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Why Ageism Never Gets Old

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Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#141

Post by notyourday »

davidgay wrote: post #128
notyourday wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are 40 and you are still thinking about your skills in terms of "i can code", then I have very bad news for you. There are hundreds of people who can code just as good as you who are younger which means that they are going to replace you because you are just not that good or that irreplaceable . Is there a way out? Sure: 1. If you actually are that good of a software engineer, start a My Code As Service compan…

If you are 60 and just won the Nobel prize and you are still thinking about your skills in terms of "I can win a Nobel prize", then I have very bad news for you. There are hundreds of people ( https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/age.html ) who can win Nobel prizes at ages younger than you. Or: this argument is meaningless because it's assuming more supply (of someone like you) than jobs (and perfectly infor…

I'm not seeing those winning Nobel prizes complaining about them being fired from a job because they are old.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#142

Post by billmalarky »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135
moduspol wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on all points, but we're going down a dark road when any measurable disparity is assumed to be an unfair "-ism" without evidence, that must be corrected because clearly the decisionmaking gatekeepers are "-ists." It's possible the problem (at a macro level) is caused by other correlating factors, such as differing salary expectations and how up-to-date skillsets are.

I'd like to share my story related to ageism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642428 If it's that hard for me, it seems true to say it's much harder for someone much older. I hear you about the -ism fanaticism. But there seem to be serious problems on the horizon. I can't make you believe them. All I can do is try to relate it to something in your life.

Once you have a strong understanding of how to architect code and how the "big picture" technologies fundamentally work, learning the different flavors/frameworks/etc takes time, but we're talking weeks of learning vs the years it takes to understand the fundamentals. You're not going to be an expert in the idiosyncrasies of X tech unless you are working with it full time for a year or so but you'll know enough to pass a job interview.

After reading your story, for example, I imagine you could spend 3 months part-time doing an online bootcamp like treehouse (focusing on big picture web architecture and syntax) and you would be more than employable as a web dev.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#143

Post by notyourday »

blub wrote: post #136
notyourday wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are 40 and you are still thinking about your skills in terms of "i can code", then I have very bad news for you. There are hundreds of people who can code just as good as you who are younger which means that they are going to replace you because you are just not that good or that irreplaceable . Is there a way out? Sure: 1. If you actually are that good of a software engineer, start a My Code As Service compan…

Coding does matter, but most companies can only extract a limited amount of value from code, due to various dysfunctionalities in how they operate. Being a good coder in such a company could be problematic, because they won't be able to recognize ability or benefit from the difference in skill to an average coder. These companies will treat programmers poorly, will try to save costs, outsource, etc. I don't get why y…

Because I'm not seeing younger developers complaining that they are being replaced by older ones. What I am seeing is older developers complaining that they are being replaced by younger ones.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#144

Post by sillysaurus3 »

billmalarky wrote: post #142
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to share my story related to ageism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642428 If it's that hard for me, it seems true to say it's much harder for someone much older. I hear you about the -ism fanaticism. But there seem to be serious problems on the horizon. I can't make you believe them. All I can do is try to relate it to something in your life.

Once you have a strong understanding of how to architect code and how the "big picture" technologies fundamentally work, learning the different flavors/frameworks/etc takes time, but we're talking weeks of learning vs the years it takes to understand the fundamentals. You're not going to be an expert in the idiosyncrasies of X tech unless you are working with it full time for a year or so but you'll know enough to pa…

but you'll know enough to pass a job interview.

Unfortunately not. I believed it myself, until it became obvious it was a myth:

One interview went like this: They sat me down, opened up postgres, and said "Accomplish these goals." The goals were simple things like write SQL statements to query for certain types of users, or join data together.

I never had any reason to learn any of that. I knew that I could learn it if I needed to. I understood conceptually what joins are, why to use them, and what to avoid and why. The "why" is the crucial ingredient, and I naively thought that would protect me.

No... It's not fun when you have to sheepishly admit in front of three engineers that you have no idea how to write those SQL queries.

It was the same deal with Rails. Ditto for JS. Eventually I went through 5 interviews and struck out on all 5, in a row.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#145

Post by maccard »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135
moduspol wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on all points, but we're going down a dark road when any measurable disparity is assumed to be an unfair "-ism" without evidence, that must be corrected because clearly the decisionmaking gatekeepers are "-ists." It's possible the problem (at a macro level) is caused by other correlating factors, such as differing salary expectations and how up-to-date skillsets are.

I'd like to share my story related to ageism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642428 If it's that hard for me, it seems true to say it's much harder for someone much older. I hear you about the -ism fanaticism. But there seem to be serious problems on the horizon. I can't make you believe them. All I can do is try to relate it to something in your life.

