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Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

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Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#211

Post by amelius »

bengalister wrote: post #106

I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the most part. I work in France. Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in different cloud platfor…

> I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to

But how much more expensive is a 40yr old developer as opposed to an entry-level one?

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#212

Post by amelius »

JohnnyConatus wrote: post #134
bengalister wrote: post #106

I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the most part. I work in France. Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in different cloud platfor…

I agree with everything you said except for one thing: developer salaries later-on are not artificially kept down vs the value they create. The are artificially inflated when they are younger due to the scarcity of developers. This is why one can become a "Senior Developer" at 24 (such as I did) because the title is matched to the salary as opposed to the actual amount of experience it would take to be a "senior" any…

Question: how does one become a "senior developer" if one has only worked at startups? Is it as simple as assigning yourself the title? Or does one need to work at a large organization (with large teams) to be able to use this title (with credibility of course)? What if you were the only developer at the startup?

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#213

Post by TheCoelacanth »

JohnnyConatus wrote: post #134
bengalister wrote: post #106

I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the most part. I work in France. Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in different cloud platfor…

I agree with everything you said except for one thing: developer salaries later-on are not artificially kept down vs the value they create. The are artificially inflated when they are younger due to the scarcity of developers. This is why one can become a "Senior Developer" at 24 (such as I did) because the title is matched to the salary as opposed to the actual amount of experience it would take to be a "senior" any…

You can be a "Senior Developer" at 24 because at most places that is a low-mid level position.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#214

Post by rpmcmurphy »

DrNuke wrote: post #38
oldboyFX wrote: post #33

I see all these articles about the average employee age at startups being 20-30, and how older developers face discrimination. Now this is 100% anecdotal, but I know a few 45+ year old developers and most of them are long-time corporate employees and are not really interested in the whole startup / bloggosphere / tech hype world. They have good stable jobs (think Perl, .NET, Java), and are mainly focused on their fam…

>Older developers of HN, what are your experiences? Over 40 here. The most difficult part is human interaction. Youngsters are obviously well behind their own hype and have their right to try. Mature folks like me take things with a grain of salt and acknowledge hard work is only a part of the picture, often not the most important. From a technical point of view, the headless chickens thing is also common but, again,…

The thing about being 40+ is you really start to see through bullshit. I remember working for one company that was selling a product customers simply did not want. I tried explaining this to the founders, and suggested alternatives, but got branded "not a team player" for not drinking the Kool-Aid. So it is important to work for companies that are actually doing something useful, otherwise you are going to have a hard time concealing your skepticism.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#215

Post by matwood »

amelius wrote: post #211
bengalister wrote: post #106

I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the most part. I work in France. Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in different cloud platfor…

> I find myself much more productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to But how much more expensive is a 40yr old developer as opposed to an entry-level one?

Depending on location, probably less than you think. Because of the general shortage of developers, juniors are probably overpaid. This makes senior positions 1.5x the cost at the high end with 1.2x->1.3x at the low end.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#216

Post by curtis »

seattle_spring wrote: post #200
curtis wrote: post #168

My last job search (in Seattle) took me months longer than I was expecting. This could be ageism at work (I'm 48), but I'm still inclined to think that there's a more mundane explanation: The recruitment and hiring process for software engineers has gone from crappy to damn near broken. If ageism is a significant problem right now, it's possible that it is primarily a completely unintended side-effect of how were doi…

Out of curiosity, why does your LinkedIn not list months for all of the 1 year jobs you have? It seems really suspicious to me, and as a hiring manager it would almost certainly have been a red flag.

My LinkedIn profile is not my authoritative job history -- my resume is. Your first job as a recruiter or potential hiring manager is to find my resume. It's not hard.

I should also mention that when I'm looking for a job, I'm usually contacting you. If I email you I will include a direct link to my resume. If I'm applying through a portal it will ask me to upload my resume. Either way there's no excuse for people in the recruiting/hiring pipeline to consult my LinkedIn profile rather than my resume.

(Sorry if there's a little bit of attitude leaking through here, but this is a personal soapbox of mine.)

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#217

Post by dudul »

dominotw wrote: post #147
psyc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't be sure yet, but I'm starting to be concerned. I turned 40 recently. My current job search has lasted about 5x longer than any previous job search. I've been turned down for nonsensical reasons, such as not having enough experience in a specific language that I have a lot of experience in. (That was an assertion by the interviewer, not the result of technical questioning.) I've been interviewed several times…

I was recently rejected by a big tech company for not knowing Java 8. I code in scala in my day job and haven't kept up with changes in java. My coding exercise language options were nodejs,java, python, I submitted solution java 7. Interviewer said to my face( well..on the phone) that they won't be "moving forward" because I don't keep up with changes in technology and they are a 'fast moving' tech environment.

That almost reads like a joke. The guy using Scala is criticized by Java evangelists (no other word when you reject somebody because they don't know one specific language) for not keeping up with changing technologies.

Hope you found another position and can look at this experience thinking that you're better off not working there.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#218

Post by sk5t »

christocracy wrote: post #96
rdl wrote: post #10

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I think a lot of the discrimination is specifically anti-Boomer or anti-people-who-didn't-grow-up-with-Internet, not specific to age. If true, then 40 will be the 30 of 10 years ago.

I’m 45. I was downloading games from BBSes with my C=64 in 1986; connecting to BBSes with long-distance calls. Yes, we grokked the internet immediately and, as a group, developed it while you were watching cartoons and playing on your XBox.

At 45 you are solidly Generation X, not a Boomer.

BBSes were an awesome experience--modem AT commands, the excitement of getting an account on an exclusive system, chatting with the sysop, pondering the advantages of zmodem vs. BiModem... I'd consider growing up with BBSes and the languages of the day a much better primer than growing up with touchscreens and walled gardens.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#219

Post by pm24601 »

I have personally experienced it. I had happen when interviewing - the person very explicitly said that he didn't think I could do the job because I was older than 35.

This was the most explicit, but not the only example.

This is why I am so happy about the recent turn against sexism in the bro-workforce. Bros are ageist not just sexist.

Re: Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study

#220

Post by dudul »

sotojuan wrote: post #63
donatj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also family and responsibility. When I was young and single I had no reason to really go home after work, so I’d linger at work to finish things and I would work on work things at home in my spare time. Now that I’m married, I have more important things to do and my company gets much less free labor.

> When I was young and single I had no reason to really go home after work, so I’d linger at work to finish things and I would work on work things at home in my spare time. I am 23 (started working in programming at 22) and this view confuses me. I don't want to sound rude but... you didn't have hobbies? Friends? Partner? Errands to run? Non-work programming projects? Even when I was single and lived alone, I had ple…

You should save this comment somewhere and get back to it in ~10 years if you happen to be married and have a kid :) I'm not being snarky or anything, I used to think the same.

You'll soon realize that side projects, friends and hobbies are nothing to be compared with having a spouse, responsibilities and taking care of a young child or an elderly.

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