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Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
21–30 of 219 posts
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#22Anti-ageism is the affirmative action for tech workers.
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Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#23Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
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Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Virtually every genius is most productive before 40, usually before 30. Counterexamples exist but are rare.
Our industry isn't powered by the rare genius, but by the magnitude of line coders that the best impact they can do is just not cause issues as they develop the next version that adds feature x and y promised by some sales engineer to a big client. Sure, by 40 you're not likely to change the world. But in your 20's, you're not likely to change the world either. It's a long shot. Focusing on the fact that the long sho…
Geniuses follow the same curve as virtually everyone else. Humans are most active, energetic and quick in our late teens to early 30s and fall off steadily after that.
People in this thread need to ask themselves why they're engaging in age-denialism.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#26Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#27The article calls it an "open secret" in the industry, but it isn't even much of a secret. Most companies have explicit "manage up or manage out" policies for engineers, which means that if you have been at a certain level for too many years you get fired and replaced by someone younger. They say you need to work hard and get promoted to senior staff/principal/director/VP, but then the promo budget says only 2 people in the org can get promoted to those ranks every year. So what about everyone else?
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#28Discrimination is what happens when you don't have good measurement for capability. People have to make decisions, and in general you have more applicants than roles, so you use heuristics. Obviously its wrong (and illegal) but it's not going to change until you offer a reasonable alternative that measures technical and social (personality/EQ) merit.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#29I did feel a disadvantage myself when I was job searching a few months ago, but for me it was my personal attitude coming through more than anyone judging me by my age.
I felt that I just cannot get excited anymore about some of the bullshit the company leadership is throwing around, and neither could I overlook the massive mistakes the companies are making based on my own interview questions. But I do understand that a very small minority of these companies will actually succeed regardless of the nonsense. Otherwise the venture capital logic does not work.
Also my pay expectations were higher than most junior employees, cause I have a mortgage, family, etc. and I can see how it might be hard to justify paying for my experience when you're building yet another standard webapp.
Luckily for me, I was able to find a spot with experienced leadership building something actually new.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#30The article calls it an "open secret" in the industry, but it isn't even much of a secret. Most companies have explicit "manage up or manage out" policies for engineers, which means that if you have been at a certain level for too many years you get fired and replaced by someone younger. They say you need to work hard and get promoted to senior staff/principal/director/VP, but then the promo budget says only 2 people…
> So what about everyone else?
They probably just move laterally to another tech company with a decent pay bump. Not the worst outcome.