Top Programming Languages 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-top-programming-languages-2019 <comment><USER2> For comparison:

TIOBE Index - [https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe- index/](https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)

        1. Java
        2. C
        3. Python
        4. C++
        5. C#
        6. Visual Basic .NET
        7. JavaScript
        8. PHP
        9. Objective-C
        10. SQL

Language popularity on Github: [https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html](https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html) [https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/](https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/)

        1. JavaScript
        2. Java
        3. Python
        4. PHP
        5. C++
        6. C#
        7. TypeScript
        8. Shell
        9. C
        10. Ruby

StackOverflow Developer Survey [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology)

        1. JavaScript
        2. HTML/CSS
        3. SQL
        4. Python
        5. Java
        6. Bash/Shell/PowerShell
        7. C#
        8. PHP
        9/10 C++ / TypeScript (varies between surveys)

<comment><USER3> honest question: why so much difference ?

<comment><USER4> Different sample sets and age distributions. I'd assume many Enterprise-y devs don't have a history on GitHub.

<comment><USER5> These type of "top/best/most popular" programming languages lists are usually inaccurate. It's a subjective question that has a slew of variables that skew the results. Like Javascript, for example, is always in the top 10, usually in the top 5, languages but being the only language we have for front end web development and the popularity of web apps of course a crapton of developers are using JS now. That doesn't mean JS is superior to less popular languages or that the majority of JS devs use JS because it's better. We just currently don't have a choice at this time when it comes to web development. Is JS popular because it's the better language or are we just stuck using it out of necessity which drives up it's perceived popularity? There's no way to tell with these types of lists and honestly I think the latter is true with JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Considering HTML a programming language, and not knowing the relationship between Arduino and C++, would seem to call into question the validity of their conclusions. If you're going to include HTML, you should include CSV, JPEG, Word, and URLs too.

Also, why are bash and Excel missing? They're clearly programming languages in precisely the way HTML is not, and they're clearly a lot more popular than some of the items on the list.

<comment><USER7> They do at least address this:

> Below the top 10, some items of note include Arduino at No. 11 and HTML/CSS > at No. 12. In previous years, some readers have complained that neither > should appear on a list of programming languages. In the case of Arduino, > the argument is that there is no such language, that "Arduino" is actually > the name of the family of hardware platforms on which the language runs, and > that this language should be called Wiring (or sometimes C or C++ for > historical reasons). In this, we are led by simple pragmatism: When faced > with a programming question, the overwhelming majority of Arduino developers > search Google using terms like "Arduino Code for…," rather than any > alternative. By choosing the de facto name, we avoid deeply discounting the > popularity of programs written for the Arduino and similar microcontrollers.

>Pragmatism is also the name of the game when it comes to HTML, with the objection here that it is not a real programming language because it doesn't have branching or loop constructs. But given the huge popularity of HTML and CSS among developers, and the fact that they are used to instruct billions of computers to do things daily, we feel any academic arguments about Turing completeness and so on are beside the point. A markup language is still a language.

<comment><USER6> Yes, those are the incorrect arguments I was responding to. (The relationship between Arduino and C++ is not historical.) Thank you for taking the time to quote them!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An important thing note is that the weights that go into the rankings can be fully customized: [https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top- program...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/interactive-the-top-programming- languages-2019)

The ranking shown on the linked article shows a weighting that's deemed to be relevant to IEEE Spectrum readers, which have a focus on Electrical Engineering.

Setting the weighting to be 100% Hacker News, Ladder Logic ends up in the middle and JavaScript is nearly at the bottom. Like most other Top X programming articles, this one should be treated as a bit of fun and shouldn't heavily inform your choice of language.

</comment><comment><USER9> R above JavaScript? Matlab above Go? Something tells me that the ranking algorithm is broken.

<comment><USER10> I looked a bit at the ranking weights in the interactive tool. The biggest factor is IEEEXplore, the repository of all of their journals. R and Matlab are used a lot in science, whereas no one is going to do a signal denoising algorithm prototype in JavaScript for example.

<comment><USER6> > _no one is going to do a signal denoising algorithm prototype in JavaScript > for example._

This has been a big problem for me in Dercuano; the notes in it about signal processing and circuits vary between impenetrable and handwavy (and, in the worst cases, both) in large part because I'm doing my prototypes in IPython with Numpy or in Falstad's circuit.js, and there's just no reasonable way to include that in Dercuano itself. So I'm trying to figure out how to make prototyping signal processing algorithms in JS a reasonable thing to do. I don't expect to have feature parity with Octave, but I feel like it should be possible to improve on the VT100-based user interface featured even by Octave and Rstudio, and offer equal or better performance and enough conveniently accessible features that it's practical for at least what I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Adding another ranking that updates every few months and in my opinion affects a bit more of reality is the Redmonk rankings:

[https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2019/07/18/language- rankings-6-1...](https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2019/07/18/language- rankings-6-19/)

There top 10 is:

      1. JavaScript
      2. Java
      3. Python
      4. PHP
      5. C++
      5. C#
      7. CSS
      8. Ruby
      9. C
      10. TypeScript

<comment><USER12> Hmmm CSS as programming language?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So happy to see that Python's popularity is still rising, and there seem to be no slow down of the momentum.

I got in touch with Python in the 90s but back then it did not convince me. Later in the 90s Perl was much more attraktive (because of Regexes and later because of CPAN).

In the early 2000s Python was a better alternative to Perl given all the basic data structures (Perl's nested lists were using pointers; how unintuitive for a high level language), Perl's module system wasn't intuitive amd beautiful either. Finally I could not write large systems in Perl because I of many reasons. So I tried Python, and it immediately replaced Perl for me.

Later Ruby seemed very attractive (for someone who was heavily influenced by Scheme and SICP). But Python seemed to have more momentum. So I played around with Ruby, but always stayed with Python for serious tasks.

Now, twenty years later I know there are many other programming languages who are more beautiful in my eyes (functional, for instance Elixir), but I absolutely love working with Python: its elegance, its ecosystem, community, resources. I can tackle all sorts of problems with it. And it seems it will be around in the next twenty years.

<comment><USER6> Python nested lists use pointers too; this is normal for high-level languages, as I explore in some depth in [http://canonical.org/~kragen/memory- models/](http://canonical.org/~kragen/memory-models/). Look:

        >>> x = [[3, 4], 5]
        >>> y = [6, x[0]]
        >>> y[1][1] = 7
        >>> x
        [[3, 7], 5]

Octave and Tcl are the exceptions here, and of course in Racket (and maybe in Clojure?) the pointer semantics aren't visible as they are above, but do affect performance.

I like Python a lot (I edited the Weekly Python-URL for a while) but it took me longer to switch to it --- most of 2000 and 2001, really. I still occasionally reach for perl for quick command-line things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ignore this garbage list.

If you select any single crosstab (under "create custom ranking"), you can see the data is mostly bogus.

Looking at "Google (trends)", PHP is at #48, below Perl (#37), Delphi (#40) and Fortran (#41) - here's the actual data: [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=perl,php](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=perl,php)

For "Github (active)" PHP places at #7 below Dart (#2) and Julia (#3) (which contradicts GitHub's own stats: [https://octoverse.github.com/projects#languages](https://octoverse.github.com/projects#languages)).

For "Hacker News" it's at #51 (which makes little sense given the number of PHP-related articles posted here).

</comment><comment><USER15> Regrettably, reasonable reflection refuses recognition of R's resplendent ranking.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think part of MATLAB's popularity comes from many colleges requiring students to use it.

<comment><USER6> You're probably right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting to still see Matlab above Go, Swift and Ruby. Outside of some niche areas (control systems a.o.) it's not that much used in production iirc, and it's slowly being faded out at universities for things like signal processing.

<comment><USER17> Not sure the list is accurate. R shouldn't be that high, for example. I recently looked into it and bought a book to learn R, even though it seemed to be falling in popularity.

Also, Swift is still less popular than Objective C, but SwiftUI should soon change that.

<comment><USER6> I feel like if you're doing anything statistical beyond the basics, R is still a better option than anything else out there. Also, ggplot2 is best in class for producing static data visualizations, and it's R-only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The fight is not between languages, but between full echo system of open source libraries for each language.

For example, for web dev, the echo system of js make it the lang of choice. For cloud native/system prog , go lang. For ML - python.

Those ranks are meaningless.

<comment><USER19> While I can certainly see why you could call such communities an "echo system", I think you might mean "ecosystem".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How comes Javascript is not on desktop in this ranking?

<comment><USER6> Profound lack of knowledge on the part of those who designed the study, I think.

<comment><USER21> Or the fact that PhD engineers aren't making websites for a living.

<comment><USER6> That could contribute to the authors having profound ignorance about making websites, I suppose, if the authors were PhD engineers; it doesn't sound like an alternative explanation, but rather a more detailed one. But we were talking here about the authors' profound ignorance about making desktop applications, not websites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I guess that it's important to remember that any results are highly coloured by the opinions of the person making up the servey. Also, I don't see any explanation of how they acquired the results, just that it's different and better than other years.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not entirely sure it is possible to make a conclusion on which language is best.

