Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Age Discrimination at Work

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 206 posts

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#71

Post by crispyambulance »

bilbo0s wrote: post #42
resoluteteeth wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who allowed their skills to deteriorate whe…

My take is a bit different, and it may explain the phenomenon you've noticed on HN. TLDR; I believe a lot of people mistake price discrimination as age discrimination. Long version: Let's say you need some code monkey to slap together go or rust services. Well, sure, you get a lot of people applying with 25 years experience, you also get a lot of people applying with 5 years experience. Now here's the rub, it's highl…

    > ...the dirty secret of the tech industry however, is that most work is just CRUD equivalent stuff
No.

I see this a lot on HN, the idea that "CRUD" applications are trivial, but it's a myth. It simply is not true.

I think folks are just extrapolating from "Pet-shop" or "Northwind" examples that they've seen in tutorials/docs and assume that that is what, say, enterprise developers actually do at the same level of complexity. It's not and it has never been the case.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#72

Post by klingonopera »

gbacon wrote: post #54
klingonopera wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, it's customary to include a picture of yourself in your CV. ...I think you can figure out your chances, if you don't include one. EDIT: I'm saying this to show how the German (who are European) employers will try to circumvent such age discriminating laws. You get it taught in school, in vocational training, at jobless centers, self-help books and the Internet, that the picture must be of "high-quality",…

Why is this comment being downvoted? Is it factually incorrect?

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

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#73

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

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 with age.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#75

Post by lacampbell »

justanother wrote: post #11
fiblye wrote: post #3

I was applying to a job with a large game studio. The interview was going pretty well, I'd thought. We talked a bit about how we'd implement certain gameplay elements, the content of the projects we've worked on, and overall it just seemed good and we all seemed to get along pretty well. Then they asked me how old I was. Their response to my age was, "Oh... maybe it's a little late then. You're not too old, but... ki…

In the United States, literally nobody should be asking your age during a job interview.

That's the law in a lot of countries, including here, but I've been asked it anyway. What are you going to do about it, beyond secretly recording your interviews then suing?

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#76

Post by aswanson »

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…

programming is a daily exercise in epistemic humility

You are wise beyond your years, young padawan.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#77

Post by lacampbell »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #28
jasoneckert wrote: post #15

I've seen and heard of age discrimination in non-tech industries, but in the tech industry I believe that age discrimination is often mistaken for skills obsolescence. As a software developer for as long as I can remember, I'm actually at the top of my game now in my 40s - I can software engineer (plan) off the top of my head, and my tenacity is balanced with a sense of direction I never had as a younger developer. I…

Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who allowed their skills to deteriorate whe…

Yeap. I'm in my 30s and I've seen enough writing on the wall to know that there is no way in hell I should be relying on being a software developer to feed me in my 50s or beyond. We can talk about how it shouldn't happen or it's illegal for it to happen all we want - but clearly it happens.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#78

Post by alistairSH »

the-dude wrote: post #24
robin_reala wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK (and I suspect all of the EU?) it’s specifically illegal to discriminate on age ( https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination ), and when I was last interviewing there HR would remove any birthdates that came in on CVs before passing them over to the interviewers.

Are the interviewers blindfolded too?

NO, but at least the older candidate can get their proverbial foot in the door before being screened out. Of course, the CV/resume is likely long enough to infer age within a decade or so. It's a hard problem to solve.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#79

Post by aswanson »

nearmuse wrote: post #69

That is not good advice at all. All it says is "it is up to you old people to put all the effort you can muster at competing with the young". Not everyone gets to look immaculate in their 60s, not everyone gets to occupy a "(prominent) wise elder" position in life by that age either. Just as well, fitting in with fleeting trends is not something people should have to prioritize to be considered productive. What about…

Your fear is well-founded in this field, sadly.

Re: Age Discrimination at Work

#80

Post by lacampbell »

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.

Post reply on HN