Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#21

Post by enraged_camel » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

endergen wrote: post #12

Im surprised that every comment so far basically leans towards age discrimination not being a wide spread thing. Its definitely a thing, especially in startups, incubators, and definitely companies already mostly staffed with young workers. 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…

>> might be more stubborn and resistant to leadership.

If you mean "stubborn and resistant to bullshit" then yes.

Older employees are much less likely to be deceived, because they've seen enough of the working world to notice common patterns and pitfalls.

Tell a 23 year old that you're going to disrupt an industry and need some rockstars to pull it off, and they might jump onboard. Tell the same thing to a 35 year old and they will just laugh at you.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#22

Post by tostitos1979 » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

blutoot wrote: post #15

fleitz wrote: post #11

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.

But a lot of people finish their PhD in their early 30s and becoming a code monkey is one of the foot-in-the-door ways to get into the tech industry.

You are correct. I know many PhDs who finished their degree around 28-35. Several of them are in a conundrum because they don't have management experience nor do they have professional software development experience. When companies interview these people as senior developers (the level corresponding to the 6 figure salary some PhDs expect), they find the person with a PhD lacking. It is quite a mess really ... I tell people to not do a PhD in CS unless they are independently wealthy or don't want a normal (kids, house, yard) life. Sad but that's life.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#23

Post by enraged_camel » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #11

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.

>>The key with ageism in tech is to move into mgmt. You're not supposed to be a code monkey at 30.

Said the pointy-haired boss who once used to be a code monkey.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#24

Post by VLM » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

blutoot wrote: post #15

fleitz wrote: post #11

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.

But a lot of people finish their PhD in their early 30s and becoming a code monkey is one of the foot-in-the-door ways to get into the tech industry.

If the employer only wants one year of experience or less noobs and excludes anyone experienced as out of date or too expensive, then the recent PHD grad is by definition excluded unless the PHD took less than a year.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#25

Post by Dewie » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:29 PM UTC

steven777400 wrote: post #6

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…

That sounds like a bad offer no matter your age, health, marital status, and so on. 30K/year, 80 hours a week and (I assume) no equity? Pass.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#26

Post by enraged_camel » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:30 PM UTC

sxp wrote: post #10

>This latest report by Linkedin is where it hit me – something smells fishy about this. It is just too much of a coincidence that three of the major tech companies have issued almost identical “diversity” reports, and all three have been missing something screamingly obvious – any mention at all of age, or even an explanation as to why it is missing. This almost seems like collusion, it is almost certainly a cover up…

I don't understand your comment. The survey may have formed the basis for the diversity reports, but it shouldn't be difficult to supplement them with age data, since the companies already have the information.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#27

Post by mm_throwaway » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:32 PM UTC

Anecdata: I'm over 40. I interviewed with a well known VR company which, aside from the dev manager, was staffed by 20 somethings. I've been doing that kind of work for my entire career and have written a number of multi-million seller games as a lead programmer. Still, they didn't want me. It was 7 hours of mostly rapid fire technical questions, which aside from one whiteboard problem that I didn't really understand what they were asking, I felt I did pretty good at. Obviously they felt different. I did go into the interview telling them that given my experience and record of shipping quality titles I expected a higher level of salary. Maybe that did me in, I don't know. But I did sniff that they thought of me as the old guy, and why would I still want to be coding & not in management at my age?

The upside is that by not getting/taking that job my current job bumped my salary by 50%. I was already making a bunch before, now I'm retiring even earlier! So I guess it all worked out in the end.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#28

Post by wldcordeiro » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:32 PM UTC

steven777400 wrote: post #6

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…

I'm twenty-three and I would turn them down without thinking twice. I get double that and only have to work the expected 40 at my job and there isn't any pressure to put in more hours than that.

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#29

Post by collyw » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:33 PM UTC

adambratt wrote: post #16

I've worked in a few different industries that are traditionally a lot more corporate than most startups. Most notably, finance. 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 s…

I am just about to turn 40. Been developing software for 11 and a half years professionally. I realise that I am a lot better developer than I was a while ago. Actually I have seen a lot more problems, and I have a good idea what will work two months down the line, and what will be a constant fire fighting exercise due to a half though through design.

How do I get this across to employers? All they seem interested is if I have experience in MongoDB (which in 9 out of 10 cases seems to be a crap choice).

Re: Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley

#30

Post by Dewie » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:34 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #11

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.

You're right that you shouldn't be a code monkey at 30. You should have graduated to programmer by then.