For me, I use Python for dirty scripts, as well use C# for exploit development, it is very hard to conclude on a topic that is highly subjective.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you are a new programmer, there is one major omission to this and the other lists: binary notation.

That is the #1 language that all these others are built on, and it has remained #1 year in and year out for 80 years (it appeared on the list in the late 1600's, rose to #1, and has sat there ever since).</comment>


Michigan Terminal System Archive - <AUTHOR> http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org

<comment><USER2> I spent 3/4 of my Undergraduate life on MTS, and _Forum was basic the social hub of a large chunk of nerdy students (myself included). The fact that that MTS VT100 and IBM terminals were all over the place (Literally Terminals - great, big 20 pound CRT monstrosities that had been in place for 10+ years) - meant you could login for just a few minutes anywhere on campus - kind of a precursor to todays mobility (as long as you were on campus).

Being able to print your big 500 page print job on the Central Laser Printer, and having it wait for you in your output box (I was XGEC), was also pretty awesome - and it provided 24x7 jobs for the people working in the Computing Center.

It's kind of a shame that I never really used/learned the system the same way I did with Unix - I really treated it like a large BBS environment, that I could also do some programming homework on.

But, time moved on, and by 1992/1993, MTS was starting to show it's age, and our researchers and faculty were becoming increasingly annoyed at the "IT Managers" who literally refused to take direction - as though the system was run for _their* benefit, instead of the campus benefit.

So, in a day remembered as Bloody Tuesday at SFU - the _entire_ Sr. Management team was publicly terminated, and the remaining employees were told they had exactly one year to replace all of the MTS (and IBM 3090 (3081?) system with Unix systems and NFS file storage.

One year later, we entered the brave world of Unix - which, while I have fond memories of MTS, was a far, far better system to prepare undergraduates for the world that awaited them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used the MTS system at the University of Alberta as an Engineering undergraduate in the 1980s. At the beginning of the year, you were budgeted a certain number of CPU seconds which you couldn't exceed. We were VERY careful about not accidentally coding infinite loops. There was a room full of VT100 terminals that we used, but if you needed hard copy, you had to trudge across campus to the building where the burst printer lived.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty legendary system at the University of Michigan. The old timers still talk about all the time.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, as I recall, about half of my programming classes required me to write programs to run on MTS. 'Course, we studied IBM mainframe assembly language in one class...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> MTS is historically very important. The original version, for the IBM 360/67, was the first OS to support virtual machines. The 360/67 was the first machine with protection hardware to support a hypervisor. All IBM S/370s and later got that hardware because MTS proved its usefulness.

IBM got hypervisors right. You could run another copy of the OS under itself. The virtual machine looks just like the real machine to a program. And yes, it nests; VM under VM under VM... is possible.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have fond memories of MTS. While it was clunky in many ways, it was generally adequate and occasionally turned out to have features more advanced than contemporaries. For example, the ability to limit access to a file by "program key" (PKEY) as well as by user/project was a far superior alternative to setuid. (I learned about this in 1985 or so; not sure when the feature appeared.)

Ah, the good old days. Perusing the previous user's history on an Ontel terminal, chatting through MERIT concentrators, and good old MTS. I don't miss the punch cards of my first year, though.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can run MTS yourself today using Hercules under Windows, Mac OS X, or Unix. See: [http://archive.michigan-terminal- system.org/](http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/)</comment>


Ask HN: Why should I not use a recruiter when moving? - <AUTHOR>

If you move to a new area, you will generally need to work with a real estate agent.  One of the benefits as a renter / purchaser is that you get the help of someone who knows availability in the area, who knows the local laws, and they can help you personally to find a home that is a good fit for you.
A tech recruiter be seen to be providing a similar service. I will be moving shortly and will most likely need to find a software engineering job in the new area. In this area I don't know anyone. It would be easier if someone could guide me through the process of saying, based on my personal preferences, what companies may be a good fit for me.  They may have more information about local salaries as well and can be of guidance when negotiating salary as well.
My sense is that the general prevailing idea is that you should never work with a tech recruiter.. despite my above points why should I not use a recruiter? <comment><USER4> Why not use a recruiter? That's a great question. Lets take a fictional recruiter named Joe.

To begin with, Joe isn't working for you; you're Joe's product. That answer would be enough to turn me away.

Where are Joe's Interests aligned? With yours? No, Joe wants to place you in a job, at any salary. Joe's company gets 30% of your first year's income from the employer, and Joe himself gets a much smaller slice. Joe's slice of $120k is similar enough to his slice of 130k that he beneifts most from placing you at any salary he can get you to accept, and then moving on to the next position.

Ah. So Joe's interests must be aligned with the hiring company, right? Only to the extent that Joe needs them to hire you (or someone like you) and he needs you to last at least X months so he doesn't get a claw back. His interests are more closely aligned with the company than yours, but ultimately its about filling seats for Joe. He wants to convince the company that each candidate is THE candidate.

Does this sound like a guy you want to help you find employment?

And finally, in the form of purely anecdotal personal experience, I've had recruiters flat out lie about aspects of the position. At the time I was too naive to verify facts with the employer.

<comment><USER5> On the flip side, if the recruiter is a personal recommendation from someone you trust, and you don't feel comfortable negotiating salary or writing cover letters, they can be a quick way to get the ball rolling with several different companies. It's not like you can't research the companies that the recruiter is working with before applying.

That said, pixeloution's advice is spot on and applies to 90% of the recruiters you'll find via Google/LinkedIn/etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are certain, specific recruiters I recommend highly, however I recommend those individuals - as people - and not the companies they work for.

Suppose you get a job as a temporary contract programmer. The client - <USER2> client - is somehow unhappy with you, and wants your recruiter to fire you.

Would you expect the recruiter to come to your defense?

No, because they won't want to lose a valuable client. You'll get a security guard and a cardboard box, the recruiter will get their commission by placing some other candidate.

I'm building The Global Computer Employer Index at:

[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/)

I only have a few cities listed so far, and in each city, not so many companies. However if you tell me where you're moving to - <USER3> email@example.com if you prefer - I'll post whatever I have for your new home, and will make a concerted effort to find more companies there.

Real Soon Now I'm going to automate the process of discovering technical employers. I've been building the site manually while I puzzle over how to do that.

My site does not work well at all for smartphones. Use a desktop box. A mobile friendly website is a high priority but is going to take me a little while.</comment>


It's Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/silicon-valley-s-job-hungry-say-we-re-not-to-old-for-this <comment><USER4> I find it fascinating that when there is a discussion about age discrimination, most commenters have "advice" for the old farts how to stay current, learn current hip tech, be willing to work longer hours etc. However, we we talk about women in computing, it is always sexism and the discussion is about how the corporations need to change to attract more women. Pretty asymmetrical, don't you think?

<comment><USER5> Bang on. Discrimination by sex is not socially acceptable. Discrimination by other protected factors is sometimes socially ok. (not that it should be).

Edit to add: At a former company i became a bit of an outsider when I noted at a diversity meeting that diversity meant more than the big 3 that tend to get pushed around Gender, Orientation, Race. I noted that our office was young, had no parents, no ex convicts, no disabled people, few people who had not attended a top university (or no university for that matter) and few or no religious people... people basically said "Why you against <women, colored...>?" as though it was some kind of zero sum fight.

<comment><USER6> From what you described, to an observer it would have sounded like you were arguing with them against the whole concept of protected classes, rather than pointing out that they should add ageism (etc.) to the list of things to be wary of.

Usually when people point out hypocrisy, people assume that they're making an indirect argument against the thing they're being accused of being hypocrites about. If you say something like "you seem to really worry about discrimination based on gender, but are ignoring ageism", that doesn't sound like you're trying to enlighten them about ageism. Rather, that sounds like you're trying to illustrate that the whole concept of protected classes is BS.

Accusations of hypocrisy are easily misinterpreted because so many people use them as a terrible form of argumentation. For example, consider all the people who get mad about other people complaining about intolerance, and the best they can come up with is "but you're just intolerant against intolerance!". As if pointing out hypocrisy invalidates whatever else someone is saying. It's the dumbest possible approach to debating an issue, but 99.9% of the time when I hear someone accuse someone else of hypocrisy, that's what they're doing. That may not have been what you were doing in that situation, but I could totally see how everyone might have misinterpreted you.

<comment><USER7> _Usually when people point out hypocrisy_

What about sophistry?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I come from a family with a few generations of engineers of all types.

Mechanical/chemical/electrical engineers have a similar problem that 30 years experience isn't much more useful than 10, wages tend to top out early and you're vulnerable to being laid off and never hired again in your 40s/50s. One advantage over software is that the skills change perhaps less frequently but that is offset by lower overall demand.

While you're in your 20's think about what you're going to do at the end of your 20 year window. Are you moving up to management? Have extensive business knowledge to add to tech skills? Have a second career planned? Or saved enough money to retire or semi-retire? Of course you can actively stay up to date with latest technology but that is much tougher than it sounds. You need to have thought a lot about this before you hit 40.

