New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by brandall10 » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #351

brandall10 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love your attitude. I'm of the opinion that grinding through leetcode/hacker rank type exercises does improve your coding skills so I have no issue brushing up every time I'm on the market. To that end, I'm 43 and last on the market a few months back, accepted an offer within a week of looking, had 3 pending final/onsites (including Amazon Seattle) and at least another half dozen in earlier stages that I shut down. I…

Oh, I agree that Leetcode can improve certain coding skills. But, are they the ones that matter for doing most software engineering jobs? The ability to write down algorithms on a whiteboard from memory alone is not a skill I’ve ever seen anyone use at any workplace outside of an interview room.

They absolutely do IMO, in 2 ways

- Whenever I need to hop into a code share w/ a co-worker (I'm remote FWIW) the ability to quickly suss out an idea has greatly improved from having a decent aptitude with those types of exercises.

- Any non-trivial PR usually has at least a few portions that could be extricated to challenges like these. Being able to slice through issues like these in 15-30 minutes vs. say hours helps w/ my cadence. It lets me focus on the issues that are unique to the business.

The 30 minute pairing challenge we give during our interview (which I took myself) was something that was pulled and simplified from our source. I ended up having to implement something very similar just weeks after I started.

Of course being good are things like this isn't necessary to being an effective sr. developer, nor is it sufficient (even for an entry-level). But I do very much see it as a skill that is helpful and worth getting good at.

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

#432

Post by uoaei » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #235

uoaei wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the software engineer's great stumbling block in his stride toward hiring fairness is not the Genius Asshole or the Bullshitter Who Can't Code, but the anonymous internet commenter, who is more devoted to 'pragmatism' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of reform to a positive peace which is the presence of fairness..."

So anonymous internet comments are inhibiting the fair hiring practices of software engineers? Is there a study establishing the causal link between these two, because it sounds like spurious BS.

"Anonymous internet commenter" serves as exemplar for all those who say that "we just have to play the game".

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

#433

Post by m0zg » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #387

m0zg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "interviews" are you talking about? Your track record is supposed to speak for itself. The interview boils down to sitting down with a client and figuring out what they need and whether you can do it. Because you're a contractor you can be fired effortlessly, so there's very little risk for the client. You can also fire the client, so there's little risk for you. I think you either don't have the right track rec…

So how do you get the "right track record" if you can't be employed?

That's highly individual. I did it by leading several fairly involved projects at Google over the course of nearly a decade, and then building two high performance engineering teams from scratch outside Google. I also built a bit of a rare talent stack, which happens to be in heavy demand right now. If you do a good job, people want to work with you again, and don't mind paying pretty penny.

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

#434

Post by yawaramin » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 12:20 AM UTC

_cs2017_ wrote: post #350

yawaramin wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on now. It should be perfectly clear that playing video games and beer pong with colleagues is not a requirement for a job as a software developer.

It is not a secret that some famous game studios turned away experienced software engineers simply because they didn't play video games. Expecting employees to work on weekends is even more common, and not just in the gaming industry. Please remove "partying" from my list; it was dumb of me to mention it, it only makes my example less realistic.

> game studios turned away experienced software engineers simply because they didn't play video games

That's troubling but perhaps not a smoking gun, given the specific nature of the job. You wouldn't hire a movie director who never watched movies.

> Expecting employees to work on weekends is even more common

I know, and that's really unfortunate–and if the employee isn't compensated properly or at least given time off in lieu–is wage theft.

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

#435

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

brandall10 wrote: post #431

pmiller2 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I agree that Leetcode can improve certain coding skills. But, are they the ones that matter for doing most software engineering jobs? The ability to write down algorithms on a whiteboard from memory alone is not a skill I’ve ever seen anyone use at any workplace outside of an interview room.

They absolutely do IMO, in 2 ways - Whenever I need to hop into a code share w/ a co-worker (I'm remote FWIW) the ability to quickly suss out an idea has greatly improved from having a decent aptitude with those types of exercises. - Any non-trivial PR usually has at least a few portions that could be extricated to challenges like these. Being able to slice through issues like these in 15-30 minutes vs. say hours hel…

I am very skeptical. Can you give a more specific example?