I've read your post, and I try to empathise, but at the same time I can't help but feel you were naive in thinking you could take on a web development job without having any of the skills required, even a very basic level of them.

If a 20 year old applied for a job that involved writing SQL queries, and couldn't, I'd expect him to be rejected. There's a world of difference between low level C/C++ style programming, and working in Rails day to day, and if you think there isn't, then you should be able to prove it.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#146

Post by mbesto »

jasode wrote: post #108
humanrebar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point.

>median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point. Don't take my previous post as a complete dataset. It was only coincidence that I happen to list programmers in their 40s off the top of my head. Here are some more in their 60s: - Google also hired Vint Cerf (TCPIP) at age 62. - Amazon AWS recently hired James Gosling (Java) age ~62. - PayPal…

> will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles.

Uhh that's not age discrimination, that's creating a job role "Chief Internet Evanglist" and hiring the best person for the job, "Vint Cerf". Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age?

Also, isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#147

Post by legohead »

jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

I wish companies saw it this way. My company is downsizing and I've been interviewing like crazy. 5 years ago when my tech stack was hot I had to fight off companies, now I feel they are just humoring me.

I make it clear in my cover letter that I am capable of picking up new technologies and languages with ease, which if you look at my resume and my personal projects on github is pretty plain and obvious -- I have 15+ years of professional experience in multiple languages and using all kinds of technologies. But they look at my current job/tech stack and say "hey, you don't match ours. sorry".

I even applied to dozens of jobs in the HN Who's Hiring, got a couple phone interviews, and nothing past that.

I finally got a job at a place that was using my stack and wants to convert it to something more modern.

This has definitely been a strange interviewing experience for me. I'm nearing 40 and have to wonder if ageism is becoming an issue for me.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#148

Post by SmellTheGlove »

BatFastard wrote: post #21
jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

60 year old dev here. I have been living on the cutting edge of tech for 30 years, and I have many scars to prove it. New is usually not better if you actually want scalable, maintainable, and monetizable results. I disagree that many area's of my knowledge has a half life. My deep understanding of network protocols hasn't aged. My deep understanding of SQL and NoSQL databases hasn't aged. The principles of distribut…

> Sure there are new tools and methods, but I say the fundamentals are the same.

Absolutely. Folks need to get their heads around software engineering as a practiced discipline. Your education is about the fundamentals of how you think and approach, even if the tools themselves change over time.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#149

Post by sillysaurus3 »

maccard wrote: post #145
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to share my story related to ageism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642428 If it's that hard for me, it seems true to say it's much harder for someone much older. I hear you about the -ism fanaticism. But there seem to be serious problems on the horizon. I can't make you believe them. All I can do is try to relate it to something in your life.

I've read your post, and I try to empathise, but at the same time I can't help but feel you were naive in thinking you could take on a web development job without having any of the skills required, even a very basic level of them. If a 20 year old applied for a job that involved writing SQL queries, and couldn't, I'd expect him to be rejected. There's a world of difference between low level C/C++ style programming, a…

If a 20 year old applied for a job that involved writing SQL queries, and couldn't, I'd expect him to be rejected.

I've been a webdev now for some time, and I've written zero SQL queries. Firebase is nice. So is Mongoose. And yes, I can structure it as a traditional SQL relational database with proper indices if needed. I'm not choosing technologies that cause technical debt or problems down the road.

If you think that you can't take a programmer with a decade of experience and a background in security (where I performed SQL injection attacks) and train them to write SQL queries, then that says a lot about the company. I don't regret failing that interview.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#150

Post by kurthr »

moduspol wrote: post #131
kurthr wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you individually address an issue where the hiring manager is making a generic decision based on age unrelated to your individual performance (especially in hiring where they have no idea how many hours you personally work)? Why should dying your hair and wearing skinny jeans affect your hire rate? "-isms" don't work because they are rational individually, although they might work because they are stereotypica…

> How do you individually address an issue where the hiring manager is making a generic decision based on age unrelated to your individual performance (especially in hiring where they have no idea how many hours you personally work)? There isn't evidence of this, but even if you believed that were the case, you combat it the same way you would any other weak point of your value proposition. You address it head on in…

But the "legitimate" reason given for ageism was that older people might not be willing to work longer hours. I don't see how you're going to get around that by talking about "Titties and Blood" or the SiVa 4-way masturbation scene.

The best way past that sort of hire is to fake the graduation date on your resume', which isn't ethical. Alternately, make the hiring process more ethical.

You don't individually address "-isms" by being cool and interested... because the hiring manager isn't cool or interested. The successful ones are using marginally accurate stereotypes to hire people they think will work harder for lower pay. I think they're philosophically related to the ones that outsourced everything because they thought that would help their promotion (and it did in the early 2000s) even if it drove the company into the ground.

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