For all the young guys out there. Don't think it wont happen to you. If you just follow day by day one day you'll wake up with a big mortgage, a couple of expensive kids, maybe a divorce and a bunch of recruiters that never return your phone calls. You need to avoid that place.

<comment><USER9> So true. The question is, how do you avoid that place. Only so many can become managers. Only so many can start own business and keep it running.

<comment><USER10> So much of it is contacts. _I 'm_ in that place now.

In my 20's and early 30's every job I got was through contacts.

Since then I've been working solo projects at small companies for a number of years. Fun work, but suddenly it's dried up. I don't have any good recent contacts in the tech sector. So I'm competing with 22 year olds, with little to back me up.

So don't do that. Try to keep in touch with former colleagues, and try to be widely-known in your company for doing good work and being easy to work with.

<comment><USER11> The line that stood out most in that article was the woman saying "Every job I've had I got through my contacts, but they're all gone now". It had never occurred to me, but it's obviously a _huge_ problem for older job seekers.

If you're 33, you might get a job using a recommendation from someone who managed you a decade ago. If you're 53, that same person retired years ago and doesn't have any pull to offer. And someone who worked for you 10 years ago can't recommend you easily, because it's hard to "recommend up" to a position above your own.

It's a subtle sort of thing, it's not direct ageism but it's obviously a big hurdle for an older worker.

<comment><USER10> I think a few corollaries to that are:

Stick with big companies. Yes by working at a small co you gain experience picking tech stacks, working on all areas of software, etc. But the ceiling is lower at small companies (only the very hottest couple startups each year notwithstanding). And the experience you gain there (mostly writing simple CRUD apps in various languages) isn't so applicable to larger companies where performance and scalability are the main things they want. So when you hit the glass ceiling of the "small co" sector, you're essentially starting all over when you move to the "big co" sector. That's where I am and it's almost like a career change.

Compare this to a career path at a large co, where you move into senior engineering and the skills you gain are immediately useful when you apply to other large companies. You get free networking and visibility at big companies too, an underestimated fringe benefit.

Also, pick your battles wisely when doing the "keep current on technology" thing. Avoid cute stuff that doesn't have a ton of use outside a very narrow segment (e.g. Haskell, logic programming, blockchain, marginally CUDA), _unless_ you really want to devote your career to it. Also avoid overly-trendy stuff that will be obsolete in five years (JS frameworks, MongoDB). Stick with things that solve real problems that real companies have. To that end, search job boards and see what other large companies are hiring for.

<comment><USER11> This all looks like really good advice.

I'm doing the small(er) company thing, and I don't regret it, but I've slowly shifted to larger groups and I definitely feel the difference. Getting exposure to lots of different things is good, but at a certain point being in charge of maintaining the website while you're also building an actual product is just a distraction.

The "current tech" thing is obviously a constant battle for everyone, and it's an important one. Narrow tools can be trouble, flash-in-the-pan frameworks are ugly, and even things like Go can be chancy if you master something valuable but scarcely employed. At the very least, it's obvious to me even early in my career that I need to maintain a couple of mainstream, in-demand skills no matter what I specialize in.

<comment><USER10> Specializing, I think, is a good thing. I'd long been beholden to the belief that "broken comb" ([https://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/27/broken-comb- people/](https://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/27/broken-comb-people/)) could lead to a fulfilling career path, but I no longer believe this is the case. If you're middling at a bunch of things then you'll never be hired to greater than a middling position.

The only advantage of broken comb is that you potentially have _lots_ of middling positions you can apply to. But even for those, you may be rejected as "overqualified" because you know so much _other_ stuff. Besides, who wants to send _lots_ of resumes and do _lots_ of interviews in the pursuit of a middling job? Especially when you know you're way better than the people that you're competing against and losing to.

So, don't fan too far out. Find a concentration that's reasonably mainstream for the foreseeable future and expand your skillset to supplement that. Maybe not as renaissance-man as the typical above-average programmer would hope for, but likely the best career path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know about the Silicon Valley, but I'm in the Silicon Forest (Hillsboro/Portland Oregon) and this market seems to be very merit driven. You can be 80 years old and get a job if you can do work. Maybe you can't get a job at fart.IO building an API for some craft beer BS but at many mid to large companies 40 is still an average.

The last 4-5 companies I've been at value bullet points over anything else (for what that's worth). If you're 40+ and coming in showing off your PHP skills, JQuery or WinForms experience you'll get dumped, but the same goes for the 23 year old with that skill set.

My advice is always the same for developers my age: Keep with the times! If you aren't passionate enough about this work to continue learning and advancing on your own time get out. Go do something slower paced. Don't expect the industry to change.

<comment><USER13> Is the potshot on jQuery and PHP really necessary? I know enough people where I live making six figures (low COL city) with PHP, SQL and jQuery that I don't think they're ready to sunset.

<comment><USER14> This unfortunate obsession with new and shiny in the Valley is why we have to learn lessons like the benefits of relational databases over and over. Most of the new stuff isn't improved, it is simply different.

<comment><USER15> Relational dbs sure, but there are legitimate scale reasons to use a distributed key value store (for instance). There is no reason to be stuck with PHP today though. It's a very backward language when you compare to something with a modern type system/features (e.g. Go, Rust, Clojure, Java 8+, Scala...). Devs need to have a passion for learning technology. Not because it's the shiny new thing but because the new tech often _does_ offer benefit.

<comment><USER16> Often times you have no control over the technology stack you use because other factors drive your choices. I'm stuck developing in PHP because the tool we are using is written in PHP.

<comment><USER15> You often have to learn this stuff outside of your regular job. Once you know another stack then you can find another job using it. That's how you exert control over your career. Tying yourself to one company (or stack) is a slow death sentence.

EDIT: to those downvoting this... Do you disagree with me (i.e. you think it's a good career decision to stick with a single tech stack) or do you agree but dislike that it has to be this way? Genuinely curious because I didn't think what I said was controversial at all, just industry observation/common sense.

<comment><USER13> I live and work outside the valley, and I know python and Java, dabbled in scala, rust and lately C# -- no one out here will give me a job on any of those languages because I have no professional experience with them, and some of them no one here is using yet

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's Tough Being Over 40 in tech, anywhere.

I understand only some of why ageism is more rife in tech than other fields. But even in young app companies, with young founders, some experience of software engineering or complementary fields gained through experience can be useful.

Personally I prefer a relatively young environment - I don't like large company formality and I enjoy the atmosphere of startups and app companies. But I have increasingly few contacts in the right places for an in...

It's not like we're all "old" like our parents, grandparents were from 45 onwards, or that we're all increasingly irrelevant mainframe COBOL programmers. We aren't all set in our ways like was more common in previous generations - but we're not in a job for life so that's expected, surely. We're not expecting to be dead at 70 either. I hope I haven't "grown up" even then!

<comment><USER18> > It's Tough Being Over 40 in tech, anywhere.

I think it was more tech in 70s when they wore lab coats and did new things. Now it's more of a popularity thing or a way to extract gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this perhaps because older workers gravitate towards sane hours? Maybe because they develop interests, lives, families, etc outside of work that they commit to (moreso than most 20-somethings)?

As a side note: I'm over 40 now, but I do recall being 27 and interviewing someone in their early 40s who was qualified and enthusiastic. I passed on them in part because I felt guilty hiring them; to work on my team the person would have to move their family to a new city, and I didn't want the karma of bringing that many people into a world where the team/project I was on was staffed and led by 20-somethings -- and therefore chaotic and unlikely to survive long in any particular form.

<comment><USER20> What you did was definitely illegal and immoral. It is not your decision to make on how someone should live their life.

<comment><USER19> Probably, but I was in over my head and the team evaporated within months. With hindsight I would have done many things differently, and my approach to interviewing that person is just one of many.

<comment><USER21> I think it was brave to say, and a valuable addition to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Michael Peredo, a 55-year-old auto engineer dismissed from Mercedes-Benz in February 2015, says he had trouble giving up his bow ties for T-shirts, as some he met at ProMatch suggested. 'I feel like myself wearing them,' he says."

Yeah, you're going to have a really hard time getting a programming job in Silicon Valley if you show up in looking like a security guard in a tie, let alone looking like a waiter in a bowtie. It's the same story as showing up for an interview for an enterprise sales job in ripped jeans and a T-shirt — it undermines your credibility. It shouldn't — our meritocratic hacker values place no value on surface appearances, and we fail them when we are influenced by what people are wearing or their gender or skin color or age — but it absolutely does. Raymond Chen can get away with wearing a suit and tie all the time, but you probably can't.

The good news is that Peredo got a job immediately when he stopped wearing the bowtie to interviews. It's not gonna be as easy if you're black.

<comment><USER23> The number of bowties I've seen recently has increased dramatically...among younger workers. This is in a research focused environment, so there's a little more fashion leeway.

Things are cyclical. For better or worse, I think we're on the rising edge of a rebellion against the nerd-frump affect.

Thank you Matt Smith!

<comment><USER24> I hope the ruff comes back!

<comment><USER25> Powdered wigs and codpieces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Try being over 60 & gettind cred. "How could you possibly understand bleeding edge tech and emerging trends?" Well...I've lived there for four decades, you?

