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The Brutal Ageism of Tech

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Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#231

Post by PeterisP »

vonmoltke wrote: post #62
fecak wrote: post #46

Ageism is a real problem, but in my opinion ageism is often cited by job seekers where the problem is something else entirely. In tech, there seems to be quite a bit of discrimination today against employees who have worked for many years at the same position, and that discrimination is typically aimed at large environments. Startups seem to be ok with hiring older engineers who bounced around and worked in startups…

That makes a presumption that someone who spent 25 years at the same employer stagnated. I spent nearly 10 years at my first employer, but in that time I had three different positions. On my resume I have started listing it as three separate positions, which seems to confuse some people but is an accurate portrayal of my time there. I do not think one employer == one role is an accurate assumption and that "10 jobs o…

If you've switched 10 companies in the last 25 years, then your value contains lots of stuff that was transferrable/common to different jobs; if you've been 25 years in a single tech area, then it's very likely that your key value is in-depth knowledge of that particular area - unless I need that exact area expertise; an employee with 10 different shallow expertises would be more valuable to me than 1 really deep expertise that's outside my scope.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#232

Post by walshemj »

aortega wrote: post #139
Retric wrote: post #8

The odd thing is hiring older workers is generally a great idea. From an organisational perspective programming teams don't scale vary well so hiring less skilled people is generally a terrible long term strategy. Personally, I have worked with a few hundred programmers and I can only name 3 that where competent before 30. Outside the valley you find a plenty of really competent programmers mostly in there late 40's…

Not so much. I'm 35, started programming at about 10 in my TI99-4A, typing games from magazines, etc. the usual stuff. No way a 40 year old guy have more experience than me in general programming, unless he was working at Microsoft or IBM at that date, and surely they are about less than 10000 of those guys in the world. Of course there are 40 year olds that may have way more experience than me in a specific language…

Really I first coded at 13 in the early 70's at school and started professionally in 79 (fortran) so thats 34 years

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#233

Post by collyw »

drawkbox wrote: post #57
ascendantlogic wrote: post #2

Here's the thing, the software-is-eating-the-world explosion really took off in the early 90's (or at least that's when myself and a bunch of friends I knew got into it). All the people that got into writing software back then are aging and most that I know aren't planning to stop. I myself am on the doorstep of my 36th birthday. For those of us that have slogged it out for multiple decades now aren't simply going to…

I think ageism in tech will mature along with the industry as well, that was the first wave and a very disruptive one, so this generation has disruption as a modus operandi. Back then old meant something different as it was a new industry, older people didn't grow up with tech and there was a huge valley/difference between someone that gets tech and a generations before that didn't have it. Everyone below 40-50ish (a…

Yep, I have around 11 years experience, and I would say I am starting to get good. I see younger colleagues and see lots of incompetence, (including mistakes I would have made a few years ago). Can I get a payrise now? No chance.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#234

Post by marvin »

jeffdavis wrote: post #181
nahname wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have worked with a few hundred programmers and I can only name 3 that where competent before 30. Are you sure you are not committing the same ageist judgement here?

There are two kinds of reverse discrimination: One is an active reverse discrimination that is attempting to tilt the balance back (often enforced with some kind of law or policy). This has all kinds of well-known problems (that arguably are larger than the benefits). The other is a more natural reverse discrimination that comes from collecting the missed opportunities of your competitors. If your competitors reject…

If you are a founder and aware of this bias, it is a big advantage. But if you're a competent guy in your 50s who got laid off, it's a big disadvantage. Free market economics rarely works like the textbook says, and the man (or God forbid, a woman) looking for a job is the one searching for the needle in the haystack of (1) attractive companies (2) that don't discriminate against older employees.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#235

Post by theorique »

ilaksh wrote: post #79
colmmacc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a long time I looked around at the relative lack of 40+ developers and founders in my field and considered it worrisome; what will I do when I get to that age? do I need a massive bank of savings just in case? But I think it's also easy to see it as an opportunity. We are staggeringly lucky generation; software is the future and it isn't going the way of mass automation or obsolescence any time soon. There is pro…

