Why Ageism Never Gets Old • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#231

Post by loup-vaillant » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 10:33 PM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #214

loup-vaillant wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poss…

> I just think it's possible for employers to disagree with your view and not be presumed "-ist."

So do I. There are more ways to be wrong than being an "-ist".

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#232

Post by moduspol » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 10:35 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #229

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…

As long as the market has been sufficiently de-skilled, by the belief that it can be taught by weeks-long bootcamps alone and a 25 year old has seen enough crap to be called "senior", that will be a valid view.

Perhaps there is some middle ground, and a fresh perspective with modern tools at a lower price might be more valuable in many circumstances.

And perhaps "years spent in industry" is not as universally correlative with cost-effectiveness as some claim.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#233

Post by elthor89 » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 10:48 PM UTC

I never understood ageism. We all get older, fact of life. So why look down on older people and write them off.

I wonder how milenials will talk when they themselves turn 50. Maybe they turn the tables and 50 will be the new 20.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#234

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #115

moduspol wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but parent comment stated it as fact--not a prejudgment. 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. Older candidates are not entitled to employment in the positions they wa…

> 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…

You don't seem to understand how discrimination works - any separation of people according to some criteria is literally discrimination, however, illegal discrimination is one done according to certain protected characteristics (including age) without a legitimate business need (e.g. actors for a particular commercial).

Offering below-market salaries for 80 hour work weeks isn't illegal age discrimination even if this highly correlates with age, those are legitimate criteria that affect work performance, and thus are valid; just as criteria that require workers to be able to lift a certain weight is a legitimate criteria if appropriate to that job role, even if it would disqualify almost all women for applying.

Disqualifying an old man because you think that people of his age won't work 80 hour weeks for a poor wage or can't carry the required goods is prejudice and illegal discrimination. However, disqualifying an old man because you know that this particular man won't work 80 hour weeks for a poor wage and can't carry the required goods is fair game, it's a reasonable evaluation of a potential employee.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#235

Post by fjsolwmv » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 10:58 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #26

Nursie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in C, embedded and server-side, for about 15 years of my 17 year career. Companies I've worked with recently are having trouble finding C-capable developers, particularly C developers who have the first clue about 'modern' developments like CI and CD, or git. C is a language invented in the 70s. If you kept up with thread APIS when they became usable in the late 90s you could quite easily have had a 40 ye…

> Companies I've worked with recently are having trouble finding C-capable developers, particularly C developers who have the first clue about 'modern' developments like CI and CD, or git. As is always the case when a claim is made about "companies having trouble finding developers" of some sort: Are they actually having trouble finding developers despite offering top-of-market salary, remote work and gold plated ben…

Paying more isn't really a global answer. Sure, I can pay more to grab you from someone else but then that other employer is short staff. Remote work may be answer for connecting lonely employees and employers, but remote work has its difficulties.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#236

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #147

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…

If you're capable of picking up new technologies and languages with ease, then why don't you?

For example, learning a new programming language every year for fun is a decent exercise that makes you better with your "current work tool" as well, keeps your tech stack perpetually up to speed, and isn't that hard - the second language takes significant time, the 15th (for 15+ years of professional experience) brings lots of things you've already seen, so you can do something useful on the first day and a reasonable project in the first week.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#237

Post by snickerbockers » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

Why do people who write these stupid articles think it's alright to assume that younger employees are less intelligent based on their age, but not to assume that older are out-of-touch or have misplaced priorities based on their age?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#238

Post by nickoakland » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 11:28 PM UTC

jzebedee wrote: post #188

stcredzero wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the issues is using the word "engineer" for any of the brogrammer types. an engineer in any other proper engineering discipline does not become worthless with age, their experience actually counts for something. My fiancee who is a commercial bank loan underwriter made this observation: There are some people who have been in her industry for decades, but effectively have little experience, because they don't e…

It goes with the adage: "Some people have 20 years of experience; some have one year of experience repeated 20 times."

First encountered this concept in Reid Hoffman's book Startup of You

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#239

Post by mbesto » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 11:31 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #225

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…

>Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age? Not to argue with you but if we want to have fun with question... it's not "Chief TCPIP Evangelist" but "Chief _Internet_ Evangelist" . If "internet" is the key word, we don't have to be limited to an arbitrary point in the network stack and pick a person from it. If we go lower and more foundational to the "inte…

> If we really embrace "internet evangelist", maybe the best person is none of the technical guys but a 19-year old college dropout from Africa.

Ok, now you're just being contrarian, but I'll play along. Maybe you're right, maybe the 19-year old college dropout from Africa is the best candidate for the position. So while you play armchair head of HR, care to explain to me how you unanimously align the merit of every candidate in the pool with respective open positions in corporate entities?

> One could also argue that there's stealth age discrimination when your job requirements list

So then shouldn't it be illegal to list # years of experience as a requirement?

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#240

Post by mcguire » Fri, Nov 17, 2017, 12:23 AM UTC

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…

What are "relevant skills?" It's it a programming language? An environment? A framework?

When I started, I was expected to pick anything up as I was working. I got my first job partially as a result of having seen Smalltalk in a programming language class. The important "relevant skills" were enough background to pick up new things (since everywhere was different) and a demonstrated ability to get work done.