<comment><USER27> Someone here recently pointed out the irony of the term "digital native", which you illustrate nicely. The people who aren't "digital natives" built everything the "digital natives" purport to understand so deeply.

Which knowledge is deeper? That of the user, or that of the builder?

<comment><USER28> Speaking for myself, there are two trends with aging. One positive, one negative.

1\. (positive) Big picture wisdom increases. You learn when to call in help, when to use a library instead of rolling it yourself, when to stop hacking, retreat, document, how long to architect, etc. I get a little frustrated with younger people who e.g. over-optimize some aspect of a system before making the whole thing work adequately. I am waaaaaaay more organized and consistent than the young person who hasn't inherited enough code or faced the spectre of their own code when they forgot how it works.

2\. (negative) I often forget how easy some formerly difficult tasks have become. Just take a library like three.js.... or building a compiler from source or using a library instead of writing an XML parser or SDL and so on. To stay on top, I often have to check in with others to see what surprising tools "young people" :) have made. This is critical because it affects estimates of time and resources needed to meet a goal.

So it's excellent to be around for a long time, IMO, as long as you are good at forgetting/unlearning some obsolete ways of doing things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The best explanation I've seen for this is when you're a young engineer with little experience showing knowledge of a framework or technique is a huge plus. For someone with a ton of experience _not_ knowing something is shown as a minus.

For interview processes trying to avoid false positives a negative mark will hurt you much more in the final sum.

So the bar is set differently for two candidates applying to the same position. I'm sure it doesn't account for every aspect but certainly seemed to explain some of it.

<comment><USER30> Ignoring the latest fad is a plus in my books. Of course this only works if you know the fundamentals.

<comment><USER31> Gee, you don't think rewriting everything every couple of months is a wise use of money?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It might be like that in SV. It doesn't feel that way where I live. I'm 44 and do Front end dev, which I taught myself after being a project manager / Business analyst for a good 10 years. I do live in what might be considered a backwater in England, but I get enquirers almost daily about my availability.

Also - I read about Shel Kaphan the other day - employee #1 at Amazon - <USER2> must have been in his 40s when he started there if he was studying in 1975. Obviously his age didn't deter Jeff Bezos.

I've worked in places where older employees become irrelevant to the business because they get stuck in their ways and don't want to / can't change. If you're not prepared to re-skill, or you think your job is safe - you're in for a rough time if someone else controls your destiny. That's not to say people don't get badly treated by organisations - they do, and that's wrong. But still, working life is a struggle and a balancing act.

</comment><comment><USER33> One thing that I'm really surprised about is the lack of empathy that companies and teams feel with this.

I've been hiring engineers for a few years now and from _my_ perspective, age has never been a consideration. That does not mean other interviewers did not include age bias which influenced the overall decision.

I'm around 30 currently, and I'm terrified as I get older that this will happen to me and my friends. Saving for retirement is, intentionally, a very long process -- and very arduous if you're trying to save to retire in the Bay area.

What are people that push such discrimination thinking about their own futures?

<comment><USER34> They're probably not being intentionally ageist. My guess is that the differences in sense of humor, lack of desire to hang out with coworkers, and other social differences just make them seem like unappealing "culture" fits.

And it's true, if you're just hiring for people you can also hang out with and you're in your 20's, of course you won't like them.

At some point you get the revelation that people have their own lives and there is a social relationship along the lines of "we work together but I'm otherwise not interested in you," and that this is actually a very common and viable type of social relationship.

<comment><USER35> Add the salary on top of that.

Higher experience commands higher salary and no company has an unlimited cash flow, even among the ones who are truly interested in the rare experiences and skills.

On the other hand, the world is full of companies and industries who are basing their business on cheap employees and lowballing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Don't believe the lies a single second.

The truth is, it is NOT tough being 3X-4X in silicon valley.

What is tough is accepting to put up with startups about to fail, long hours, mediocre pay, little benefits and immature coworkers. That does limit the size of the job market.

That issue is faced by everyone, independently of their age. The youngers selves just happen to have lower standards in average.

</comment><comment><USER36> Here is the thing though. A person who is 40 knows and understands a lot of the problems of their industry and they are often much more experienced at making sure they don't waste their time.

This is why I would propose that the strongest cocktail is pairing young people with older people.

[https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with- problems-4...](https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with- problems-47ee63bb3511#.jcbr526ax)

</comment><comment><USER37> My observation (as someone over 40) is that some of us who started early on in the trade decided to throw in the towel and declared themselves "management", and (most importantly) stopped being hands-on. And it's _these_ people who are most at risk of ending up behind. Those of us who kept on programming, networking, never quit learning and stayed current with all the latest stuff are actually extremely sought after and valuable - experience is _hugely_ important, critical, even, especially where scale and reliability matter.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think it may be tough if you have not continued to improve yourself. There are some maxims to always follow to prevent yourself from "expiring": Keep learning. 1\. Always learn some new hard thing; a language, more math, or go deeper into your subject (programming languages, etc.) 2\. Stay in top physical shape and learn some new physical skill.

Learning should be multifaceted and a lifestyle; intellectual and physical. If you think you can just coast after college then you will be passed up.

</comment><comment><USER39> Take the cash and run. Do you really want to be herding man-children when you are 40?

</comment><comment><USER40> I think it's extremely important for folks over 40 to track their accomplishments.

Their resumes are longer, their skills can be older, some of the companies they've worked for might not even exist anymore. It's even more important to be able to search/narrow down/focus your decades of experience/accomplishments to those that matter in this new ageist landscape.

And the truth is, you've probably done whatever SV recruiters/managers say you require. You've been the self-starting, chaos riding, new tech stack conquering machine. You've lived at the cutting edge. It's just not on your resume, and you don't bring it up in interviews because you haven't been that person in a while and all your (maybe) recent job search experience is in displaying the breadth and length of your career.

It's tough.

</comment><comment><USER41> I feel like a lot of discrimination in tech comes from a dislike of experience.

Many project teams and companies instantly dislike the person who says, "This can't be done," or, "We need more information before we can give an estimate."

If you're 40, there's a good chance you know more than most people in the room about what's going to work and what isn't.

But what you have to remember is that the only reason you have this knowledge is from fucking up and working all-nighters and missing deadlines in the past.

So, even if it means more work for you, you have to be willing to let the people who are driving the ship make mistakes. Nobody wants their parent around, or to feel second guessed.

Tech is always about finding new ways to do things, trying new ideas. Don't turn into the nay-sayer.

<comment><USER42> This is exactly it. It's a lesson I learned recently. Just chill out. Don't try to "save" people from making mistakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think the most unconscious or perhaps completely conscious bias that I'm not sure I'm seeing mentioned with age is salary requirements and other various forms of compensation.

Older people are thought to have mortgages, families, etc. They often cost more money, and work less hours.

That's simply never thought as attractive to employers who want more work hours for less money.

Disclaimer: Not saying this is right - but I think that's a big part of it.

<comment><USER44> This is true of all industries, however. Having a family and owning a home are not attributes found exclusively amongst tech workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Some 'Official' Stats

Source: [http://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm](http://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm)

I would put some relevant comment on the meaning of these figures but I have to put my kids to bed, sort out their school packed lunch, get scolded by my wife - all before I work on my side projects.

I'll leave it to the youngsters.

<comment><USER45> Median Age / Profession

42.1 Computer systems analysts

44.7 Information security analysts

43.1 Computer programmers

39.7 Software developers, applications and systems software

35.9 Web developers

40.5 Computer support specialists

47.0 Database administrators

41.2 Network and computer systems administrators

41.6 Computer network architects

41.2 Computer occupations, all other

<comment><USER45> Hint: look at the outliers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Older people, please: Never "play young" for a paycheck. It's sad as shit. If you're not a professional clown and don't want to be seen as a figurative clown, why would you ever act like someone who is less than yourself? (Along the same line men, don't take Viagra, it's pathetic. Just enjoy and cherish the fact that for once you're not obsessed with mating, and can finally get some damn work done instead of chasing every nice ass. Another perspective young dudes won't understand.)

Turn to crime before you get a FACELIFT (are you shitting me) for any job. Heck, older people make great criminals - they've accumulated cunning and horse-sense which are great for gulling young people out of their money. And young people have many things that can be used against them: enthusiasm, idealism, energy and a tendency to waste it (also see Aikido), insecurities, inexperience, a preoccupation with mating (see above). Best of all, young people's tendency to think they're smarter than they really are, means that you can be the superior adversary while your adversary thinks the opposite (see Aikido again, and Sun Tzu).

Young people if this kind of talk scares you, think about hiring some of these people! ;)

<comment><USER47> That was a really funny way to tell older people to go into management, marketing, politics, or VC firms. They can use all the advantages you describe for large sums of money without their actions being crimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I think age bias is a thing, but the best software engineers (and the most productive) I've worked with are over 40. They're sharp, kept up with current technology, and they actually can build things in a way that's adaptable.

</comment><comment><USER49> We should all be embarrassed by the working conditions and biases in our industry. It doesn't have to be this way, but we all keep playing along.

