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Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

nytimes.com

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Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#11

Post by beachstartup »

rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

we have 30- 40- and 50-somethings working for us that have 20 years of experience with the internet. the first dot com boom was that long ago (1996). the oldest started in their 30s, the youngest started in their teens. this doesn't even count archaic technologies no longer in use.

we are in a new era, one in which someone's age doesn't really tell you anything about their tech relevance. we generally hire based on experience only, not specific technologies or schools, so we end up with employees all over the map.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#12

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

> So while this might be a problem now, it's correcting itself with time.

that assumes that the reasons behind age discrimination/bias are purely based on competence (or lack thereof).

I don't see the problem correcting itself when it seems the drivers behind age discrimination are wages and perceived cultural fit (anecdotally more evident in cases where the manager is younger than the candidate)

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#13

Post by kasey_junk »

Swizec wrote: post #10
kilroy123 wrote: post #2

Personally, I worry about this in our industry. I plan to save, invest, and diversify my income. That way I can get out of the sooner, rather than later. I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job.

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrele…

> So just stay relevant?

The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages.

Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common).

There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs don't do that as a matter of course while younger ones do.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#14

Post by toomuchtodo »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #12
rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

> So while this might be a problem now, it's correcting itself with time. that assumes that the reasons behind age discrimination/bias are purely based on competence (or lack thereof). I don't see the problem correcting itself when it seems the drivers behind age discrimination are wages and perceived cultural fit (anecdotally more evident in cases where the manager is younger than the candidate)

As a 33 year old tech worker, I have specifically accelerated by plans of getting out of tech by my mid 30s due to ageism in the industry (unless I decide to start my own "lifestyle" startup I can live off of).

I'm not going to be a good culture fit when I want work/life balance, no more than 40 hours a week of work, not on call 24/7, etc.

EDIT: Perhaps I've just been working the wrong gigs. Thanks for the feedback all.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#15

Post by kctess5 »

zeroxfe wrote: post #5
rdl wrote: post #3

I still maintain there's age-cohort bias (anti boomer, etc.), not strictly age bias. In 2000, I remember most people over 30 being clueless about the Internet (given that the population who were familiar with the Internet in the 80swas so small...that core group was of course super clueful, but was of measure zero vs. people who were learning about it in college every year.) Now, it's largely been the case that anyon…

Sure, although there will continue to be new technologies that separate one generation from the next.

While this may be true at some level, I'm not sure it will be as drastic a change as no-internet to internet. Young people today (and increasingly many not-so-young people) have been growing up with the concept of quickly changing "high technology" and expect incremental change. I myself feel like if the next biggest shiniest thing comes along, I will be ready to jump aboard, with the benefit of deeply knowing that which came before. This is a sentiment which requires constant learning, which may get old after a while, but for now I consider staying with the times as part of the job description.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#16

Post by fecak »

kasey_junk wrote: post #13
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrele…

> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs do…

I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years.

I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers as you might think. I know many over 50 (I'm mid 40s) that have never and will never have any difficulty finding jobs for the foreseeable future because they've stayed relevant.

The main thing I would avoid is long tenures at employers where you are not working with newer technologies, not producing tangible accomplishments, or not challenged to learn on a regular basis. If you've been at the same thing for many years, it's difficult to differentiate age bias from a bias against someone who hasn't learned much or kept up with the industry.

Older devs that work for (or consult to) employers that use newer tech have no choice but to stay relevant.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#17

Post by pc86 »

kilroy123 wrote: post #7
manaskarekar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't the number of "old" engineers going to increase with time? (Assuming you mean 'Software/Hardware Engineering' by 'our industry') So wouldn't the future be a little more forgiving when the number of 50-something engineers is quite a bit more than (presumably) what it is today?

Maybe, but I'd rather not risk it.

Why would it not? Presumably the age bias is largely the (obviously incorrect) assumption that a person in their 40s/50s/60s simply doesn't know enough or is unable to learn the new things they need to in order to operate in a startup.

I think the 55 year old interviewing for a dev job with the 28 year old CTO will have a much easier time 25-30 years from now than today. At that point I think you're fighting against culture-wide age bias rather than industry-specific age bias.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#18

Post by pc86 »

danharaj wrote: post #9

I think this is caused by how heavily age segregated our societies are, from education and child care to nursing homes and elder care.

You're right this would be solved if we had babies in nursing homes and waited until someone was 80 to teach them calculus!

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#19

Post by mark_l_watson »

I am in my mid-60s and I don't feel like I have suffered any age bias either at large companies like Google or small startups I have helped.

I sort of grew up with computers. My older brother and I got a mini version of a mechanical difference engine when I was a kid. When I was about 11 my Dad got me occasional use of a time sharing system, so that planted some desire in my brain for using computers. In high school I took a class at a local university.

It disturbs me to hear younger people talking pessimistically about their future careers. I advise them to keep learning and working on things that are useful and that they enjoy working on.

Edit: I did run into age bias, or at least I think it was: I had done a homework interview assignment and phone interviews for a back end job for Wikipedia and it seemed like they very much liked what I offered. Then, 1 minute into a video conference interview, I was brushed aside. So, I should have said that I have never had on the job age bias.

Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High

#20

Post by Swizec »

kasey_junk wrote: post #13
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrele…

> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs do…

> There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs don't do that as a matter of course while younger ones do.

Maybe it's bias. But I know for myself that the older I get, the less time I have to spend on staying relevant. Mobile revolution? Never bothered to learn. Super fancy new JavaScript? Took me years to start looking into. Go? Ugh, don't wanna. Etc.

Ten years ago I was chomping at the bit to jump on any new technology that started showing signs of promise. Nowadays I focus on just solving people's business problems and printing money. Tech is a tool, not a goal.

This already makes my resume look a lot less shiny to keyword matching recruiters. The fact that I'm old/cynical enough to say "expected value of options is 0" makes me all but unemployable.

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