What is the 35-year-old crisis, and does it really exist?
It really exists. Recently, Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, who is over 70, said in an interview with CCTV: "If a 35-year-old employee has good abilities and experience, there is no reason not to be hired. 35-year-old employees usually have rich work experience, have long exercises outside, are very experienced, and are expected to be able to serve in the company for 20 years. Such talents should be fully utilized." This shows that the problem of "35-year-old employment barrier" does exist and has been widely concerned. At the same time, some companies prefer young labor, believing that young people learn quickly and work overtime in high-intensity projects requires high physical and energy. In addition, if family responsibilities increase after the age of 35 (such as parenting and elderly care), it may be difficult to maintain the investment level when they are young.
But it may not exist. The essence of the technology industry is intellectual labor, not physical competition, nonlinear growth in programming ability, and core abilities rely on experience accumulation. 35 years old is the golden period for combining technical understanding with project experience. Experienced programmers can solve more complex problems with less code. There are also studies showing that programmers over 40 years old are significantly better than young people in terms of code quality and defect rate indicators (2022 GitHub Annual Report). Individual differences are greater than age tags. Some people have stopped learning at the age of 30, while others are still contributing core code in the open source community at the age of 50.
No matter what, it depends on your inner thoughts. Foreign programmers only start to play their abilities at the age of 35, and are more steady and focused on researching and overcoming. The average age of Google's Fellow engineers is over 45 years old. There are practical reasons for the existence of crisis and the "exaggerated" factors of crisis. We usually see extreme cases of "released employees at the age of 35" on the Internet, but most experienced programmers still have stable employment and only speak out less. But it is obvious that older programmers are almost equal to low cost performance. In addition, second-tier cities like Changsha are almost all small and medium-sized companies in the development period. They are more willing to use low-cost development projects to make projects prove successful in the market, rather than focusing on code scalability and maintainability, which makes it even worse. Recently, during chatting, some classmates and friends have returned to first-tier cities, and the final destination of my crisis is still unknown. . . .
Job hunting anxiety of middle-aged programmers
The word "35-year-old crisis" seems to be just a distant urban legend in the first decade of my career. Until the time I returned to Changsha to find a job and submit a resume, this number suddenly became extremely real. As a "veteran" with 12 years of experience in full-stack development of +.NET, I seriously started my first job search journey in Changsha.
As an old programmer who has experienced industry changes, I have witnessed the golden age of enterprises scrambling for people, done front-end full-stack development, and also experienced iterative separation of technology stacks. Today's market is more realistic: either you have to be strong enough in your skills or face elimination and change careers. Opportunities now tend to favor those who specialize in the segments—whether it is DBA, crawler, blockchain or industry-specific development positions (such as chromatography development). Below are some real interview cases to record this special career stage: moment~
Interview Case 1: Senior R&D Engineer for Lightweight Cloud DNSPod Domain Name Resolution
Tencent Group's subsidiary has a relatively diverse business. First, I communicated briefly over the phone, confirmed the interview time, and online Tencent video conference. First, I gave a regular self-introduction, and then I asked several questions based on the basic DNS protocol, performance optimization, DNS clustering and troubleshooting:
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Please describe a complete DNS recursive query process, including the server type involved and the critical message fields
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If the DNS query latency is too high, what aspects will you troubleshoot and optimize?
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Users have reported a large number of NXDOMAIN responses, but the domain name actually exists. How to locate it?
Recalling the above questions based on memory is more impressive, and it tests the recursion/authoritative analysis of DNS to improve the performance, stability and security of the DNS system (anti-DDoS, anti-hijacking). The position is more suitable for professional network operation and maintenance. If you are interested, you can review the relevant knowledge yourself and finally end the interview with contact again.
Interview Case 2: Senior full-stack engineer
Hunan Zhongren ******* Company, on-site interview, the office area has a strong government atmosphere and a lot of space, but there are not many on-the-job staff. As long as the company is a self-research examination system, it asks the most and most profound technical questions, and it is also the longest interview, from 9 am to lunch time.
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Full-stack development post, from front-end development, back-end development, coding specifications, system performance and accident handling
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Cache queues, database design and optimization, as well as server maintenance security, Linux system command proficiency, etc.
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A set of test papers includes single-choice questions, multiple-choice questions, and fill-in-the-blank questions. Requirements 1: The multiple-choice questions can be identified correctly if they are disrupted. Requirements 2: How to achieve the requirements of whether the fill-in-the-blank questions meet the standards, such as coding and database design?