<comment><USER50> The rampant ageism in the industry is a real problem but everyone is focused on gender equality in tech right now. I really think both issues need serious attention.

<comment><USER51> The chief problem with ageism is that it cuts across both genders - <USER3> people, looking for that first job post-graduation, are willing to take less money.

<comment><USER27> Interestingly, the next-order analysis of the problem you're discussing is called "intersectionality"; i.e. what are the systemic implications of being >40 _and_ female? Given the relative demographic sizes, one can argue for or against attacking one or another problem (ageism or sexism) first, given the expected improvement to the population at large (essentially, the utilitarian argument).

As much as techie types like to deride and dismiss sociological analytical techniques as being pseudoscience, there is a lot to be learned from them when attempting to intelligently discuss the (our) job market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Come to the Midwest ... I really enjoy the perspective of the older developers.

Perspective is what the Valley needs if ageism is an issue, because we aren't getting younger.

</comment><comment><USER53> So here I am, at a place willing to hire these people, but actually getting them hired isn't so easy.

First of all, yes, you do need to leave Silicon Valley. People seem strangely afraid to leave. There is a world out here! Getting houses for 10% of what they cost is Silicon Valley has got to be worth something, no?

Second of all, finding them is tough. We can show up at a large college and meet lots of people, nearly all young. There is no similar place where we can show up to recruit older people.

Older people have the skills we need, particularly assembly language. We have to sort through lots and lots of young people to find a few with potential, but at least "lots and lots" is available at many colleges.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Young people are just smarter."

Ha! I love it! What ZUCKERGUY means is that young people are smart in a way that he, another young person, can recognize and understand.

Whereas older people are smart in ways that young people don't yet recognize or understand. It's just one great big Dunning-Krueger Effect. Young people don't know how much they don't know.

Fortunately for them, old people are a totally different species from young people. It's not like young people turn into old people or anything. Can you imagine the horrors? Like what if life were one big continuum where you start out young and slowly turn old? Scary stuff!

</comment><comment><USER54> Well it might change a lot as suddenly number of coders in their 40s goes up.

<comment><USER55> Do you have any data demonstrating this will happen?

<comment><USER56> Is the software development industry not bigger than it was twenty years ago? Developers still age. Ergo, as development as an industry grows, at a delayed rate, the number of aging developers will also grow.

<comment><USER55> That assumes they remain being developers as they age.

<comment><USER56> I suppose, but the cost of a career switch to a job that is similar or greater in pay is quite high. What do you think is the likely place a developer who is 25 today will be in 20 years?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is tenure/turnover like in the big SV companies? I see salaries rise pretty quickly and the ceiling is fairly high, but does this simply mean you're likely to rise to a certain level and then get replaced?

For 40-year-old techies looking for a company to round out their career, are the SV biggies the wrong place to look?

</comment><comment><USER57> "Peredo spent 18 months looking for work before he took off his bow tie and landed a job."

It's hard to identify causality here. You _could_ say that there's a correlation with casual attire and job offers in the valley. Alternatively, he got better in those 18 months...

</comment><comment><USER58> IMO it's because the majority of the companies getting funding in SV don't need DEEP expertise in a specific technical area. All of the companies mentioned in the article are mainly doing fairly "easy" tech around either well understood or new frameworks with low barriers to entry.

If you look at the age composition of companies that are working in Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Hardware they are significantly older than others - it's because you typically need a PhD or equivalent time working on the problems to actually build new stuff.

Until SV starts funding - enmasse - hard tech, which needs more experienced workers, I don't think you'll see much change there.

</comment><comment><USER59> Being a young software developer it feel a bit out of place to be getting a salary less than someone who has been in the field for say 15 years. My only reason for this is that technology does change really fast, and things should be looked at if the job can be complete. Yes there are a bunch of 'Younglings' that just use the newest freshest flavor framework or scripting language (that can be a nightmare to work with) but if a programmer can make something extensible and maintainable does the experience really need to offset salaries by a large margin... (in my area it jumps from 30-90/hour)

<comment> lloyd-christmas > if a programmer can make something extensible and maintainable

How do you know it's extensible and maintainable without having seen it last? How quickly do you recognize pitfalls of decision-making? How many applications have you built that you've seen fail? People vastly underestimate the importance of burning your hand on the stove.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Engineering is a dead end job, especially outside of silicon valley. There is 0 respect for experience in the industry, we have more respect for someone who has coded for 2 weeks than someone who continually improves over 25 years. Unless you become a celebrity coder you find that your best choice going forward is suicide. The industry won't let you have a social life or a family once you hit 45 no one cares about you and suicide becomes your most positive life option, or you can keep working 18-20 hours a day 7 days a week until you get sick and die if you're lucky.

<comment><USER61> Seek help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm over 40 and haven't experienced any problems. I don't know if I'm lucky, good, both, or just average and only the outliers are the ones having difficulty.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is idiotic. People over 40 trade one set of skills for another (source: I'm over 40). You lose short-term memory, can't juggle too many things simultaneously, and aren't always up to date on every latest fad. But what you gain is fantastically valuable: intuition, abstract thinking, systems thinking, ability to detect patterns in large systems, ability to notice that certain problems have been solved in a different field, and lots more.

As I grow older, I notice these changes, and while I do regret not being able to remember IP addresses after switching to a different window (get a larger monitor, or just copy&paste), I am very happy with the overall shift.

<comment><USER64> All of those things are great, but you're assuming your manager and peers will value them like you do.

I see this type of thinking applied to an issue in a way that results in people becoming increasingly irritated. Silicon Valley wants to hear "yes yes yes", not reason why you think XYZ solution won't work.

<comment><USER65> Exactly: the ability to detect bullshit more quickly is unfortunately an ability not appreciated by many companies. It isn't just SV that has this problem. Those that tend to thrive in these environments past 40 are those who have instead learned play the imperfect system aggressively for their own benefit.

<comment><USER64> Along with that, I think an important value is just not taking wrong ideas personally. So some junior engineer wants to run off and do something that might cause you a head ache. Let them do it and learn from it. Your goal in life can't be to minimize everything that causes pain.

<comment><USER65> Oh, sure, but I'm not referring to that. It is more likely bullshit from upper management, from even older people...who lost touch with reality long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Seems rather silly to discriminate against 4x people.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but most things great about computers were created by people who are now older than 40.

Can people name a few important technologies that were created by someone younger than 40?

And if you want to have your company bought, who will be buying? People who are older than 40! (except for FB)

<comment><USER67> i value older developers but ruby on rails, jquery, react, elxir and may more popular libraries are created by guys in their 20s. Of course these tech and build on shoulder of older giants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Skills pay the bills.

Many of the over-40 crowd I've worked with just plain don't want to learn anything new. They have settled, and are passive in their learning. This is the #1 reason they won't be relevant.

<comment><USER69> This is the exact attitude that makes tech a shit sector to be in. Its not that people don't want learn anything, its that when you're 40 a lot more time is invested in things outside of work. Kids, wife, house, etc. When you're 20, nomadic, are by yourself, and have a ton of free time.. yes finding time to learn is easy.

<comment><USER68> ... and the medical field, and the law field, and the engineering field. Basically if you want to get premium dollars when trading your skills, you have to have premium skills.

<comment><USER69> All those other fields value experience very highly. Software engineering is the only field that doesn't care what you've worked on in the past or what you've done. They only care about what trick algorithm that you will never utilize that you can answer on a white board.

<comment><USER70> Several of those field mentioned also have fairly high barriers of entry in terms of certification. They try to ensure that folks pursuing those careers have a core level of understanding necessary to pursue work in those fields. Whether or not they're successful in doing that is, of course, a matter of debate (as everything is).

I know understanding CS fundamentals and employer expectations about this are a lightning rod here, so I don't want to apply a value judgement on that here. However, what's the equivalent to the board or bar exams in our field (that lets us compare ourselves to those fields)?

<comment><USER31> That doesn't make sense. If the problem is that we don't have some sort of licensing board, experience should be more highly valued, not less.

<comment><USER70> I guess where I was going was that there was a fairly high standard to "get in the door" first, after which experience seems to be valued more uniformly (at least more than in software).

We don't have the equivalent in software, and we also seem to have a recurring discussion about effective ways to filter people during an interview process. I've certainly had mixed results in my limited sample set when considering past experience to actual performance of hires.

Is there a good way to translate the value of someone's experience?

EDIT: For that matter, I guess I should wonder how folks translate the value of people in those other fields effectively (or if they do at all).

<comment><USER31> I don't know, but if you don't have other qualifications to go on, surely the fact that they were able to hack it at other companies for a long time is the strongest signal you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> A mention of housing is obligatory: being able to live there with a family is very, very difficult due to the train wreck of a housing market that area has.

</comment><comment><USER72> I have a tough time with these stories. Although I don't dispute that this bias exists, I feel like the subject matter is also damaging.

First of all, these articles are sensational and divisive. Folks over (or nearing) middle age are sensitive. They worry about being outmoded and removed/downsized. My hunch is that they read these articles out of fear. For younger folks, I suspect it's reassuring to know that you have something to offer that older folks might not. So, for the publisher, these produce clicks/views.

