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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

#71

Post by zippergz »

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…

This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definitely have control over whether someone is biased against me because I haven't kept up with technical developments.

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

#72

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

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 how do you know =which= algorithm to look up in google for your particular requirements? knowledge is not only knowing where the hammer is, knowledge is also knowing when a screwdriver would be more appropriate.

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

#73

Post by halite »

zippergz wrote: post #71
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…

This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definite…

> I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies.

Is that weekends are for? I do that too but do wonder at times...

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

#74

Post by cmdrfred »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #56
cmdrfred wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is estimated that wage theft is the number one property crime in the US.[1] [1] http://priceonomics.com/how-employers-get-out-of-paying-thei...

What are your thoughts on ways wage theft could be better monitored and reported?

It seems to me we need a bit more data to discover it. The IRS gets total wages paid but not hours worked. Reporting that should make it harder to hide it at least.

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

#75

Post by wrong_variable »

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…

hey man !

Do not worry too much. Its much easier to "hack" dumb recruiters then C code.

As someone who recently graduated and is "one of them damn kids" - a lot of people from my graduating class know a lot more about marketing then actual programming.

Since 2008 - the world has became a much more cruel place - and that has forced many of us to graduating since then to play an arms race with "trends" - switch jobs constantly and be selfish.

The way I see anyone who has been writing production code since 1990 is a WW2 veteran. You guys have been through the PC revolution, Internet revolution, survived the dot com bubble, shipped code before git, stackoverflow.

I think if you projected that experience into confidence you could easily do whatever you wanted - you deserve it !

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

#76

Post by zippergz »

zippergz wrote: post #71
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…

This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definite…

Also, to be clear. I think that having many years of experience, hard-won judgement, really strong foundations, and experience with a variety of technologies (even if they aren't the newest) SHOULD be enough to be seriously considered for a job. Someone who has been in the industry for 20 years and knows a bunch of languages and frameworks is most likely going to be able to pick up a new one quickly. And he or she will bring with them experience that a younger programmer with more knowledge of some specific new technology can't provide. In a perfect world, companies would understand that, and take it into account when they're hiring. But in reality, that doesn't always happen, and all I can do to prevent myself from being impacted by it is make sure I have the right keywords on my resume, along side my years and years of experience.

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

#77

Post by zippergz »

halite wrote: post #73
zippergz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definite…

> I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. Is that weekends are for? I do that too but do wonder at times...

No. I really, really wish it weren't what weekends were for. Believe me. And I don't spend all of my weekends doing projects like that. But the reality of the industry is that not being up to date on technologies handicaps you in a job search. So as long as my day job isn't providing me the opportunities to learn these things, I feel like I have no choice but to use my spare time to do it myself.

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

#78

Post by yummyfajitas »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #39
yummyfajitas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem correcting itself when it seems the drivers behind age discrimination are wages This is a situation where it's not age discrimination at all - it's merely a candidate pricing themselves out of the market. Similarly, toomuchtodo suggests that as his life moves forward he'll be less willing to put the work in than his younger peers. That reduces his value. Perhaps a significant chunk of age disc…

"Similarly, toomuchtodo suggests that as his life moves forward he'll be less willing to put the work in than his younger peers. That reduces his value." While my value is reduced by not working more hours than I'm paid for, I would argue that government should be stepping in when tech companies are discriminating against workers who would like labor law followed (paid for the hours you work). Why is it okay for work…

I'm not paid by the hour. I'm paid to deliver. This is true for most developers - typically we take a salary in return for getting stuff done.

Now if you want to lawyer up and demand X hours, $Y pay, rigid adherence to various requirements, etc, that's great for you. But if people are not willing to pay you as much due to the fact that those rigid requirements are a pain, you aren't being discriminated against due to your age.

Needless to say I'm opposed to your desire for the government to hobble your competition.

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

#79

Post by wheaties »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #23
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…

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

Guess I'm an outlier. I like people with experience more than not. I respect more older devs than I do younger. The older devs tend to have the best projects on Github.

Then again, I don't allow stupid data structures or algorithms questions in interviews. I can pretty much tell someone's experience level by the types of interview questions they ask.

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

#80

Post by theseatoms »

manaskarekar wrote: post #6
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.

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?

The cultural climate will be more forgiving, but the economic climate less so, since there will likely be an oversupply of programmers (of all ages).
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