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New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

nytimes.com

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Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#91

Post by mancerayder »

m0zg wrote: post #17

Mid-40s, feel like I have been discriminated against based on age more than once. Not being one to fruitlessly blame my misfortune on things I can't change, I exited the rat race and started consulting. Doubled my already staggering pay working fewer hours, and from home. I realize this is not an easy thing to get up and running, but do at least consider finding your true value on the open market. The results could b…

I did this for 4 years and went back to full-time management. Even in NYC, I struggled as I (as a DevOps guy) never had the latest tech. If they needed AWS, I got AWS (experience and certs) but then they wanted Docker. Now Kubernetes. Despite years of programming experience in three languages, I still get whiteboarded. The point is, I was being treated like a full-time employee in consultant interviews. A few smaller clients I picked up were miniscule hours, we're talking 8 hours a month at most of work. Here on HN, these startup types wanted me to work for 50 pct less my rate.

I'd love to consult one day, but I haven't cracked that code. I have 18 years of systems automation, operations, and now management experience.

Something isn't good enough.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#92

Post by povertyworld »

This is why I gave up on ever having a "real job". This thread inspired me to take a look at a job board and the first thing I saw was a mobile developer job listed as "entry level". Scrolling down, the requirements are 5 years minimum mobile development experience. This is entry level now? Five years experience? By the time I have five years experience working at some kind of theoretical pre-entry level job and finally qualify for "entry level", I'll be old enough to be age discriminated against for being too old. If I could afford it, I'd go back to school to be an accountant or something, but since programming as all I know how to do and can afford to do, it's monetize "side projects" or die poor. And yes I know, working for someone else would make way more money, but that's like saying to an Uber driver "Hey bro, you'd make way more money with an NYC cab medallion". Like they don't know that? Of course, but that is not an option.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#93

Post by bitcoinmoney »

scarface74 wrote: post #15
pmiller2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many employers do you find yourself needing to exclude because of the “no Leetcode” thing? Do you think you’re sacrificing anything in the way of comp by doing so?

None. I don’t live on the West Coast and that seems to be mostly a west coast thing. According to all of the local salary surveys and anecdotal information that I’m getting from recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers, I’m slightly on the right side of the bell curve for architect/principal engineer, etc. Not bragging, the salary and cost of living is well below the west coast. My last job where I thought I…

Why don’t you say your salary and location? Geeez you’re on an unknown Internet forum. Please do us a favor by joy just bragging about your sitch but also giving us a clue what’s possible.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#94

Post by mancerayder »

ajcodez wrote: post #24

Young people have more variable potential. If you hire a young person they might be 100x or 10x or 1x in a couple years. If you hire an old person you already know they aren’t 100x or 10x otherwise they would be above you in the org chart or retired. There’s nothing wrong with 1x, but preference for young people is common sense all else being equal. And it’s never equal in terms of salary expectations and extra effor…

100x? One person doing the work of 100, is that what that means?

I'm jealous of whatever drugs are available in Silicon Valley, because even 10X sounds fantastical to me.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#95

Post by mykowebhn »

b212 wrote: post #80
mykowebhn wrote: post #33

I'm 48, on the West Coast, and recently finished interviewing, receiving multiple offers. I did 250 Leetcode problems, practiced System Design, and Behavioral. In the end, I found doing 250 Leetcode was probably overkill, but it definitely helped. This will probably get me severely down-voted, and I do understand the antipathy toward having to Leetcode, but the way I see it is that I'm really lucky. I get to sit on m…

What do you mean by "I did 250 Leetcode"? You solved 250 problems there?

Yes, I'll update my original comment to clarify.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#96

Post by dba7dba »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #22
Ancalagon wrote: post #4

I just don't understand the bias. I'm too young to have experienced age discrimination like this yet, but its obvious at least to me that the best developers and hell, leaders, that I've worked with were all a part of older generations. Is it a shortcoming in pay for all these people? I feel like being out of work for 3 years would definitely lower whatever standard of pay I had prior to becoming unemployed. I just d…

The reasons age discrimination happen are fairly complex (and I'm not ready to write all the ones I understand out), but to your point about the best in the field being part of the older generation, it is my anecdotal experience that top performers don't seem to have problems with employment as long as they can work (generally). My own mother was exceptional in her field, thought not so much as to be written about, a…

So sorry to hear about your mother.

But it seems to be a rule of life.

Rich get richer. Top performers get more/better offers.

Poor get poorer. Non-top performers get less/worse offers.

I remember reading something where Paul Graham of Ycombinator said top performers never apply for jobs. They are often referred and handed jobs. And on the other side, you have ton of (supposedly) not so great workers who are sending out job applications by the dozens trying to get a job.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#97

Post by heisenbit »

rdiddly wrote: post #43

The ironic thing of course is that it's hard to imagine what actual advantage a practice of age discrimination might provide. All real and true criteria for a job can be tested for directly; there's no need to make age a dubiously-accurate proxy for any of those. It literally makes no sense. From the COMPANY'S point of view.

> All real and true criteria for a job can be tested for directly;

Analytical skills can be tested. It gets much harder on the creative skill and interaction skill side. Software is mostly about people communicating and making decisions. These standardized tests are only good to get accurate results in an area not so relevant later.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#98

Post by adventured »

drchewbacca wrote: post #50

One thing I'm a bit confused about is why doesn't salary bidding fix this? For example if a 25 yr old coder is $X per year surely, even if you have terrible age discrimination, there must be some salary level, say $0.75*X where having the older worker is preferable? Is it that older workers are much more expensive and are bidding themselves out the market? Is it that people value youth so much they will pay a 3x mark…

> Is it that older workers are much more expensive and are bidding themselves out the market?

On one cost issue. Let's say you're in a city other than SEA, LA, SF, NYC and Boston. A 55 year old on a good insurance plan will often cost you anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 more per year in healthcare benefits versus a 20-25 year old. The cost of a 45 year old employee further increases with time due to that (over 10 years, from 45 to 55, an employee's health benefits cost can easily climb by an additional $5k-$6k per year). So if the salary in question is $90,000 (again, outside the elite tech cities), that bumps the cost of the employee considerably as they age. Some states - such as NY - have laws that alter this equation though. When an employee goes from eg 20 to 35 years old, there's a far more modest healthcare benefits cost increase (30%-40% increase would be more typical, starting from a lower base cost versus the 45 year old; from 40 to 55 the cost can easily double, from a higher starting point).

This is another serious issue that people frequently run into with the US healthcare system.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#99

Post by scarface74 »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #93
scarface74 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. I don’t live on the West Coast and that seems to be mostly a west coast thing. According to all of the local salary surveys and anecdotal information that I’m getting from recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers, I’m slightly on the right side of the bell curve for architect/principal engineer, etc. Not bragging, the salary and cost of living is well below the west coast. My last job where I thought I…

Why don’t you say your salary and location? Geeez you’re on an unknown Internet forum. Please do us a favor by joy just bragging about your sitch but also giving us a clue what’s possible.

I did give my location and salary range below.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20134638

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#100

Post by [deleted] »

outlace wrote: post #74

If 70 year olds really are less productive software engineers than single Red Bull-fueled 22 year olds (on average), and you thus end up hiring less 70 year olds, is that really discrimination? I get the article has stories from older people that seem to suggest they are well-qualified for the job and literally just their age number seems to lose them the job, which of course would be discriminatory. But the law suit…

[deleted]
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