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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

#131

Post by decafninja »

swatcoder wrote: post #40

When 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…

The difference in comp can be substantial.

If we’re talking about FAANG tier or similar, then a junior FAANG engineer can be making as much as an enterprise company staff engineer with decades of experience about to retire in their 60s.

Even if we’re not talking about FAANG tier, interviewing around I’ve been given offers at tech companies that were up to 1.5x my enterprise senior SWE comp.

Work life balance is gamble either way. I’ve seen enterprise companies paying 150k working their employees on death marches, and tech companies paying 500k where everyone leaves at five.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#132

Post by ElevenLathe »

mech422 wrote: post #117
johnnyanmac wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frustrating for everyone on board. Juniors don't get the training and experience they need to progress, Seniors don't get the compensation they deserve, and wizards are just having their time wasted when they get called and hear a salary that they probably made 20 years prior. I guess it works, or the cost to do all that is low, otherwise so many places wouldn't do it.

I guess... I can see everyone thinks they're company is special and needs 'rock stars' and '10x's but generally 1 senior for every 5-10 juniors is fine for most places. The salary thing is annoying - for a while it seemed like most jobs were listing salaries because of CA/CO/MA requiring it. But it seems to be going back to the old "D.O.E" thing again :-/

1 senior for 10 juniors is not a sustainable ratio unless the average person is a senior for 10x as long as they were a junior -- meaning, I guess, that in a 30 year career, you are "junior" for three years on average. I understand that this has been "sustainable" in the past because the industry was expanding, but can that continue forever?

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#133

Post by coolThingsFirst »

ein0p wrote: post #123

I interview a lot of candidates and the quality of a lot of the recent grads makes it seem like I won’t be hurting for income until the day I croak. I’ve been interviewing people on and off for about 20 years now, and the talent pool has gotten much worse in the past decade. Might be because a lot of kids are choosing the field to “get rich”, might be just general deterioration of education idk. Case in point: over t…

What did you ask just curious?

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#134

Post by coolThingsFirst »

SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #52

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…

Millenials are themselves oldish

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#135

Post by ilaksh »

jghn wrote: post #90
imbusy111 wrote: post #29

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 say this as a greybeard myself, but as someone who been on the interviewer/hiring manager side of quite a few interviews with older candidates, it's a lot more common than they realize that they're just *bad*. Yes, there are many good ones, and yes the wisdom they have is a huge benefit. But plenty of them think this applies to them when it does not. The most common issue is they've long since let themselves go tec…

What is the point then? I think that your comment is just pure ageism.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#136

Post by mech422 »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #132
mech422 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess... I can see everyone thinks they're company is special and needs 'rock stars' and '10x's but generally 1 senior for every 5-10 juniors is fine for most places. The salary thing is annoying - for a while it seemed like most jobs were listing salaries because of CA/CO/MA requiring it. But it seems to be going back to the old "D.O.E" thing again :-/

1 senior for 10 juniors is not a sustainable ratio unless the average person is a senior for 10x as long as they were a junior -- meaning, I guess, that in a 30 year career, you are "junior" for three years on average. I understand that this has been "sustainable" in the past because the industry was expanding, but can that continue forever?

I always figured 3-5 years to become a 'senior' (generally 5 but I've had some really sharp juniors too)

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#137

Post by mech422 »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #126
mech422 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh - most are younger then me as well ... I had an interviewer about 15 years younger then me ask "what was the most important thing I learned about DevOps"... my reply was "dont deploy on Friday" :-) I got the job (and a chuckle) :-D

I used to work for someone that LOVED to deploy on Fridays. She would make us all stay late if whatever she wanted to finish this week was not done yet. So many 7pm on Friday deployments, ick.

Ugggh - that sucks...I feel for ya :-/

That sounds less like 'deployment' and more like 'mandatory overtime' at that point!

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#138

Post by ilaksh »

gosub100 wrote: post #55
imbusy111 wrote: post #29

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 don't think it's a cut and dry issue. Many, if not most jobs/contracts put you in a very awkward position of dealing with something or someone who is incompetent, unfair, etc. I don't see a normal human reaction to that as being a personal or professional failure. It's unfortunate, but I think that rather than necessarily just being better at suppressing your natural reactions, the takeaway might be to try harder to get better colleagues.

Easier said than done though.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#139

Post by javajosh »

ska wrote: post #58
javajosh wrote: post #28

Discrimination 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.

> Discrimination is what happens when you don't have good measurement for capability. This is obviously not the general case for discrimination, often it flies in the face of good measurements. Do you mean in this particular case, that because we don't have good metrics for developers, discrimination easily slips in?

Yes.

Re: Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired

#140

Post by jghn »

magicalist wrote: post #124
jghn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this as a greybeard myself, but as someone who been on the interviewer/hiring manager side of quite a few interviews with older candidates, it's a lot more common than they realize that they're just *bad*. Yes, there are many good ones, and yes the wisdom they have is a huge benefit. But plenty of them think this applies to them when it does not. The most common issue is they've long since let themselves go tec…

Eh, I mean I've interviewed lots of just absolutely terrible candidates of all ages. Part of the problem seems to be that perception of this group is based on a narrative about their age in the first place. (Not to mention, you meet someone for an hour, what do you really know about them? You can evaluate them for a job, but why are we spinning yarns about their internal motivations?)

> ve interviewed lots of just absolutely terrible candidates of all ages

Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But when a younger candidate gets declined, they don't shake their fist and blame ageism.

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