This is the most sympathetic interview experience. The interviewer was the same age as me and also talked about the views and development status of middle-aged programmers. He wanted to go to Shenzhen to form a team with his friends to recruit a candidate to replace him. However, since the company has prepared a new office space in Changsha County, it is necessary to relocate the company to stay in a permanent residence. The peak commute time reaches 2 hours. In the end, the consideration is still not suitable and is not suitable for long-term stable employment.
Interview Case 3: Senior Developer Programmer
Hunan Xiaowu****** Company, on-site interview, I feel that the company's industry development prospects are good, and it also requires full-stack development, including web front-end, mini-programs, back-end code development, cloud server maintenance, and domain names and SSL certificates related, which is more in line with my technology stack.
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The interview session mentioned a lot of .NET Framework 4.5 and Web Forms technologies, which made me go back to 2015 in a daze.
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The technical direction tests the efficient and stable communication between mini-programs and back-end APIs, identity authentication and performance optimization, caching and database technology mastery
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Application deployment cloud server, server security, disk memory and other monitoring, as well as anti-attack security measures, logs and monitoring, etc.
I didn't talk about more about technology in the initial examination, and mainly examined the matching degree of positions. I have successfully entered the next round. I am fully preparing for the re-examination. I hope I can be in a good state.
Interview Case 4: Game Server Development
Changsha Yi****** Company, on-site interview, a company I like very much. Work and fun coexist, and the commuting time is also suitable. The office space is spacious and clean. Before entering the interview, I will use a shoe heater machine. The film shrinks and fits closely on the soles of the shoe. You can imagine that there is no dust on the desk and computer screen, and the favorite keyboard gap will not fall off. What kind of work experience is it like.
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A brief introduction to yourself at the beginning, learn about your previous work and personal situation, and enter the technical interview stage
- Communication with the development of the game industry, asking about the logic of horse racing and Slot, code implementation and weight control, fault-tolerant mechanism for gold coin output, etc.
- The job focuses on daily iteration, API interface update, GM background management and other maintenance, and prepares to cultivate talents familiar with system logic
The interview atmosphere was harmonious and the interviewer was professional and friendly. Although he was a little unfamiliar in the project experience review process and was a little vague about the previous development details, the subsequent exchanges gradually improved. However, the job candidates are positioned as junior and intermediate development engineers, and matching with my job needs to be weighed. The particularity of the game development industry: system stability is directly related to user experience and retention rate. Slight bugs can still be remedied through compensation mechanisms (such as gold coins are issued), but fatal problems (recursive dead loops, downtime caused by memory leaks, etc.) will cause players to lose. Because DAU is the lifeline of the game, the industry has strict requirements on developers' code quality, system design capabilities and problem prediction awareness.
Summarize:
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Adjust your mindset,Age is not a restriction, but the beginning of another advantage
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The truth about age anxiety: The problem at the age of 35 is not about learning ability, but about learning willingness. Putting a correct position and relegation to a second-tier city does not mean that you can put down your old age and neglect your work
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You're not alone: Many programmers around 35 years old are experiencing similar anxiety. This is not your problem, but a phased phenomenon in the industry. But please believe that the value of experience will eventually be seen
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The value of a technician is never defined by age: Every line of code you write, every algorithm you optimized, and every bug you solved have made a certain system more stable and a certain product more useful.
- You have more choice than you think:You can continue to write code, or you can transfer products, project planning positions, or even cross-border combinations with other industries. 35 years old is not the end, but the starting point of a new possibility
Unfortunately, the offer is still on the road - maybe he is lost or he may not set off at all. The current recruitment market is like a "Hunger Games": 50 resumes are submitted, 5 replies are considered winning, 2 interviews are considered grand prizes, 1 offer... That's a miracle...
Many positions are purely decorated, and the read functions of HR are probably only used to exercise our psychological qualities. But even so, you still have to invest in the resume you should invest in, and you still have to learn the techniques you should learn.
But this result is not surprising - the current job market is experiencing a significant contraction. Many recruitment information has not been updated for a long time, and the feedback rate of HR is extremely low, and it is almost the default rule that cannot be read back. Even with a reply, the interview conversion rate has dropped sharply, and the current job market is indeed severe. Retreat to the second line? If you are thinking too, don't be blind. After all, opportunities always emerge in change, and all we have to do is make sure we are still on the poker table. Think twice before acting. . .
（If you are experiencing similar job search challenges, please share your experiences - maybe we can inspire each other and find ways to break the deadlock~）