Younger engineers trying to find jobs in the industry should consider how much the other parts of …

… Younger engineers trying to find jobs in the industry should consider how much the other parts of the hiring process privilege older engineers regardless of ability. I'm sure many of the people I worked with who lacked basic coding competence twenty years ago still lack competence and are employed right now in jobs that require it, jobs that could go to younger, more capable people except that their resume, their experience, and their ability to say the right-sounding thing don't match up. Hiring someone to write code without ever seeing them do it is like hiring a guitar player for a band by verifying their MFA in music theory, talking to them about music for an hour, and checking their references. All that is fine, but can they play the guitar? You can acquire everything else, the lingo, the knowledge of music theory, the pros and cons of competing techniques, the familiarity with current and past great performers and performances, without ever putting your hands on the instrument. And some people are built like that. …