71–80 of 219 posts
I definitely feel like it's the opposite. A lot of jobs require a proven track record with the number of years being like 5+ YOE. I graduated last may and still haven't gotten any offers. That being said, it's probably just me having a skill issue XD.
In industry with just enough experience to be useful but not enough wisdom to avoid being exploited.
Who wants to hire someone with kids, a mortgage and a life outside of work?
That's why it's better to start consulting as you get older. Much less discrimination. We have 65+ year old consultants/developers at our company.
Any suggestions on how to actually do this? How do I get started? Do I moonlight?
The 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…
Everyone else gets replaced by someone cheaper who still believes that sacrifices will be rewarded. That's the open secret.
I 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 tha…
I've had a similar attitude issue, not due to lack of excitement but just being more blunt, assertive, and fearless than I was as a junior. I'm not a total jerk completely missing a verbal filter, but I definitely have a shorter fuse and ended up getting let go last year for being rough with an inept coworker (politics were against me as a consultant too). I guess I need to cage my rage a little bit.
I 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 tha…
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.
The 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.
AI changes the landscape alot. Even as an experienced engineer the sheer amount of knowledge you get access to from a single prompt without having to read any tutorial or book can change a Junior into Senior very quickly. I just hope it wont face the same issue google had: - starting with good answers and evolving into mud
As an example, I asked claude.ai to generate an ansible playbook for patching a Docker cluster. It created one, something I'd expect a junior admin to be able to whip up pretty easily. Then I noticed something funky. The playbook was OS agnostic, just using some where clauses to handle debian, RHEL, etc. Nice stuff, but wrong. One of the tasks was to clean the cache after apply updates. The AI got apt correct (autoclean), but assumed incorrectly that yum had the same parameter. Just a small detail that would have shown up when the playbook was run, but when it can't handle the small details, why bother?
Ageism is pretty much only talked about when it affects older people. Younger people - broadly millenials and younger - have just had to make piece with the ageism they've faced their entire lives and continue to face. I understand that one day I'll be old too, but my sympathies are limited and it'll be nothing truly new for us when people start dismissing us for being old, since people have been dismissing us for be…
You'd fully deserve that violin played for you later on in your career.
The 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…
Dunno where you've worked but up-or-out ejects most people destined for "out" long, long before they reach the point where ageism is even a consideration.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likely yes: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc (second paragraph) I'm not sure what if means by "certain" applicants and employees, but my guess would be jobs where it's relevant, like physical labor, are excluded.
I would imagine it's extremely hard to prove though. The prospective employer could just maintain that the applicant "wouldn't be a good culture fit" or similar.