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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

#261
post #14

I feel this might change when more of the current young generation of engineers are getting older since there just weren't as many tech workers 20 years ago, so it's still relatively rare to see 50 year old developers. Besides there are many places outside of Silicon Valley or the US were experienced engineers are very welcome.

I agree. My experience has been that ageist views (just like sexism, racism, homophobia, etc) are more often expressed by people of previous generations and that millennials are actually more flexible and open to the idea that they would work with someone older (or of another gender, different skin colour, etc).

Millenials express a level of hate towards the previous generations that I never witnessed before (apart from the usual teenage rebellion times). Some of the stuff I read or hear honestly scares the shit out of me, some of them would throw people like my folks or older (or younger) in a dumpster if they had the occasion.

Some of them bought into the libertarian craze, so they consider older people useless, and anyone useless is garbage that can be tossed away; but it does not only come from that side: other ones consider the previous generations responsible for anything bad (and for a wide definition of 'bad') that happens to them, and those guilty people (indistinctly guilty) should be punished.

Are these extreme cases? Probably. I hope so. But I do not remember such a trend in previous generations.

To go back to the point about work, I have never witnessed or read the previous generations express any problem working with people older than them, on the contrary, they showed (some) respect and expected some knowledge to be gained from them. I also think that the age stratification in jobs is higher now than ever. The workplace is less and less varied over the years (I do not give a damn about skin colour, I am concerned about age and social origin), and tolerance (and simply knowledge) of people with a different social background goes down.

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

#262
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I’ve always been the “I’m outta here” guy. Never been wrong. I actually worked for a startup a number of years ago and quit after two hours. A big chunk of the startup industry is preying on the gullible.

What made you decide to quit after 2 hours? I'm trying to imagine something. It would have to be along the lines of "CEO exposed himself to me in the stairwell". Anything else I'd probably give it the benefit of the doubt until the end of the day at least.

Well it turned out that the legality of what the startup was doing was extremely questionable and ethically a line I couldn't cross. They are a quite notorious outfit still running.

Basically the objective was to rip as many people off as possible by buying up a scarce resource and then inflating the price. They have faced legislative and legal battles and protests outside their HQ since. They had to move to a foreign country in the end.

Me, I went to lunch in Subway over the road, scoffed a meatball marinara while contemplating the situation, concluded "fuck this" and went home.

Plus I arrived to a world of no source control and ADO datasets in .Net which nearly made the meatball marinara come back out again.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is trying to employ people in France or, more specifically, worrying about the day when you need to stop employing someone in France. After going through it once, I'll never voluntarily do it again.

Germany is also an issue. At a previous job, we completely moved all development work from Munich to Dublin because the added headaches caused by hiring/firing in Germany were enormous.

Our story is similar, though we've chosen other employer-reasonable locations. Netherlands was moderately bad (better than France, though); Switzerland is reasonable.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there an official definition chart for terms like junior, mid, senior? I keep hearing people sneer at the presumed miss-use of those terms as if everyone knew the official definitions. Last place I worked, senior was just the dev who's been there the longest.

'senior' is also purposefully being used to make a position more desirable, by sounding better. People like showing off and tend to agree to a lower salary that way.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that statement "they simply couldn't survive the industry" is screamingly ageist do you hold similar views against females and BME candidates.

I'm older actually, and I'm already seeing friends drop out. The career paths in our industry are shaped like a pyramids after all. This applies to all tech workers regardless of gender, ethnicity, or whatever.

Where do your friends end up going?

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

#266
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least have a basic understanding about HTML5, CSS and Javascript I get that you're referring to the current job market for most Silicon Valley programmers, and are well aware and mentioned more theoretical CS stuff, so the following rant is not directed at you, but at the ignorant buffoons one sometimes encounters in this space: I find this notion so cute that programming is front-end or back-end, or maybe even…

Le me, on the phone with a crooter going over my résumé for the first time (because they only "came across" it, they didn't read it): Crooter: Tell me about your experience at Xxx Robotics. Was it more front end or back end? Me: IT. WAS. A. ROBOT. It didn't have a front or back end. Crooter: O....kay... And what database did you use there?

That gave me the best bad idea ever: a four-legged robot. The front legs are controlled by Javascript; the rear by PL/pgSQL.

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

#267
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm older actually, and I'm already seeing friends drop out. The career paths in our industry are shaped like a pyramids after all. This applies to all tech workers regardless of gender, ethnicity, or whatever.

Where do your friends end up going?

Places that are less competitive where you don't have move up or move out. Others are quite successful and have their pick. It's all around the spectrum I guess.

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Le me, on the phone with a crooter going over my résumé for the first time (because they only "came across" it, they didn't read it): Crooter: Tell me about your experience at Xxx Robotics. Was it more front end or back end? Me: IT. WAS. A. ROBOT. It didn't have a front or back end. Crooter: O....kay... And what database did you use there?

That gave me the best bad idea ever: a four-legged robot. The front legs are controlled by Javascript; the rear by PL/pgSQL.

These robots were water based. I'm kicking myself for not putting on my trollface and saying "Well, the back end (i.e., the thruster bit) was handled by our firmware guys; all my work was on the main control unit in the front end of the robot..."

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there an official definition chart for terms like junior, mid, senior? I keep hearing people sneer at the presumed miss-use of those terms as if everyone knew the official definitions. Last place I worked, senior was just the dev who's been there the longest.

> Is there an official definition chart for terms like junior, mid, senior?

No. Every company has different definitions and different positions have different meanings. Then there is lead manager, product manager, team lead, etc.

Not only that, I've noticed the position titles are different depending on the company. A junior developer in one HR department might be Programmer Analyst in another HR department.

But generally for me, anyone with 1-4 years is junior, 5-9 is mid and 10+ is senior. But that's just my arbitrary definition.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue based on their contribution to the bottom line, all tech workers, regardless of age, are significantly underpaid.

I would argue that cannot be true. If it were true, new companies would emerge that paid good employees more -- closer to their fair value. (Also, most companies pay employees more than fair value, to discourage them from shirking.)

Fair to whom? Depends on your point of view. Do you think employers make a fraction back on their investment of developers, or a multiple?
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