I feel this. I got the "you look older than your profile pic" comment during an interview last year. That one was fun. Dude wanted to know if I could even code anymore.
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
#32In my past experience, Apple was full of graybeards who could code circles around younger devs. They’re the ones who knew how to build and maintain high quality software.
I’m not sure if it’s the same way now, but I was highly impressed with my former coworkers’ caliber.
Ageism isn’t an inevitability, it’s a choice.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#33The jokes on them. The generations are getting smaller and smaller. The lack of junior roles is making that pool even smaller. A giant bubble is forming. They spent the last 5 years talking about diversity and how great it is and how it makes better teams. Now every job is 5+ YOE. Do as I say, not as I do tech.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#34The 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…
> A recruiter told him that he wouldn’t be appealing to employers and opined that Six should be chief technology officer at this point in his career, not a software developer, Six says.
I have been flat-out told that I should ask for less, because of my age. I have had recruiters hang up on me, as soon as they figured out my age.
I gave up, after a while, (but I am still producing quite a bit of code -just for free). I guess that is considered an optimal outcome, by today's tech industry, but I am quite aware that I have the skills and experience to make other people millions. I have never been particularly interested in scooping up large piles of dosh, myself. I just really enjoy the work.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#35The 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.
Doesn't quite work as you'd expect if you are 50+ and applying as an SDE.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#36The 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…
fwiw, each org I have been at that had the up-or-out policy had a "terminal" career stage where it no longer applied. In other words, juniors needed to work to midlevel, midlevel to senior. However, senior was a terminal role and as such you did not have to progress further up the ladder.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#37The 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.
No. They get kicked out of the field.
Like someone said, it's an open secret.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#38In my past experience, Apple was full of graybeards who could code circles around younger devs. They’re the ones who knew how to build and maintain high quality software. I’m not sure if it’s the same way now, but I was highly impressed with my former coworkers’ caliber. Ageism isn’t an inevitability, it’s a choice.
I worked with them (not as an Apple employee). I had tremendous respect for their work.
Apple's quality has been declining recently. I have been trying to get both SwiftUI and Core/CreateML into something I can ship, and keep slamming into walls.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#39I feel this. I got the "you look older than your profile pic" comment during an interview last year. That one was fun. Dude wanted to know if I could even code anymore.
Once that impression has been made (and it takes a fraction of a second) it's effectively engraved in stone and can't be changed.
You disproving their assumption by showing you can code will only elicit extreme disgust from them.
Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
#40When I was coming up a long while back, there were exciting employers that filled their ranks with ambitious recent grads and lavished them with ping pong tables and soda fountains in the "war room" full of knock-off Aeron chairs and various configurations of conference tables. We'd work crazy hours and move fast with tools we didn't really understand. Most of us would get laid off multiple times as the companies we were working for evaporated, but a few would find themselves in the right place at the right time and win the lottery.
Only a few of those companies from era that remain, and most of the people who stayed in that game ended up with a four page long CV with a dozen unknown or comically failed employers, with all sorts of inflated titles.
But there was this other set of companies that were obnoxiously boring, with middle aged engineers in goatees working sane hours in semi-private offices and cubicles with peers they'd been working besides for 10 and 20 and 30 years. They'd been around, they had a business model that was proven, and they had the institutional knowledge to sustain it.
Many of those companies are still around and many of them are still stocked up with middle aged engineers in goatees with short CV's spanning many years.
I think the proportions between these two company styles varies based on how how much money is being shoved into the industry, and I think it can be hard for an older engineer who dallied with the kids for too long to situate themselves at the more stable workplaces. They often don't really fit in with either culture.