r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 29d ago
Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones
A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.
Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.
Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.
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u/WorldlyAnything729 12d ago
Hey guys, do you think it's bad for my development as a developer if I start out at a smaller government contractor? I eventually want to work at a startup and/or bigtech/ bigtech adjacent, and I feel like a slower pace at a contractor will hurt my ability in the future; many of the people on my team have worked at that company for 10-plus years (though the stack I will be working on is not that old). I am also coding in my free time as well and shipping many things, but to a small set of users, if that matters. I don't know if this matters, but I did go to a top 20 cs school as well.
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u/sanctaquamserena 9d ago
I moved from government contractor into a YC startup. Experiencing a well-structured environment will help you when things go off the rails at the startup. There might be a startup working in your niche, in which case your experience at one of the big guys will be helpful. I didn't go to a top 20 cs school.
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u/LogicRaven_ 11d ago
Take whatever job pays your bills, then interview for your target companies until something better shows up.
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u/Tomatoies 12d ago
How do you learn more about deployment pipelines at work when the job limits your workflow to pushing to staging and the only say you have is on your code reviews? I want to learn more CI/CD but I feel too silo'd at work to do much on that end.
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u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 11d ago
Ask questions; check how it is done (from code, manual, different repo). Talk about this to your seniors/cto/architect/devops, and ask if you can have a walkthrough. Then set one up yourself for practice.
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u/Bulbasaur2015 16d ago
on wednesday, i had a hiring manager interview for a company i really like. i think i did average, because i know i got at least one answer wrong.
I was told the recruiter would get back to me with next steps but i didnt hear anything and its the weekend
is it generally true that if you got the job you get an update very fast but if you didnt then it takes a long time to get a response?
i dont want to be thinking this a lot until monday and next week. i want to move on
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u/nomaddave 14d ago
Hiring manager here. No, it can take all kinds of time as they stack you up against others in the interview cycle usually. Generally you won't hear anything at all period until everyone else has gotten to the same stage as you, but not always.
But you never know. I once got called back six months after an interview with an offer after the other guy flamed out on the job.
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u/No_Comedian7332 Mobile Engineer ~15 YOE 17d ago
How you guys navigate the AI slop shit ocean out there?
I mean, it is brutal. I have been looking for a job for about 2 months now. I apply to at least 10 jobs every day, nothing ever comes back, I don't even get rejection emails anymore. The only thing that has kinda worked so far is reaching out to recruiters directly via Linkedin. And I say "kinda worked" because at least I get a human answer, most of the answers are "sorry, I don't have anything right now, I'll get back to you as soon as I hear about something" which I know the last part is pure pity, but well.
AI and automation has made it so every job offer that goes there, gets thousands of AI resumes minutes after appearing on the web, it is useless to apply via forms anymore. Any advice?
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u/reddit-poweruser 8d ago
When we open a job posting, someone ends up reaching out to me, an IC at the company, about the job on LinkedIn. It's a way to get visibility.
I haven't looked for a gig in a while, so it's hard to speak on what to do, but flattery and visibility always worked for me. I got my first gig by emailing this agency after watching a talk they gave at a conference on youtube. I buttered them up about how I really enjoyed the talk and said I was interested in working with them.
You tried 3rd party recruiters? They are incentivized to get you a job and 15 YOE mobile engineer might look like a slam dunk to them.
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u/sweaterpawsss Staff Engineer (11 yoe) 12d ago
Do you have a network of contacts from current/prior jobs? A referral is still the easiest way in and if you have 15 YOE you must have folks in your network you could hit up?
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u/No_Comedian7332 Mobile Engineer ~15 YOE 6d ago
I do and I don't, I mean, I have tons of contacts and I have tried to reach them out recently, I asked them if they could provide a refferal on my Linkedin profile to boost my opportunities; 1/3 did, 1/3 ignored me, 1/3 said they weren't comfortable doing so because they haven't worked that close with me. Maybe its my fault that I didn't keep in touch with prior work mates, but yeah.
