Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#251

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 1:59 AM UTC

ImSkeptical wrote: post #78

pcwalton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many reasons to want younger workers, and there are many reasons you shouldn't want younger workers. I don't find it necessary for the government to step in to help one of the highest paid fields in america. Would you feel similarly if you replaced "younger" with "gay" or "female"?

I've never really understood this. Some restaurants, or clothing stores, have wait staff that are all women. In a massage place you can pick the gender of your masseuse - so surely a massage place that was already well staffed with one gender would be justified in gender discrimination. If I'm hiring a baby sitter for my daughter, I'm not going to hire a male person, and I'm sure there are many similar examples. I ge…

The article talks about Verizon, Amazon, Goldman, Target, and Facebook, none of which are known for massage therapy or babysitting.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#252

Post by flukus » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:00 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #212

ryanmarsh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If billions of computers become vulnerable to malicious actors and a few hundred or thousand people suffer dramatic personal damages, well that's a nice and quiet problem which will be quickly forgotten in the 24-hour news cycle. This. I do development coaching and training. I’m totally burned out because my job doesn’t matter. These companies don’t care. They hire me to “increase code quality” but that ends up being…

The topic of your rant is something that it took me forever to accept as a software engineer. Nobody cares about quality. Your method is refactored to be super-fast and have no branches? Nobody cares. Elegant, re-usable architecture? Nobody cares. You've optimized an inner loop in assembly and increased speed by 30%? Nobody cares. Made it to zero compiler warnings? Nobody cares. No known crashers left in the bug trac…

> The vast majority of software shops out there care only that something--anything--ships as fast as remotely possible

When nobody cares about you get the point sooner or later where you can't ship, they've probably launched a product but there's still a lot more to ship in future. Eventually they become so mired in technical debt that they care.

When they realize they've invested a hundred million dollars in something that now has no value? They care. (especially if it's a turd before it gets out the door)

When a start up comes along and eats their lunch because they aren't weighed down be legacy code? They care.

When they lose revenue because they can't keep customers happy? They care.

The problem is that the professionalism of software developers doesn't allow them to learn these lessons early and hard enough.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#253

Post by busyant » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:02 AM UTC

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

Doesn't YC have a max age for founders?

I imagine there is similar logic for their cutoff.

Not saying it's valid, but last I checked (long ago) they had a max age.

Disclosure: I am a bootstrapping old fart.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#254

Post by tomohawk » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:04 AM UTC

A lot of managers are threatened by experienced people because experienced people are a lot less shy about pointing out bullshit.

People with 5 or less years of experience are much less likely to have a backbone. They're still getting over the school conditioning to complete whatever BS assignment needed to get the grade.

Many managers would prefer to have an apparently smoothly running operation than have honest feedback.

I once worked on a team with several people with 20+ years of experience. We got new management that did not appreciate that the experienced engineers were pointing out that pixie dust doesn't actually exist. They ended up "greening" the team. The new, much less experienced engineers that were brought on cranked out the code and learned lots of skills, but the product ended up dead within a couple of years. Those managers all got promoted though.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#255

Post by aurelianito » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:04 AM UTC

vitno wrote: post #225

racer-v wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).

I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.

I think that c++ is an horrendous collection of disgusting hacks. I also work as a c++ developer. If I were hiring for a c++ Dev role I wouldn't hire someone who cannot point out several problems with c++, as the main difficulty of the job is to avoid those tar pits.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#256

Post by QuackingJimbo » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:10 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #212

ryanmarsh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If billions of computers become vulnerable to malicious actors and a few hundred or thousand people suffer dramatic personal damages, well that's a nice and quiet problem which will be quickly forgotten in the 24-hour news cycle. This. I do development coaching and training. I’m totally burned out because my job doesn’t matter. These companies don’t care. They hire me to “increase code quality” but that ends up being…

The topic of your rant is something that it took me forever to accept as a software engineer. Nobody cares about quality. Your method is refactored to be super-fast and have no branches? Nobody cares. Elegant, re-usable architecture? Nobody cares. You've optimized an inner loop in assembly and increased speed by 30%? Nobody cares. Made it to zero compiler warnings? Nobody cares. No known crashers left in the bug trac…

> There are a few places where this is not true

Where?

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#257

Post by lotyrin » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:11 AM UTC

hackits wrote: post #224

leggomylibro wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To a business they see software/engineers as a expense. Anecdotally, this is one of the first things I try to gauge at a prospective employer. "Are their development teams seen as cost centers, or profit centers?" If the company works with technology a lot and doesn't see technology as being particularly important to its bottom line, that's usually a bad sign. Also, discussions with C-levels tend to be pretty one-di…

You're 100% right but also 100% wrong. Like I said before you're viewing it from the perspective of a developer but not from the perspective of a Business person. Instead of saying `Users cannot sing up if everything is broken` you need to see it from a Business perspective, and communicate it to them in the language they understand. For example, `From our quarterly earnings report we need to have 10,0000 new clients…

Still doesn't work. I've done clandestine work over weekends to speed up an application, then as part of shipping it also add a split test with half the audience having a delay similar to what was in place before I fixed the problem and brought that to the table with the "business" guys, and everyone nodded their head "wow" but every sprint after that was just full of new features.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#258

Post by Clubber » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:11 AM UTC

dylz wrote: post #183

Clubber wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Younger people don't get discriminated against in a job market as much?

They do quite a lot?

How so?

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#259

Post by tomvon » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

Exclude? I would think people would advertise on Facebook to get employees over 40. No young people use Facebook.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#260

Post by killjoywashere » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 2:13 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #252

ryandrake wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The topic of your rant is something that it took me forever to accept as a software engineer. Nobody cares about quality. Your method is refactored to be super-fast and have no branches? Nobody cares. Elegant, re-usable architecture? Nobody cares. You've optimized an inner loop in assembly and increased speed by 30%? Nobody cares. Made it to zero compiler warnings? Nobody cares. No known crashers left in the bug trac…

> The vast majority of software shops out there care only that something--anything--ships as fast as remotely possible When nobody cares about you get the point sooner or later where you can't ship, they've probably launched a product but there's still a lot more to ship in future. Eventually they become so mired in technical debt that they care. When they realize they've invested a hundred million dollars in somethi…

> They care.

I disagree. They will hire a consulting company to do a root cause analysis. The Ha'vad grads from McKinsey will swoop in, determine that the past doesn't matter, you need to get to black and to get to black, the St. Louis team needs to go, along with 20% of the following 7 teams....

No, they don't care. And never will.