I am just about to turn 40. Been developing software for 11 and a half years professionally. I realise that I am a lot better developer than I was a while ago. Actually I have seen a lot more problems, and I have a good idea what will work two months down the line, and what will be a constant fire fighting exercise due to a half though through design.
How do I get this across to employers? All they seem interested is if I have experience in MongoDB (which in 9 out of 10 cases seems to be a crap choice).
Re:Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley
by tmp1234519029 on Tuesday August 12, 2014 @04:48PM
(#8170068)
The typical interview in the silicon valley goes like this:
him: you're coding netflix, which db you use?
you: [insert any relational db name here]
him: but what if you have a gazillion users?
you: ok ok, i'll use mongodb (sigh)
Re:Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley
by optimusclimb on Tuesday August 12, 2014 @01:58PM
(#8169114)
If mongodb is in fact a poor choice for their problem set and they made it anyway, you're better off not being there.
If it WAS the pragmatic or correct choice, then I'd say spend a few days or nights getting up to speed with mongo. Learning to use it is not that hard, it's keeping things working smoothly/tuning when you have a huge cluster and many consumers of it that's hard.
Re:Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley
by JabavuAdams on Tuesday August 12, 2014 @01:51PM
(#8169085)
Start consulting or doing independent contractor work? Apply to Fog Creek software or Trello, and let us know whether the reality is as good as the marketing?
I am based in Spain. The job market for senior developers is a bit tougher here.
Come work with us! We're growing fast and love people with lots of experience.
Would you consider remote?
I am a Django dev (at the moment) and have experience in the financial sector, but I am based in Barcelona.
Re:Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley
by adambratt on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @07:54PM
(#8175524)
We do!
Barcelona is awesome. Our COO is actually from there originally
Judging from your team photo it doesn't look like that :-)
But it is a thought what counts
What I've noticed is that while these companies tend to have older tech guys than you'll find at a lot of startups, it's still a lot younger age-wise than the rest of the business.
I think part of it is that the number of young people who were in tech 20 years ago compared to now was much smaller. This is a new industry and it's not completely far fetched to think that part of the reason why we are missing a lot of grey hairs is that there's simply not as many of them. It's also pretty well known that a lot of older programmers move out of full-time coding roles and into management positions. Granted this isn't universal across the board but it's been proven true in my anecdotal experiences.
Personally, I absolutely love it when I get an applicant who graduated college before 2000. No matter what their skill as a developer, I know they have way more life experience than me. Someone with experience will usually beat out the guy working more hours so for me, it's a no-brainer to hire the older guy who's done it all than a young whipper snapper who's super ambitious but has a massive ego.