I know of which you speak, as far as ageism. After interviewing an overqualified Engineer in his early 50s at my last job, my manager literally replied to my recommendation to hire with: "Meh. He's just too old to fit in." I was pretty shocked, especially since part of my argument to hire him was that our team had too many young inexperienced people and could use some balance. I'm 34.

Leaving your field is an option. But there are other viable options out there. Moving to a different job market, expanding your search to the rest of CA or even out of state is another one. I'm praying some company makes me a manager in the next 5 years so I don't end up fighting for individual contributer jobs against people half my age.

My friend is a software developer that was being discriminated against. After acknowledging, then ignoring him, the HR department screwed up pretty bad. He had no choice but to threaten a lawsuit (he had a lot of solid evidence) and they offered him a pretty sweet retention package (nearly a year's pay) that came with a promise not to sue. He took it and quit. He is white, his VP, manager, and most of his coworkers were Indian. The company was Verisign. He has had several good paying jobs since and hasn't been "blacklisted" whatever that means.

The high rate of employee turnover, politics, and finger pointing that goes on in the China office I work with (aprox 300 engineers in Beijing) is shocking. I don't know how a company can expect to be sucessful at doing real engineering and development work over there.

This doesn't apply in software development. The work isn't "just throw another body at it." It requires thoughtful insight and a nuanced approach to do correctly, and efficiently. An effective software engineer should rarely, if ever, have to work more than 40 hours a week.

Agreed. All of the talented and seasoned Engineers I have worked with share this approach. And it works wonders for your stress levels and family life.

I have been working as a Software Engineer in Southern California for ~10 years and other than my first job when I was paid hourly, I have never averaged more than 40 hours a week. Sure, once and a while there is a production push and I have to work a 16 hour day, but I take a day off (wihtout using vacation) if that is the case. In general, I work less than 40 hours a week. Over the last year, I'd estimate I average 34 hours/week of actual work and that is split between home and in my cubical. And I'm effective, my maanger is ahppy with my performance and I get good reviews. I am also able to be responsive to my email and even VPN in at times during off hours. I also get to spend a lot of time with my family because I am empowered enough to create my own work schedule. Some of the people I work with spend 50+ hours a week in the office and will respond to emails in the middle of the night. Yet they are less effective than I am. Many of the people I work with ahve siomlar schedules to me, and they are most the upper echelon as far as talent goes. In general, I think engineers who work long hours are inept and are trying to make up for their lack of ability.

Do I think the inept people I work with should get paid more for being at their desks more? No, not really.

Dice is engaged to a femminist. That is why we are recieving these posts 2x a day. You see, LinkedIn also married a feminist recently, and Dice was jealous so Dice got engaged. Because slashdot is owned by Dice, and Dice is now owned by a feminist, this is the stupid shit that we can now expect to be posted to /.

I hope that my message is clear to everyone. :)


PS LINKEDIN RULLLLZ! I just got a new job hat pays $130k thanks to that website.

I read that LinkedIn is a job website that will get you more than $100,000 per year. Meanwhile, LinkedIN was the one programming language to appear on LinkedIn's recent list of the fastest-growing tech skills, which is assembled from mentions in LinkedIn job postings.

Fuuuuuck Yoooooouuuuuuuu Dice!

"I bet you can correlate that with the improved living standards in Northern Ireland."

So you are betting that the difference in living standards for Catholics and Protestants in Ireland 100 years ago was the same as or larger than the difference between people in Sub-Saharan Africa and those in Europe/USA right now. I'd call that a pretty risky gamble. Interesting that you have formed a strong opinion, that was upvoted, based on this assumption that has no support other than your intuition.

Reading your post made me envision a fat white nerd punching a bitchy little asian girl in the mouth at a bar. lol

Thank you. If you don't know anythign about soemone, all you have to go off is their appearance as a conversation starter. I think getting offended and accuratory over a simple get-to-know-you question shows a lot more aggression than the person that asked the question.

I never really asked that until I started trying to get laid. For me it was just a way to start a conversation with a cute girl so I could tell her she looked exotic or pretty or natural or whatever seemd most appropriate given her looks. It often worked as a starter and I'd often get asked back where my ancestors are from (Ireland). In a country where 99% of us have ancestors from another continent, I don't think it is racist to ask someone where their ancestors are from. But then again I'm not a 17 year old half asian female prodigy with an axe to grind.

An arrest is not the same as a conviction. IANAL but I think this would be slander (and the police could be sued in civil court) if this happened in the USA.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but IMO, brewing beer is pretty easy. It's not like there is a lot of information to "open source" like in a modern operating system. Seems stupid to even call it "source" unless you are giving away free yeast or something.

The last I read (years ago) 4G was a broken standard. This is part of the reason why some carriers now call their service "4G LTE", and it was following in the steps of the 3G standard being broken by the carriers late in it's life cycle.

If the term "4G" essentially means nothing now, why will "5G" be any different?