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

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 451 posts

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

#161

Post by jaredsohn »

manfredo wrote: post #156
thih9 wrote: post #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.

Do browsers announce that they're incognito? Would it be difficult to disable this flag?

Incognito can be detected by via javascript looking at how the browser behaves differently in incognito.

It looks like some of these detection mechanisms go away as Chrome gets updated but like seo, spam, viruses, and other such problems etc. there is a war aspect between trying to exploit and avoid exploiting.

Some details can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-determin...

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

#162

Post by wwweston »

mykowebhn wrote: post #33

I'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…

I really like studying. Like, my list of things to learn more about in CS/software engineering/Math alone is probably longer than I'm going to get to before retirement... which, if I'm lucky, will consist in no small part of studying things and working on personal projects. I don't understand people who say they don't want to be immortal, they'd get bored. I can sortof imagine my psyche eventually crushing itself under the weight of its own history but... boredom? Nope. Too much interesting stuff to learn/try, even at the scale of challenge available to us now.

So, trust me when I say I don't object in the slightest to being asked to study and learn things. LeetCode-style problems look like one form of recreation to me.

And yet, I still think this comment is shortsighted because:

* I'd guess a lot of what's on LeetCode isn't exactly untrodden territory for any developer that got their start before 1995.

* Distinguishing oneself can work in the individual case, but it generalizes poorly. Imagine employers and would-be job-seekers alike internalize LeetCode knowledge as a standard distinguishing mark. Like college degrees, distinguishing points often over time become standard expectations. The likely outcome is that about as many devs in their 20s & 30s can brandish the same "distinction" that devs 40+ can and the incentives to prefer youth perform about the same.

Individual efforts to improve ones lot are a good place to start, but they rarely solve systemic problems.

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

#163

Post by adventured »

b212 wrote: post #125
adventured wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it that older workers are much more expensive and are bidding themselves out the market? On one cost issue. Let's say you're in a city other than SEA, LA, SF, NYC and Boston. A 55 year old on a good insurance plan will often cost you anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 more per year in healthcare benefits versus a 20-25 year old. The cost of a 45 year old employee further increases with time due to that (over 10 yea…

> A 55 year old on a good insurance plan will often cost you anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 more per year in healthcare benefits versus a 20-25 year old. Jesus freaking christ I never realised that being European. This is a game changer for older folks, I guess I'm out of luck if I ever want to move to the US and I'm already over 30, ha :/

As things are now, with US healthcare being out of control on costs, it depends heavily on your salary and employment context.

If you're making eg $150,000 or $200,000 in SF or NYC and working for a stable company, an additional $500-$600 per month for the company isn't nearly the concern versus if you're working in Cleveland earning $75,000.

If you're with a decent company with good benefits, it's also not an unusual situation more generally speaking. Half the country receives its healthcare benefits from an employer. Companies in the US are used to forking over very high costs for healthcare benefits. It's an accepted cost of employing people here. Being unemployed at 55 in the US, with weak savings (can't bridge yourself to the next job) and struggling job prospects, is a very serious problem however. That's the sort of situation you want to avoid in the US.

If you're self-employed the healthcare costs can be a real killer also, obviously unless you earn enough to offset it properly. As a very young entrepreneur I simply went without healthcare coverage. I was fortunate to not have any meaningful health problems in those years, it's blatantly a serious risk to take.

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

#164

Post by fma »

scarface74 wrote: post #47
mykowebhn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you have fun learning, right? I actually find doing algorithms problems fun. If I didn't find them fun I don't think I would've done 250. I'm also spending a lot of time reading architecture books and learning AWS. React is probably next on my list. That said, it sounds like you and I are both "cultivating" and "tending to" our profession. I think that's what it takes to stay competitive and have longevity imo.

I started out as a typical 12 year old computer geek. But, by the time I turned 35, I became much more cynical. Computers became a way to put food on my table. I don’t “have fun” with technology. I don’t hate my career by any means, but, I do what’s necessary to stay buzzword compliant. I got into vicious codependent cycle with my job by the time I was 35. I didn’t know enough to be competitive and leave, I was bitte…

I'm in the same boat as you were, I think. I like my company, but as the lead dev of a team in a big company I make a lot of technical decisions/reviews/collaborations... but others implement because I'm spending most of my time talking to the business, support, planning...etc. Not as much hands on.