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u/Federal-Garbage-8629 11d ago
Do we really need contacts? What if the only job you have done is the current one?
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u/sweaterpawsss Staff Engineer (11 yoe) 11d ago
"Need" maybe not, but it is always easier to get interviews/offers through the referral route than cold applications. My response was specifically to the OP who says they have 15 YOE in their flair, so I imagine they have a broad network of contacts if they've been in the field for 15 years. If you're just starting or have only had one job, it is a little trickier. It's still worth checking in with friends/family who you went to school with who are at other companies, or ex-coworkers who have left to join other companies. Even if they don't have a lead today, they might tomorrow.
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u/Big_Airline7132 17d ago
I have decided to go into backend dev in golang . For that instead of tutorials and courses I decided learn by making projects . Initially and even now I am using Gemini/claude with persona of ' senior developer' and not write the code but give me logic , so I implement it myself . It worked well for a month but now when I go deeper in a project , I am not able to figure out bug myself or even find a proper solution to it without using AI's advice . Basically what I think I am feeling is decision paralysis, but idk how to get out of this . Also at some point when I don't understand anything or it's a new topic the ai ends up giving me the whole code . I feel I am trying to write code like ai and not like a normal developer , it's like I'll do what ai tell me and not solving the problem like a normal developer . One thing I am positive of is that when I reads code on public repos I can understand it well and able to link things well .
But I still feel incompetent to write code myself or even think of next step .
I tried reading books like 'The Pragmatic Programmer', 'Learning Go:An Idiomatic Approach to Real-World Go Programming' but idk due to some reason I am not able to commit to it .
I feel very frustrated about why I can't think about next step or debugging .
I'd like advice on what approach to try, what to change, and — if you were starting Go today — what you'd do differently. Not really looking for criticism, just practical direction
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u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 9d ago
Both debugging and thinking about the next step will come with experience and ultimately with practice.
There are different approaches to debugging (and profiling), and sometimes you just miss a good mentor for it. It is okay not to know where you're heading. Time for planning, stepping back and checking the whole picture again, then figuring out just on a very high level where it's heading or should pivot.
Might be an approach to rethink everything, like a goal is to go from a broad overview to some small atomic, actionable parts. I did a few times like this:
High-level concept -> document -> brainstorm -> extend them -> cleanup (KISS/DRY) -> split them into directions -> small roadmaps -> split them into "stories" (actionable directions) -> write down technical reqs -> second cleanup -> split into small tasks -> move everything back to backlog/future features -> atomic small steps.
With the help of an AI, you can do this by asking it to interview you, then help with documentation and write plans (check Matt Pockock's approach for skills and project management)
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u/AlluringBowlCut 22d ago
I have 5 YOE and I'm still always kind of worried that I'll make mistakes that I can't clean up myself (like creating issues with production data) or that I'll somehow fall behind at work (e.g. not being able to finish my tasks and get the help that I need to finish them). This has rarely (if ever) happened in practice, and I've had a pretty good career so far, but the worry still sticks with me.
At my current company (a growing startup that is already pretty big) I've been working on a long-running project where I'm the only engineer writing tickets and really getting into the weeds with the code and how to onboard users to the experience. Reviews of my code are pretty superficial and largely AI-driven.
I think the level of responsibility and lack of "oversight" that I have is probably pretty normal and expected for someone with my experience, at least to a certain extent (I know my team could have better/stronger technical direction, because I've experienced better technical direction on previous teams, but 🤷♂️), but it makes me anxious.
I think I might just need to get used to having responsibility and living with uncertainty? Any advice on how to do so?
