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A job is worth what it is. Hoping they'll underbid is taking advantage. Nice way to start an employer-employee relationship.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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The guy who I've worked with for 35 years said something that has always stuck with me:
"When negotiating, it is very important that both parties leave satisfied."
Otherwise bad business. The problem with engineers, coders, and techies is that most have no experience here. And companies take advantage. Brutally. I'd almost think universities would require a couple of classes...
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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When you have a range in mind, and don't say what it is, you're wasting everyone's time.
"Negotiating" involves knowing the parameters. If you meet the minimum, expect the minimum, not less because you underbid yourself; that will only create resentment.
And if one knows the maximum, and doesn't like it, don't apply ... so "bitching" that they want "too much" doesn't even come into play.
But some people like playing games and jerking others around.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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What is wrong with you? Did you miss the smiley?
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I was wondering why you singled me out for your "lecture", so I decided to take you up on it.
Your responses put you in the "vague jobs to avoid category".
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Gerry - we're in the lounge. Think of it as a conversation... you can't read my body language and I cannot read yours. It was not my intention to single you out in any way. If you took it that way, my apologies.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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And I was simply taking up the points you brought up ... based on experience.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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With respect to declining cognitive ability, I think it happens to everyone with age. But if we keep exercising our brain, learning and applying new techniques and technologies, it can grately slow down this decline.
I know that there are times when my memory about general things have faded a bit. But with respect to software technology it is all there. I have spent the last 5 years learning and working with Azure technologies with no issue. And at the same time if I had to, I could go back and write assembler code for DOS (no laughing, I actually had a significant DOS app to work on a few years ago).
Use it or lose it...
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It's mainly more difficult to want to work. Ah, the exuberance of youth, the "really, more of this BS?" of experience.
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Older developers have the experience to demand more money. Cheapskate employers want the work done as cheaply as possible. Younger people are much more willing to do the work for a lot less money. It's really not much more complicated than that.
Myself, I'm 48, and work with a 63- and a 57-year old. Over the last few years we've also hired people in their mid-20s and 30s. I wouldn't trade working with these older people for anything in the world...whereas the younger ones don't last long because they can't deliver.
As far as I'm concerned, there's also a work ethics problem with the younger ones--and as much as I hate to generalize, they're all proving me wrong. We all work remotely, and all make ourselves available to everybody else throughout the core hours (chat through IM, voice calls, etc). At least us older guys do. The younger guys can go without a response for hours at a time.
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you speak wisely. I have lived this. Youngster (not being disrespectful) came to me with a critical issue, deadlines, etc. It was Friday 4pm. I said, "hey, meet me in the lab tomorrow at 7am..."
He gave me *that* look  or  "but tomorrow is Saturday, I don't work weekends...." immediately me, the old fossil realized it wasn't that much of an emergency.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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As a South African and someone who has been coding for 40 years, I don't believe it is a local market problem nor is it only with regards to developers.
Price may be an issue, but you get what you pay for. It is not about skill level.
There is a perception that old people only know old stuff. A good techie can and will adapt to new technologies, or they wouldn't still be in the industry.
I believe one of the main reasons is that youngsters are naive and are easier to mold into a culture and adapt to a management style. Us old dogs don't like being taught new tricks.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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Wizard of Sleeves wrote: Us old dogs don't like being taught new tricks. bullshit
FTFY 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I can only speak from personal experience. I'm 64 yrs old and have switched jobs 4 times in the last 6 years, the first time because I worked at the previous job for almost 10 years and thought a change might do me good, then two times because I didn't like the company culture and the last time was because of the covid pandemic. My last job was really pleasant and I was heartbroken when they had to let me go due to the circumstances but I landed my current job within 2 weeks after applying and I'm equally happy here.
Being open to constantly learning new skills and technology is key to staying relevant, obviously, and frankly it's what has kept me going all these years. I would have died off slowly in a job where I'd have to do the same thing over and over for years on end.
So yeah, if you're willing to learn new skills on a regular basis, and keep up with current tech, you can get employed even at an advanced age, at least that's the current employment situation in the Netherlands where I live.
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In my country (Sweden) it is mostly the sme but for some years I have seen more posts for senior developers. Of courde most employers want someone with 30 years experience and is 25 years old though  .
Most companies does not value experience high enough and especially understanding the business domain which in mnay cases is just as imprtant as understanding how to code. Companies also overestimate their own processes and ability to form new developers. But development is more a craft/art than an industrial process.
I think who you are is more important than your age. Old developers might be bad because they have always been bad and never improved. And other older developers might be adapt to new technology and being able to change just as easily than a young developer.
And some younger developers think just because they have learned to solve problems a specific way using some pattern(s) that it is the only way to solve ANY problem and produce over-designed code complicating an easy problems just because they want to follow some rigid rule.
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I spent so many years learning my tricks. I want to see a newbie make the AJAX pages I make and make them always work.
I want to see a newbie that knows about the patterns to use to make an app maintainable. I work with a guy who is a better coder than I am but his code isn't designed to be maintainable. What is more valuable to a company since the largest cost of code is its maintenance? Heck, you can't even debug much of it let alone figure out what the error messages really mean. When there's an error, my code reports it, its location, the faulty data and who to blame for it.
I'm older but I just spent an enormous amount of time getting my AWS Architect cert, changing to git, and upgrading to .Net Core ... and we just got a manager that thinks Python is an enterprise language and that .Net only works on Azure.
Nah, I think experience is a valuable thing because it works.
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Absolutely.
I am tired of the cold. When is summer coming? Wear your mask!
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I'm 60 and can retire from my current spot as a team lead/developer. I've sent a lot of job applications out, had a fair amount of remote interviews, but no job offers even though I'm more than qualified for most of those positions. I think there's a bias against hiring guys my age. I'm pretty much reconciled to the fact I'll be working at Costco post retirement, which is fine.
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Part of that might be that your close to the normal retirement age of 65. But a company could hire you as a mentor to pass on your knowledge.
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I think you nailed it on the head. Another aspect (I am 65) is that new fads in code development like agile and DevOps tend to be something programmers used to thinking find hard to accept whole cloth and hiring managers (or teams) my be leary of being questioned.
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interviewed two decades ago with a company. The PM was a twit and the lead consultant was a pompous twit that could spout acronyms but didn't do anything. I solved a development issue the team was having in 30 seconds. Still didn't get the job. Pretty sure the twit figured out what I thought of him.
One thing you have to realize. I rarely come across people who can actually hire people smarter than them. And it's getting worse.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Pretty much exactly what I ran into. It wasn't my attitude or what my face told him I thought of him as I was eager and excited to get the job, but you cannot alter opinions of the inferior.
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welcome to the other side of the hill.
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One of the things I find a bit troubling is when you see a posting for a senior developer with 3-5 years in the core technology requirement.
My own experience working with such developers (generally) is that is about the time to kick off the training wheels. (Some exceptions apply, but not many)
So if 5 years of experience makes you a senior dev, what about us with 20, 30 or even 40 years of professional experience? Where do we fit in?
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Because of the growth rate of software jobs, the average first-level manager is about 30. A person with that little experience cannot understand the value of experience because he doesn't have any. What he does understand is that the resume of a person with 30 years of experience doesn't look like the resumes of his best workers, who are also around 30. He may decide your experience is irrelevant. But you demand for more pay is extremely relevant. Being as old as his dad may also be a negative.
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