[deleted]
Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
81–90 of 153 posts
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#82I can tell age stories too. But lets get real: people change as they get old. They have different experiences and different referents. They have seen both more and less of the industry, since its been changing a long time but changes faster these days.
Indeed, you get a different employee when you hire an older person. Sometimes that's helpful; sometimes not. We can't wave a wand and make that go away.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Learning doesn't get much harder. Making time to learn gets much harder. The real problem is that while the 50 year old has already had 30 years more learning than the 20 year old, the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are . How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? My exact experience.
> the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? I know it's just a throw-away example, but I'd like to point out "Keeping up with the Kardashians" has been on TV continuously since 2007. The more prominent Kardasihan sisters themselves are all 34-36 years old. I don't think anyone in their 50s really would have a hard time relating…
You've just reinforced my point.
You understand that you are unaware of the younger generation's pop culture (pop music is as much part of pop culture as TV is), but you don't understand how people of my generation can be unaware of your generation's pop culture.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#84I am in my mid-60s and I don't feel like I have suffered any age bias either at large companies like Google or small startups I have helped. I sort of grew up with computers. My older brother and I got a mini version of a mechanical difference engine when I was a kid. When I was about 11 my Dad got me occasional use of a time sharing system, so that planted some desire in my brain for using computers. In high school…
[deleted]
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#85Low 40s here.
So far the only kind of "age-related" "discrimination" (note the quotation marks) that I faced that I know of have been the "you're too expensive for us, we'll hire a junior engineer and train him" type deal.
I do prefer/tend to work for small companies and startups so even though I have a reasonably decent "enterprise development" and "CS" type backgrounds I'm more or less up to speed on (or at least aware of) the latest developments in the industry so if a potential employer wants to see me hack some homework CRUD assignment using whatever hot-shot stack they are looking to use it won't take me long to set it up.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#86In the OP, the manager is frustrated with the "extraordinarily change-averse" employees over 50.
One of the reasons I love being in tech (I am 44) is that you become so familiar with change your start seeing it as an inevitable force of continuous opportunity, instead of something to fear. That mindset keeps you young at heart.
I suspect that age discrimination lawsuits are more likely from slow moving industries, like the academia example in the OP.
The only place where I felt concerned about age discrimination is at YC. "How old are you?" is the third question on the application even before the question "What will your company do".
Having been invited to YC HQ twice now (thank you), I don't think age discrimination is an issue and I can't fault them for asking. But being asked that question upfront still messes with my psychology.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of the reasons I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. I can put Rails, React, Angular, Swift, etc. on my resume and answer questions about them (and point to projects I've used them on). I see keeping up with new technologies as an important part of my career development. If someone is truly biased against me because of my age, there's not much I can do about that. But I definite…
> I spend time on the weekends doing projects in new technologies. Is that weekends are for? I do that too but do wonder at times...
My parents are doctors. They are in their 60s. And guess what: they still spend evenings and weekends reading medical journals, attending conferences (around the globe) and doing whatever else is necessary to keep up with new developments in their specialties. That's just what it takes to remain relevant in fast-moving fields.
I think what software developers need is some perspective. We aren't the only ones who have to spend time outside of work on keeping our skills sharp and learning new stuff.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years. I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers a…
> bias against someone who had a long tenure at a > single company perhaps with a single technology > on a single product development effort I'm not sure if this accounts for 0.1% or 99% of alleged "age bias" incidents but I agree with you: this is most definitely a bad thing for a developer to do to themselves. I would be very, very skeptical of a prospective employee with a resume like that. On the other hand, I'd…
Most of my clients are, as you mention, skeptical of employees with incredibly long tenures marked by limited accomplishments and static skills. I also can't speak as to the percentage of potential 'age bias incidents' that stem from this type of situation, but attitudes towards employment and loyalty are certainly a factor.
Career fluidity has only been a somewhat accepted industry trait for the past 10 or so years. I had clients circa 2005 that wouldn't look at a resume for any candidate that hadn't been at their current job for 7+ years, which eliminated everyone who had taken a chance on a startup during the first dotcom wave.
The generation of technologists that started work in the 80s and early 90s likely had pensions and other retirement benefits that made staying at their job an easier decision, and they were likely raised with different feelings towards employer/employee relationships. Flash forward to 15-20 years into their career, and the job market, the definition of marketability, and job search itself changed dramatically. It's easy to point to ageism, but that's not really it, because the ones that joined startups or moved around a bit aren't seeing that same level of stigmatization.
If someone is maintaining that PHP4 app at BigCo for 10+ years, I'd think that person would probably need to demonstrate that they've been paying attention to dev trends or they won't get looked at. If you're not getting challenging work at the job, you need to find it somewhere else.
I started offering resume and career consulting services to job seekers over a year ago, and a large percentage of my clients are people in this boat who need to reinvent and market themselves to appeal to today's employers. It can be scary to look for jobs today if you haven't looked in 10 years.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#89A tech CEO in his mid-fifties once told me: "There is no ageism in the valley - by the time you get to your forties and fifties, you are either a CTO, or you weren't very good to begin with".
This is typical bullshit coming from some asshole manager. People who aspire to be managers think they're God's gift and it's the ending point for your career. By definition, there will always be less numbers of managers than technicians. Being a manager is a different skillset and not everyone WANTS to be a manager. Typical comment from a clueless pointy haired boss!
Yes, but those are the people who run companies.
Re: Claims of Age Bias Rise, but Standards of Proof Are High
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs do…
>There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs don't do that as a matter of course while younger ones do. Take two doctors. Both learned all their knowledge going through med school. Neither did anything else to stay relevant. One graduated 5 years ago, the other 25 years. Which is likely to have more relevant knowledge? Is it because…
Doctors tend to have to do quite a lot of re-certification and continuing education. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_medical_education :
n the United States, many states require CME for medical professionals to maintain their licenses. For example, Arizona requires an average of 40 hours of CME every two years.[4] For a complete list of requirements by state, see State Medical Licensure Requirements and Statistics, 2006. Within the United States, CME for physicians is regulated by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA).