11–20 of 72 posts
Also as you said, young people put up with shit no one over 30 would ever put up with. $30k for 80 hour weeks? No thanks, I'd rather flip burgers because it pays more than $7.50/hr, McDonalds also has free soda.
Disclosure: I'm 35 and have been CTO at my ladt 3 companies. I've certainly have been biased myself worrying that older candidates I'm interviewing wont have the same hustle, want a higher salary than the value they would contribute, and might be more stubborn and resistant to leadership.
Age should definitely be included in these reports.
How much of the "ageism" is actual discrimination and how much is "we have a small budget and need 80 hour weeks" that older workers won't accept? I received an offer from a very interesting startup in southern California (down between LA and San Diego, not SF). The offer was $30K/year (with increases as revenue increased), with minimum 80 hours a week expected. As cool as the projects were... There's no way I at my…
Well there goes another person who is "offended". Is there age discrimination? Possibly, but at my workplace there are a lot of slackers and you guessed it, they're usually (emphasis on "usually", stop trolling) older, paper pushers, "Let's have a meeting to talk about changing a line of code" people, etc. Needless to say, I work in a big company. The best way to avoid discrimination of any kind is to continuously up…
Day by day, all-nighter by all-nighter.
The more hours you put in, the faster you will burn.
But that's ok, your company will not mind. There's a sucker born every minute.
The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt. You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30. And especially not having 10 years of experience in a technology 10 years old. Also as you said, young people put up with shit no one over 30 would ever put up with. $30k for 80 hour weeks? No thanks, I'd rather flip burgers because it pays more than $7.50/hr, McDonalds also has free soda.
What I've noticed is that while these companies tend to have older tech guys than you'll find at a lot of startups, it's still a lot younger age-wise than the rest of the business.
I think part of it is that the number of young people who were in tech 20 years ago compared to now was much smaller. This is a new industry and it's not completely far fetched to think that part of the reason why we are missing a lot of grey hairs is that there's simply not as many of them. It's also pretty well known that a lot of older programmers move out of full-time coding roles and into management positions. Granted this isn't universal across the board but it's been proven true in my anecdotal experiences.
Personally, I absolutely love it when I get an applicant who graduated college before 2000. No matter what their skill as a developer, I know they have way more life experience than me. Someone with experience will usually beat out the guy working more hours so for me, it's a no-brainer to hire the older guy who's done it all than a young whipper snapper who's super ambitious but has a massive ego.
How much of the "ageism" is actual discrimination and how much is "we have a small budget and need 80 hour weeks" that older workers won't accept? I received an offer from a very interesting startup in southern California (down between LA and San Diego, not SF). The offer was $30K/year (with increases as revenue increased), with minimum 80 hours a week expected. As cool as the projects were... There's no way I at my…
As many has observed, the numbers don't make sense for everyone to be a manager or CTO.
I definitely sense anxiety when people talk about their future - "I know I don't want to still be coding in 10 years" - but I wonder if that's partly an incomplete picture of what others are doing.
How much of the "ageism" is actual discrimination and how much is "we have a small budget and need 80 hour weeks" that older workers won't accept? I received an offer from a very interesting startup in southern California (down between LA and San Diego, not SF). The offer was $30K/year (with increases as revenue increased), with minimum 80 hours a week expected. As cool as the projects were... There's no way I at my…
30000/(80*48) --> whopping 7.8125/hr really ??
If the startup is only looking for $7/hr caliber of employee, if you're worried about them making it big and missing out, get a "real" $30/hr job 40 hrs a week and out of that income hire a $7/hr noob to keep the startup entertained while you're at your real job. Essentially, subcontract your job.
How much of the "ageism" is actual discrimination and how much is "we have a small budget and need 80 hour weeks" that older workers won't accept? I received an offer from a very interesting startup in southern California (down between LA and San Diego, not SF). The offer was $30K/year (with increases as revenue increased), with minimum 80 hours a week expected. As cool as the projects were... There's no way I at my…
If people are willing to take so little, it does mean that I could finance a pretty decent startup for a little while without significantly damaging my savings. New information to me.