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Age Discrimination at Work

nytimes.com

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Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#141

Post by tacostakohashi »

alxlaz wrote: post #97
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda hard to tell what's a fad and what's not. I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility, and I can't fathom having the kind of arrogance to discount the experience and wisdom that comes wit…

> I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. I've observed this first-hand while doing interviews. Even in companies that insist there's no bias against age, and even with people who insist they don't have any bias, there is nonetheless a preference for hiring: * People who don't have a clear understanding of how much their work is worth and therefore have difficulties negotiating a high salary * Peop…

This is indeed a good breakdown of things that aren't intended as age discrimination, but look at feel a lot like it.

Another factor is that many large companies have roles and expectations tied to length of experience - so if you have 20 years experience, fine, you're being compared with other candidates with 20 years of experience, and people who have been with the company for 20 years and promoted a few times.

In this situation, it's not the case that a candidate with 5 years experience, and a candidate with 20 years experience that are both qualified for an opening are compared against each other and the more experienced candidate will be preferred.

When comparing candidates with 20 years of experience against each other, there's huge variation. Some have been developing, are well-rounded, and have worked in a variety of interesting roles, others have been doing similar things, piecemeal work, contracting with no overall ownership, and not so much to show for it. It's the difference between 20 years of growth, versus the same year 20 times over.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#142

Post by alexgmcm »

klingonopera wrote: post #27
robin_reala wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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",…

In Spain it's also common.

I don't have one on mine because I'm from the UK and it just feels weird.

Nowadays they can just look on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever anyway so it feels kind of pointless.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#143

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #71
bilbo0s wrote: post #42

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…

> ...the dirty secret of the tech industry however, is that most work is just CRUD equivalent stuff No. I see this a lot on HN, the idea that "CRUD" applications are trivial, but it's a myth. It simply is not true. I think folks are just extrapolating from "Pet-shop" or "Northwind" examples that they've seen in tutorials/docs and assume that that is what, say, enterprise developers actually do at the same level of co…

> I see this a lot on HN, the idea that "CRUD" applications are trivial, but it's a myth.

Nah, it's true. For the average small to medium size company, CRUD apps are mostly "plug library A into framework B, with a dash of glue logic" and you're done. The most difficult part is the yak-shaving needed to get things to work together.

Things like embedded systems or scaling to FAANG levels are much more difficult.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#144

Post by foldr »

lacampbell wrote: post #106
foldr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!? That isn't what the GP said. The GP pointed out that it is possible to do something about discrimination if we make a concerted effort. Racial discrimination has not been eliminated but has been significantly reduced.

All you can do is make it harder (not impossible, just harder) to openly mention race as a factor in hiring. Three people may decide independently to base their hiring decision on the race of a candidate without ever bringing it up. Hell they might do it without even admitting it to themselves. Maybe I'm wrong. But if you ever come to Auckland, NZ I could show you a lot of suspicious coincidences.

If what you were saying was true, there'd still be just as much racism in hiring as there was in the 50s. That's patently not the case.

And that's not "all you can do". Societal attitudes regarding race have shifted dramatically over the past few decades.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#145

Post by kqr2 »

justanother wrote: post #11
fiblye wrote: post #3

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…

In the United States, literally nobody should be asking your age during a job interview.

They can ask what year you graduated from college which is a proxy for age.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#146

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #61
rfrey wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that solved by specifying “junior developer” or “intermediate developer”? Or by including the salary range?

It should be - but I’m positive that everybody with over 10 years experience is calling themselves a “senior developer” by now. There’s no level after that, so most everybody over 35 is a senior developer.

There's pretty severe title inflation going on at some companies. I know of one company that awarded the "senior" title for people with as little as 3-4 years experience and had several more grandiose titles for people above that level.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#147

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

koreth1 wrote: post #127
commandlinefan wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be - but I’m positive that everybody with over 10 years experience is calling themselves a “senior developer” by now. There’s no level after that, so most everybody over 35 is a senior developer.

I wish it were "over 10 years." I help review resumes for my company and on a nearly daily basis I see people with one or even two "senior software engineer" jobs and 6-7 years of experience. It always sticks out as an, "Oh REALLY?" But without talking to the candidate you never know if it reflects poorly on their knowledge of their own limitations, or is just a sign they happened to work for companies with title inf…

Don't blame me, I had 4 years experience when my company had a mass exodus so everyone who was left there got a salary bump (+23% for me), and of course they had to title bump since that was way past 'Software Developer'.

3 years after that, I went to work for a company that had the same thing happen and now I'm a 'Technical Lead / Software Architect'. I didn't choose the title life, the title life chose the shitty companies I worked for :(

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#148

Post by analog31 »

klingonopera wrote: post #27
robin_reala wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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",…

Fortunately, I've got lots of pictures from when I was much younger. ;-)

Here in the states, it's my understanding that the picture is for identifying your skin color, and is frowned upon for that reason.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#149

Post by vonmoltke »

bradleyjg wrote: post #135
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda hard to tell what's a fad and what's not. I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility, and I can't fathom having the kind of arrogance to discount the experience and wisdom that comes wit…

There's two different, but related, things going on: 1) Is regular, ordinary age discrimination. This is why tech companies won't hire people starting second careers into entry level programming roles. 2) The widespread notion that more than about 5 years programming experience is not valuable, maybe even counterproductive. (Firm specific knowledge is a different story, tech companies do value that.) Hence all the "s…

> The first one is illegal

Partially illegal. I'm 39, and it is perfectly legal for companies to tell me they won't hire me because I'm too old. Next year it becomes illegal for them to do so.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#150

Post by nearmuse »

gbacon wrote: post #139
nearmuse wrote: post #69

That is not good advice at all. All it says is "it is up to you old people to put all the effort you can muster at competing with the young". Not everyone gets to look immaculate in their 60s, not everyone gets to occupy a "(prominent) wise elder" position in life by that age either. Just as well, fitting in with fleeting trends is not something people should have to prioritize to be considered productive. What about…

If you’re that far along in your career and are still in direct competition with very junior people, then yes, you had better differentiate yourself! An employee is a seller of labor, and an employer is a buyer. To make the sale, the job seeker must demonstrate the strongest possible value. A lot of outside obligations or time otherwise required to be away from work, all else being equal, makes competitors look relat…

I would rather put my effort into differentiating myself with job-related skills without having to "bite back" and "form support groups". This is what exactly I didn't like as advice in this piece.
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