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

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

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 808 posts

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

#381

Post by myrloc »

eric_b wrote: post #288
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…

I agree with you, and this is a hard lesson to learn. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Software should really only be measured by the value it provides. If a terribly buggy piece of poorly written code still saves hundreds of man hours a week, it's a win. (Unit tests be damned) If that big ball of mud that's using 20 year old technology still prints a billion dollars a year - that's a win. (Microservic…

This, ironic enough, is my main motivation to improve my software development skills, from algorithms to system design to development patterns. Because, like first impressions, the first write is the most important. If it's done well the first time around, the true risk of missing an improvement upon the next iteration is significantly lowered. Edit: also the reason I'd like an ongoing education in basic security for app devs

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

#382

Post by lpr22 »

lurr wrote: post #202
ryanmarsh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall an episode of the A16Z podcast where Adrian Cockcroft of Netflix explained they were top heavy on senior engineers when they began moving to microservices. Didn’t seem to slow them down but I could be misremembering.

They only hire senior engineers. I don't know what that really means though. People who are smart, hard working, and get the right jobs can get a senior title in 5-6 years at the big companies.

I know someone hired at Netflix who is belligerent, inexperienced, and lazy. He is a senior engineer there. Titles don’t really matter much at the end of the day.

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

#384

Post by gaius »

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…

I'm talking completely about the company's own interests

The mistake is this: the interests of the company and the interests of its management are not always the same thing.

Sure, the company would be better off in the long term with experienced workers producing quality working sustainable 40-hour weeks. But in the short term, Jo(e) Manager can earn his or her bonus by burning some cheap people out with 80-hour weeks, then just getting fresh ones in.

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

#385

Post by shados »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
leggomylibro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

I'm one of the greyhairs. I won't work the insane hours, but I'll still get more done. How? By knowing what to write and how to write it, so I don't have to fumble around trying things for nearly as long. By not writing the bugs that the 20-somethings write, which means I don't have to take the time to try to fix them. By not creating the shoddy designs that other create, which then have to be fixed. By having an ide…

If we assume this is all 100% true...there's still no way to be sure during an interview.

There's plenty of shitty older devs. And if they're old enough they're a protected class which will make things very awkward if you hit a shitty one. And with the newer generations, there are plenty of 18 years old that will run circle against more experience devs, nevermind mid 20 ones. There's of course plenty of crappy ones too. So all things equal, but with a different salary, which one do you pick if you're a naive hiring manager?

Fortunately I now work for a company where this is a non-issue. While we definitely hire a ton of new grads, we'll never say no to older/more senior candidates (and sure could use more). Which is good, because I'm getting dangerously close to my 40s.

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

#387

Post by tluyben2 »

c3534l wrote: post #304
coding123 wrote: post #217

I guess I have two takes on this: 1) Does this mean my local strip club will now have to hire 90 year olds? 2) Ignoring that joke for now - if pro-publica released this information we now have information that harm has been caused. And actually couldn't this be an indication that possibly billions of dollars of damage has been done... what's next?

Technically the stripper rents the stage, the club doesn't hire a stripper.

TIL

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

#388

Post by TuringNYC »

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…

Spot on in my experience. Curious if anyone at Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple core teams could comment on whether these issues are also the case at Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple? I would imagine solving issues like these do make business sense at big firms with scalability problems.

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

#389

Post by aryehof »

sidlls wrote: post #216
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…

Here's my take: in the world of software products speed of delivery trumps quality almost every time. Customers seem to be happy with a flaky, feature-lite products and pay for it . They'll pay to have something that kinda-sorta works now and pay to improve it on an extended basis in the B2B space. Development companies recognize this and structure themselves accordingly.

It's not that customers (stakeholders) are happy, it's more that they just don't (immediately) know that what they are getting is mediocre or worse.

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

#390

Post by CodeMage »

eric_b wrote: post #288
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…

I agree with you, and this is a hard lesson to learn. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Software should really only be measured by the value it provides. If a terribly buggy piece of poorly written code still saves hundreds of man hours a week, it's a win. (Unit tests be damned) If that big ball of mud that's using 20 year old technology still prints a billion dollars a year - that's a win. (Microservic…

This is what I call the Mediocre Mercenary Mentality, this idea that "as long as we can make money off of it, it's good enough".

This mentality is the reason why sometimes -- but not always! -- my phone won't play music in my car until I restart the _car_.

This mentality is why game development companies get away with charging full price for unfinished, bug-ridden games with crippled features and missing content.

This mentality is the reason why I couldn't see my credit card in the list of my accounts on my credit union's online banking site for several days.

This mentality is why Experian and Equifax don't report the same credit score for me.

This mentality is why I feel ashamed every time a receptionist apologizes for the wait, because they "have been having problems with the system."

Most importantly, this mentality is why I have to worry about whether someone will steal my identity because people keep writing shitty code on top of shitty code and my personal information keeps getting leaked.

When I'm so disgusted by my own profession, no wonder I ended up burned out.

Post reply on HN