I find myself biasing towards older devs. The old guys tend to trend towards reliable tech, reliable architectures. They're done playing around. They have families at home, so they want to get the work done... and go home. They do things that they know will work. They might not be using whatever the fad of the day is... and sometimes there are missed opportunties from that. But more often it means the stuff they build has less bullshit issues that comes from untested, immature technology.
That said, older devs can be very stubborn. If in the interview I detect that I'm not going to be able to work well with the person. I might pass.
I know you are trying to be kind but what you are doing here is expressing ageist prejudices.
You wouldn’t (I hope) write something ascribing specific behaviors to all female devs, or Indian devs, right? So please don’t do the same for older ones.
I’m in my forties and quite capable of getting caught up in the excitement over a new technology. On the other hand I think I’ve matured out of the stubbornness I had in my twenties. I’ve met young developers who get so caught up in the mastery of their first tech stack that they aren’t ready to go back to being a beginner again, and haven’t seen enough ways of solving problems to recognize that what they think is the only right way to solve a problem could possibly have an alternative.
If you’re looking for ‘use boring technology’ enthusiasts and people open to changing their mind, go out and interview and hire for those attributes, wherever you find them - but don’t assume they’re only going to be found in older developers. And if you’re looking for someone to explore new technology, consider that an older dev might be just as enthusiastic as a junior, rather than assuming.
I think you have to be of a certain age to be in the "use boring technology" mindset. You either need to have been burned by new fads or been around long enough to see everything as a rehash of something from decades ago.
Interesting. Would you, when interviewing a 30-something fresh out of Etsy, assume they were unlikely to be a 'boring technology' advocate?
Because 'Choose Boring Technology' was originally an essay/talk given by Dan McKinley[1] describing the lessons he had learned at Etsy, which he left in 2014, approximately 12 years into his career. His strongest motivating example of a case where he 'chose boring technology' is a system his team built in 2010, when he would have been, I think, around 30. Is that 'a certain age'?
I think you misunderstood my intention. I don't go into the hiring process explicitly thinking about the ideal hire from an age/sex/race point of view. I look for a series of soft skills, because I personally believe it's easier to teach technical skills, than it is to teach a person new ways of thinking... or give them experience to avoid common pitfalls. My point though is that the set of attributes I care most about, are biased. If I looked for "new fad technology" experience first, I might find a few old guys, but i'll probably end up with a larger pool of young guys excited to try new things... which I DO want on the team too, but I don't want a whole team of them.
Do you believe you are as likely to find a 'use boring technology' enthusiast when interviewing a young developer as when interviewing an older developer?
If what I'm looking for is an experienced developer to round out a team (e.g. if it has a bunch of junior devs already), then I'm gonna look pretty silly interviewing a freshly graduated 23-year old. I'm not going to assume any old dev is wise or experienced, but I'll use heuristics and basic logic to figure out who it even makes sense to interview.
Stubbornness is the killer. The young just don’t have anything to be stubborn about, but for a manager one greybeard who knows how to cause problems by digging their heels in will make your life hell. The fact that they are probably right just adds to the pain.
> The young just don’t have anything to be stubborn about
... except that "things should be done RIGHT", "my professor would hate these hacks", "why are you using boring-tech when everyone else on the intertubes is using OMGTEKK", etc etc.
I think the "stubborn" label on older men is very similar to the "bitch" label on women: whenever one meets a person who can actually fight his/her corner with calm and rationality in a way that is not easily assailable by "common feelings", it is rationalised as s/he being fundamentally unreasonable, not as my arguments being weak.
"The fact that they are probably right just adds to the pain."
100% true. It's the dichotomy of leadership. Typically in engineering environments, the debate will be to take a risk or not. Risks can have rewards, but they can also have costs. The old guy knows the costs, but the rewards are less certain. The young guy only has a fuzzy idea on the rewards and the risks. As a leader, you have to look at both sides and assess if the reward is worth the risk. Sometimes that means telling the old guy, you're right... but I want to try anyways.
The young have lots of passion, but they can be distracted by the next shiny thing. Managing passion is easy compared to managing the stubbornness gained from experience.
The young have plenty of stuff to be stubborn about. At my company we've wasted so much time because people are stubborn about using some new tech or library.
Hammer/nail syndrome. And often people early in their careers who have managed to get some modicum of fame/motivation/movement around a particular hammer run around finding nails everywhere. And there are some who are particularly effective at shoving whole organizations in their preferred direction. Not to say people at my stage in their career don't do this, too, but it does tend to happen among the young and... motivated.
That said, older devs can be very stubborn. If in the interview I detect that I'm not going to be able to work well with the person. I might pass.