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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

#201

Post by akras14 »

scarface74 wrote: post #26
pmiller2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (de…

Metro Atlanta GA. My commute is 30-40 minutes depending on traffic and we just bought a 3000 square foot 5 bedroom/3.5 bath house + a large office, new build in a great school system for $335K with 5% down. Our mortgage all in is a little less than $2100/month. The most senior hands on developers/individual contributors/team leads can make between $130K-$160K. Even with that, it leaves more than enough to max out a 4…

Nice!

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

#202

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #185
4ntonius8lock wrote: post #108

Odd that in an article about age based discrimination, they don't mention that there is also age based discrimination against young people, for example, getting into C level positions in the non-tech world. When I used to be employed by other people, I specifically remember being told "we can't really promote you to director, you are too young". I wasn't inexperienced (I started working full time at 16). It wasn't th…

Not being able to get a C-level position is a problem for a very small number of people. Not being able to get a job at all, on the other hand...

Walmart hires old people as greeters.

I'm sorry, you don't get to say "poor old people who get discriminated on" while at the same time saying "young people should be discriminated on" or "it isn't as bad if the shoe is on the other foot".

Given the strong reaction I'm getting from mostly old people who want to see discrimination on the young (or at least are happy to justify it) I'm starting to see why the article didn't include both sides. It seems a non insignificant % of boomers want it both ways. And I'm guessing most of their target audience is older.

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

#203

Post by cortesoft »

pmiller2 wrote: post #19
scarface74 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (de…

Man, 200k is about 8k a month after taxes... with only 2300 in rent, you should be able to save a ton... how do you feel you aren't getting ahead?

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

#204

Post by marcinzm »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #193
marcinzm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So every car insurance and car rental company should be removed? After all, they all charge higher rates to young people irrespective of years actually driving. I mean, sure science says the human brain doesn't mature until mid 20s and sure young people have much higher rates of accidents. But, damn it, we should just wipe them all out anyway, right?

It is my experience that when people resort to sarcasm they have lost the argument and can't face it. But I'll address what you are saying: Insurance can charge people without using ageism. Before, insurers found that black people needed to pay more. After all, they were barbaric said the insurers. Then it became illegal. Insurance companies still exist. Doing away with barbaric old practices is a good thing and as h…

>It is my experience that when people resort to sarcasm they have lost the argument and can't face it.

Or they understand that this site is in the end entertainment. Sarcasm makes it more fun for both the writer and the other readers.

You're projecting how much you care about this issue onto me. Reality is, I don't care about it much at all, it's a mild intellectual diversion to me. You're hurt by this, you're infuriated by this, you're driven by this. I'm not.

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

#205

Post by tsunamifury »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #134
epc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was burned out after 5 years of 7x24x365. Days were filled with conference calls and escalations about conference calls, nights were filled with the technical work I was supposed to be doing during the day. I was prohibited from filing patents due to some sort of corporate reporting arcanity, which derailed my technical career. I had (and apparently still have) an extremely negative reputation in the executive rank…

> 7x24x365 7x24x52 or 24x365 ;^)

The phrase is colloquial not technical and is meant to represent nights(24) weekends(7) and holidays(365).

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

#206

Post by cableshaft »

Cannibusted wrote: post #60

Yeah, 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…

Where did you post these things for other people to discover?

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

#207

Post by stagger87 »

dba7dba wrote: post #84
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…

> a surgeon of my age is usually not experienced enough Forget surgeons. My dentist is nearing retirement age and a younger dentist was brought in to be groomed to replace him. The youngish dentist on more than a few occasions mentioned he couldn't/wouldn't do certain procedures because one with more experience was necessary. The 'young' dentist is no more than 30 years old. And in coding world, if you are over 30, y…

"And in coding world, if you are over 30, you are considered over the hill"

Pure hyperbole.

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

#208

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

jhayward wrote: post #191
4ntonius8lock wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it suspect how as soon as I say young people get discriminated on, a bunch of people who I'd assume are older than in their 20s, come out and defend such discrimination. I'm not that young anymore. I called them old farts because that is what they were. They discriminated on me based on my age alone, so that makes them old farts in my book. I wouldn't have been considered for the director position without any…

I suspect that the incivility and self-righteousness that comes through in these comments may have lead some to think that the poster needs some time to gain perspective, and wisdom, about how to deal with everyone with respect.

I might be an incivil, self-righteous person, but could you please explain to this incivil person why ageist discrimination is OK when applied to the young but not the old?

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

#209

Post by mykowebhn »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #126
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…

Assuming your profile is anonymous, can you tell us what industry you're in and what your offers were paying? Just trying to get a comparison for what myself (and others) can expect.

I've been in several different industries, but what I do in particular is backend software engineering.

I don't feel comfortable saying here, but the Blind app is an excellent resource for finding what total compensation (TC) you can expect for different companies and years of experience (YOE).

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

#210

Post by ScottBurson »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #28
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…

My own commentary on this: I've been consulting the last few months, mostly brought in to coach CTO's. I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers. This leads to mismanagement, and nobody likes being mismanaged, (also it usually means you're being underpaid), so devs eventually wise up and get out. If you think about it, this is a natural exten…

> I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers.

That's because they don't. I've had good managers and bad ones, and all the good ones were, or had been, software engineers themselves. (Of course, some of the engineers were not so great as managers.) As I like to say, software engineering is about the management of complexity, and if you've never worked on a complex system, you don't understand how to do that.

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