I haven't upvoted a story so fast in ages! j/k

In 2022, I interviewed with a company... in crypto.

I was the oldest in the company by a decade at least. They kept telling me they wanted experience. I have plenty, of experience. I was cautiously optimistic.

They eventually failed me on a test of reactJS. The funniest part was when I asked for feedback, the reason they gave me, were showing poor engineering technique on their end; a lack of understanding of what makes it down the wire.

So they wanted experience, but not the experience that prevents them from making mistakes of their own; not an experience that threatened their views. I realised this later. Young rock-star developers want experienced people around them, maybe, but they want to be free to reinvent the wheel on a whim.

Now when I interview some place and I eerily feel old, I just bow out respectfully. No point wasting everyone's time.

▲

ChrisMarshallNY 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My automatic “red flag” was btree tests. As soon as I saw one of those, I knew I was wasting my time.

I was especially annoyed by recruiters that couldn’t do math. They loved all my experience, but ghosted me, as soon as they realized it came with gray hair. I guess the place is crawling with 35-year-olds with 30 years of experience.

As it turned out, I ended up giving up, and just retiring. I had the means, but wanted to keep working for at least another decade. I really enjoyed adding value. I was especially interested in helping small companies get on their feet, as my particular skillset would have been almost ideal for that, and my “nest egg” gave me a pretty good risk tolerance, along with a willingness to take a lower base.

Turns out that these were the exact companies that didn’t want me, though.

Also turned out that I really loved being retired. I have been doing more work in the last eight years, than in a couple of decades previously. I just don’t get paid for it, and I’m fine with that. In fact, I actively resist pursuing a paycheck, as I don’t want to deal with knuckleheads, anymore.

I just had to have my hand forced. I would not have voluntarily done this.

▲

RubberbandSoul 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's easy to get bitter about these things. "Experience" seems to be code for: "we've spent fifteen years painting ourself into a corner and now we need a guy who will get us out of it in three months or less". You are however not allowed to give any feedback whatsoever about their processes, priorities, organization, promotion strategies, retention policies, etc.

Having experience usually means that you've acquired a holistic view of software development. Usually the hard way. But they want solutions, not advice or opinions.

I've met a few devs that makes a living like that. Get in, solve problems. Keep quiet. Get out. Wait for them to call back in a couple of years.

▲

pjc50 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You are however not allowed to give any feedback whatsoever about their processes, priorities, organization, promotion strategies, retention policies, etc.

Ironically, the only people who have social permission to do that are extremely expensive Big Name outside consultants. Who will then do one of two things: either speak to the staff, collate what they have to say, and launder it back to the boss; or produce a thinly veiled adaptation of whatever business book the CEO last read in an airport.

▲

pjmlp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is a reason why when life pushed me away from product development into consulting/agency work, I hated it at first and eventually I learnt to appreciate the positive side of it.

Usually those kind of companies won't hire old employees, while at the same time will gladly pay for consulting knowledge to solve their problems.

Also while product companies tend to hire folks that the very last thing they worked on checks all bullet points on the HR job ad, agencies will gladly throw people at a problem regardless of the skills list, as long as the team learns to swimm fast enough.

	▲	pjc50 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> agencies will gladly throw people at a problem regardless of the skills list, as long as the team learns to swim fast enough. I did a few years at a company which was "product development consultancy", and this aspect of it was really enjoyable. We got a set of diverse challenges through the door, often "virtual startups" (CEO hiring consultants rather than staff in order to do v1 of a product). The company was basically a single room, and we had two senior guys (the founders) to review work and support us. Plus one "smartest guy in the room" who served as mathematician fire-support for things like signal processing or the rare actual DS&A problem.