Age Discrimination at Work • Hacker News Board

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#181

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

PorterDuff wrote: post #177

scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are “principal developers” and architects, but just like with products and the “Innovator’s Dilemma” at some point, your skillset overserves the market. After a certain level of competence, experience doesn’t add value if you’re applying to be a developer for yet another software as a service crud app. Either be happy with salary stagnation and cost of living raises (if that) or move on to greener pastures.

If you make it to Senior Principal Staff Engineer they'll bring coffee to you.

[deleted]

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#182

Post by username90 » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

Impossible wrote: post #165

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…

This is blatantly illegal and if you really wanted to you could win a lawsuit against them (there are many reasons not to start legal action, but you could). I worked for a large game studio and we had a mandatory training session about protected classes because of things like this.

It is not illegal to discriminate against 26 year olds, the law explicitly states that you are only protected when you are 40 or older. (Assuming this is USA)

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#183

Post by alxlaz » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #161

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that's a fascinating breakdown, I never thought about it with that level of granularity.

All of that rings true to me, but I think there's a corollary that if you're willing to pay people in accordance with the value of their depth of experience, and you can evaluate expertise without being biased by enthusiasm, and you can build a stable team that executes on a plan instead of requiring tons of overtime to scramble from emergency to emergency, and if you value choosing the right technologies for a probl…

Definitely -- but while most places don't actually suffer from all those things at once, a lot of them do worry about most of them, and will bring them up if they're out of criteria based on which to differentiate candidates.

I've seen places where availability for sudden overtime was a big deal, even though it was rarely needed. The reasons were completely stupid but it was a big deal and it played a big role in deciding hires. The projects were well-executed and deadlines were rarely missed, but management quirks meant that every team lead and manager was afraid of not being able to cope with crunch.

Also, a lot of these problems aren't "global" -- a company may actually run into all of them, but not everywhere and not with the same people. Companies that do value choosing the right technologies over following trends will nonetheless have one or two people who would like to be more bold. They may generally aim for building stable teams that executes on a plan and delivers things on time, but they nonetheless won't be devoid of newly-hired managers who don't have experience running things like that, or who might be willing to compromise on this side of things for a volatile, but high-potential project. Even toxicity can be surprisingly well isolated.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#184

Post by pry86 » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

I was working in a small startup in Germany. I think our boss was around 40. He didn't want developer older than 38 :D We were just above 30 at that time.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#185

Post by Zenst » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

hunter2_ wrote: post #85

Zenst wrote: post #2

30 years ago the discrimination was firmly against young people, today it has flipped on its head. Yet we have larger HR departments, rules, etc etc. So some serious questions need to be asked. But having felt the brunt of age discrimination when I was young and now older, I kinda angst. Kinda feel like generation discriminated sometimes having caught it at both ends.

I think rather than the world flipping, what happened is the absolute value of the age difference between you and the hiring manager was large, small, large. They prefer like kind.

Age difference in manager has never been an issue from my experience. More case of being blocked by initial filtering for being `overqualified`, which in one case - I knew the manager and he had to kick HR's butt for doing what they do best these days. Yes the abstraction layer to a job has grown, before you would agencies and the manager direct. Today you have HR buffers of various forms and with that growth, I've seen a clear shift upon age. Will say in early days it was case of "that's too much money for somebody your age" and "If you was older we would pay you more" with both no question about skills and ability to do the jobs at hand. Though interestingly I did get a response back from a bank once as "overqualified" when I was in my early 20's - but did spot technical errors on the tests they had and agency chap said the boss wasn't keen on having somebody who was better than him as he'd written the tests. So the like minded aspect has some weight in that case. But the whole money aspect may be a part, companies still (was case when I started work as well) had a mentality that you factored in age when you pay people. So even if you had a young person and an older person who could do the job, you'd pay the younger person less as that was kinda the norm. Though that norm has changed a bit and the days of having somebody 10x as good as the next person and paying them both the same near on has passed, and that is a good thing. As the change about gender, though still needs much work as do many equalities, though again, that's improved. So on balance, things have improved, but along the way, age has become more defining in mindsets and has a way to go.

But no, I can't support your theory based upon my personal experiences. Not saying that you totally wrong and certainly be the case in some cases/people - though none personally I can attest to myself.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#186

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

gilbetron wrote: post #124

WomanCanCode wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a middle age female software developer and also found similar experience when I was in the job market recently. The software development positions generally are below 2 years, under 5 years and the senior position at 6-8 years. What do you do if you have 20 years of software development experience?