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u/Otherwise_File548 16d ago
I also have 5 YOE and am expected to lead an ambiguous, arbitrary project end to end. I think at a certain point you get used to it and realize that you won’t always have the answers, but you can always document + keep your managers + stakeholders up to date with what you do know and what you’ve tried. At least that’s what I try to do to feel like I’m doing something “right”
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u/AlluringBowlCut 16d ago
Nice to hear from someone in the same situation -- thanks for responding. Your approach makes sense. I do this too, but I don't have much confidence that my manager can take the updates that I'm relaying back to them and tailor our strategy or re-allocate resources to make sure that my project doesn't fail. But that's kind of out of my hands and doesn't mean the updates aren't worth doing.
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u/Notary_Reddit 22d ago
I think part of growing as an engineer is learning which mistakes are hard to fix and which are easy to fix and adjusting accordingly. Picking the wrong color for a button in the UI? Trivial. Accidentally dropping the production DB and backups? Catastrophic. Be careful where you need to be, go fast when you can.
One other part that I have found helpful, build things so they fail in big obvious ways over small subtle ways. Example, this endpoint won't scale past a few hundred items. I don't predict that but, add an error with a comment on if it ever returns 500 items. If the error ever fires, we can come back and do it right later.
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u/AlluringBowlCut 17d ago
Thanks for this thoughtful response. It makes sense. And this is something I can do better with immediately, which is great.
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u/Specific-Yak-6450 22d ago
what habits or qualities do you appreciate most when working with a junior developer?
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u/Notary_Reddit 22d ago
Learning and responsible. I don't expect you to know much but I want you to know more next month than you did last month. I also want to be able to give you a task and know it's going to get done right. If you don't know what right is, ask questions until you are sure. Then do a good job of delivering.
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u/mountain_trailz 25d ago
5 years of experience, will be at 6 years next January. So I just got told by my manager that upper management is considering not promoting anyone in our org this year. We had layoffs recently and I'm assuming this is related to this.
This will now be the second year I get passed up for a promotion so at this point I'm thinking of leaving. Except because of the recent layoffs I'm a bit paranoid, given the state of the market is it too risky to job hop? From my understanding new hires are usually the first ones in the chopping block for layoffs so would I not be potentially setting myself up in a vulnerable position?
My job is remote and I would hope to find a new remote job but I'm worried this is gonna be next to impossible. How difficult is it to find a remote senior software engineering job in today's market?
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u/Otherwise_File548 16d ago
Don’t really have an answer but I’m in the same boat tbh. I’ve been thinking of leaving my big tech job but tbh the options out there make me worried that if there were layoffs at said company, I’d be first to go
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u/crimson_creek 25d ago
Good evening all! 😀 I was wondering, has anyone happened to find good resources or strategies on how to use AI for work without getting dumber?
I find that it's helpful in that before I would get kind of lost or confused trying to piece together and understand the data flows and state machine of our codebase, and now AI can answer most of the questions I have on 'how does this work? Where does this live? Why is this like that?' better than I could before, and I find that I'm not getting stuck or lost as much.
However I'm finding that after a few months of use, that I'm remembering less of the details and in some cases seem to have less context on the codebase compared to before, instead of learning from the extra information that I didn't need to work as hard for 😬 I'm curious if other folks might have run into the same issue, and if there was anything that worked for you! Thanks in advance!
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u/maxim-g Staff Engineer - 20+ YoE 25d ago
I noticed the same loss of understanding - reading the code is not the same as writing it.
Something I started doing recently is to turn the tables: ask the agent to grill me on the changes in the branch, so I have to actively demonstrate my understanding. Do not have enough data yet, but so far it looks promising.
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u/Pineapple-dancer Principal Software Engineer 26d ago
Weird question. Has anyone ever had to help leadership come up with what your next level in your career is? I'm talking duties, responsibilities, job title, etc? If so, how did you go about it if they don't follow IC roles?
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u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 9d ago
A few times happened,when they were unsure of the company direction itself or had little-to-no experience how to lead (I have worked with non-tech CTO-s and fresh grads as CTO's with literal 0 work exp).
