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New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

nytimes.com

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Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#11

Post by drivingmenuts »

Ancalagon wrote: post #4

I just don't understand the bias. I'm too young to have experienced age discrimination like this yet, but its obvious at least to me that the best developers and hell, leaders, that I've worked with were all a part of older generations. Is it a shortcoming in pay for all these people? I feel like being out of work for 3 years would definitely lower whatever standard of pay I had prior to becoming unemployed. I just d…

Older workers = more experience = higher pay.

Younger workers = less experience = lower pay.

Older workers also cost more in insurance premiums, have more "life events" that pull them away from work and are potentially harder to sell on corporate environment.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#12

Post by zebraflask »

I'm in that age bracket myself, and have fortunately avoided most of the abuses described here.

Like the other posters are saying, the real problem is that learning how to develop good software (or any other technical product) takes time. This is an experience-based subject - art? craft? - and while I have seen many very talented younger engineers and developers, their lack of experience with a whole list of factors that don't involve slapping some code into an IDE, or what have you, usually means they end up being far less productive than people like to assume.

Bay Area culture has produced a lot of great things, but this stereotype has got to go.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#13

Post by rs23296008n1 »

Age is just one of the filters that companies use to cull the list of candidates.

Buzzword compliance is another set of filters.

Even being unemployed is used against you. Gaps between periods of employment are seen by some interviewers as evidence of possible prison time.

These same organizations then complain about not being able to find candidates for various positions.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#14

Post by i_am_proteus »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #5

Seen on Mastodon (not me): >Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I always get the urge to ask "What did you do with the old ones you had?" >Where are all those programmers you hired 5-20 years ago? Why is no programmer at your company older than 40? Why do you have senior software engineers that are 25 years old? What did you…

From Primer (2004 film):

"You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out and shoot them."

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#15

Post by scarface74 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #8
scarface74 wrote: post #6

I’m 45. I didn’t start aggressively job hopping until I was 35, before then I stayed at one job for almost 10 years. I haven’t once had a problem finding a job quickly. I was a generalist when I was 35 and started down the road of specializing in the Microsoft stack in 2008. I start pivoting in 2016 to more architect level roles but still staying hands on but with more cross platform languages (.Net Core, Node, Pytho…

How many employers do you find yourself needing to exclude because of the “no Leetcode” thing? Do you think you’re sacrificing anything in the way of comp by doing so?

None. I don’t live on the West Coast and that seems to be mostly a west coast thing. According to all of the local salary surveys and anecdotal information that I’m getting from recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers, I’m slightly on the right side of the bell curve for architect/principal engineer, etc. Not bragging, the salary and cost of living is well below the west coast.

My last job where I thought I was being hired as a senior developer I was asked “what was my 90 day plan to create a modern software department to create two green field projects”. It ended up they were looking for a dev lead.

The next job interview I spent most of my time white boarding architecture. I wasn’t asked a single development question. I just explained what I did on my last job.

As far as comp, if I were in a position to travel a lot, there are plenty of consulting companies willing to pay me more than I am making now - all I would have to do is send out a few emails to my network. Again not bragging. After working 20+ years if you can’t get some type of consulting gig you’re doing it wrong.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#16

Post by RandomOpinion »

rolltiide wrote: post #10
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #5

Seen on Mastodon (not me): >Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I always get the urge to ask "What did you do with the old ones you had?" >Where are all those programmers you hired 5-20 years ago? Why is no programmer at your company older than 40? Why do you have senior software engineers that are 25 years old? What did you…

there are obvious answers, likely interrelated older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. the ones that failed in some way - meaning a disruption in their spending and earning capability - are the only ones on the market trying to get programming jobs, and complaining about it. fixing the earning trajectory in a programming track helps…

> older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory ... FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already hired.

The FAANG companies and other technology platform companies have separate technical and management career tracks. Only those who want to be managers become managers.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#17

Post by m0zg »

Mid-40s, feel like I have been discriminated against based on age more than once. Not being one to fruitlessly blame my misfortune on things I can't change, I exited the rat race and started consulting. Doubled my already staggering pay working fewer hours, and from home. I realize this is not an easy thing to get up and running, but do at least consider finding your true value on the open market. The results could be surprising. The companies do need people who know what not to do, rather than just young-uns who do stupid things faster, with more energy.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#18

Post by jobigoud »

rolltiide wrote: post #10
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #5

Seen on Mastodon (not me): >Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I always get the urge to ask "What did you do with the old ones you had?" >Where are all those programmers you hired 5-20 years ago? Why is no programmer at your company older than 40? Why do you have senior software engineers that are 25 years old? What did you…

there are obvious answers, likely interrelated older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. the ones that failed in some way - meaning a disruption in their spending and earning capability - are the only ones on the market trying to get programming jobs, and complaining about it. fixing the earning trajectory in a programming track helps…

> older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more.

This just implies they like keeping their career trajectory more than coding.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#19

Post by pmiller2 »

scarface74 wrote: post #15
pmiller2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many employers do you find yourself needing to exclude because of the “no Leetcode” thing? Do you think you’re sacrificing anything in the way of comp by doing so?

None. I don’t live on the West Coast and that seems to be mostly a west coast thing. According to all of the local salary surveys and anecdotal information that I’m getting from recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers, I’m slightly on the right side of the bell curve for architect/principal engineer, etc. Not bragging, the salary and cost of living is well below the west coast. My last job where I thought I…

Interesting. What region do you live in, and how do you think your bottom line compares to what you’d see in a comparable role in the Bay Area?

I’m not really architect / principal level just yet (probably 3-5 years of continuous improvement from that I would say), but I feel like I’m just barely getting ahead as a senior making $200k paying $2300/month in rent with no hope to buy and about a 40-60 minute commute (depending on whether I drive to BART or walk). Just wondering if there’s something better out there.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#20

Post by jobigoud »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #11
Ancalagon wrote: post #4

I just don't understand the bias. I'm too young to have experienced age discrimination like this yet, but its obvious at least to me that the best developers and hell, leaders, that I've worked with were all a part of older generations. Is it a shortcoming in pay for all these people? I feel like being out of work for 3 years would definitely lower whatever standard of pay I had prior to becoming unemployed. I just d…

Older workers = more experience = higher pay. Younger workers = less experience = lower pay. Older workers also cost more in insurance premiums, have more "life events" that pull them away from work and are potentially harder to sell on corporate environment.

Older workers = more opinionated. Younger workers = more malleable.

At least that's what management often think.

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