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No Country for Old Developers

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Re: No Country for Old Developers

#31

Post by robviren »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

Well said! My product management take on the subject is that people's perception of you is far more important than the reality. Skills or not, your appearance, mannerisms, relatability, and a thousand other things go into other's perceptions.

Being older and from another generation changes the perception inherently. Can be good or bad it turns out, but it certainly requires human management skills and cannot be simply solved by "being better". That seems like an engineer's solution to the problem. If people were rational then things could be different, but from what I have seen people do not buy the most efficient and effective products, nor do they hire the most skilled and efficient people. They hire someone because they feel good about hiring them and they believe they will make their lives easier.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#32

Post by danishdev »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

From the experience in the dating market, it's quite pointless to complain about discrimination, it's much smarter to cater to markets where you are positively discriminated.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#33

Post by user5994461 »

swozey wrote: post #21
user5994461 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the opposite experience in London and I am not even 36 yet. Could quote almost 10 companies that cancelled the interview in early stage or didn't interview at all, saying too much experience and worry I'd leave after 6 months for a better company (higher pay). Gave up on interviewing for startups and medium companies. Get a job in a top tier company or starve to death. (Top tier is mostly finance in London becaus…

Do you list every single position on your CV, like is it multiple pages with 15+ years on it? I believe CVs are like that whereas my resume is a 1 pager that only has my last decade of SUPER relevant experience listed; my last 3 SR Eng roles. I could submit a 3 page resume with all of my sysadmin, etc jobs on it but then I would definitely be aging myself, even worse because my career actually started when I was 16 (…

One page both sides. Only list the most relevant positions.

I had to cut out positions very early on in my career because there were way too many to fit. I did some short contracting back in the days, imagine 5 jobs over less than 5 years.

Also removed all the dates for degrees and all the locations. (London recruiters have a bad habit to ignore experience outside London).

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#34

Post by draw_down »

Oh, “time will tell”. That’s, um, a relief?

I got very lucky and will be exiting this industry soon, in my early forties. And not a moment too soon. I hate it so much, the ageism isn’t even the worst part.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#35

Post by im3w1l »

_qulr wrote: post #6

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look a…

It's a scientific fact that fluid intelligence peaks early. Crystallized intelligence peaks later, but that comes with the assumption that you acquired valuable experience.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#36

Post by draw_down »

duxup wrote: post #29

Bear with me if you've heard me tell this story before on HN: After age 40 I changed careers from a networking career to coding via a bootcamp. I was among a couple folks who were in my age group in the camp. It was a great experience working with folks of all ages in the camp. I think mixing different ages, backgrounds, experience is valuable. While finishing the camp I was working with another person who was my age…

Yes, “culture fit” always and only means this sort of thing. It’s ineffable and not falsifiable, which makes it a great cover for discrimination.

Culture should be an emergent property of the group of people who were hired because they were able to do the job.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#37

Post by yodsanklai »

I just got a SWE job offer at a FAANG and I'm in my mid-forties. I took the exact same interviews as anybody else. They've also been contacted me regularly for the last three years. My age isn't written on my resume, but they can easily infer I'm in my forties. My guess is that recruiters don't care as long as they think you have a chance passing the coding interviews.

I realize that older developers are slightly uncommon, but maybe it's also because they get bored and think they have better career prospects elsewhere. Personnally, I still love to code and learn new things, as I've always had. I'm used to working with people younger/older than me and it has never been an issue either.

That being said, I'm anxious that age becomes an issue along the road. There's also no denying that there is some sort of discrimination against older people. Simply look at the pictures on companies websites and presentation material, they clearly want to show how diverse they are except for older persons...

I'm just curious: older people working in big companies, have you ever discussed that with people in charge of promoting/ensuring diversity? I think there's a good point to make.

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#39

Post by necheffa »

bartread wrote: post #17

"Young people are just smarter." - Mark Zuckerberg Spoken like a naive individual without much in the way of life experience. Keep taking the pills, Mark. Onto more positive points, whilst I have no doubt that ageism exists in our industry, there are also companies with a more enlightened view of age and experience. I tend to prefer hiring people with more experience, in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, when I can. I particu…

> I tend to prefer hiring people with more experience, in their 30s, 40s, and 50s

> I particularly like those who've worked for a variety of different companies during their careers

I hope you see how these are two very conflicting ideals. Are you assuming that other companies will train your staff for you?

Re: No Country for Old Developers

#40

Post by jorgeleo »

duxup wrote: post #29

Bear with me if you've heard me tell this story before on HN: After age 40 I changed careers from a networking career to coding via a bootcamp. I was among a couple folks who were in my age group in the camp. It was a great experience working with folks of all ages in the camp. I think mixing different ages, backgrounds, experience is valuable. While finishing the camp I was working with another person who was my age…

That is ageism and is illegal in the US. The recruiter and the kids need a bit of spanking to learn the lesson

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc

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