Considering swinging the pendulum the other way to hands on technical again and let others do the BS work. Do you know anything about the north Atlanta market? Companies, salary range, culture? Or maybe ones to avoid...Thanks!

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

#165

Post by 0xDEFC0DE »

xfitm3 wrote: post #53
scarface74 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LeetCode is one path and it should be supported, but it shouldn't be the only path.

Realistically if a dev gets a leetcode interview they don't want to do, most of them can just cancel and likely get an interview with someone else next week if they're actively applying to jobs.

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

#166

Post by [deleted] »

freyr wrote: post #54

Can 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…

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by manfredo »

jaredsohn wrote: post #161
manfredo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do browsers announce that they're incognito? Would it be difficult to disable this flag?

Incognito can be detected by via javascript looking at how the browser behaves differently in incognito. It looks like some of these detection mechanisms go away as Chrome gets updated but like seo, spam, viruses, and other such problems etc. there is a war aspect between trying to exploit and avoid exploiting. Some details can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-determin...

I don't see how it'd be difficult to just obfuscate this. If it tries to write a cookie then let it write a cookie, just clear it on the next page reload. I don't see how it should be able to distinguish between an incognito browser and a non-incognito browser that has no history and is navigating to the page in question for the first time.

I guess some things around local storage can be used to infer incognito mode, but I think it'd be straightforward to just write all local storage usage to memory instead of disk.

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

#168

Post by dehrmann »

scarface74 wrote: post #39
pleasecalllater wrote: post #34

I still require to work in a company where my manager/boss/CTO know much more than me. I'm almost 40. It's really hard to work for a 20-something guy who has almost no experience and is happily making all the mistakes he could read in books about. Still, finding a job where my boss would know more is more and more problematic. When I was 33 I was rejected by a recruiter with "you know, here I have dozens of resumes o…

My resume has always been one page. I hate looking over 3 page resumes. I don’t care what you did in the 90s. No one cares that I wrote C for DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes in the late 90s or the systems I wrote with a combination of C++/COM and Vb6 in the early 2000s. I only go back 10 years. In fact, I negotiated not to be a team lead at my current job.

Do you just cut off the jobs after that point entirely, or company, start date, end date?

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

#169

Post by jaredsohn »

manfredo wrote: post #167
jaredsohn wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incognito can be detected by via javascript looking at how the browser behaves differently in incognito. It looks like some of these detection mechanisms go away as Chrome gets updated but like seo, spam, viruses, and other such problems etc. there is a war aspect between trying to exploit and avoid exploiting. Some details can be found here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-determin...

I don't see how it'd be difficult to just obfuscate this. If it tries to write a cookie then let it write a cookie, just clear it on the next page reload. I don't see how it should be able to distinguish between an incognito browser and a non-incognito browser that has no history and is navigating to the page in question for the first time. I guess some things around local storage can be used to infer incognito mode,…

The stackoverflow link I included says that the FileSystem API is disabled in incognito mode so its absence suggests the user is connecting via an incognito tab.

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

#170

Post by esoterica »

bongobongo wrote: post #140
neilv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "developers get dumb by 30" is an HN meme that just won't go away. So every new batch of impressionable 20 year-olds hears it, at the same time VCs and big corps are telling them "you're so smart, now just submit to this series of hazing rituals."

This is accurate. Age discrimination is rampant in tech because young people are essentially recruited as unwitting scabs against their older peers. Aside from depressing wages and increasing loyalty (via fear of precarity), it’s also a very effective way to fight unionization, which software desperately needs (not for compensation reasons, although that will change, but for professional and ethical reasons). It’s ea…

Based on your description of your priorities one could argue that older workers are the ones depressing wages, not younger workers. Many older workers (including you, by your own admission) value job security and work life balance over raw compensation and are less willing to rock the boat. Younger workers are more likely to go “fuck you, pay me, and if you don’t I’m going to move across the country to take up this other job offer I have”. Older employees with a spouse and kids have much less geographic mobility.
Post reply on HN