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No Country for Old Developers

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Re: No Country for Old Developers

#61

Post by meowzero »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

I'm a software engineer in my 40's. I also worry about ageism.

I don't want to victim blame. There is probably discrimination. But I think the older developers have some responsibility in defeating ageism.

I know a few SWEs who are older than me. They are already feeling the burnout of learning the new languages, frameworks, technologies every 3-4 years. Some of them are set in their ways thinking, "why would you need anything else other than C++/Java/etc.?" They grumble every time they are forced to learn something new. They have a point. After working in the industry for 15+ years, I empathize. But in this industry, that's unfortunately not the right attitude to have.

Another problem I see with older engineers is they are intimidated by the younger kids. I get it. When I interviewed some fresh grads, they seemed extremely talented and smart. I felt intimated by how much they knew. Some of the old guys lose confidence because of that. One old engineer who got laid off gave up looking for another job and faced early retirement. He told me he can't compete with the younger kids who already know all the new technologies and techniques.

Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers. Being in my 40's, I still can relate to the kids. I try to bring a "young" energy. I'll see if I can keep this up into my 50's and maybe 60's.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#62

Post by smnrchrds »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

There was a research in Canada about hiring discrimination. One of those ones where they send mock resumes to employers with similar contents but different applicant names: some had English names, some had non-English (mainly Asian IIRC) names. Then they compare the number of callbacks they got from employers.

The result of this particular study was that: 1) the resumes with non-English sounding names had much fewer callbacks than the ones with English names. 2) the resumes with more education and experience got more callbacks than the results with less education and experience. 3) if you had a non-English name and a master's, you almost but not quite, had the same rate of callback as someone with a bachelor's and an English name.

I imagine some people see this and conclude that skills beat racism. But if the reality is that you have to get a PhD and a couple of years of extra experience under your belt to have the same chance of finding a job as an English Canadian who has newly graduated from good BSc, then this is not skills beating racism. The fact that some people have to do a lot of extra work for the same outcome is the epitome of discrimination.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#64

Post by 015UUZn8aEvW »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

"Rather, prejudiced people take one look at you, see your gray hair, and make assumptions about you""

Often, I suspect, it isn't even about making conscious assumptions. People just have positive and negative subconscious reactions to certain physical traits.

It's striking that you virtually never hear any discussion of "height discrimination", which I put in scare quotes because it barely seems to a recognized concept in the world of work (although it is somewhat recognized in the dating world). Yet there's lots of evidence that tall people have systematic advantages in life. They're seen as leaders, more likely to become CEOs, more like to be elected to political office, etc.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#67

Post by derbOac »

johnwheeler wrote: post #63

Ageism is the only prejudice I can think of that no one is immune to. Are there others you can think of?

Sexism. Maybe even racism at some level.

Really I think prejudices operate all the time in all sorts of ways. I say that not to be dismissive — I think all forms of them are a problem — but I think some of them rise to a certain level of societal awareness because of the numbers of people affected.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#68

Post by drchopchop »

meowzero wrote: post #61
_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

I'm a software engineer in my 40's. I also worry about ageism. I don't want to victim blame. There is probably discrimination. But I think the older developers have some responsibility in defeating ageism. I know a few SWEs who are older than me. They are already feeling the burnout of learning the new languages, frameworks, technologies every 3-4 years. Some of them are set in their ways thinking, "why would you nee…

>Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers

Also an engineer in my mid-40's. This is key. You need to be the "cool" dad in the room, and someone people can go to for hard/difficult problems. You also have to stay relevant and keep your skills up to date. Talk about the great ramen place near your house, not how you had to solve Y2K problems with COBOL 20 years ago.

The worst case scenario is if you're a bootcamp grad at 40+, you're gonna have all the problems of ageism without any of the experience to counteract it.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#69

Post by derbOac »

yodsanklai wrote: post #41
duxup wrote: post #29

Bear with me if you've heard me tell this story before on HN: After age 40 I changed careers from a networking career to coding via a bootcamp. I was among a couple folks who were in my age group in the camp. It was a great experience working with folks of all ages in the camp. I think mixing different ages, backgrounds, experience is valuable. While finishing the camp I was working with another person who was my age…

I'm glad you were eventually hired. I used to work in academia as a professor and the occasional older students were always a joy to work with. And usually, they went along perfectly fine with the other students (at least with the more mature ones). It's a shame that we have all these educational resources available but practically most people don't have access to it. I'd love to spend a couple of years learning a ne…

I had the same experience with older students. They always had a certain perspective that was lacking with the younger students. I wouldn't say they were harder working, or less harder working, but I think they took things in stride a bit better, and were better with time management. They also tended to be coming from some other areas first, and so understood bigger picture issues a bit better.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#70

Post by meowzero »

drchopchop wrote: post #68
meowzero wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer in my 40's. I also worry about ageism. I don't want to victim blame. There is probably discrimination. But I think the older developers have some responsibility in defeating ageism. I know a few SWEs who are older than me. They are already feeling the burnout of learning the new languages, frameworks, technologies every 3-4 years. Some of them are set in their ways thinking, "why would you nee…

>Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers Also an engineer in my mid-40's. This is key. You need to be the "cool" dad in the room, and someone people can go to for hard/difficult problems. You also have to stay relevant and keep your skills up to date. Talk about the great ramen place near your house, not how you had to solve Y2K problems with COBOL 20 years…

I agree. You need to be the cool uncle or older brother who shows them new tricks and cool stuff.

You need to have a mentor like quality for their career growth yet still talk about the latest movies, technologies, games, memes, random geeky stuff, etc. to them

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