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Age Discrimination at Work

nytimes.com

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Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#101

Post by rayraegah »

We had two young engineers (who are no longer with us now) discriminate against applicants for software development roles because of their age, religion, or origins. One of them is a google developer expert and he quite openly rejected people by discriminating against their age (anyone 40+) and beliefs. I didn’t want to veto the hiring decisions even though I could have because at the end of the day they’ll have to work with him.

Then we had a 58 year old engineer apply for an open position. Happy to say that we hired him and it was purely on merit (even sponsored his visa). The retirement age is 60 but his ambitions go beyond that. Needless to say he is one of the best on our team right now.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#102

Post by foldr »

lacampbell wrote: post #80
bachmeier wrote: post #7

One thing I don't like, which was present in this article, is throwing up our hands and saying "but there's nothing we can do". Of course there is. Nobody says that about racial discrimination. The simple truth is that age discrimination is not generally viewed as a problem. The attitude is that older workers aren't as productive, so let's let companies do what they want. In some states, the same argument used to be…

One thing I don't like, which was present in this article, is throwing up our hands and saying "but there's nothing we can do". Of course there is. Nobody says that about racial discrimination. You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!? Seems to me they absolutely are, which is why I don't think "we can do" much about age discrimination either.

>You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!?

That isn't what the GP said. The GP pointed out that it is possible to do something about discrimination if we make a concerted effort. Racial discrimination has not been eliminated but has been significantly reduced.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#103

Post by phkahler »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #73
wyclif wrote: post #41

I'm now over 50 years old, a full stack web developer, and I'm married and have two kids, an 8 year old and a 1 year old baby. I've been in this industry for a while. I started out as a system administrator writing a lot of bash and Perl scripts, taking care of mail servers and DNS, and doing a lot of corporate backups. That job is now called "DevOps", and I've made the transition. I now work in Python 3, Django, Rub…

I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda hard to tell what's a fad and what's not. I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. Programming, for me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility, and I can't fathom having the kind of arrogance to discount the experience and wisdom that comes wit…

On fads. In spite of the hype, I believe Rust is not a fad. It's going to be doing extremely well in 50 years.

I cant condense the background that goes into that statement into a single comment. But a few other languages are valuable too and will be for a while.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#104

Post by robin_reala »

dijit wrote: post #87
klingonopera wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it were. Google "lebenslauf muster" in image search to see it in full effect. > There are a few must-have personal details every Lebenslauf should include which you might not have on your original CV: a photo, your marital status and place of birth. https://www.thelocal.de/20130131/47649

This is the same in Sweden fwiw. I was agast when CVs started passing my desk with seemly random self-portraits on them. Why the hell do I care what you look like?

Well, at least in Sweden my photo-less CV hasn’t caused any problems. My lack of a LinkedIn account has attracted a couple of comments though.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#105

Post by em-bee »

durnygbur wrote: post #18
factorialboy wrote: post #5

Allow me to provide a contrarian view. I'm not disagreeing that age-discrimination does not exist, however I must say it's not always the case. I'm 35, so I wouldn't qualify as young but neither old. Businesses tend to recruit younger devs for few reasons: - They can be easily convinced to work longer hours - They are typically paid much less However there is one trait in older devs that make them undesirable: - They…

> - They tend to carry baggage from the past. This comes in various flavors, such as biases one has regarding the path of their careers, their interpersonal relationships (social and official), technology choices etc. When one begins the career, one keeps hearing in the interviews "we want more experience". Ok then, 10 years down the road and they say "it's not experience what you've acquired, but bias". Just whateve…

i hire junior devs directly out of school, because that's the only place where i get unbiased and trainable people.

that said, i think bias peaks after a few years, after that, people get more and more experience that helps them keep their bias in check.

i was like that. i had a strong bias against programming languages that i didn't know anything about. it was prejudice, pure and simple. but as i learned more and more, i realized the errors of my ways, and bias was replaced by experience.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#106

Post by lacampbell »

foldr wrote: post #102
lacampbell wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't like, which was present in this article, is throwing up our hands and saying "but there's nothing we can do". Of course there is. Nobody says that about racial discrimination. You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!? Seems to me they absolutely are, which is why I don't think "we can do" much about age discrimination either.

>You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!? That isn't what the GP said. The GP pointed out that it is possible to do something about discrimination if we make a concerted effort. Racial discrimination has not been eliminated but has been significantly reduced.

All you can do is make it harder (not impossible, just harder) to openly mention race as a factor in hiring. Three people may decide independently to base their hiring decision on the race of a candidate without ever bringing it up. Hell they might do it without even admitting it to themselves.

Maybe I'm wrong. But if you ever come to Auckland, NZ I could show you a lot of suspicious coincidences.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#107

Post by em-bee »

tarr11 wrote: post #22
factorialboy wrote: post #5

Allow me to provide a contrarian view. I'm not disagreeing that age-discrimination does not exist, however I must say it's not always the case. I'm 35, so I wouldn't qualify as young but neither old. Businesses tend to recruit younger devs for few reasons: - They can be easily convinced to work longer hours - They are typically paid much less However there is one trait in older devs that make them undesirable: - They…

> They tend to carry baggage from the past. This comes in various flavors, such as biases one has regarding the path of their careers, their interpersonal relationships (social and official), technology choices etc. this happens as soon as you switch positions or companies - even as early as your twenties. For example, think of all the people who share their learnings (at work, on Medium, etc) about “this is how we d…

yup, bias is acquired as soon as you start working. against everything you don't know. then, as you learn different ways in your next job your bias will (hopefully) be challenged and you'll slowly get rid of it.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#109

Post by mschuster91 »

bluecalm wrote: post #44
mschuster91 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a ridiculous assertion, if someone is physically well and wants to work it's nobody's business how they spent then spend the money they earn. No. It was part of the unwritten "societal contract" that old people retire to leave place for young people to rise. This worked for long times, but governments broke this contract decades ago by wrecking pension/retirement systems, and now the wannabe-pensioners have…

I don't agree it's part of the societal contract. I am already grateful to live in a world previous generations built. The wars are fought, the infrastructure is built. I get access to technology previous generations could only dream of. I can do business selling to the whole world wearing underwear sitting in my bedroom even if it's a 3rd world country. I couldn't have asked for more of previous generations. The las…

> The wars are fought, the infrastructure is built.

The wars are just beginning - over water, rare resources, arable land, whatever - and the infrastructure across Western countries is rotting under our feet as maintenance was mostly skipped on.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#110

Post by czep »

In traditional industries, experience built up connections, and older workers would be hired for their "Rolodex" to bring in the money. In tech as an IC, proving the value of experience is much more subtle.

In my day to day work, I recognize that a lot of what I do could just as easily be done by a college intern. It's those rare occasions when I can stop a terrible decision that my experience comes into play. I will speak up when a PM wants to launch a stupid idea, or an Exec tries to pursue a strategy that I know will fail. It's those rare but valuable instances that I highlight in my performance review.

And still, I don't know how long I will be able to stay ahead of the curve and one day I might not be able to justify my value. Age discrimination is a symptom of a larger problem to which this hyper-rational capitalism we've inherited is subjecting all of us, young and old. Prove yourself or die, it's actually quite disturbing.

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