Interesting points but a few things I disagree with. Its not so much about offering meaningful insight as it is about being a bro you can hang out with..in a lot of cases..I.e. fitting in with the "culture". So I think the slightly older guys are going to have to find common ground to band together on because they aren't going to mesh culturally with the youngsters necessarily. Other thing about two hundred year, hum…

Its not so much about offering meaningful insight as it is about being a bro you can hang out with..in a lot of cases..I.e. fitting in with the "culture".

People are talking about this a lot in the context of women too - is this "cultural fit" expectation keeping women out of the profession?

I think women in general are equally able to hang and be a bro, but in some cases it means they need to adapt, and some women are resistant to operating in a masculine space.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#236

Post by Dale1 »

troels wrote: post #229
Gormo wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer technology is about 60 years old, though. There were people doing some pioneering work in the 50s and 60s, and the modern hacker culture really has its roots in the 1970s, just prior to the rise of personal computing. There was lots of stuff going on with the DEC minicomputers, LISP machines, early UNIX systems, and big-iron mainframes long before most of us were even born, let alone getting our starts on TI…

Assuming Ada Lovelace was the first programmer, programming as a discipline is more like 160 years old.

She was certainly the first Computer Scientist, well that's what I was told in uni!

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#237

Post by eadlam »

Isn't it obvious that adolescent startup founders wouldn't want to hire adults? That would be a complete role reversal of their entirely lifes experience with adults.

I'm also not surprised that investors are biased. As a group, they are just people with money. That feature doesn't preclude them from being unreasonable in the way (one would hope) being an engineer implies a certain level of objective rationality...

What does surprise me is the fear that is apparently spreading among aging engineers. You didn't get where you are by being afraid. Every problem you've ever solved proves your ability to bend systems to your will. You design your own fate. Don't make yourself vulnerable by believing anything else.

On a more practical note, if college students had more opportunity to team up with older professionals on small co-owned projects, I think that would go a long way toward bridging the gap. Exposure is key. That's like, behavior therapy 101.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#239

Post by Dale1 »

bsder wrote: post #201

There are two perceived problems with hiring older programmers: 1) Older programmers won't put up with bullshit. They expect to have reasonable goals, be listened to, be compensated fairly, and have a reasonable schedule. They've been around the block enough to identify bullshit and will leave when it starts getting too high. 2) Older programmers really don't always understand the "cool" social crap that teenagers ar…

Point 1 == Nail hit firmly on head! I'm 31 and far more streetwise than I was 10/15 years ago. Youngsters tend to get excited quickly and you can make them do all sorts of cool things, working for free, no contracts, perpetual internships etc etc.

It seems everyone these days is a "founder" of something. I own sites that do things these youngsters can't do (Turn a profit) but I've never, not for one moment ever thought I was a founder of something great, just trying to earn a living!

I agree with the companies that believe in profit thing. Once you strip out the happy clappy, social crud employers just want people who can help them turn a profit.

Re: The Brutal Ageism of Tech

#240

Post by collyw »

Kerrick wrote: post #184
gamegoblin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yyyyep. Step into one of Walmart's cubicle farms in Bentonville, Arkansas and it's mostly middle aged folks hacking away in C# and VB.

Or step into somewhere like my workplace in downtown St. Louis, a skyscraper built in 1911 renovated into modern offices. The bootstrapped, 6-year-old former startup I work for is filled with people from their 20s on up past 50s making, selling, and supporting Software as a Service, with the developers hacking away at a RESTful API and Ember.js apps. Plus, we share the building with Kickstarted startups like Pixel Pr…

So having all the buzzwords is what makes you cool?

"RESTful API", "Ember.js apps", "Software as a Service", "sharing the building with kickstarted start ups".

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