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Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

theguardian.com

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Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#131

Post by ninth_ant »

Quekid5 wrote: post #106
pradn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be true, statistically, if the initial screening interviews are high-signal.

Is there any published research-level evidence that FAANG interviews are high-signal? I'm no expert, but the only published research I've read on this is "Thinking, Fast and Slow", and the original researcher has recently cast doubt on his own results on that study. Regardless, the evidence there was that all that mattered was "any objectively measurable metric" -- which would mean that FAANGs are wasting a lot of ti…

I worked at one of those companies. They were very self-certain that their hiring was high signal. They were likewise completely disinterested in doing a control group test where we randomly hire people from the fail pool and see how they compare once hired.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#132

Post by vsnf »

Quekid5 wrote: post #106
pradn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be true, statistically, if the initial screening interviews are high-signal.

Is there any published research-level evidence that FAANG interviews are high-signal? I'm no expert, but the only published research I've read on this is "Thinking, Fast and Slow", and the original researcher has recently cast doubt on his own results on that study. Regardless, the evidence there was that all that mattered was "any objectively measurable metric" -- which would mean that FAANGs are wasting a lot of ti…

>the original researcher has recently cast doubt on his own results on that study

Do you have a reference for this? I'm interested in reading more.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#133

Post by bennybob »

I'm 37, I'm starting to get worried about my age being a problem. But to hell with blaming employers who don't want me, it's their call. I think that maybe the actual problem is that by 40 they expect that I should be leading teams not just stuck at senior dev. Personally I want out of tech as I see supply and demand acting on wages (I'm in UK). Pretty soon, as far as I can estimate, it will go the way manufacturing went in the west: gone or heavily unionised blue collar like Germany which I don't want to be.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#135

Post by 52-6F-62 »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #114
52-6F-62 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent! Any resource suggestions for a digital signal processing novice? More interested on the musical end, but also in general.

Here is an excellent resource: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ The first online book linked from the author's homepage is: MATHEMATICS OF THE DISCRETE FOURIER TRANSFORM (DFT) WITH AUDIO APPLICATIONS SECOND EDITION IMHO the author does a brilliant job of presenting the mathematics with rigor, but with accessible "on-ramps" via examples.

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of applied maths I need to get myself to commit to learning what I (at least think) I want to learn.

Appreciate it!

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#136

Post by PopeDotNinja »

typon wrote: post #43
gregfjohnson wrote: post #21

Tangentially related: I just turned 65, and am continuing to immensely enjoy programming. Current job involves embedded digital signal processing in medical devices. My family came up with a new name for my category of programmers: the gerihacktric demographic.. :-) I have interviewed with Alphabet twice, no offers. One time apparently it was a close call.. It would be fun to be the all-time record holder for oldest…

I'm much younger than you, but I also interviewed with Google last year, got rejected after on-site, apparently a "close call" too. Did you grind leetcode enough? ;)

Developer and former recruiter here. You cannot trust the reason you have been rejected to be honest. You can only believe that they were clear about rejecting you.

For example, "it was a close call" could mean:

- you were late to the interview, and we didn't like that

- we closed the job and stopped recruiting everyone

- you had mustard on your shirt, and we didn't like that

- an interviewer was late to an interview, insisted you proceeds anyway, and you could not possibly have received a vote of confidence for the questions asked in the time allotted

And so on and so on. The only things you can really trust are got hired, didn't get hired, and never heard back. That's it.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#137

Post by tracker1 »

justaj wrote: post #84
gregfjohnson wrote: post #21

Tangentially related: I just turned 65, and am continuing to immensely enjoy programming. Current job involves embedded digital signal processing in medical devices. My family came up with a new name for my category of programmers: the gerihacktric demographic.. :-) I have interviewed with Alphabet twice, no offers. One time apparently it was a close call.. It would be fun to be the all-time record holder for oldest…

I'm 35. I've yet to learn a programming language. I've always been intimidated by starting and choosing a language. I've started to loosen up regarding that and finally finding a path I could take. However, instead now I'm intimidated by the job market and age discrimination.

Depends on the market... Pacific coast is definitely skewed young. Phoenix, Houston, Austin and Atlanta will be a little older. Phoenix in particular leans a bit older, I'm 44 and average in the group I'm currently working with is within 5 years of my age.

A lot of the work is more boring business oriented work, and not a lot of startups. But it's steady, there's plenty of it and it pays relatively well compared to cost of living.

Start with Dive Into Python... then decide on something you want to make for yourself and work from there. Python is one of the better options to start from. JS is my personal favorite, second is now Rust, but they're harder to jump into as a beginner.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#138

Post by mejarc »

jonas21 wrote: post #34
mbrumlow wrote: post #2

Why are these numbers so small? Even more so to the fine for data protection violations. The point of these sort of things are to make companies think twice. While 11m is a lot of cash it is nothing compared to Google's total income, and would not even been half a years salary for those they refused to hire. Seems like they got let off easy on this one.

This is just speculation, but... The plaintiffs may have settled because they thought it was unlikely they would prevail if this went to trial, so it would be better take a guaranteed payout. Google may have settled because they figured that the PR hit of a lengthy age discrimination trial would be worth more than $11M, regardless of whether they won.

I doubt any company, especially in SV, takes a PR hit from age discrimination, which seems to be widely accepted and barely punished. Google just wants to swat away the plaintiffs like annoying gnats.

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#139

Post by kvonhorn »

atdrummond wrote: post #125

I'd love to hire some talented individuals with this level of experience. Any recommendations on where I can post positions that don't attract the typical west coast brogrammer set?

> don't attract the typical west coast brogrammer set

Isn't this just discrimination against a different demographic?

Re: Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination

#140

Post by mleonhard »

justaj wrote: post #84
gregfjohnson wrote: post #21

Tangentially related: I just turned 65, and am continuing to immensely enjoy programming. Current job involves embedded digital signal processing in medical devices. My family came up with a new name for my category of programmers: the gerihacktric demographic.. :-) I have interviewed with Alphabet twice, no offers. One time apparently it was a close call.. It would be fun to be the all-time record holder for oldest…

I'm 35. I've yet to learn a programming language. I've always been intimidated by starting and choosing a language. I've started to loosen up regarding that and finally finding a path I could take. However, instead now I'm intimidated by the job market and age discrimination.

Start with Python and a highly-rated book on Amazon. You will learn the same concepts with any language. You will have more fun an learn faster with an easy language like Python.
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