Recently worked for a (bad) silicon valley YC company, and was shocked to learn that 6-8 years of experience is considered senior these days. Not enough experience at that point to really be senior, but I think there's such a desperate need for developers that they have to do that. To be clear, I've certainly met people in their 20s that have senior-level ability, but they are by far the exception.

I agree with you that the "senior" title is passed out too easily, but as someone who is 46 this has been the case throughout my entire career, I don't think it is a new problem.

In fact, the 6-8 years of experience you quote is far higher than I would have guessed if you asked me when the average company (incorrectly) starts handing out "senior" titles.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#187

Post by Zenst » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

rco8786 wrote: post #34

Zenst wrote: post #2

30 years ago the discrimination was firmly against young people, today it has flipped on its head. Yet we have larger HR departments, rules, etc etc. So some serious questions need to be asked. But having felt the brunt of age discrimination when I was young and now older, I kinda angst. Kinda feel like generation discriminated sometimes having caught it at both ends.

Guessing you’re Gen X? As a millennial (albeit a slightly older one) this is the reason I tend to not worry about this. We’ll be the dominant age group in the workforce for the next 20 years, there’s no reason for us to discriminate against ourselves.

May I suggest that you save your post and look back upon it in 20 years time.

Personally I find swapping around the variable and re-reading things, does help to get a more 360 perspective. So say s/Gen X/Women/, s/millennial/male/ as an example. It's a tip I've learned over my many years that helps to grasp things fairly and helps with many aspects in life to get a fair perspective across to any mindset. Also when you can transpose or flip the variable and come to the same conclusion all the time, then you know that your doing things right and fairly.

That all said, when I was younger I'd laugh at older people who said "School is the best days of your life", then I grew up and appreciated its wisdom more. TAX's alone sure drives that home.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#188

Post by Hermitian909 » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 6:19 PM UTC

tacostakohashi wrote: post #141

alxlaz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 is a very good point imo, I've met engineers with 15 yoe I consider worse than some engineers with 2 precisely for this reason.

Related to this is that there are social problems about not getting good enough fast enough. I had a chat at one point with a developer who just hit 40 was struggling to find work and asked for some feedback. I asked him to explain Depth First Search to me and he couldn't do it, he was quite confident he could _implement_ it, but not explain it.

Now, if he were 20 with no yoe, I might chalk that up to inexperience and bank on being able teach him, but at 15 yoe you don't know DFS well enough to explain it the odds of you getting it now are slim.

The inability to answer problems of _at least_ this complexity leads to a social problem in the workplace: the young guys are going to go to this older, experienced employee and ask them to explain something along the same lines of complexity as DFS. In my experience, one of three things will happen:

1. They explain it poorly, the younger employees will believe them, and now I have two employees with a shared misunderstanding 2. They explain it poorly, the younger employees will not believe him, and now they won't respect them 3. They say they don't know how to solve the problem, the younger employees won't respect them

All of these results slowly lead to a dysfunctional team.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#189

Post by eropple » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

michalu wrote: post #63

eropple wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A legacy of people in their generation with power , yes. You realize there's no moustache-twirling Boomer Conspiracy Society out there, yeah? And that some random working schlub wouldn't be invited if there was?

I have no idea what you are talking about. You elect those in power? They are your representatives. Your government is your responsibility, that's how democracy works right?

Oh, yes. "Democracy." You understand, I trust, that the individual voter has around fuck-all power and influence, yes? And the profound level of bad faith it takes to charge a working stiff with the actions of the political establishment as directed almost in its entirety by the moneyed class?

The sentiment you exhibit is indecent and inhumane.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#190

Post by bluesnowmonkey » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #100

jasoneckert wrote: post #15

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…

As someone who's starting to "get up there", can you share what critical elements helped you get to that higher productivity? I am definitely much better than when I first started (9 years ago), but I think I've largely leveled off in terms of speed of delivery after about 6.

Some niches reward deep exploration. For instance in adversarial domains like security, you do have to outrun the bear, not just be faster than the slowest guy. And the bear is moving pretty fast these days. Some black hats have been thinking about it for years. You have to know everything they know and then have one more trick up your sleeve. So you're not competing so much with new grads for jobs.