Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#71

Post by eldaisfish » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #42

rootnod3 wrote: post #22

I would wager that it will get better soon. Once the LLM/Agent hype has died down and a few years of junior developers went down the drain untrained and unmentored, the demand for experienced seasoned developers will rise again. This is not to dismiss LLMs entirely, but they always get touted as “they can do ABC, as long as an experienced dev reviews the output”. And with LLMs hindering the growth of juniors in one w…

I'm looking forward to a nice part time side-hustle during retirement, cleaning up vibe-coded messes. In a few decades, we might have an industry full of 20-40 year old software engineers who don't know how computers work and don't know how to write or fix code beyond begging an LLM to do it and hoping it produces something that works. Maybe I'll be wrong, and in 2050, there won't even be human software engineers any…

you see this in other engineering fields as well. Government, for example, is chock-full of people designing renewable energy policy who have never even seen a solar panel and barely know how one works. There are engineering companies where wind turbine designers have never climbed a wind turbine or seen one in operation.

This is how you get disasters like Ocean Gate where management would rather hire fresh college grads than listen to experienced hires point out mistakes.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#72

Post by blindriver » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

p1dda wrote: post #15

I'm 53 (physician) and would like to pursue a second career in programming but realising it's really hard.

Honestly, pursue it as a hobby but don't try to make a career out of it. This is the worst hiring environment I've seen since the dotcom bust, and there are tens of thousands of fresh CS grads that are unemployed.

If you want to go to school because you're interested, then that's cool. But to think you can make a living out of it when you're 30 years older than the tens of thousands of kids that you're competing against... I really don't think it's worth it unless you want to form your own startup that is medical-related.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#73

Post by ilc » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

jimt1234 wrote: post #35

I used to work with a guy that was known for dressing nice, very formal. Back in the 2000s, he would wear button-down shirts, slacks, nice shoes; he stood out for a software nerd. Anyway, when I saw him recently, he was dressed in jeans and flip-flops, wearing a t-shirt. I asked him what's with the casual attire. He just said, "Trying to keep my job." Being an older dude in this field as well, I know what he's talkin…

I call this "Wearing your uniform."

You need to look like you are a person who would be doing the job. You wouldn't hire a gardner with smooth hands, clean shoes, and no dirt under their nails would you?

Car mechanics, you can see it in their hands, and the way they act around cars.

Every profession has its tells, from what we wear, to our physical traits etc.

After a while, you know if someone adds up or not. But part of that is changing with the times. :)

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#74

Post by iknowSFR » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

saulpw wrote: post #70

iknowSFR wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t the same true of his original attire selection, though? If he wore jeans in the 2000s, he would have faced consequences. So he wore slacks. What’s really changed?

As the parent comment said, he stood out for dressing nicely those years ago. Wearing jeans in the 2000s was not just tolerated or accepted, it was expected. I remember feeling wary of engineers who dressed up for interviews then, like they were trying too hard.

Ah, I interpreted as a reflection of general work cultures. My 2000s years were always formal.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#75

Post by Nextgrid » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #37

tuyguntn wrote: post #3

Yes, when 50 years old applies as a senior engineer, 25 years old senior engineers get uncomfortable. You might not notice it in any public conversation, but there is still a resistance: * will they be on-call? * can they work long hours? * how do I delegate to them? * are they going to resist new tech?

How much experience does it take to be "senior" in that case? Has the 25 y-o engineer been working for 10 years or are they just diluting the "senior" term?

From my experience the "senior" term has been significantly diluted in the zero-interest-rate period.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#76

Post by carlosjobim » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #56

carlosjobim wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your kids school is more important than your job is, that only means your job is extremely unimportant. Like my job. Your kid is better off not going to school for a day, or arriving late. They're not doing anything important in school. Depending on company, maybe they need to hire people to do important things and have responsibility for important things. Somebody who would prioritize things like driving their ki…

I think one seriously broken thing is that every company seems convinced their work is important, and scales their sense of how important work items are relative to the company as a whole. Orgs and teams do the same. You can be on a team that runs a service that's a small part of the overall company product offering, which may be a convenience rather than mission-critical to its clients, who themselves may be doing s…

All of us here have been to school and know how utterly unimportant it is. If not, that is a serious case of amnesia. It's a storage unit for kids, guarded by the most dim-witted people from the community. So when somebody says they can't work because of their kid's school, then either that person does not care about their job, or the company is asking for something out of line. It's either of those two options, depending on what actually is the job.

My job is unimportant, so I can leave the phone off at night. If I had an important job, then the case would be different.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#77

Post by harel » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

I'm in the UK and I don't feel ageism. Never did. I'm usually the oldest person in the team (49), and I've worked with people older than me. I'm a freelance contractor so I move around a fair bit. I do feel like my experience is appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#78

Post by bluGill » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

There is still a problem that engineering is often seen as a "young persons field", and once you get some experience you will then move to management. Nothing wrong with management - we do need it, and a lot of what we have is really bad (if engineers make good engineers is debatable...), but that means there are less older engineers around which will skew data.

Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#79

Post by indigosplash » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

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Re: Ask HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?

#80

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jun 13, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

j_heffe wrote: post #29

yieldcrv wrote: post #4

A lot of it involves masking and blending in by the candidate You can easily find an older person ranting against the idea of using full stack javascript, unaware of the V8 changes while still having some valid criticisms But then wonder if their rejection is ageism, instead of the rant just one example

I think the general resistance from older devs comes from the velocity of software in the past decade. I just connected with a former manager I worked with at IT services from my university and we talked about how crazy tech has moved since my time working there. I had the privilege of working on the data center before the university moved to AWS. The entire backend was written in pure C, running on BSD. We had monit…

> he velocity of software in the past decade

Enterprise software is going nowhere but sideways for 2 decades already.

But yes, the velocity of new bullshit with dubious value that is consistently getting add on top of each other is just amazing.

By the way, I still haven't seen any single project get value out of SaaS auth (both auths) systems. Why the hell people use them?

Also, I had to check: "The key to driving your business forward? One powerful AI platform that keeps your most important assets on track, every decision on point, and your fleet of AI agents at peak performance. That’s Workday."

Well, people here still didn't manage to make LLMs do anything useful. That's despite a strong push from the top to use them, and many very smart people. They did manage to design a very promising tool that uses LLM in a way that uses its strengths and add a lot of value (that seems to be completely unparalleled - and we just invited the entire economic sector for a talk), but didn't manage to make it work well yet. So, our fleet of AI agents at peak performance...