Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Ageism Never Gets Old

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 272 posts

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#211

Post by loup-vaillant »

moduspol wrote: post #156
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.

Thanks for sharing this--and sorry in advance if I came off abrasive. I just think the key difference in our industry is that it's far more punishing than others if you're not keeping up to date with relevant skills. I'm 29 and my last search was two years ago. My last job had me primarily doing ColdFusion-based web development and occasionally iOS development. A big part of the reason I left was specifically to avoi…

Your comment highlights more problems than just ageism.

First, what's the deal with passion? Can't land a job if you're not passionate about whatever the prospective employer wants you to work on? Replace that word by "enthusiasm" and it'll be more acceptable. Sorry for singly you out, it's the zeitgeist I'm after.

Second, the "relevant skills" bullshit. Sillysaurus3 had relevant skills for a wide range of jobs. The only problem was the lack of trendy buzzwords in the résumé. Employers just don't want to spend a few weeks (or even a few days) training someone to a new stack.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#212

Post by jimbokun »

geomark wrote: post #17
zaarn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Ageism seems largely concentrated on the Silicon-Valley style society. As far as I am concerned, ageism does not exist at my workplace. Old engineers, even software engineers are looked for because they bring possibly valueable experience. The simple truth is that ageism is a result of not valuing the lessons of an experienced engineer because they're not up-to-date enough.

"Ageism seems largely concentrated on the Silicon-Valley style society." I saw ageism many years ago at a big aerospace firm in the L.A. area. It was understood and even outspoken that young engineers would get the call to work extra hours and weekends if needed, as well as the occasional graveyard shift when a unit was in thermovac testing. Older engineers were not usually called upon become they had "paid their due…

"Older engineers were not usually called upon become they had "paid their dues" as young engineers."

Old engineers were not usually called upon because they just said "no" when asked, so management quickly learned to ask the young engineers who said "yes" instead.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#213

Post by randcraw »

ddorian43 wrote: post #32
nonamechicken wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish this was true in India. In India, we love to parade around saying respect our elders. But when it comes to Indian IT companies, it literally is a pyramid. I used to and still wonder where does all the 10+ year experienced guys go. In almost every team I have been, its predominantly freshers. In India, once you have 8+ years, I have heard the number of calls one get from recruiters is far less. And if you are n…

Maybe they have too many people ?

Maybe the only thing they care about is keeping salaries low?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#214

Post by moduspol »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #211
moduspol wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing this--and sorry in advance if I came off abrasive. I just think the key difference in our industry is that it's far more punishing than others if you're not keeping up to date with relevant skills. I'm 29 and my last search was two years ago. My last job had me primarily doing ColdFusion-based web development and occasionally iOS development. A big part of the reason I left was specifically to avoi…

Your comment highlights more problems than just ageism. First, what's the deal with passion ? Can't land a job if you're not passionate about whatever the prospective employer wants you to work on? Replace that word by "enthusiasm" and it'll be more acceptable. Sorry for singly you out, it's the zeitgeist I'm after. Second, the "relevant skills" bullshit. Sillysaurus3 had relevant skills for a wide range of jobs. The…

In the context of a job hiring candidate, I'd consider "passion" and "enthusiasm" to be synonymous. The idea would be to imply that you're interested in building cool things and solving difficult problems more so than just receiving a paycheck. And that's a beneficial thing to convey as a candidate regardless of your age.

Regarding training someone for a new stack: You quite possibly are right. I just think it's possible for employers to disagree with your view and not be presumed "-ist."

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#215

Post by maxxxxx »

humanrebar wrote: post #199
maxxxxx wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pick a good technology going forward" That's hard to pull off though. Who knows which technology will go out of fashion in a few years? It may become fashionable again a few years later but int he meantime you will have a hard time.

> Who knows which technology will go out of fashion in a few years? Tech that is in heavy use and has been in heavy use for a decade is much more likely to be around in two years than tech that was invented two years ago. If the older tech were to decline, rarely would it drop off the face of the earth quickly. It would more gradually shrink in market share.

I used to be a hardcore C++ guy., Going was really good until around 2004 or so and then suddenly nobody wanted C++ anymore. That lasted a few years and suddenly demand picked up again. It's definitely a gamble with factors that are outside one's control

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#216

Post by user5994461 »

balabaster wrote: post #79
moduspol wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's ageism if one person is selected based on being willing to work more for less money. That's just a labor market. There's an argument to be made that 20-somethings shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week or should require higher pay. Or that employers should place more value on the work of more experienced developers. Or both. But I don't think experienced developers should be exempt from keeping w…

Never compete on price. Provide something that nobody else can and stick with it, otherwise it's a race to the bottom. Those companies that hire the cheapest labour will get the quality they pay for. Let them, it's not your problem. There are enough who care about doing it right that they will eventually find you and will pay you according to the value you bring.

That depends where you live of course. The smaller cities have so little tech companies that it's hard to find any tech job, irrelevant of the price.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#217

Post by user5994461 »

moduspol wrote: post #119
sidlls wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are avoiding older candidates because of presumptions about them in terms of work ethic or compensation expectations, you are wrong. If you are advertising below-market salaries and expecting >40 hr work weeks and only attract younger people, there is nothing wrong with that. You don't seem to understand how discrimination works: the advertisement you describe discriminates against older workers because of h…

We're just getting into a pointless gray area when that argument is made. Doesn't having work hours that don't match with school hours discriminate against parents? Isn't a position with on-call responsibilities inherently discriminating against people with more familial commitments? I don't think it's the employer's responsibility to tailor the job to match a candidate's chosen lifestyle, or that not doing so means…

Funny you'd mention on call. It's a major hassle for the allegedly hot positions of devops/SRE/sysadmin, anyone who got a clue leaves the domain pretty quickly.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#218

Post by user5994461 »

pizza234 wrote: post #191
BatFastard wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a sensible perspective, but the job market is actually the opposite of sensible (in a way). Paradoxically, the (again, sensible) attitude that fundamentals are the same with a different coating, will distantiate one from chasing the latest fads... which is actually what the [majority of the] market looks for.

The job market for database and networking skills is pretty different than the market for web apps.

There are places where you get a job because you want to rewrite everything, and places where you get a job because you didn't suggest to rewrite anything.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#219

Post by myheadasplode »

irrational wrote: post #163

The code I wrote in my 20s was pure garbage. The code I wrote in my 30s was embarrassing. The code I'm writing in my 40s is perhaps passable. I'm hoping that by the time I get to my 60s I will be able to write good code. I'll probably retire just as I'm hitting my peak as a programmer.

I don't understand this mentality. Don't you think you're being hard on yourself? How do you define "good" code?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#220

Post by mbesto »

lmm wrote: post #166
mbesto wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"? Yes there is, and it's lazy and wrong. Figure out how to test for the skills you need; how many years someone's been using something is only very weakly correlated with how well they know it.

> Figure out how to test for the skills you need;

If you know how to systematically do this for all hiring positions, I literally have thousands of businesses that would pay you serious money to help them.

Post reply on HN