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Judges Reinstate Charges In Google Age Discrimination Suit
theodp writes "A California appeals court has reinstated former Stanford prof Brian Reid's age-discrimination suit against Google, ruling that a lower Court erred in siding with Google and rejecting Mr. Reid's claims. From the Court Decision (PDF): 'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.' As side notes, helping Reid make his case is CS Prof Norman Matloff, while Google's actions are being defended by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati of pretexting-was-not-generally-unlawful fame."
Sounds like The Office last night.
> untrue or pretextual
Wow! I've been on the internet since it was pregraphical. But pretextual! That must have been a really long time ago. No wonder they fired him for being old.
I am the only one who read "Google Age" like "Space Age"? I think it's about time we've moved on.
Make love, not sigs
"'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.'"
:p
So much for "Do no evil" (of course, Google has acted contrary to that self-righteous and self-congratulatory credo for years now. Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I just turned 40 and am a well paid system administrator. Is it really feasible to work in technology past the age of 50? It's harder to keep up with every new tech and some of the buzzwords of today are really annoying. Most social networking sites feel like reality TV.
Google _is_ evil
ultraparanoid.wordpress.com
I might not agree with the conclusion, but I've found this article to be a worthwhile read.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Disclaimer: I am a believer in nearly an absolute right of freedom of association, so I support the right to fire employees for stupid reasons including racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, failure to keep kosher/halal, etc.
At 54 he may be a real asset to the company in other areas of the company that aren't bleeding edge. He may be the sort of guy you want working on some very difficult, but not sexy, problems like getting better performance out of their products. Just because his ideas aren't new, doesn't mean that he is useless. To the contrary, his experience may be worth several times the vision of a young employee.
The IT industry deserves its problems. It deserves to have to deal with labor shortages if it is young to be a cult of youth. No other industry treats its senior engineers with as much contempt as much of IT. No mechanical engineering outfit in their right mind would trade a person with 30 years of solid experience for a whipper snapper or two with vision, but no experience. It would be product suicide.
So, do we now add this to the growing list of how Google is becoming evil? I don't see how you can avoid it.
Why can't a non-government institution be allowed to choose their employees however they see fit?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Why do you call Google the good guys? Judge them by their actions, not by their words. Judge everybody by their actions, not by their words. While it has been 30+ years since I met Brian, he is really really really bright. One of the biggest problems in the computer / software space is that most of the practicioners tend to dismiss the highly experienced people as old fogeys. As a consequence, they keep repeating the mistakes of earlier generations of developers in different guises. I have experience if a few disciplines beyond SW. SW is more subject to snake-oil miricale claims than any other engineering / (hard) scientific field I know and it shows in the results. The amazing thing is how thoroughly they believe it. The information presented in the article suggests that Google is probably guilty of age discrimination, which is a federal offense. I have no sympathy for them. Other SW businesses should review their internal biases as well.
By the way, what reasons are accepted for firing someone? In the European Union firing an employee is very hard because of the EU's strong social laws. But we know the US is a capitalist country, so how about the US?
I guess "Discrimination" against people doesn't fall under the heading of "Do no evil" - the official Google motto.
2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
As long as the government is not the one discriminating, or intentionally sponsoring the discrimination. And no, I'm not white.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
.nt
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm fifteen and I suffer from a lot of age discrimination when looking for work. Most employers don't dare tell why they won't hire me. Others just say flat out that they are discriminating against me. My grandmother has the same problem. She was fired from her teaching job after she hit 84 for her age.
Stop discriminating!
We really need government affirmative action to stop the age discrimination.
*clap* Thank you. Being "young" has nothing to do with "being good at computers". Thats a cultural stereotype that is absolutely bunk, probably stemming from comments from people like Bill Gates, stating that "there is no good hacker over the age of 13." Being a hacker involves open mindedness-thats what hes talking about, because a child has an open mind. Open mindedness, however, doesn't always yield positive results unless you are a) lucky or b) experienced, especially in computer science/information technology. This dude deserves every penny he gets from them. Cultural eugenics d.n.e progress. btw, im 23
At Stanford tenured people retire after 70. Two of my neighbors are Stanford professors and over 80, they both retired at 70+, but still go every day to work, publish lots of scientific papers, have research grants and hire other people to work for them, etc. Sure thery dont receive salaries from Stanford anymore but otherwise they are like any tenured Stanford employees retired or not, have nice offices, unrestricted accounts, secretaries, etc.