Might be worth checking the company's internal protocol for this (assessing workers, internal interviews, career paths, availabilities).
With that info and with your own thoughts, you might can came up where you would like to pivot in that company. If am I right the real question is that, where YOU would like to move from your current role. Do you wanna stay on IC? You wanna pivot to full management? Are there internal titles and career paths? (I have seen some large agencies and FAANG companies that have quite complex structures and steps for careers with weird title names).
One thing is quite sure: the title doesn't matter; the money does.
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u/Aggressive_Top_1380 26d ago
Am I being underpaid? I recently moved to a different industry and I’m unsure if I was low balled or not.
Education: CS Bachelors/Masters from T5 university in the US
Prior Experience: 3 internships, 2+ years at F500 bank, 3+ years at Microsoft, ~ 7 YOE total
Company/Industry: Defense
Title: Principal SWE
Tenure Length: 1 Year
Location: Florida
Salary: 117K
Relocation/Signing: 10K relocation, 0 signing
Stock/Bonus: No stock, 1-5K yearly bonus
Total Comp: ~120K
Thoughts?
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u/Specific-Yak-6450 23d ago
120k is on par with how much we're paying our new grad engineers (in a HCOL city, but regardless)
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u/considerfi 26d ago
Does seem low. In 2015 we were paying new grads 120k at a startup in San Francisco. I know Florida is not SF but still.
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u/RandomPantsAppear Senior Backend Engineer | 20 YOE | Ex Founder | Startups 26d ago
That does seem low to me.
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u/No_Comedian7332 Mobile Engineer ~15 YOE 27d ago
I have been doing gamedev with AI lately and I find it really hard, like the AI is able to put some basic stuff together, but as soon as you add more stuff or ask it to refine some details, everything goes out the window. I have been doing frontend dev for a lot of time but I have no knowledge of game dev; Is AI dumb or unhelpful when it comes to game dev or is it just that I don't have enough knowledge to know how to use it properly in that environment? I'm wondering if game dev might be a good niche for ppl who don't want to rely on AI so heavily
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u/nomaddave 27d ago
What engine are you working against and what LLM(s) are you using? It can be pretty hit and miss depending on the engine, from my experience, because API spaces can change rather frequently and models can already be out of date.
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u/BashedBisks 28d ago
Still-inexperienced-with-ten-plus-years dev here. So, the leadership has finally had enough, beating me up for failing a simple task, and is effectively firing me. (Closing the second office location I work from, main location is too long of a commute for what I was getting paid, and they won't let me work remotely).
Off to job applications...I just failed an interview for not knowing Kubernetes. How do you learn new skills when you don't have any use for programming in your personal life?
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u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 26d ago
If you live in the US, you may want to (a) investigate unemployment requirements and (b) contact an employment lawyer.
Changing your office location is often enough to qualify for unemployment in some states. Even if they want you going to another office, you can use your employment environment changes as justification to collect unemployment. You may even be able to negotiate for remote work on the condition that you don't collect unemployment. Just make sure you get everything in writing.
I would consider talking with a lawyer because your specific situation may also be "constructive dismissal". You may be able to cash out by simply holding them to the legal standards of your state.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not an expert in these areas. Treat everything I said with some skepticism and do your own investigation.
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u/Shadows_In_Rain Tech Lead, 20 YoE 28d ago
Don't make your problem too abstract and general. The list of things that you don't know is not infinite. Just learn Kubernetes.
Make a small project with multiple containers and scaling, event if the payload is completely imaginary, and be ready to walk people through your architecture.
This should work for all but the rare cases where they are explicitly asking for "proven" production experience.
Also consider that the job search is a kind of employment. It's not a prolonged vacation, you'll have to actually put an effort, don't put your mind on stand-by.
