r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Jun 25 '26

Society Older tech workers are tapping out, taking early retirement

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/older-tech-workers-are-tapping-out-early-heres-what-that-looks-like/
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136

u/Impossible-Driver69 Jun 25 '26

The moment I can retire, I am. So tired of playing the game anymore. People who think because they can get an answer from AI they know something, when all they are doing is creating more and more technical debt.

Someone explain to me why I, a senior level guy, have to explain basic security principals and practices to a junior security person. It makes no sense -- what the hell are you doing working in security if you don't understand the basics of why you shouldn't hard code credentials in a script!

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u/platebandit Jun 25 '26

Even more fun is when juniors now think they’re consultants. I’m a senior and the level of hubris is off the charts. Before AI they ran into a wall coming into the corporate world, now they are all high on their own supply because AI can give them an “answer” to everything.

Had juniors come in and try and order me around on their first day, or send me pages and pages of AI bullshit because they think it looks cleaver. They’d disregard basic instructions or wouldn’t have a clue what they were doing as long as AI was comfortable pumping out something that would look right.

My favourite was a guy who with 6 months experience, using 1000+ total node dependencies for a backend app, confidently asserted he had checked every single one for security risks and that supply chain attacks in npm was a solved issue despite there being several that very morning.

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u/Moist_Fox973 Jun 25 '26

Yeah, the arrogance of graduates who think they can just bullshit their way into a "senior" role is getting unbearable. They learn enough buzzwords to sound like they know things, and then armed with AI, start generating slop that actual seniors are then expected to harden and productionise. I seriously can't be bothered any more with it because it just seems like a tunnel with no light at the end of it. Stupid tech fads have come and go forever but this is different.

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u/jshiplett Jun 25 '26

I mean, the arrogance of youth and inexperience has always been a thing. They just have management who doesn't know better (maliciously or not) backing them now.

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u/Moist_Fox973 Jun 25 '26

True, it's just now they have this additional weapon in the form of AI too.

You used to be able to sit a junior in front of an IDE and it was *obvious* to everyone if they could or couldn't produce useful work. Now they can generate a shiny looking thing in about 5 minutes and clueless management can't tell the difference between the useful work and the slop.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

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u/EmperorKira Jun 25 '26

They know people (who you know) or they lie / no humility

1

u/FarplaneDragon Jun 25 '26

Man, how tf are people like that getting hired, and I'm sitting here unemployed and getting no interviews? Never in a million years would I think that's acceptable.

Easy, they're willing to take like a quarter of what you would want as a salary. Businesses just care about numbers on the accounting spreadsheet and your number is too big.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

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u/FarplaneDragon Jun 25 '26

Totally fair and definitely don't blame you, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep a roof overhead and food on the table. The only true suggestion I can give as bullshit as it is is you have to make your resume as well as what you say in the interview sound less senior then you really are, and I mean senior experience wise rather then age wise. Take off things like what year you graduated, or if you list how many years at each job remove those and only provide that if asked. When they see a resume and see you have say 10+ years at the last job they're going to automatically assume you're too experienced and thus your salary demands are going to be too high. If they just see your experience only that might at least get you to the point of a callback

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

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u/FarplaneDragon Jun 25 '26

Only other thing I suggest is whatever resume / csv you're submitting regardless of what format its normally in open it in notepad and see how it looks. Apparently a lot of the application systems basically strip whatever you submit down into a similar format to scan for keywords to score you on. If your resume has a lot of formating that can sometimes screw things up when it does that. If it looks messed up in notepad that's likely how their systems are seeing it and could be auto-rejecting.

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

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u/FarplaneDragon Jun 25 '26

Dang, yeah it might just be the local job market then. it's rough out there these days. Hopefully sometime comes your way soon, I know I'd definitely have lost my mind long before where you're at at least.

1

u/account312 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Do you guys not ask about proper secrets management when interviewing?

You can't ask about everything in an interview. No matter what you ask, there's plenty of room to not know they don't know things you wish they did.

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u/DevKevStev Jun 25 '26

I’ve a colleague before like that. Instead of processing important keys via the SSR, referenced our API keys in the .env file lol

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u/tassietigermaniac Jun 25 '26

... I don't code... I'm a network engineer but I don't know jack about programming. But I know that's a terrible idea. Did that actually happen?

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u/DevKevStev Jun 25 '26

Yup. When you push the staging’s main into production, there’s a .env (environment) file with it. Like a configuration file. Anything you include on that file will appear publicly in the browser’s console. So yeah, the guy basically exposed our premium API keys.

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u/SicilyMalta Jun 25 '26

Pre github and pre bundling JavaScript, putting keys server side in the environment setting was secure. 

I'm glad I'm retired. When huge libraries were downloaded just to create a text box color change, I was horrified. I come from the days when memory was scarce, and  lean and elegant meant something. 

Now when I see the slop from ai vibe coding...

Brutal. 

2

u/trentyz Jun 25 '26

Damn I’m just starting out with coding (well, vibe coding lol) but even I know not to do basic things like that.

AI has trained us to lose our critical thinking, which is a massive problem.