The guy should have stayed at Stanford. He wanted big money from Google and got what he deserved.
Go figure - someone who runs around saying "I'm cool I'm good I'm hip" is really just a bottomline driven corporate husk.
...aaaand that literally makes you the definition of a tool.
Wahh. But Google said, that they do no evil! It must be true!
He didn't get what he deserved. You don't ever deserve discrimination.
Fuck Google.
There is nothing "geeky" about your preference, it is just plain foolish. Implementing it will lead to companies holding on to underperforming employees (think Wally) for fear of government audits and other legal problems. It already happens (Wally did threaten the PHB with a lawsuit once), but, at least, the burden of proof is on the complainer... It would be both unfair and unproductive to make companies justify their firing decisions.
Imagine yourself having to file a form with the government, when you wish to switch a babysitter or the cleaning person. And why stop there? Should not your decision to switch from one supermarket to another by subject to audit? What if your reasons for switching are discriminatory — maybe, you are doing it, because you didn't like the cashier — because she is too old?
Contrary to many people's perception, there is no difference in principle between employers and the rest of us — we all participate in the market, buying something and selling something. Attempts to make the sellers of labor into a special group have no basis in fairness or legal principles — they are all purely vote-winning measures. In a typical democracy there are far more employees (sellers of labor) than others, so laws favor them to a large degree, fairness or not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story."
I suspect that Google would actually have to be convicted first.
I guess that minor detail eluded you in your eagerness to rush to judgment.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Time flies, in no time you'll be 54 too and get fired for being too old(?).
There's a typo in your message, I think you meant
"As a fascist, I like to in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever."
There ya go and for once, 'fascist' will be used accurately)
\u262D = \u5350
You still can't discriminate if Florida. I know this from personal experience (dealt with a ton of ADA claims in a previous job) so, no, even in Florida age discrimination is illegal.
The difference is, you don't have to give cause. So you could fire someone, give no reason, and the onus would be on them to make a case for discrimination.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Google obviously doesn't consider age descrimination to be evil (probably seeing it as being good for business and hence good for the economy and hence in direct service to the greater good).
So they are still holding true to their motto.
Though perhaps it should be clarified as follows:
Do none of what Google considers evil.
It seems that besides being a good engineer you have to be "culturally fit".
I kinda agree: a pessimistic or unsociable person could endanger the spirit and the enthusiasm of others. I would not like to work with a highly intelligent but depressive person, if his depression would affect my everyday mood. Not to mention if the guy is the PM.
On the other hand, I would be fucking upset for being fired because of not fitting into the company's social standards.
"I don't see how you can avoid it."
Well, you could wait until they're actually convicted of something, that's one way.
What's with you people and your obvious desire to hate on Google? Is it really that hard to avoid making dubious claims of "evil" behavior until the case is actually made?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
as someone who's a bit on the 'more experienced' level (ok, so I'm older middle age...) and who applied for a job at google, I can DEFINITELY say that from my perspective, there is age discrimination. very clearly. I saw it during several (I did have a few) interviews there.
the questions were 'schoolboy' quizzed. its been decades (literally) since I had to recreate a search or sort algorithm by hand. and you know what? for the field I'm in (network management) I have not HAD to re-do existing algs. not once in my career! we usually BUILD on existing ideas, not waste time re-doing perfectly good wheels.
when I answered 'I'd search for some sample code or an existing idea, then take parts of it and use what makes sense' they didn't like that answer! when they asked me math (arithmetic) style questions, I said I'd find a calculator and punch in the data. in other words, I know HOW to get the answer but I rarely (these days) walk around with literal data floating around upstairs. I keep POINTERS to data, not data. isn't that the better way? it surely has served me well enough in my 20+ years in the field.
the whole strategy of their interviews are all wrong! ALL wrong. they might work great for the snotnose college hire, but its completely wrong for us seasoned pros.
google is simple NOT setup for older guys. I saw it when I was there on campus for the live interviews and I sensed it all thruout during my phone screens.
they don't value thinking skills as well as they seem to value rote data recall, which clearly favors the young and those who very recently finished school and have it the algs still recallable line-by-line in their heads.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Attempts to make the sellers of labor into a special group
Make? Labor has always been a special group. When labor is in demand, all we get is "bawwww! I have to pay more for my labor, someone save me from the free market!" and the government jumps in to do whatever it can to save their paying constituents. When labor goes undemanded, all we get is "cry me a river and go get a job, it's your own fault nobody wants to hire you".
