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Ask Slashdot: Are We Older Experts Being Retired Too Early?
caferace writes "I've been around the block. I'm a long-time worker in the tech industry (nearly 30 years), absolutely kickass SQA and Hardware person, networking, you name it. But I'm 50+ now, and finding new regular or contract work is a pain. And it shouldn't be. I have the skills and the aptitude to absorb and adapt to any new situations and languages way beyond what any of my college age brethren might have. But when I send out a perfectly good resume and use the more obvious resources there are still precious few bites for someone requiring to work remotely. Am I just whining, or is this common? Are we being put out to pasture far too early?"
They can get someone younger for much less pay.... and that's basically, it.
You pay for experience, and employers don't want to pay for yours.
Exactly. Hire someone half your age, pay them half as much, make them work twice as hard until they are an age and have enough experience where they start expecting pay rises then fire them and hire youngsters again. Its almost a fiduciary responsibility.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
But when I send out a perfectly good resume and use the more obvious resources there are still precious few bites for someone requiring to work remotely
How come nobody has commented on this part? No matter what age you are, requiring that you work remotely is going to make things difficult, no matter your age.
which is totally what she said
They *THINK* they can get someone younger for much less pay.
And they *THINK* they will get all the experience from that younger person too.
What sets us "old farts" apart from the younger folks is that when we started, computers, software and infrastructure weren't half as complex as they are today. And we have seen it all grow. With that, we still know what happens under the hood. We still recognize a failing harddisk, a bad memory problem, a network routing issue etc, when the young guys just see their mouse, tablet or app not doing what they expect. The young folks know where to look when things work. We know where to look when things fail. Employers do not recognize that until they are hit by disaster.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
How come nobody has commented on this part? No matter what age you are, requiring that you work remotely is going to make things difficult, no matter your age.
Seconded. Not just "would like to work from home" but "requiring" - from the outset. I scanned the question in less time than scanning a CV and those words ("requiring to work remotely") jumped out - CV in the round filing thing in based on that alone, didn't even register the age range being complained about.
I've worked remotely in several jobs and contracts, but only after being on-site first and proving myself and establishing with the client / employer which parts of the work can be done remotely - and always being prepared to be on site when required. I am not even sure how you could work remotely doing hardware and networks - but certainly not going to find out by trialing someone who is not prepared to be on site.
At the end of the day, you are selling yourself with your CV and if no one is buying then you are selling the wrong thing or at the wrong price - and IMO "remote working only" is the wrong thing (unless you are an awful lot cheaper - i.e. India rates - and then it's usually the wrong thing but some people do buy...)
I don't understand how this happens. Are these people not social? Are they not assertive? Do they not push back? I'm a few years away from 40, so I don't think I qualify for that range just yet, but the people I work with who are a good deal older than me are aggressive in voicing their disagreements, pointing out where things are fucked, not accepting shitty practices, and pushing for things to be corrected. They don't sit quietly by while products, processes, or themselves are screwed. Where the younger guys may be timid, the more seasoned among them will firmly tell you your shit is fucked and encourage you (and help, if needed) to unfuck it.
Anytime you describe yourself as "kickass," you come off as a jerk. Then you demand to work remotely. Surely there are people out there with adequate skills, who aren't jerks and will show up at the office once in a while.
they think they know what they're doing, but when you ask them an SQL question they use a sequence of nested queries without any join statements.
And what exactly is wrong with that?
Query optimizer will generally convert a nested query into a join when necessary. And for a non-correlated nested query (and possibly some particularly shaped indexes) nesting is probably a better answer to begin with.
Exactly. He isn't being passed over for younger engineers. He is being passed over for Indian engineers. If the employer wants a remote worker, then it doesn't matter much if the worker is the next town over or the other side of the world.
Don't overlook the fact that "30 years of experience" is partly valuable on what they can teach the other staff members.
Working remotely is going to have less of an impact on what the other workers know. (If any at all.)
Why pay for "30 years", when "5 years and can share some of that with others" will do the job?
they think they know what they're doing, but when you ask them an SQL question they use a sequence of nested queries without any join statements.
And what exactly is wrong with that?
Query optimizer will generally convert a nested query into a join when necessary. And for a non-correlated nested query (and possibly some particularly shaped indexes) nesting is probably a better answer to begin with.
You speak the truth. Look at it this way:
select something from table1 where id in (select table1_id from table2 where name ilike '%smith%');
or
select table1.something from table1 inner join table2 using table1.id=table2.table1_id where table2.name ilike '%smith%';
They're equivalent, and if you're using a reasonable rdbms (I use PostgreSQL) they end up being optimized identically. IMHO, the first one is far easier to read and understand, particularly if you start adding even more and more tables and restrictions. Something I've picked up over the last 25 years of paid IT work is that maintainability trumps nearly everything else given the price disparity between hardware and human time. (obviously there are limits to that)
In my company I maintain tons of code that I've written over the last 15 years. People call me up and expect for me to be able to look at code that I wrote 10 years ago and make changes. How about places where there's actual staff turnover? Writing readable and maintainable code is just better.
Do you have ESP?