I'm 41 and still have recruiters contacting me and generally do well in interviews. I'm lucky in that the skills I have are harder to find (8 or so years doing iOS development). I also have to admit that one thing that helps me tremendously is that I look young. Just about everyone I work with assumes I am still in my 20s based on my appearance. They all act shocked once they do find out that I'm older. Looking young helps a lot with rapport in interviews since the interviewers feel more at ease that I'm "one of them" rather than some old guy.
New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
51–60 of 451 posts
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#52> You’re in private mode. Log in or create a free New York Times account to continue reading in private mode.
This is the first time I'm seeing this message and I hope this doesn't become a trend.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#53I'm 48, on the West Coast, and recently finished interviewing, receiving multiple offers. I did 250 Leetcode problems, practiced System Design, and Behavioral. In the end, I found doing 250 Leetcode was probably overkill, but it definitely helped. This will probably get me severely down-voted, and I do understand the antipathy toward having to Leetcode, but the way I see it is that I'm really lucky. I get to sit on m…
If leetCode is what you have to do to compete in your market so be it. In the grand scheme of things, it would be hypocritical for me to criticize someone for spending hours upon hours on leetCode considering the amount of time I’ve spent on books about architecture, spent a year learning the ends and out of AWS, and the time I spent networking. Not to mention the fact that I will spend the next two year learning fro…
I think as our sector matures its more about emotional intelligence, and less about technical aptitude. I can’t help but think leetcode is a echo chamber. I personally disagree with this approach, I’ve met a few folks who think the CLI is useless and can be learned in a few days. But they score really well in algorithms.
With today’s data privacy concerns and tough European regulations I don’t think this attitude is acceptable.
I hope the field makes a return to appreciating fundamentals.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#54Can someone tell me where the older software engineers in the Bay Area have gone? I recently moved into the software industry (after years in the telecom industry), and the lack of older software engineers is disconcerting in a Soylent Green type of way.
I guess some have moved into management, and others have made enough money to retire, or they've moved somewhere with better value than the Bay Area. They're likely to avoid companies where everyone's in their twenties and the offices looks like frat houses. But even so, I'd expect to see many more gray-haired engineers around here than I do.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#55Young people have more variable potential. If you hire a young person they might be 100x or 10x or 1x in a couple years. If you hire an old person you already know they aren’t 100x or 10x otherwise they would be above you in the org chart or retired. There’s nothing wrong with 1x, but preference for young people is common sense all else being equal. And it’s never equal in terms of salary expectations and extra effor…
If they're 100x in a couple of years (assuming such individuals exist) then you'll be paying them a hell of a lot more in a couple of years. What you're saying would be reasonable if they were signing employees to long-term contracts at a fixed wage based on current productivity.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In theory, yes. In practice, no. At a certain point, a lot of engineers plateau in terms of technical ability and are unable to continue to level up. For many, they feel compelled to switch tracks to management to continue to make progress, regardless of whether they have any innate ability or desire to excel at management.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#57Can someone tell me where the older software engineers in the Bay Area have gone? I recently moved into the software industry (after years in the telecom industry), and the lack of older software engineers is disconcerting in a Soylent Green type of way. I guess some have moved into management, and others have made enough money to retire, or they've moved somewhere with better value than the Bay Area. They're likely…
A lot of people want to have kids and a yard, etc. You can work on interesting things for a decent wage outside SV and have these things...
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In a lot of industries opinion is less of an issue. Wait staff, mechanics, and a lot of other places. Yet, they are experiencing the same thing.
For many industries it's something other than opinion
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#59I think part of the problem is "protected classes". I learned the other day that if you're over 40 you're a protected class for engineering in California. If you're a protected class and you have a job, that's great! It will help you a lot. But the unintended consequence is that companies are more reluctant to hire someone in a protected class, because if they are legitimately bad at their job, they are harder to get…
These days, holding all other factors constant, SV companies will generally hire {gay|female|trans|minority} candidates before {male|white|indian|asian}. So companies are apparently not at all concerned about hiring members of protected classes, rather they prefer to hire them.
Now, if you want to make the argument that older employees don't boost the companies D&I numbers, while at the same incurring the risk of a protected class, that's a subtly different argument....
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#60Yeah, I am in my mid 40s, and it was wild to interview for a new job after 5 years. Things have really changed in that short time.
I posted a portfolio that showed, if you want this, hire me! My resume was standard, listing out my projects and summarizing my experience.
I had good references that I rarely shared unless it was the last stages, so they wouldn't get bombarded. I applied weekly to new opps, keeping track for the inevitable unemployment record as well.
Results: My huge project list showed my age. Some companies clearly weren't interested... they wanted new programmers, younger, not stuck in the past, etc. I couldn't understand some companies purpose, so new agey with today's internet and reddit culture.
Still, I got 20–30 emails a day! Constant phone calls, messages, occasional scams. Did 2 in-person interviews. I found a great new job, remote programming, in 3-4 months! It was a blur!
The secret is respect, communication, wisdom and quick reflexes, in my case.