Chinese tech firms are throwing out applicants over the age of 30

If you're over 30, and still under-performing, you should be fired.

Hint, hint >:-} ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 |

Thinking outside the box... producing elegant solutions, by understanding what nature is hiding.

"It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness." -James Barrie

already employed, watch out, you won't be after you reach the magic expirat ion age/date.

If your employer doesn't give you opportunities to show off your skills, yo u probably should think of moving to a better employer.

Jim showed off the skills he had when he was at Motorola, and seems to have been working as a sub-contractor ever since. He may be a great sub-contrac tor, as he keeps on telling us he is, but he doesn't come across as somebod y who would have been all that pleasant to work with.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

already employed, watch out, you won't be after you reach the magic expirat ion age/date.

And just exactly what is that hint?

It takes a long time to get really good at electronic design. Few people under 30 will have been exposed to and challenged by all the things that really matter.

And the ability to work insane numbers of hours may be an asset in grunt work like coding, but isn't so important when it comes to creative and careful electronic design.

So far, the Chinese aren't noted for creative design of hardware or software.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Yes indeed, except "software" and "electronics" are completely interchangeable in those statements.

Over here HR droids tend to regard anybody over 35 as PSBD (past sell by date) - especially for software. And then people complain you can't get good quality software.

I always taught my daughter it was OK to make /new/ mistakes. Unsurprisingly young softies tend to repeat old known mistakes :(

Depends. By age 30 I had 13 patents, and a suit-case-full of successful chip designs.

I've always been family-oriented... I'd come to work at Motorola about

10AM. When called on the carpet about that, I'd note, "All the rest of you do before 10AM is drink coffee and spread gossip... why should I come in and have to look at your ugly faces for two hours of non-productive time?"

I'd walk out of meetings at exactly 5PM, heading home to have dinner with my wife and children.

I also noted that they could fire me if they wanted. They didn't ;-)

I finally laid myself off in 1970.

They're only good at copying. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

     Thinking outside the box... producing elegant solutions, 
              by understanding what nature is hiding. 

"It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that 
is the secret of happiness."  -James Barrie

Software can be hacked, and shipped full of bugs, and people can fix the worst of the bugs when enough users complain. It's important to get the electronics right first pass, because it's so much more expensive to fix.

Windows ships with hundreds of bugs. The Pentium FP divide bug cost Intel something like half a billion dollars.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

The difference between hardware and Windows is that people want to have their hardware replaced for free, and with Windows they will just pay again to get the new version that supposedly fixes the bugs in their old version, which is simply declared "unsupported".

If only; spoken like a true non-softie :(

In real production software systems there is frequently so much that is simply not understood by the current staff that nobody dare touch it.

I was first made aware of it in the late 70s, when some students at my university developed and sold a disassembler for DEC PCP-11 software. They sold it to people that had lost the source code(!), and made, IIRC, around 15 years salary!

That happens even to reputable companies. 20 years ago the software inside HP LaserJets kept growing like Topsy, simply because nobody knew which bits could be safely removed.

Then, of course, there is the software that cannot be touched because it simply must (by law in some cases) continue to produce the same output, including any "infelicities". Financial cruft comes to mind.

I have even been asked to re-implement software so that it produces the same outputs, even though nobody could provide a spec of what it /ought/ to do. I had sufficient sense to decline.

're already employed, watch out, you won't be after you reach the magic exp iration age/date.

Hundreds? You are optimistic!

NT

Older ppl demand more money because they have two car payments, mortgage, a wife, kids need to go to college soon, blah blah blah.

File under "None of these things are an employer's problem." Marriage and having children is the most expensive thing you can do, you knew that "job" was dangerous when you took it.

u're already employed, watch out, you won't be after you reach the magic ex piration age/date.

or to remove something you have to go through seven different systems to document why/how/what/priority/testplan/etc.etc.etc. then get the change approved and once you have done it jump through all the same hoops again

and then hear complains from the integration team about all the diffs they have to look at

If older people can demand more money and get it, young people are really stupid for not doing the same.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

The quest for cheapness.

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All that is only possible if someone understands the /stuff/ :)

And if someone understands it there is very little difference between hardware and software.

And, from the PoV of a manager and/or HR-droid, they aren't afraid to answer back and have the experience to skewer Pronouncements From On High. In other words, people with experience are awkward and not "team players".

That latter is, of course a euphemism for "project dogsbody" or "project scapegoat".

And the quest for a quiet managerial life.

Most organisations have a standard set of expected work practices that includes seriously dysfunctional or disadvantageous ones. The only way to be a high achiever is to be forceful enough to bend the rules and get stuff done anyway. Most companies regard such people as "unpleasant to work with" and "not a team player", and some will fire you for it, to their loss. The ugly truth they don't want to admit is that such people are the only reason they ever actually succeed.

Some companies set up skunk works where such people can be hidden away from poor sensitive non-achievers who don't like being shown up by the folk who have the ability to actually get stuff done.

It's very rare for a company to actually embrace such behaviour, and if they do, it engenders unsociable behaviours of a damaging kind as well. Computer game companies are almost always in this class.

Clifford Heath.

Ahh too true... but they give them new names, so they never have to admit that they continually repeat old mistakes.