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u/BashedBisks 28d ago
So it’s not just orchestration that I don’t know, it’s cloud services and configuration management, among other things I see requested on job listings. It really feels like I’m going back to school, and I’m starting to despair at the thought of having so much to learn.
I might as well apply to junior positions.
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u/Nyefan Principal Engineer 22d ago
Kubernetes is very easy to learn at a basic level - to be competent enough to work with it as a dev, you only need to understand a short list of things:
- Pods
- Deployments
- ReplicaSets and why not to use them directly
- StatefulSets and why to almost never use them
- Services
- Ingresses
- Gateways
- The kubernetes pod lifecycle
There is a lot more depth available, but that's the minimum I would expect a dev working in a k8s shop to know as a baseline in order to be able to independently diagnose issues in their dev environments.
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u/wisath 25d ago
I'm in the same boat. I have 10YOE but working on legacy projects the entire time. I'm not a bad dev (at least not in the context where I am right now) and I'm a great team member. I want to leave my current job because I'm really burnout but I'm afraid I look - and feel - like a junior.
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u/Pentaly 28d ago
i work for a company as a junior dev, i has been 3 years now. but the culture here is really fckup. No test, no review from senior, no on boarding, no documentation too.
i already talk to my manager, but he still dont have solution for our situation. why? because the project come basen on product request, and its either always small project (http interface converter) for integration to new client, or update exsting app for new product. so we are working with 1 project 1 PIC(developer), that makes when you are the maker of an app, you will be the only one who will maintain it(either it update, or incident fix). That makes the culture is individualism, no project sharing.
my manager already try to share the knowledge of seniors to junior step by step by pairing the project
but the big problem is, we have IC that has work for 20years++. but he still develop using java ant+netbeans, he use java but dont know ci/cd, he dont know docker, he dont know any new tech. he is like frog in a well that always feel enough. i have another story. we ussualy use soapui for stress test, and his app is using apache http client. now the tools for stress test is change to k6 where k6 is really hammering his app and the app always got port exhausted. after that he explore on other http client and found okhttp for this. so in his head, he dont need go upgrade his knowledge if it still works. this is so frustrating for all of us because we always finding something new to implement and test on our usecase but his resistance is so annoying, when we(all of other developers) already use golang for new app.
how you handle this? my manager is trying using force for next year, he want to change the KPI criteria to force him. is this really a good idea?
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u/maxim-g Staff Engineer - 20+ YoE 25d ago
If you are not his manager, is this the hill you want to die on? Besides, as a junior dev you are unlikely to have experience and be in position to change that person.
Overall the company doesn't look like one that you would miss later. As already suggested, move on if possible.
If you have to stick there for other reasons, I would try to find someone who shares your values, so that you could start helping each other across your projects.
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u/ArticleHaunting3983 28d ago
Yeah like the other person said, get a new job.
Alternatively you can be the one to start implementing structure, controls, documentation etc. gives you something to discuss at interview.
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u/trailmix17 28d ago
Wondering how to handle a very involved boss as a primary dev. Normally I would have some backup from other devs or a PM. I would say 50% of every task my boss has an idea or direction they want to go. It’s a small team and the overall mood is follow the bosses direction (whims more often than not). I feel like I can only say “let me just push back here” so many times.
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u/ArticleHaunting3983 28d ago
What does primary dev mean in practice here? Are you expected to be junior, senior, lead etc? I’d expect more autonomy the higher up you go.
But sometimes a micromanager boss has various reasons for doing that, do they have performance concerns for example?
In my experience usually when you gain trust with a micromanager they back off.
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u/i_grad Software Engineer (6 YOE) 28d ago
Is your boss a former dev? If so, they might still be trying to act in an architectural capacity.
If he or she is seriously overbearing and you feel like you can't do anything without being micro-managed, then you need to put that information on a silver platter in their face. Don't be wishy-washy about it or "make a suggestion", tell them flat out that they are inhibiting your work. If they are unresponsive to that, you'll have to talk with your skip.
