The Planned Obsolescence of Old Coders

The Planned Obsolescence of Old Coders
onezero.medium.com

- the first woman was called a "mom" and basically drummed out of the industry to academia. That seems like sexism is the more pernicious aspect

- especially when you consider the next example is a guy who was discriminated against at one big name company, but also found a role

- then we get into IBM lifers having trouble moving into new roles after IBM downsized. The downsizing at IBM was inherently ageist, but their subsequent struggles in the job market could have a lot of contributing factors - a whole career at a single company doesn't set you up for success in interviewing, at the very least.

- finally we have the "how will my career develop" issue, which isn't ageism? Outside of management, higher-level IC roles inherently have "squishy" aspects - you're making hard, long-term investments and the payoff takes years in some cases. You can't administer a test to say "this person is a principal engineer and this one is a staff engineer", and complaining that the categories are arbitrary is kind of silly - they're created arbitrarily so you can feel like you're advancing even though the substance of your work is largely the same because you chose to keep doing IC stuff

Isn’t this the issue? There are only so many spots for engineers who can be paid to pontificate on the “hardest problems”. And those super-senior engineers need to be absolutely top of their game to be considered for this role, which means weeding out 99% of weaker engineers. Unlike other jobs, being older and having more years of experience does not mean you are the most qualified to solve hard problems.

Ageism is a real thing in tech but imagining that we can hire all the old engineers to be elite architects is no different than the current situation.

Also, the proposal for unions in tech at the end came out of nowhere. I don’t think the author should conflate the problem of ageism with unionizing all the programmers. Ageism is something most people will agree is bad whereas the subject of unionizing is completely different. Not sure how laying people off by seniority in the union will make companies more innovative and effective. But that’s why the author should make a second post about their views on that and not conflate the two issues.

Forget tech for a second. In any job type, isn't it a pyramid. There are lots of junior roles, slightly fewer senior roles, fewer again manager roles, only a few senior manager roles etc. Isn't that just a natural part of any team's makeup. You only need one leader for a team of 5-10 people, etc. I've witnessed this team structure at every single company I've worked for (and as a contractor for 10 years, that is a lot), if you want to progress up to the next level there are always fewer jobs available.

Doesn't that mean that as you get older, competition for the job at a seniority that matches your age become increasingly difficult. The number of people doesn't change.

Not everyone can progress up the ladder when the ladder narrows as you go.

This isn't ageism is it? It's just the natural lower demand for more senior people.

And I guess what follows from this is the people who fail to move up, and try to stay at their current level are then also competing with the people below them who are trying to move up.