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

#436

Post by RickSanchez2600 » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

mikelevins wrote: post #413

RickSanchez2600 wrote: post #314

A friend of mine specialized in OSX USB drivers and did contract work for OEMS who make products for the Apple Macintosh. He used to work for Apple in the 1990s and did work on Mac System 7.5.4 with the team. He recently killed himself, because he could not find clients and work due to ageism etc. He got sick as well and for a while was homeless. Once he got grey hair they didn't want to hire him anymore. He was 55.

This is eerily similar to my own story, except that I'm 59 and still alive, so far. I didn't work on drivers; I worked on mostly higher-level stuff (Newton, HyperCard, Quicktime, AppleScript, and several projects that did not ultimately become products). I worked at Apple from 1988 to 1998, and after that moved on to a successful startup. In 2004 for I developed an incurable chronic illness. It was one that is hard t…

Keep yourself alive. Keep looking for work, and stay active and exercise as well. Take care of your illness because it is a tough world out there.

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

#437

Post by RickSanchez2600 » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #399

RickSanchez2600 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine is in his 50s he got tired of being overqualified for jobs. So he sent in applications for CEO of Microsoft etc and got the overqualified letters back. It is ridiculous if you ask me, and he is only overqualified because of his age.

That is one worth framing and adding to the CV. My personal favorite was time IBM said something could not be done, I knocked up some code 30 minutes later doing what they said could not be done. Took IBM a week (which entailed contacting outside consultants) to come back and say my proposal would solve the problem. I really wished the response of "over qualified" was made illegal as we all know it is used as a way t…

Usually they staff a female minority in HR to make up for lack of diversity in other departments. In some companies I worked at they upgraded a administrative assistant to supervising manager of IT because she was female and they needed more diversity. She was not qualified for the job, and I'd feel better if she was qualified for the job. But that is just my opinion.

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

#438

Post by ikiris » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 6:36 AM UTC

jtr1 wrote: post #256

A few years ago I worked at a ~50 person startup, where an informal poll revealed everyone on the engineering team to be in an age range of ~24-30. One day we interviewed an insanely qualified dude in his mid-50s. He’d worked with technologicies up and down our stack, their competitors, and their predecessors, and could speak at length to their relative strengths and weaknesses. Tons of open source contributions, men…

Well this was a horrifying image

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

#439

Post by dang » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 8:45 AM UTC

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #258

marcinzm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or 4. I don't care to argue those points because I find doing so to not be entertaining or insightful. I used to argue to the death and then I realized that in the end it brought neither joy nor enlightenment. So I don't anymore. You're free to think you've won, I don't care. Although one piece of life advice for someone who seems to like arguing and seems to be good at it. People will often stop arguing with you bec…

Every argument you have given has been in favor of discriminating against the young. If you are intellectually honest you'd just admit that is your perspective. Or clarify.

Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? it's against the rules here, and we've had to ask you this already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#440

Post by wellpast » Mon, Jun 10, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #425

wellpast wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is, just because a filter allows the right people through doesn’t mean it’s necessarily any good. I define “good” and “right people” to be that which produces efficiency, quality, innovation in the business. So a good filter to me is good wrt these outcomes. The industry is starving for ‘good people’ and ‘good outcomes’ and we should work to optimize this imo. Any other measure divorced from outcome to me…

I wish I could talk about our recruiting funnel numbers. It is the farthest thing from efficient. Triplebyte claims the industry average onsite pass rate is in the neighborhood of 30% ( https://triplebyte.com/blog/12-000-engineers-evaluated ). I suspect that the huge majority of those who fail onsites get jobs. Is that efficient?

I’m advocating for improving that efficiency if it is indeed improvable (my intuition says it is by a large margin.)

What I’m saying is that the notion of ‘fairness’ should have little relevance to improving this side of things.