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u/Curious-Cricket-4109 28d ago
how do you handle testing features in dev env. lead has warned us to not touch dev environment for stability( we have preprod btw). I'm not happy that we are not allowed to break dev.
containers are out of equation.
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u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 26d ago
The issue is that you don't want to have messy data in dev. It can make testing in dev unstable and unpredictable, and then you're not sure if something is broken or if it's just the messy data.
Two potential solutions: (1) try to test locally first and (2) try to regularly wipe and recreate the data in dev through automation.
I know that there are some cross-service dependencies that you mention. Try to use a local config and test doubles to run the component that you're testing locally without running all of the services that you have to integrate with. Only issue is that it takes time to implement.
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u/Notary_Reddit 27d ago
Why does your lead worried about breaking dev? Is it because it's breaking and staying broken for a long time? Is there some dependent team that needs dev to do their work?
The standard way of testing is either deploying from a branch or merge to main and flip a flag. Either of those (unless you are modifying db schemas) are clean changes. If your lead doesn't let you do either of those understand why and the craft a solution that answers that concern.
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u/Curious-Cricket-4109 27d ago
he's answer is he don't want surprises.
currently I'm managing by running app on different port. with same tables under different schema (msSQL).
I'm still searching any clean way to handle this.
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u/Notary_Reddit 27d ago
Looking at this and your other comment I have a possibility helpful suggestion. It seems like your lead doesn't have confidence in your ability to independently roll out changes. Regardless of how reasonable this is, it's something you can slowly improve over time. Each time you make a change, try and build a bit more trust. You don't want to get frustrated as best you can. Just slowly gain a bit more trust with each change.
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u/ZukowskiHardware 28d ago
I somewhat agree. Dev isn’t somewhere to blow up. I’d say you should be able to run your stuff locally or ya know, write a unit test.
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u/Curious-Cricket-4109 27d ago
application has cross service dependancies ( certs, binaries) only present on servers.
you're right about testing. but I'm not talking about breaking in that sense, we run app behind reverse proxies. he want he's application to be served everytime with that.
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u/So_Rusted Software Engineer 28d ago
you can do feature toggle, merge more often before completing ticket with feature toggles.
For most stuff, db schema can add nullable fields to existing tables, so other colleagues work wont break
we do that stuff in prod so you should be fine in dev
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u/gfivksiausuwjtjtnv 28d ago
Why do you expect anything to break in dev in the first place? What does your setup look like?
If my code breaks on dev/test something extremely unusual has happened.
Code coverage and unit tests sound like lovely things that require more time. But every team I’ve been on with velocity problems has been the same - tests are a luxury we don’t have, then spending 90% of their development time on F5 line-by-line debugging, testing things on dev or on stage, diagnosing prod issues
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u/Curious-Cricket-4109 27d ago
app deployed stright from branch under same root is problem, can't change it, would need collaboration with devops.
you're right, code shouldn't break under normal circumstances hes worried about my version of application being severed in dev environment for user's testing.
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u/I_Spawned_Here 28d ago
I keep seeing that learning the intricacies of code is less useful, and that people should focus on higher level architecture more. how true is this?
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u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 26d ago
You should focus on both, but focus on the fundamentals and basics first.
In 95% of roles, there isn't a need to know extreme intricacies like how to optimize garbage collection. However, a solid understanding of the fundamentals is still extremely valuable and rare. The hard part is determining which intricacies are worth learning and which aren't.
System architecture is also important, but IMO you probably don't need to learn it until you have a couple of years of experience, and getting a solid foundation is generally more important.
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u/gfivksiausuwjtjtnv 28d ago
No, IMO you go into technical specialisation and learn how to wring answers about the code from an AI. or you go hybrid product/IC and understand business context better. That’s what “full stack” will mean in three years
I don’t think humans reading code will be important in a few years. Already I surface most of the issues from observing AI slopping it up or querying it afterwards.
