[mk89]

It's also true that you have now 20+ years of experience. The higher you go, the harder it gets - you might want a different role, etc etc.

If on the other hand you're competing with senior sw devs with 5+ years of experience, there could also be other factors to keep in mind (age, ability in very specific tech stacks, etc).

I think companies are still hiring, but more focused, unlike in 2021-2022 when they over-hired "just in case".

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> 20+ years of experience

Welcome to my world.

In-company recruiters are often quite helpful and accommodating, but, as soon as one single tech person gets involved, the temperature drops 30 degrees.

Standalone recruiters send me these breathless emails, extolling my qualifications, but, as soon as they find out my age, they ghost me. I have actually had recruiters hang up on me, as soon as I told them my age. I learned to just mention that up front, to get the ghosting out of the way.

Apparently, they aren't very good at math. I list 30 years+ experience, yet they seem to think that I'm under 35.

After a while, I just gave up, and accepted that I'm retired.

It's not the money; it's the "culture." Many folks, much younger, and much more inexperienced, are paid more than I ever made, in my entire career. I would have gladly accepted less money than I had made before. I don't really need it. The work is what interests me.

[itsoktocry]

>I would have gladly accepted less money than I had made before. I don't really need it. The work is what interests me.

We need an acceptable way to express this, without desperately extolling you'll take less money. I think a lot of us "old guys" are in the same boat; I don't need 150k, I'll take 100k if the work is interesting, and I'm more likely to be loyal to boot.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> I'm more likely to be loyal

The funny thing, is that I've been told that "Old people are just cruising to retirement," but it's OK to establish your entire business infrastructure on the idea that your young, energetic, engineers will not remain at the company for more than 18 months.

[mk89]

> Old people are just cruising to retirement,

That is just BS. In my company we have quite a few 50+ and it's nice to work with them. They add exactly what younger people can't.

Reality is: They need to squeeze every dollar as much as they can. If they could, they would never hire:

1. People with kids

2. Older than 33-35 (more often than not also 1)

3. Disabled

4. Often sick People (give me your history of sick leave, that kind of stuff)

5. Anything else I am missing?

Just freaking replaceable robots.

[winrid]

I really knocked a smile off a CTO once when I said I wanted to have another kid.

[itsoktocry]

>but it's OK to establish your entire business infrastructure on the idea that your young, energetic, engineers will not remain at the company for more than 18 months.

Yeah, it's a tough nut.

It's understandable that SV companies want ambitious strivers that move on every 2 years, for the same reason many of these CEOs consider the "job done" as soon as they get "an exit". The life of the company is measured in months.

But if you're building a company for the long term, you need smart, loyal people who build institutional knowlededge within the company. This isn't something you can fast track, I don't care if you're the brightest MIT AI grad.

You need both.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I was just struggling, this morning, with the Apple App Store Connect Web interface.

We're in the final stages of releasing an app, so we're spending a lot of time on that Web app.

It's...challenging. I know that they have big issues with security, privacy, and sheer scope (I'll bet they get millions of submissions, every day), but the site is dog-slow, the CDN breaks constantly, I need to refresh the page quite often, and they seem to forget where I was, the last time; necessitating that I follow the breadcrumbs back to where I was (I have admin accounts on several orgs).

I've released over 20 apps on the store, and have dealt with this, for a while. It's actually getting worse.

But Apple is a multi-trillion-dollar company. I think they could afford for this to work a bit more smoothly, and, quite frankly, I'm surprised, as they have some of the best, and most experienced engineers on the planet, working for them. These are the types of things that lots of sites seem to be doing quite well.

</rant>

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> get "an exit"

It seems that many startups don’t actually have a product, other than the startup, itself.

A “successful exit” means that the company is sold. The company is the product.

I have spent my entire career at companies that made actual products, for use by actual end-users. These corporations never had any “exit strategy,” because they were meant to be ongoing, perpetual, concerns. They had “future planning,” and “growth strategies,” that often looked a decade into the future.

Things have changed.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U4zlA6NoSVE

[arp242]

Isn't age discrimination literally illegal pretty much everywhere? Proving it is always hard, but "they hang up on me as soon as I tell them my age" seems pretty clear-cut.

It's probably not even legal to ask in some jurisdictions.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I suspect that it's not so easy to prove with external recruiters, and that may explain the difference in demeanor between the two types of recruiter. The standalone ones aren't on the hook for $MEGACORP's brand and legal.

They just start saying "Hello?, Hello?, Are you there?," etc. It's a convenient way to hang up on people.

[arp242]

That's why I like the "make it illegal to even ask"-type of policy. At some of these American firms they asked me things like my sexual orientation and religion, aspects you often can't infer from appearance, and that always seemed rather odd to me – I'll just have to trust it won't be used to discriminate. If I don't tell this information I know they can't.

Things like age, gender, and ethnic group are harder because you can't always conceal that. Still, "don't ask, don't tell" during the hiring process seems like the best option here.

[linuxftw]

Maybe try changing over to management? You might have a shot at a non-tech centric company.

Also, don't be above lying about your age.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I was a manager. That's actually a problem.

I don't lie; especially in my profession. It's a thing. I know that personal Integrity is considered a "quaint anachronism," in today's world, but I won't compromise on that.

[acdha]

You’re right not to compromise and even if you were less ethical, that’s something which is easily detected and could lead to being fired with no recourse. It’s very reasonable for a company to say someone who lies about simple facts can’t be trusted with anything else.

[hattmall]

You certainly don't have to lie, but there's no reason you can't simply calculate your age differently. The common 365 days to a year for age isn't a universal given.

[Natsu]

You'll be a little less than half as old if you pretend to be a Martian with their 687 Earth days per Martian year.

Just don't go with Neptune, it takes almost 165 years before you turn 1 there.

[Tommah]

My grandfather used to say that he was "35 and a few months."

[gedy]

I'm actually aiming lower in role and salary due to more senior roles being very sparse in my network.

I'm not disagreeing with you per se, but the tech economy seems much worse recently and I don't think I'm suddenly worse, stale, or less productive.