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Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

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Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#181

Post by blakeyrat »

tjic wrote: post #2

I think that the "Bay Area scene" is different from much of the world. I think that part of human nature is that people like people who are like themselves, so you sometimes get these insular / discriminatory sub cultures that judge people on superficial traits instead of the quality of their minds. From both this article and the tales of many friends, San Francisco strikes as one of these low-tolerance / high-discri…

The "Bay Area scene" is also pretty bad at figuring out that a lot of their problems only exist in the Bay Area. Although they're doing a heck of a job importing their horrible toxic culture up here to Seattle.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#182

Post by skrebbel »

Torgo wrote: post #104
rdtsc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. I like that quote. Copied it to my notes for future reference. To expand more on the topic, I wonder if remote workers are a good way to bring some revival for smaller rural communities. I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other…

It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress.

> It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times.

Try rural Sweden.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#184

Post by pc86 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #70
morgante wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful to not discriminate against young people either. Assuming developers in their 20s are naive and underpaid is just as insulting as attitudes towards older developers. This isn't necessarily an indictment of you. I'm just a little sick of people stereotyping younger developers on Hacker News when the truth is that most of us get great value for our time and are well aware of the choices we make.

Having been on the flip-side of ageism - being the young person in fields traditionally led / managed / etc by those in their 40s or older - I'm very unsympathetic to this kind of discussion. I had to wade through years of inflated expectations (BA + 5 years experience + tech skills = $35k / year job) and put-downs about actually understanding technology ("We old people do the important work, you just make it look go…

I'm barely 30 so don't take this as some graybeard being snarky, because I too waded through years of bullshit in my early and mid 20s.

A. Turnabout is not fair play; two wrongs do not make a right, especially when your wrong is to discriminate against people other than those who may have discriminated against you

B. Inflated expectations != discrimination

C. Discriminating against someone because they are too old is illegal; discriminating against someone because they are too young is not (both are equally wrong).

D. "I'm rather bitter and sometimes it shows" - Get over it.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#185

Post by sjdchid »

mattdeboard wrote: post #142
sjdchid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except old people are objectively better off in the US. It must be such a hard life, not having huge student debt and already having equity in a house so you can afford to turn down the 60 hour jobs. If only everyone understood how much you deserve it better than those young people.

I mean we're not talking about Baby Boomers here, chief. There are millennials staring 40 in the face right now. People who graduated college in the late 90s/early 2000s are in their mid- to late-30s. The guy who posted this site is one of those people (though I think he misses the "millennial" cut off by 1 year). Those of us in this age bracket are "old" by startup standards/stereotypes. I promise you college and ho…

Tell me more about all the places where a home bought in 2000 is worth less now, and all the colleges where tuition was not 50% cheaper in the 90s.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#186

Post by bogomipz »

tjic wrote: post #2

I think that the "Bay Area scene" is different from much of the world. I think that part of human nature is that people like people who are like themselves, so you sometimes get these insular / discriminatory sub cultures that judge people on superficial traits instead of the quality of their minds. From both this article and the tales of many friends, San Francisco strikes as one of these low-tolerance / high-discri…

Interesting. Someone else recently mentioned remote working being a great antidote to age bias. Contract work also seems to avoid a lot of nonsense.

There's a real irony that tech in "liberal cities" is provincial and close minded and you are avoiding that by being in the country on a farm.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#187

Post by commandar »

bdavisx wrote: post #111
rdtsc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. I like that quote. Copied it to my notes for future reference. To expand more on the topic, I wonder if remote workers are a good way to bring some revival for smaller rural communities. I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other…

>> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. >I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other, there is a sense of a community. It is quiet. Depending on what part of the country you're talking about, many of those beautiful small communities are very bigoted also -- and not ju…

And the south isn't bigoted in the ways many people assume.

There are absolutely small towns where open discrimination is a problem. And there are absolutely small minded jerks that have a problem with people of color.

But what I've observed personally living in the south and travelling the country is that the south is often less functionally segregated than other areas of the country. It's sheer demographics if nothing else; when the population of many major southern cities are majority minority, then it's difficult for people to avoid living and working next to each other.

Where the dynamic gets really interesting because of all this is with people that want to fight inequality, but don't realize that they have a massive blindspot when it comes to what functional racism looks like because they don't actually live in functionally diverse environments.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#188

Post by varjag »

employee8000 wrote: post #126
fatdog wrote: post #92

Can someone state honestly and pseudonymously why they don't hire oldz? Speculating I would say: - chose younger hire because cheaper and can be moulded into company specific role. - younger candidate more easily managed by less experienced (cheaper) manager. - wants to keep culture "pure," and needs kids to drink kool-aid. - values power and control over less experienced technically acceptable candidates. - get extr…

I'm in my 40s. I interview frequently and the problem with most devs over 40 is that they are slow or dont keep up with technology. I interviewed one guy in his 60s who went to school at MIT for his phd. I was excited. And then when it came to the coding exercise not only was he using perl, which had no relevance to our stack (which he was informed about) he took 3x as long to complete the question. I interviewed ano…

As a tangential remark: it's an insight into our trade that a MIT PhD still have to repeatedly do CS exams some 30 years later.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#189

Post by pc86 »

daxfohl wrote: post #132
georgespencer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept looking for the /s tag but couldn't see it. > Half of a coder's value is understanding "unspoken" requirements. Certainly a great deal of what you pay for in a more senior engineer is that ability to see around corners. I disagree entirely with your assessment that this ability is anything narrower than domain-specific (i.e. it extends only so far as 'an experienced software engineer' not so far as 'an experie…

> Why? What evidence supports this conclusion? Because in the deluge of this style of post on HN lately, the most common counter has been "well we elders know the game so much better". Sounds exactly like sports. Yes you can pick up new skills and what-not, but "the game" has changed and the kids at a very fundamental level "get it" and you don't. > having read The 100 Year Life Okay.... > it's clear to me that in 20…

> Old-school coders are the best there are.

Looking at all the programmers I've worked with I see zero correlation between age in skill. None in either direction.

You assertion that programming is an NFL-style career is one devoid of any merit of substance. There is no time clock on a programmer's career the way there is in any professional sport.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#190

Post by crispyambulance »

vemv wrote: post #91
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it hurts, you're doing it wrong :) I haven't had a stressful deadline in a very long time. Indeed, I've been weeks or months ahead in almost all cases. I've used that time to get a jump on integration, or help others get a jump on their schedule. By the time I'm ready to ship, the only thing between me and proper operation is disinformation from others. Now, granted, that's annoying to some people. But just consid…

It's an interesting point of view! For me, age 24, I'd see it extremely difficult to keep the same pace when I'm 50. Maybe I can do the same stuff, but slower. So by then I wouldn't feel 'discriminated' if someone hires a more energetic, available candidate.

The thing is, at 24 you certainly don't have any way to know what you're going to be like or how you will feel about work when you're 30, 40, or 50+.

Personality might not vary much over time but careers, interests and aptitudes often change dramatically over decades.

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