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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

#141

Post by jghn »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #105
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…

>or even just clearly being defensive about ageism. I mean, that makes sense? I would be just as defensive about racism or sexism if the vibe came off in an interview. >They haven't been staying abreast of current changes, and by that I don't mean jumping on the latest fad but rather knowing that the fads exist. I guess it depends on the domain. Sure, I can see web moving fast and the someone who focused on at best J…

The actual technologies matter less, and I'm not talking about "the fundamentals". It's more that they tend to have only been doing the exact small set of things for a long period of time. When I've hired such people much more often than not they struggle to learn, because they're no longer used to learning.

And much like I said the prior as a fellow greybeard, I'm saying this as someone who is much more cavalier than most people I've met about not expecting an exact set of skills. That said, I've noticed patterns of candidates who really struggle to catch up on their missing skills and this is one of them.

EDIT: to clarify a bit, the archetype I'm talking about are people who have pretty much turned off their brain and been on autopilot for 10, 20, or more years. It's not a problem if they're using a "dated" technology or whatever, it's a problem that they've been operating on rote muscle memory for ages. There are absolutely people who are using the dated technologies who don't fall into this trap.

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

#142

Post by slibhb »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #116
slibhb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>People in this thread need to ask themselves why they're engaging in age-denialism. Simple: compensation and hiring practices run counter to this notion. If you're most productive in your 20's you should be paid more for that productivity, and years of experience wouldn't be such a mandatory metric. Neither is true in practice. Older people have more expeirence, and get paid more. Policy makers have a median age in…

It's true everywhere. Older people are paid more for no good reason, it's just "the way things are" that you get a raise every year. In a freer market, it wouldn't be the case.

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

#143

Post by mulmen »

gostintheshell wrote: post #129
mulmen wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand. How do I transition from a FTE at a corporation to a contractor? How do I get the first contract?

If your FTE role is general developer you are jumping with no experience and will need to be lucky. If your last FTE role is sales engineer or professional services, you are already proficient in many of the skills and networked. If you aren't sure how to get a first contract you didn't really choose the right FTE role yet.

That makes sense, thanks.

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

#145

Post by ein0p »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #133
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?

Super basic stuff about the ML projects they claim to have worked on and a typical leetcode easy/medium problem that does not require that you know the solution, in whatever programming language they felt comfortable using. I wish things were this easy for me when I was starting out. I can’t really go any easier than that - if they can’t even navigate this they’d be absolutely lost here and their productivity impact would be negative.

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

#146

Post by VirusNewbie »

hinkley wrote: post #86
VirusNewbie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked hard this last year. I got about 40k more than I was expecting in bonus/stock.

You should probably couch that in terms of % of base comp or you're going to get people's hopes a lot higher than is reasonable. I don't think I saw substantially more than 10k in Seattle, or heard rumors of non-sales coworkers seeing much more than that. Inflation adjusted maybe twice that, still less than half of yours. But you might also make 3x what we made because goddamn are condos expensive down there.

some of that will pay out over 4 years so maybe it's not accurate, I'd say I got an extra 5% beyond my TC that I wasn't expecting that vests this year.

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

#147

Post by 77pt77 »

teunispeters wrote: post #112

One of the more subtle ways this is exhibited is by only preferring certain recent tech stacks, or orienting interview questions around computer science concepts that are only quite modern - especially if either of these have nothing to do with the toolset actually used. (or, asking for a recent transcript!). I've seen ALL of this in the time I've been looking for work, repeatedly. It's very annoying, but most can be…

>asking for a recent transcript

What does this mean?

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

#148

Post by timr »

pojzon wrote: post #114
pjerem wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now, my feelings are that AI can be really helpful if you know the field. You need to be senior to know how to ask things and to understand the answers. For anyone not understanding the domain, AI is just a glorified stack overflow but with hallucinations. Hallucinations can be fought but you need to suggest that you got the wrong answer and why. And that requires a deep understanding of the domain. Honestly I’m…

Point was - it will speed up junior to senior transition. Not that it will replace seniors with juniors. We will also need less senior ppl, coz AI will be "good enough", most stuff we are faced with isn't really that complex.

You don't get anywhere faster "learning" from something that lies to you 20% of the time.

It's a bit like working with a bad colleague who is very fast, but very arrogant. You can't trust what they say because they're wrong often enough to make costly mistakes common. But you can't fight them on every little thing, either. The only solution is to already be an expert, and ignore them when they're wrong.

I honestly believe AI -- if it has a dramatic impact at all -- will only reduce the value of junior employees.

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

#149

Post by mulmen »

pojzon wrote: post #114
pjerem wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now, my feelings are that AI can be really helpful if you know the field. You need to be senior to know how to ask things and to understand the answers. For anyone not understanding the domain, AI is just a glorified stack overflow but with hallucinations. Hallucinations can be fought but you need to suggest that you got the wrong answer and why. And that requires a deep understanding of the domain. Honestly I’m…

Point was - it will speed up junior to senior transition. Not that it will replace seniors with juniors. We will also need less senior ppl, coz AI will be "good enough", most stuff we are faced with isn't really that complex.

If AI is “good enough” but you need to be senior to use it don’t we need less juniors? Like, just enough to replenish the retiring seniors.

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

#150

Post by mulmen »

timr wrote: post #148
pojzon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point was - it will speed up junior to senior transition. Not that it will replace seniors with juniors. We will also need less senior ppl, coz AI will be "good enough", most stuff we are faced with isn't really that complex.

You don't get anywhere faster "learning" from something that lies to you 20% of the time. It's a bit like working with a bad colleague who is very fast, but very arrogant. You can't trust what they say because they're wrong often enough to make costly mistakes common. But you can't fight them on every little thing, either. The only solution is to already be an expert, and ignore them when they're wrong. I honestly be…

My entire formal education and subsequent career stands in opposition to this statement. Unless you mean that learning requires being lied to more than 20% of the time.
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