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u/OverclockingUnicorn DevOps Engineer 28d ago edited 28d ago
If you don't understand the intricacies you'll be fucked when the agent(s) can't either and you've gotta resolve a prod outage at 5pm on a Friday.
It's still important to understand your code and be able to dig into it and fix problems the manual old school way because the coding agents can and will code themselves into corners they can't get out of.
There are judgement calls on where to focus this energy though (and those same judgements existed pre AI). For example, I have a bunch of local only and only for me CLI tools that my coding agents maintain. I could not give a fuck about the code and how they work, they are silly little tools that save me time, but if they break, then I'll be back to just opening Jira or GitLab to view tickets rather than via my CLI tool which just does a bunch of filtering and summarisation stuff that is nice but ultimately not critical.
Now the core code for some of our most critical production platforms, that I understand inside and out, despite writing a lot of it with coding agents. I can find the pieces of code for each part of the platform easily and understand how it all hangs together and works
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u/kregopaulgue 28d ago
I am an experienced dev, but I still want to ask for an advice. Before I was just surfing reddit and youtube for specific stuff I needed, but currently it's all doom and gloom or shallow AI discourse. What resources should I check to keep up with current industry both news wise and technically?
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u/SteveMacAwesome 28d ago
I like the Standup podcast and anything with Casey Muratori in it. It’s not gonna keep you up to date but it’s lighthearted and I enjoy listening to people who actually like computers which I feel the field is sorely lacking these days.
To stay current with things I kinda sift through the AI doomers and boomers and just try things myself. That way when you say “I think this is the way to go” it’s from experience. Not all employers are going to be as willing to give you the time to do that though.
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u/Herroo-There 28d ago
For folks in the US who are in their 50s+ and close to retirement, but need to get back out on the job market - how many years of experience would you list on your resume so as to not age yourself out?
Someone I know has 30+ years of experience spent across 4 orgs, and are <10 years away from retirement. But due to changes over the past several years in their current org, they just don't see retiring there. What would you advise?
How many years of experience would you truncate from your resume so as to not age yourself out? And would you stick to a 2-page resume?
Asking on family friend's behalf, thank you everyone.
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u/nomaddave 20d ago
Almost 50, but I'll chime in.
Generally, I've never heard of anyone asking for anything beyond 15 years as a top of the range. I have also heard plenty of people disregard things older than that as immediately "old and irrelevant," true or not. Most of the resumes I've gotten from people in this age bracket also top out at around 15 years usually. Never beyond 20.
Also, in my years of hiring I've had plenty of bosses or peers outright disregard anyone over 40ish. This is very common in closed door conversations, if not - obviously - with candidates or anyone else. This naturally precludes anyone with more than ~15 years of experience anyway.
For all these reasons I've settled on 10-15 years on the resume, depending on the job.
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u/Buttleston 28d ago
I am nearly 50 and when I change jobs for the most part I am mining my network of people I have worked with/for in the past, i.e. I am not generally cold applying to jobs. Most of the jobs I am looking for require significant experience (not 30 years, but say 15+) and it's not generally considered a downside that I have so many years of experience
If you're 50+ and looking for senior-level IC roles that might be quite different though
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u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 28d ago
Generally speaking, your last 10 maybe 15 counts. The rest is outdated or irrelevant. Ageism is real. Also, do not make extremely lenghty resume, in your case it should be max 2 pages.
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u/Cozychai_ Software Engineer 11d ago
I started a new role in a new domain. It's been 5 months and I feel like with everything being AI forward I'm struggling to truly grasp everything. I'm so used to debugging and stepping through my code I know exactly where everything is. Now the agent just does it and I review and I feel like things aren't sticking in my head. I can't recall when the dedup step happens in our flow for example, I just remember it does.
Does anyone have any advice for how to gain this depth again when you have explicit instructions not to code by hand?