However, when you get past the personal examples of exclusion, and some of the reductive arguments (e.g. "Younger people are just smarter.") little of this is as simple as it first seems.

Fact is, for a long time, older workers were less technically competent than their younger counterparts. That said, for a generation that grew up with technology, this isn't so much the case any longer. This became painfully obvious to me, while sitting with an Apple "Genius" one day. He was very hip; however, I needed to explain to him how to use the Find function in his browser. (Seriously.)

Young and older people both have something to contribute. Young ones often bring new ideas and perspectives because they've grown up differently. They lend enthusiasm and energy that older staff sometimes don't. Frankly, older ones often don't want to work marathon hours (this isn't always the case, but tends to be). That said, older workers typically bring more knowledge and experience to the table.

I suspect that part of the bias in favor of younger workers comes from younger business owners (common in startups). I ran into this when we started our design studio. I was 26. At the time, it was scary to hire a 50-year-old to come in, because I didn't feel comfortable directing someone that much older than me (I probably wouldn't have admitted this at the time).

Additionally, those people typically wanted to earn more—and we didn't think we could afford them. So, we hired younger folks who worked at a lower hourly rate, but often needed an inordinate amount of training and support.

Were I to start that company all over again, I'd do the opposite. I'd hire more skilled people and pay more than market rate. I'd then gauge their performance, and retain/dismiss solely based on that. In my experience, a skilled person at a higher rate of pay was always more valuable/profitable for our company than a less-skilled worker at a lower rate of pay.

My point is that the companies which use age as a barometer of value are approaching HR in a flawed way. The contribution of a staff member is more important than the date on his/her birth certificate. Meanwhile, the garment choices and pop-culture references one uses shouldn't have any bearing on the value of the individual (unless we're talking about a company who traffics in such matter).

That said, I think the real problem is the employee mindset. So long as your livelihood depends on one single organization, you put yourself at risk.

This is doubly-so for those who remain loyal to a company for a decade or more. HR departments are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to assessing skills. They like seeing candidates who fulfill the specific requirements of a job. Meanwhile, they often don't understand which skills are transferrable (because they typically don't actually understand the work/technology).

So, if you've worked in print publishing for the past 20 years, an HR person might not hire you to work in a digital content shop. However, web technologies aren't that hard to master. Knowing a good story, understanding what attracts an audience, and having strong people skills are all much more valuable (and difficult to learn skills). But, still, those hiring often won't see this—which puts such a person at a disadvantage.

There are many reasons why running your own startup, studio, consultancy are difficult. That said, all of these pursuits force you to be nimble. Most of them also allow you to distribute your income sources among multiple groups—which builds resilience.

And, after you've done any of these things, you tend to be more employable—because you have a stronger sense of what companies need. (Additionally, those who've "done it on their own" often exhibit characteristics that are attractive to management—especially those whose current staff is comprised primarily of box fillers.)

My point here (and I know I've carried on) is that the age discussion is a red herring. The real matter is how one remains relevant/valuable—regardless of age. Continual learning is a part of that. Another is one's ability to adapt to less familiar roles (e.g., planning, sales, management, guidance). More importantly, though, no one should treat their employer as the gatekeeper to their future.

We're all free agents. Some of us are mostly independent. Others play for teams. Those who play for teams should always know—and build—their value, so they don't end up marooned.

</comment><comment><USER73> This will change as the bulk of millennials get older but it doesn't help anyone now. Network, network, network.

</comment><comment><USER74> I'm over 40 and I've been continuing to get more work than I can handle by staying up to date on my tech skills. Maybe that professional headshot I never got would help, though.

<comment><USER75> amen to that, older engineers would require higher salaries (due to the need to support family, to pay mortgage, etc.), and would not be able to put in the same number of hours. So if you can't demonstrate that you provide more values than the younger guns, why would an employer want to hire older engineers?

<comment><USER76> In theory the more experience you have the fewer hours you would need to put in. You've solved all the common problems engineers face 10 times before.

<comment><USER68> This.

I've found the need to be a 60+ hour hero means that you don't really know what you are doing.

The guy who goes home early on Fridays, that is the guy who knows his stuff.

<comment><USER77> > means that you don't really know what you are doing.

Or spending too much time in the calls instead of doing the damn thing. Or counting handling the email client as work hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I'm 24. Guess I should buy a shitty condo in Hayward with a 15 year mortgage so I'm paid off when the age discrimination kicks in. 40+ year old engineers with prop 13 equity or rent control - I'm jealous.

<comment><USER79> Hayward's not so bad at all :)

Get the quake insurance though.

I still wince when I see what the cost of a Hayward condo would buy back in Georgia.

<comment><USER78> If you live in Hayward, do you happen to know how much the insurance costs?

Hard to get a quote without providing an address. And I don't want to someone to get spammed by an insurance seller because they listed their home for sale and I used it to get an insurance quote.

<comment><USER79> Not exactly sure because I rent; one site I saw says the average in Alameda County is $1,800/yr

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> This is such bullshit. There are no limits on entrepreneurship and the age at which you can start a business, which is what drives real growth and value in Silicon Valley. Sure, if you want to be a wage slave to some other company, and help someone else achieve their dreams, go ahead and work for another company, and get discriminated against because of your grey hair.

<comment><USER81> The skillset and risk profile for being an entrepreneur vs being an engineer are completely different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> My parents and my friends' parents are all nearing retirement age, and I've been surprised by the profound differences in their responses to the realization that they are becoming old.

It seems clear to me that age is just a state of mind. Some people act old and are cautious fucks that recoil from change. Others try very hard to appear as if they "get it", though they obviously don't, and the fact that they're trying so hard ends up looking pathetic to me.

Then there are the ones who don't give a fuck, and they are the best. I think they're the ones who are truly the wisest, and their vitality is infectious, they don't "seem" old.

My point is this: if you're 40 years old and are all butthurt that no Silicon Valley company wants to hire you, your butthurt only proves that the company was right not to hire you in the first place.

<comment><USER46> Well you had me and then you lost me. But speaking as one of the ones who doesn't give a fuck, I'd say it's because we know we're right. Like if I think "I'm a great candidate" and some company made up of little twerps says "Yeah we don't think so," I know I'm the one who's right. My answer is based on (let's say) 25 years of working that career; theirs is based on a 60-minute interview. (Done by someone who's spent most of his life sponging off mom & dad.)

Which still proves that they were right not to hire me -- but it's because THEY suck and I would be miserable. (And actually I would probably screen out this kind of "opportunity" before it got to the "yea or nay" stage.)

<comment><USER82> I had you and then I lost you? I don't think I ever had you, Mr. Great Candidate. I'm glad you feel so comfortable in your own skin that, despite your obvious superiority, the rejection of the little twerps doesn't keep you down.

Clearly I never had you.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, you had me at "People have different reactions to aging," and you lost me at "If you're mad about unfair treatment, that proves you deserved whatever it was."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> "I had it good and now I don't have it good and I don't know what to do about it" is a fairly formulaic structure for a human interest story, and while I really loathe human suffering, it's also hard for me to sympathise with the subjects in stories such as this one.

> _"If you've worked at a large company for 10 years and get laid off, chances > are your skills are six generations behind," says Jonathan Nelson, chief > executive officer of the Valley social network Hackers /Founders, which > organizes meetups for startup developers._

10 years? To quote the character Samir from the film _Office Space_ "It would be nice to have that kind of job security." I've grown up in a US workforce where staying in the same job for more than 2 years is essentially taking a pay-cut because raises / bonuses don't keep up with real-world inflation (milk & brisket, for instance). To further belabor my point, I joined the work force during a Recession, and statistics indicate my lifetime take-home (salary, benefits, etc) will be significantly lower than...well, what these folks enjoyed during their prime earning years. I won't even have a decent interest rate environment for my savings to grow without joining in the equities casino.

For the life of me I have a lot of trouble feeling sorry for their plight, and wish them all the best of luck packing up their possessions, their savings, and moving to a place they can afford, like Mississippi or Indiana. As Sick Boy might say, "You had it, you lost it, and it's gone forever." Such is one theory of life.

<comment><USER84> _For the life of me I have a lot of trouble feeling sorry for their plight, and wish them all the best of luck packing up their possessions, their savings, and moving to a place they can afford, like Mississippi or Indiana._

Someday, perhaps I might ponder whether I should feel sorry for you, and wish you the best of luck packing up your possessions, your savings, as you move to a place you can afford, like Mississippi or Indiana.

A lot of 20-somethings treated me like "bantha pudu" in interviews. I can empirically say that I had never faced such unprofessional rudeness before I moved to the Bay Area. I had never had such mistaken and hasty accusations that I was lying. I had never had people simply blow me off for a phone interview. Never before have I had to _try so hard to avoid negative stereotypes_ in a professional setting. In my time in places like Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, those things were all limited to social settings.

To quote a song from the 60's, if we're all so open and progressive, why am I "picking up that funny vibe?" (To be fair, this isn't everyone in their 20's around here. But the population isn't zero by far!)</comment></comment>


Seth's Blog: How to make graphs that work - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/07/how-to-make-graphs-that-work.html <comment><USER2> "First, programmers don't often have a lot of taste. The fonts [in Excel and Powerpoint] are flaccid, the defaults are wan and uninspiring. There's no sophistication."

