successful.

Going deeper though, obviously networking isn't going to hit every time. That's why you need a whole network and not just one or two people. If the first person you reach out to doesn't want to refer you, it's not a big deal. Just move on to the next one.