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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

#61

Post by JohnBooty »

fecak wrote: post #16
kasey_junk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> bias against someone who had a long tenure at a > single company perhaps with a single technology > on a single product development effort

I'm not sure if this accounts for 0.1% or 99% of alleged "age bias" incidents but I agree with you: this is most definitely a bad thing for a developer to do to themselves.

I would be very, very skeptical of a prospective employee with a resume like that.

On the other hand, I'd think very highly of a prospective employee with a resume like that looked like that and had additional open-source or other programming projects they'd contributed to. I'd think, "This person loves to code, and has been pushing themselves to grow and diversify their skills despite being stuck in a daytime coding job that encourages no such thing..."

What do you think? What if anything would sway your opinion of somebody that has been maintaining a PHP4 app at BigHugeBoringCo for the last 10 years?

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

#62

Post by AnimalMuppet »

I'm 54. I have just over 30 years of experience.

I don't see "ageism", exactly. I see the experience bar being set very low. When "senior software engineer" means 5-7 years of experience, then what are you with 30 years? You're completely outside the comprehension of most hiring managers.

If you want to be regarded as more than "old person with a bit more than 5-7 years of experience", then you need to use those years to learn how to do harder things than most people with 5-7 years of experience know how to do.

Keep asking yourself "What's the next thing I need to learn to advance my career?" That probably isn't the next web framework (learning that just lets you tread water). It might be Android or iOS, though.

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

#63

Post by huherto »

I am 47. 27 years of professional experience. Got hooked in Basic. Fell in love with Pascal, C, C++, Smalltalk, Perl, and Java. Most new technologies are a re-encarnation of something that I did already the first time or second time around. I don't think my resume looks trendy. Still, I feel my skills are better than almost all of my friends and coworkers. They are 21-35. But, I see things that they don't. Subtle things like code organization, error handling, readability. I have a better CS background (compilers, networking,theory of languages,operating systems, relational theory, machine language). I know 100 ways in which a project can fail. My code is terse, I have been working on it for a long time.

Yet, I am scared to loose my job. I don't know if the recruiter will look past my age and lack of trendy technologies in my resume.

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

#64

Post by j_koreth »

kamaal wrote: post #52
outside1234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What is the logic behind that? You will have 30 years more experience than him.

And less 30 years worth energy, enthusiasm and liabilities. What is knowledge worth in the era where any algorithm can be looked up in a google search. Young people work for longer hours, don't fall sick often, come in on weekends and are more productive.

and don't forget about being on call 24/7 for any issues

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

#65

Post by djb_hackernews »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #19

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…

How much of your career was contracting, if any? Were you an employee of Google? I have heard Google is probably the best of the SV tech giants when it comes to age discrimination, FWIW.

I think contracting is a lot different and in that case more experienced consultants are preferred over younger ones where as it is the opposite when it comes to permanent employment.

The thing I don't agree with is that we should be expected to keep learning. As if knowing how to design and write software isn't enough for a solid career, we must learn the "newest" programming paradigm, latest js framework, etc. But this gets in to deeper issues of our profession that allows ageism.

Edit: Just looked at your website and it looks like you are 100% a contractor... Again, I think they are 2 very different labor markets for contractors and employees.

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

#66

Post by TheCowboy »

ronyeh wrote: post #58
dominotw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. You obviously have ton of expertise and experience to make age a non issue. This is not the case for older people trying to break into programming. Employers often take a chance with younger employee over older ones if all things are equal. That is bias the article is taking ab…

Just playing devil's advocate, but isn't that a logical approach? If two junior programmers show up on my doorstep, and one is 25 and the other is 55, why wouldn't I go with the 25 year old (all other skills being equal)? If I'm lucky, maybe the young person will want to work with my company for a decade or two, or even more. Would the 55 year old want to work for several decades more? Of course, I am also worried ab…

I always see this argument but find it possibly disingenuous. Given the rates of turnover for programmers, or even non-programmers, I don't see how people can realistically think this. Young programmers have even more incentive to change jobs more frequently.

It's easier to let the data speak for itself, from the BLS:

  the median tenure of workers ages 55 to 64 (10.4 years) was
  more than three times that of workers ages 25 to 34 years
  (3.0 years). A larger proportion of older workers than 
  younger workers had 10 years or more of tenure. Among 
  workers ages 60 to 64, 58 percent were employed for at 
  least 10 years with their current employer in January 2014,
  compared with only 12 percent of those ages 30 to 34.

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

#67

Post by achow »

ronyeh wrote: post #58
dominotw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. You obviously have ton of expertise and experience to make age a non issue. This is not the case for older people trying to break into programming. Employers often take a chance with younger employee over older ones if all things are equal. That is bias the article is taking ab…

Just playing devil's advocate, but isn't that a logical approach? If two junior programmers show up on my doorstep, and one is 25 and the other is 55, why wouldn't I go with the 25 year old (all other skills being equal)? If I'm lucky, maybe the young person will want to work with my company for a decade or two, or even more. Would the 55 year old want to work for several decades more? Of course, I am also worried ab…

I would go for 55 without second thought.

It would be for the ‘wisdom’ and life experiences; ability to take best decisions when no data is present (better intuition due to more life experiences); knowing that the person would be less likely to quit due to impulses; probability of having better intra personal skills; and so on…

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

#68

Post by toomuchtodo »

true_religion wrote: post #37
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I'm wondering where your job market is located. 40 hours a week, never-on call, isn't really a problem on the East coast (DC/Georgia/Florida) markets. In fact, I'd say the reverse bias is through in DC/VA/Maryland. Small to mid-size employers expect you to have a family, move permanently into the area, and stay with them for 5+ years.

Currently a remote worker for a SFBA startup.

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

#69

Post by sosuke »

huherto wrote: post #63

I am 47. 27 years of professional experience. Got hooked in Basic. Fell in love with Pascal, C, C++, Smalltalk, Perl, and Java. Most new technologies are a re-encarnation of something that I did already the first time or second time around. I don't think my resume looks trendy. Still, I feel my skills are better than almost all of my friends and coworkers. They are 21-35. But, I see things that they don't. Subtle thi…

If you want to feel more assured start interviewing now. See what questions they ask and feel more familiar with it. You don't have to go on site anywhere or actually take another job. The questions you'll be asked might be academic, things you never think about anymore but the wrong answers can bar you from the next step.

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

#70

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

true_religion wrote: post #31
mixmastamyk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that whether you are/were interested in management is a factor. Younger managers can imagine hiring older managers, but rarely engineers.

I wonder why? Is it because there's something potentially odd about hiring someone with more experience (and perhaps thus a much greater skill level) than you when you are both on the same career track? I have never had to do it, but I'd like to think the 60-year old version of me would be much better at my job than I am. Thus, if I hire them, I'd wonder "why am I tech lead? It really should be the other way around".

> when you are both on the same career track

I think this is one of the root issues, the perception that management is somehow the natural next set for software developers.

Why should that be the case? It'd be like you trained all your life to be the best violin player you can be, then after some years somebody pats you on your shoulders and tells you it's time to start conducting.

I am mid-career, and interestingly I had a couple of short stints in management early career, as much as it helped me quite a bit now with team leading duties and in seeing things from the point of view of my manager when we have 1 on 1s, I would never want to be in management as my full time job.

Management and software engineering are, or should be, parallel tracks: there is no competition, so a software manager should be as thrilled to be able to hire an experience software developer as a young hospital administrator be excited if they are able to snag a renowned surgeon for their hospital.

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