The programmers working on the latest version of Excel are about as likely to choose the fonts as they are to design the advertising campaign for it.

<comment><USER3> Godin didn't mean "programmers", he did mean "corporate drones". But that's his target audience. So he writes "programmers" to give his audience somebody to distinguish themselves a bit, like "if you make awesome presentations you are not so un-hip like those".

<comment><USER2> "Godin didn't mean "programmers", he did mean "corporate drones"."

Well, I think you're giving him too much credit, I took his words at face value and I think that he meant exactly what he said.

If you're right, though, what exactly is his point? That you should draw your graphs by hand? Use an _unpopular_ spreadsheet? That you should change the font etc. from the default, which is a deliberately safe choice? What makes him think that a 'marketer' can produce a more appealing graph than a 'corporate drone' graphic designer?

<comment><USER3> "If you're right, though, what exactly is his point?"

How does the overall point of the paragraph / article change when we change the job title of the people who create the templates?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whoa - he didn't put a time scale or units on his graph are we looking at one month, one year, or 50 years?

His graph definitely looks more attractive but I would add that it's very important to put scales and units on your graph. And don't trick people by playing with the units. Make sure that they are meaningful.

This is not one of those rules you want to break.

<comment><USER5> I can think of two reasons for doing that:

1) You're trying to deceive your audience. It's one of the many ways covered in the classic, "How to lie with statistics"

2) You're presenting secret data. You're allowed to show the trends, but not any of the actual units.

Also, I thought the title on this graph was misleading. it said "Rapid Growth", and certainly, it was going up, but rapid compared to what? You always want to be asking yourself, "compared to what?" when you're looking at visualizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Off the top of my head, I can think of way more than "four reasons I can imagine [I] would want to show someone a graph." How about "look at this interesting pattern in the data," or "look how data set foo correlates with data set bar?" Neither of those fall under "help me figure it out", and they're both telling at least as much of a story as "everything is going great".

Also, while his graph is somewhat more pleasing to my eyes than the original, it still doesn't tell me what I really want to know about that data. I have two questions about that line: what happened with that first really big spike, and does he think that the two similarly-shaped regions that follow it represent the beginning of a cycle that we might see again. His graph is called "Rapid Traffic Growth", but I think there's a more interesting story in there.

<comment><USER7> It might be worth breaking the graph into 3 sections or somehow highlighting those interesting points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of his rules says "Good results should go up on the Y axis. This means that if you're charting weight loss, don't chart "how much I weigh" because good results would go down. Instead, chart "percentage of goal" or "how much I lost." "

A graph that needs to track weight loss should chart weight loss, but imo it isn't a good idea to say that good results should always go up on the y axis.

If I were interested in tracking weight, I'd rather have a graph track the actual "weight" instead of some other convoluted metric like "how much I lost". Weight going up may be a "bad" result for some users and it may be a "good" result for other users. So it wouldn't make sense for a weight-tracking for a graph to categorize it as good or bad

[http://blog.CascadeSoft.net/2009/07/05/product-ui-design- why...](http://blog.CascadeSoft.net/2009/07/05/product-ui-design-why-the- green-up-arrow-isn't-always-good/) also addresses this topic.

</comment><comment><USER9> He left out "Read Tufte."

<comment><USER10> Probably because what he is saying in this post doesn't align well with Tufte.

The premise of Tufte, or at least his aesthetic taste, is that graphs should be as information-dense as possible. The premise of Seth's post is that the only point of a graph is to get someone to understand the emotional impact of an idea. So instead of sending someone an email telling them that sales are down 12% this quarter, you show everyone a graph with a thick red line sloping down and to the right.

<comment><USER11> That isn't a graph, it is a graphic.

<comment><USER12> Or a "chartoon", as Tufte calls them. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YslQ2625TR4>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These suggestions aren't very good suggestions for making charts in general. Instead they seem to be biased for an audience which doesn't want to parse and understand your data but simply be wowed by hand-waving and feel quantitative reassurance in that belief.

John Tukey (I believe) suggested that there were two broad classes of charts: exploratory and descriptive. Exploratory (Tufte style) seek to visually describe as many variances in your data and their relations both to one another and the marginal totals. With all this at hand, a careful analysis may reveal patterns and idiosyncrasies in your data. Descriptive comes later, once you know what you want to present, and seeks to maximize the visibility of whatever detail you're highlighting while providing appropriate context. It's the kind of statistic that "lies" via omission (or, rather, selective attention) but it also leaves the hints that let a careful reader suspect a larger picture.

Godin's suggestions don't really produce either of these though. Without contextualization his graphs are simply ethos arguments wrapped up in a white lab coat.

Not to rag on him: I'm sure he knows this, too. These aren't really suggestions for good graphs but instead for good presentation of technical matters to non-technical audiences: an endeavor which is probably doomed to live as a half-lie.

</comment><comment><USER14> He neglected to say what program to use to make the graphs. Any suggestions?

<comment><USER15> You can use all the traditional tools. Just take the time to tweak the settings to achieve something that is both unique and effective. Office 2007 has much better defaults and you can accomplish a more original look with only a few clicks, so at least do that. But if you want a graph that really rocks, you need to really tweak it.</comment></comment>


Organic has no health benefits - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8174482.stm <comment><USER2> Strange how the study doesn't address the main reasons why I would tend to favor organic foods: less pesticides, its the only way (at least in Canada) to control GMOs in what you eat. Of course there would be other environmental reasons as well, but it still remain based on monocultures.

<comment><USER3> Avoiding pesticides is half of why I go organic the other is just plain taste.

I don't know if that's because the plant varieties are different, or the method or whatever, but I've blind tested myself (no, it's not scientific, more like Mythbusters's level science) and I can easily tell the produce apart.

That it tastes _better_ may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste.

<comment><USER4> _That it tastes better may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste._

It would be interesting to do a blind taste-test between organic and non- organic produce ... Pepsi Challenge style.

<comment><USER3> Interestingly enough that has been done with rats: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/dining/03curi.html>

And the rats preferred organic.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for this very interesting link, by an author whose writings I like a lot. (He is a chemist who writes about food, a good background to have for this thread.)

It is a puzzler that he mentions one small sample of rats

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

that doesn't show the same result (indifference to whether or not food is "organic") shown in many human studies he mentions in his article. This kind of study needs a bigger sample size and a great deal more replication.

Here's another problem: how do we know that either human beings or rats prefer what is best for them? Preferences for smells and tastes may have evolutionary origins that are then exploited by adaptations of food organisms in ways that are not beneficial to the eater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's very infrequent that a scientific study's findings can be reduced to a headline without losing important information, especially when the headline is optimized for iconoclasm. This is no exception.

The study found that organically- and non-organically-grown foods showed no difference in nutrition. To assume that the food's nutrition is the only health-affecting factor between organic and petrochemical farming is silly.

<comment><USER5> _To assume that the food's nutrition is the only health-affecting factor between organic and petrochemical farming is silly._

What do you suggest would be a verifiable health-affecting factor that would differ between the two forms of farming?

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

<comment><USER7> Are you suggesting that we should do anything unless we can _prove_ it's a bad idea? I'm all for science, but it is not wild superstition to think that the effects of eating trace amounts of pesticides in all our food over the course of decades might be bad for our health. Now certainly this should be studied, but how long will it take to achieve results, and how possible is it really to isolate the variables? In the meantime should we just assume superfarming methods are all a-okay?

<comment><USER8> Yes it is wild superstition. There is no evidence that most modern insecticides harm humans at all (some do but they are less commonly used, mostly only for specific classes of pest). DDT for example had no deleterious effect on human health, until the environmentalist idiots got it banned and malaria started killing millions again in tropical regions. The most dangerous insecticides were phased out long ago, first the arsenicals, then nicotine sulfate, both of which were very dangerous to people.

ETA: DDT was dusted directly on people for flea and lice control and typhus prevention and was primarily sprayed indoors for malaria prevention so there was a lot more direct human contact than even production plant workers have with insecticides currently.

<comment><USER7> Wrong. There is plenty of evidence. Now clearly an argument can be made that the consequences of malaria are far worse, but to say "there is no evidence" reveals that you have some sort of idealogical bone to pick with environmentalists and you are not 1/10th as objective you'd like to think.

<comment><USER5> _There is plenty of evidence._

Where is the evidence of direct DDT harm to human beings? I don't recall that ever being mentioned when DDT was banned in the United States (within my lifetime, so I remember the contemporary news reports on the issue). If there is a harm, how does it compare to the harm of insect-borne diseases?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nutritional science is broken. Boiling (pun intended) fruits and vegetables down to their individual nutrients is the only way we know how to measure their supposed benefits -- but nutrients don't act alone in foods, they act in combination with everything else in the food. But since we still can't measure that, we don't.

Also, reductionist nutritional science makes it possible for Lucky Charms to tout health benefits on the front of their box by listing individual nutrients. This is profitable for the food industry.

For more I'd recommend "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan.

