I am not even 30 yet (but close) and as a generalist with lower-level inclination could see something similar.
At my first day at my first job at gamedev consulting company, around seven years ago, I've got PSP devkit with a task to port a game to PSP. Game was using an internal cross-platform framework that had some support for PSP. I learned on the job how to run and debug code on devkit. I had to extend framework's support for PSP. It was very satisfying project. Later on I also learned on the job some iOS and Android programming. I heard about a colleague that was sent to a client as a help in iOS project, when his first experience with iOS was a book that he was reading on the plane. It all worked, because people there were great generalists.
After a few companies and pause in mobile development (around 2 years) I applied for an iOS developer job in cool startup. The guy that was checking my competency was asking me many questions that I didn't knew answers to. But I could quite reliably imagine most probable answer and he was totally surprised that I could quickly get to the answers (even if my vocabulary was a bit off), by just thinking. I couldn't believe that someone in his position can be surprised by such things. Later on HR person was asking me why I want to be iOS developer if I don't even have a mac or iPhone. I described my previous experiences and that I didn't have PSP devkit or prototype set-top box (at other job) at home either, but it just did not compute for that person. In the end I didn't get the job, but after all this I wouldn't take it.
I think that for such cool new companies their stack is so advanced and so special that they cannot comprehend that some generalist can do the same as many of their specialists in no time. Maybe it is more generalist vs specialist than young vs old?
At my first day at my first job at gamedev consulting company, around seven years ago, I've got PSP devkit with a task to port a game to PSP. Game was using an internal cross-platform framework that had some support for PSP. I learned on the job how to run and debug code on devkit. I had to extend framework's support for PSP. It was very satisfying project. Later on I also learned on the job some iOS and Android programming. I heard about a colleague that was sent to a client as a help in iOS project, when his first experience with iOS was a book that he was reading on the plane. It all worked, because people there were great generalists.
After a few companies and pause in mobile development (around 2 years) I applied for an iOS developer job in cool startup. The guy that was checking my competency was asking me many questions that I didn't knew answers to. But I could quite reliably imagine most probable answer and he was totally surprised that I could quickly get to the answers (even if my vocabulary was a bit off), by just thinking. I couldn't believe that someone in his position can be surprised by such things. Later on HR person was asking me why I want to be iOS developer if I don't even have a mac or iPhone. I described my previous experiences and that I didn't have PSP devkit or prototype set-top box (at other job) at home either, but it just did not compute for that person. In the end I didn't get the job, but after all this I wouldn't take it.
I think that for such cool new companies their stack is so advanced and so special that they cannot comprehend that some generalist can do the same as many of their specialists in no time. Maybe it is more generalist vs specialist than young vs old?