51–60 of 206 posts
I was applying to a job with a large game studio. The interview was going pretty well, I'd thought. We talked a bit about how we'd implement certain gameplay elements, the content of the projects we've worked on, and overall it just seemed good and we all seemed to get along pretty well. Then they asked me how old I was. Their response to my age was, "Oh... maybe it's a little late then. You're not too old, but... ki…
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Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who allowed their skills to deteriorate whe…
My take is a bit different, and it may explain the phenomenon you've noticed on HN. TLDR; I believe a lot of people mistake price discrimination as age discrimination. Long version: Let's say you need some code monkey to slap together go or rust services. Well, sure, you get a lot of people applying with 25 years experience, you also get a lot of people applying with 5 years experience. Now here's the rub, it's highl…
> At 66, I am in excellent health.... Then presume I’m Miranda Priestly... I do not want a childproof cap on anything that threatens to ruin my expensive manicure ... I do NOT have any children or grandchildren! If you're 66 and you're still sitting around in a corporate job, and you have no children because you model yourself after a BS character from a BS movie then you're really just taking up space for someone wh…
"Taking up space" in an industry where there is serious talent shortage about everywhere in the first world and people who can barely code a sorting algorithm are hired for jobs with 6 figure salaries is just laughable argument. There are so many opportunities and so many ways to make living as a competent programmer, especially when you're young. You're already in a privileged position by virtue of being born in tec…
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In the UK (and I suspect all of the EU?) it’s specifically illegal to discriminate on age ( https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination ), and when I was last interviewing there HR would remove any birthdates that came in on CVs before passing them over to the interviewers.
In Germany, it's customary to include a picture of yourself in your CV. ...I think you can figure out your chances, if you don't include one. EDIT: I'm saying this to show how the German (who are European) employers will try to circumvent such age discriminating laws. You get it taught in school, in vocational training, at jobless centers, self-help books and the Internet, that the picture must be of "high-quality",…
I've seen and heard of age discrimination in non-tech industries, but in the tech industry I believe that age discrimination is often mistaken for skills obsolescence. As a software developer for as long as I can remember, I'm actually at the top of my game now in my 40s - I can software engineer (plan) off the top of my head, and my tenacity is balanced with a sense of direction I never had as a younger developer. I…
Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who allowed their skills to deteriorate whe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Taking up space" in an industry where there is serious talent shortage about everywhere in the first world and people who can barely code a sorting algorithm are hired for jobs with 6 figure salaries is just laughable argument. There are so many opportunities and so many ways to make living as a competent programmer, especially when you're young. You're already in a privileged position by virtue of being born in tec…
> people who can barely code a sorting algorithm are hired for jobs with 6 figure salaries I ask, where does this happen? I'd love to apply to this easy money.
EDIT: answering "so you applied b it to all US". I didn't, even people living in 3rd world countries can make nice money these days thanks to internet. If you live in US you can take a plane and go to the best tech hubs in the world. There are people who have to work for years just to have that chance and they need to learn the language in the meantime. There is just so much opportunity if you're already there and you were raised with access to the Internet.
Allow me to provide a contrarian view. I'm not disagreeing that age-discrimination does not exist, however I must say it's not always the case. I'm 35, so I wouldn't qualify as young but neither old. Businesses tend to recruit younger devs for few reasons: - They can be easily convinced to work longer hours - They are typically paid much less However there is one trait in older devs that make them undesirable: - They…
> - They tend to carry baggage from the past. This comes in various flavors, such as biases one has regarding the path of their careers, their interpersonal relationships (social and official), technology choices etc. When one begins the career, one keeps hearing in the interviews "we want more experience". Ok then, 10 years down the road and they say "it's not experience what you've acquired, but bias". Just whateve…
I find this ultra terrifying. This is an advanced technical field yet the same old "we're the gateway we'll use it against you -- future colleague -- without hesitating". Some things never change
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> If you're 66 and you're still sitting around in a corporate job, and you have no children, 9/10 you're really just taking up space for someone who needs to feed their kids, has a potential to grow, and a better place to funnel the earned money than "expensive manicure" That seems very judgmental to me. I don't plan to have kids due to genetic conditions and other reasons, but by your reckoning, I don't deserve a jo…
When you are young and childless you get the difficult shift/all nighter/extra travel because the other guys have families. Then when you get older and the kids are gone you get the same screwing over because the other guys have family to feed. It's always something.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who allowed their skills to deteriorate whe…
My take is a bit different, and it may explain the phenomenon you've noticed on HN. TLDR; I believe a lot of people mistake price discrimination as age discrimination. Long version: Let's say you need some code monkey to slap together go or rust services. Well, sure, you get a lot of people applying with 25 years experience, you also get a lot of people applying with 5 years experience. Now here's the rub, it's highl…
This is a common misunderstanding: yes, Rust is new but prior experience with everything else is not capped at 5 years and it matters a lot. Over my career, I’ve had to fix or replace a number of those “any warm bodied techie” apps where they had incorrect results, security issues, unusable performance, etc. because the developers had been marginally proficient in a popular tool but lacking more general skills and, most importantly, the ability to recognize that they were out of their league.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My take is a bit different, and it may explain the phenomenon you've noticed on HN. TLDR; I believe a lot of people mistake price discrimination as age discrimination. Long version: Let's say you need some code monkey to slap together go or rust services. Well, sure, you get a lot of people applying with 25 years experience, you also get a lot of people applying with 5 years experience. Now here's the rub, it's highl…
Isn’t that solved by specifying “junior developer” or “intermediate developer”? Or by including the salary range?
I always specified entry level, intermediate, etc, but as times get harder, what you start to realize out here in flyover country is that everyone is applying for all positions. They don't really care about the title or labels. (At least, I suspect it's because times are getting harder? I don't know of any other reason highly experienced people would be applying for some of these kinds of positions.)