<comment><USER10> Excellent counter.

In Omnivore's Dilemma, he notes that there exists evidence that the old idea about nutrition being reduceable to just three basic components is likely to be wrong.

If you don't know where to look for evidence, it is quite likely you aren't going to find it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't eat organic vegetables because I believe they are significantly better for me health-wise. I do so where possible because they're tastier (having not been engineered to retain excess water to increase weight for sale) and MUCH better for the environment.

I do limit myself to organic/all natural prepared foods though due to lack of preservatives. See In Defense of Food as to why. There's very little doubt that stuff is awful for your health.

<comment><USER12> I don't eat organic vegetables due to a lack of preservatives.

I cook only for myself, and I often find my irradiated, preservative laced, genetically engineered food going bad. If I bought organic, I'd never get to eat anything. :/

<comment><USER11> Preservatives are found in processed foods, not vegetables. Organic vegetables generally don't last any less long than normal ones.

They make lots of organic frozen prepared foods. You can get organic macaroni and cheese in a box that's just like the regular (but tastes better). There are organic canned soups, pasta sauce, frozen burritos, etc.

You name it you can buy it.

<comment><USER13> Be careful with this. You can get the "USDA Organic" logo with less than 100% organic ingredients. So it's possible that your frozen dinner has preservatives and other crap in it that you are trying to avoid by "going organic". Read the ingredients to be sure. If it's something you can't buy and add to your food yourself, it's probably in there for the seller's benefit; not for yours. (Less spoilage == higher profit margin.)

<comment><USER11> Umm, not legally. The USDA regulations specifically forbid artificial preservatives. (Natural ones like citric acid are fine.)

They can and sometimes do cheat, even though the fines are enormous, but reading labels won't help with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market!

Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hippie organic market on Maui (the only store in the village) to find the four or five that aren't bruised to hell and back, then pay double price for the privilege.

And then there's the sustainability and economic problems. Can the farms near NYC produce enough organic produce to supply the whole city? How much will a head of lettuce cost if everyone is buying organic? Given the lower efficiency of organic farming, how much more land do we need to convert to farmland?

Apparently it's already too expensive for low-income people to get fresh food --at least, we hear so every couple weeks on slow news days. Increase the popularity of organic food; it's going to get even harder for these people to get fruit and veg.

Posting this on a Silicon Valley site... thank god for the -8 point limit, because I sense many a "downvote for disagreement" coming.

<comment><USER15> You're absolutely right. It's amazing how many people have jumped on the organic bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of GMO crops and efficient farming. It's like climbing up a ladder and then kicking it away once you're at the top.

<comment><USER16> I don't understand your point. What are the supposed benefits of GMO grops that makes it easier for me to eat organic? Are you talking about global food supply? If so, there are many other issues we can bring up, one being that most food grown in the US goes either to animal feed or to plants that make HFCS and a slew of other things that don't really count as "food" to me.

<comment><USER17> If we all ate organic, a third of the world population would have to starve to death from sheer shortage of food.

Don't talk about animal feed, either--we'd have to raise more cattle just for the manure if we didn't use chemical fertilizers.

<comment><USER18> That's a mighty strong statement of fact to throw out without any kind of citation. Care to share a couple?

<comment><USER17> I've attributed these claims to statements by Norman Borlaug elsewhere in the thread. Here specifically: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730793>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't know, what's a consumer to do? I read this, and then the side panel has links to three previous BBC News articles:

\- Organic produce 'better for you': £12m study shows organic food contains more antioxidants and less fatty acids.

\- Organic food 'better' for heart: 10 year study shows tomatoes contain more antioxidants.

\- Organic veg given health boost: research shows soup made from organic veg contains six times more aspirin (?!)

Many of these kinds of stories seem to have the grubby handprints of PR companies all over them. Are antioxidants good or bad? I don't even know any more...

Until I know any better, I'll be sticking to my trusty two criteria:

1\. Does it taste good?

2\. Is the price in line with the taste?

<comment><USER5> _Is the price in line with the taste?_

Most of us reading HN are consumers in industrialized countries with thriving, free-market economies. For eaters in poor countries, every gain in efficiency in agriculture is a reduction in price of food for eaters who devote most of their income to food. There have to be seriously inexpensive ways to produce food in some countries for some people to eat at all.

<comment><USER20> Or they might be permitted some land of their own where they can grow their own food, or be given access to commons to where they and their animals can forrage.

You have a totally skewed way of thinking if you think we need free markets in order for people to avoid starving. People are perfectly capable of providing their own food given some land some seeds and some sun, and some water. The amount of land required isn't even all that high.

Indeed, it is probably their ability to produce a surplus that lead to markets in the first place and those markets made it possible to justify cutting people off from the ability to feed themselves. At this point, there are plenty of cities in the US where it isn't legal to store rain water that falls on your own land.

<comment><USER5> _You have a totally skewed way of thinking if you think we need free markets in order for people to avoid starving._

You need to take that up with the historians of economics. The last few major famines in my lifetime were all in countries that have adequate capacity to produce food, but had governments at those times that tried to impose Marxist socialism on their populations.

More to the point of this thread, will you allow the smallholders you mention to use whatever means they find economical or convenient to grow food on their own land, or will you insist that they grow only "organic" crops?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "...there is not sufficient research on the long-term effects of pesticides on human health"

Sounds like the tobacco lobby of yesteryear.

Given the fact that cancer is on the rise and I have a choice between food treated with carcinogens and food not treated with carcinogens, I'll take the food not treated with carcinogens, thanks.

<comment><USER22> I don't mind eating food containing tiny amounts of carcinogens, but I do object to poor farmers, without safety equipment, handling drums of the stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As is typical for science reporting, the headline makes a broader claim than the article itself: "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods _on the basis of nutritional superiority._ " (emphasis mine)

</comment><comment><USER24> I really think more people need to worry about eating nonprocessed food before they start discriminating between organic or not.

<comment><USER16> That's a good point, in a choice between eating nonorganic fresh vegetables and an "organic" TV dinner it's likely the veggies come out on top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, the book Omnivore's Dilemma asks a question which I'm not sure is sufficiently answered by this study, but may be answered elsewhere (and I just don't know): Is it correct to treat food as a commodity. For example (ripping straight from the book here) is a carrot grown in Michigan the same as a carrot grown in Florida? There is a base assumption that we can treat the foodstuffs as commodities, but if this is not true, we cannot believe this study.

If the organic is grown in already marginal land, while the "standard" food is grown somewhere fertile, is it possible to get these results, or possibly results indicating organic food is less healthful?

</comment><comment><USER26> The assertion of the study, "Organic foods are not more nutritious" is a function of the metrics used to measure "nutritious".

Did they check trace mineral content? Did they check phyto-nutrient levels?

No, in fact, they checked nothing at all. This was not a study. It was a meta- study. Meta-analysis is a very poor tool. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta- analysis#Weaknesses>

Note in particular the File Drawer Problem.

As other posters note: Organic food tastes better. Now, why is that? Is the only difference between the two really a matter of trace-pesticide use?

<comment><USER27> Organic food doesn't taste better. In fact, it can taste worse. There is an enormous amount of variation in taste of any given food each season, each harvest, each field, etc. You're just telling yourself what you want to believe.

<comment><USER26> Yes, and in any given season, all things being equal, organic food tastes better. You are just telling yourself what you want to believe.

<comment><USER27> No, I grow both organic and non organic vegetables, so I actually know what I'm talking about.

How about you? ;)

<comment><USER26> Ditto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The study was done in the UK. Conventional produce there may be very close to organic. However in the US this study would likely have very different results.</comment>


Ask HN: Cost of Remote FE Devs in Kiev vs. Krakiw vs. Warsaw - <AUTHOR> EDIT: Krakow
We are considering a remote team for FE & JS work. We have direct flights, so one of us will also fly back and forth for technical supervision.
Can HN readers please advise on typical cost for developers in these locations?
We are building a B2C app, with some graphical content, nothing mission-critical, but lots of different features. <comment><USER3> At least between Kraków, Warsaw, and nearby cities like Brno, Czech Republic, any cost differences are inconsequential compared to the impact that an experienced, bicultural (has lived and worked in both countries) local team leader will make.

If someone from your team isn't bicultural, consider recruiting the team leader in any of these cities. When you find someone who you believe in enough to make a first-class part of the team (including whatever you'd offer a senior dev manager in the US, like stock options), let them use their existing network to build the local team.

Hopefully this is obvious, but just in case: if no one on your team is bicultural and the team is tiny, like 2 or 3, it makes no sense to accept all the effort of a second culture, management, and timezone. For a tiny team like that, build an entirely location-independent team - <USER2> [https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/](https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/) or [https://blog.dnsimple.com/2015/04/the-dnsimple-team-on- remot...](https://blog.dnsimple.com/2015/04/the-dnsimple-team-on-remote- working/).

<comment><AUTHOR> We have experience managing significant Indian and Ukrainian off-shore teams. I agree there is a very high cost of cultural fit. This was debated internally at great length ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regarding salaries in Poland you can check this nice job board [https://nofluffjobs.com](https://nofluffjobs.com)</comment>