Yeah, it's too bad that Google's bias against old people prevents them from hiring the highly experienced people in the field. I mean, think how much better off they would be if they were willing to hire people like Ken Thompson and Vint Cerf.
Oh, wait...
Discriminating is the act of choosing among different possibilities. Google is discriminating against athletes by by hiring mostly good programmers instead of professional skateboarders. That what discriminating means: choosing.
Politicians have turned the meaning towards : discriminating on criterions we don't judge relevant to do the job. There are two problems with that.
- Mind your own business. If I hire someone to do a job, it's my money I am free to choose whatever absurd criterion I like. By hiring someone I am buying a service. Who are you to tell me to whom I can or can't buy that service.
- Firms generally know more about the relevant criterions than the lawmakers. Maybe Google employees are more productive if the age dispersion is small: they can relate more to each other and enjoy working there more. A firm that picks irrational criterion reduces its pool of potential applicant and end up having to pay higher wages, it might think twice before doing so. Another example that might have a lot of sympathy is that of a firm that would only hire handicapped people. It would be able to pay slightly lower wages since there is less competition to hire these workers and would save on the fixed costs of providing wheelchair access. If that company is not free to discriminate, the handicapped will have lower wages. If the government tries to ensure that handicapped cannot be discriminated against, all companies will have to pay the fixed costs which mean everyone's wage will eventually be lower and the price higher.
\u262D = \u5350
Flamebait? Cm'on! Strong laws that give the government full audit power over corporations hiring practices? That's almost the definition of fascism and especially Mussolini's corporativismo. Open a fucking history book before you moderate.
\u262D = \u5350
Why? because we percieve the ratio between a time interval and your current lifetime. Remember, when you were only 4, a year felt like an enormous amount of time, it was 25% of your lifetime. A year feels much shorter whewn you are 30 (1/30 of your lifetime) and even shorter when you are 54 (1/54)
In general d(perception of time) ~ dt/t, that is perceived time ~ ln(t), or t = exp[Ct. (perceived time)]. That is, the phyisical time increases exponentially with the percieved time.
Young people who fire old people just because they are old, beware! Because of this exponential law in no (perceived) time you'll be old too and get fired.
The law says that you cant discriminate against anyone because of their age... as long as they are over 40.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ( ADEA ) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age
I love the hard lower limit, it would be a shame to protect all people equally.
IMO it should eb ruled unconstitutional, but of course nobody under 40 votes, so that will never happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_Fascism#Quotations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Italian_fascist_corporativism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manifesto_of_the_Fascist_Struggle
Fascism has a meaning, it does not just mean "uncool". It's a political doctrine with a precise ideology. And ideology that the original poster embraces in this context.
\u262D = \u5350
"Hire him? Hell no. He's a Nigger!!"
When did the mods here become complete fucking morons?
Vint Cerf is a joke, he's been flogging his minor role for decades. He's like Zsa Zsa Gabor or Paris Hilton for the IT world - a celebrity, but for reasons that barely have any relevance and certainly without contributing a novel thought in decades.
Good marketing tool, though.
Just throwing out an idea -- maybe companies "prefer" younger workers because they're cheaper? Don't know this to be all-encompassing, but I've found, anecdotally, that most 28 year olds, in most industries, makes less money than most 58 year olds. Don't lambaste me, but respond if you have evidence or other ideas.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
It's as good a reason as any. I know whenever I interview someone, I try to get a feel for what they'd be like to work with. I'll pick a less qualified candidate with a better manner over a more qualified jackass. It's not just their output you have to consider...It's everyone's output.
Corporate culture is more of an ephemeral. They clearly want people to fit in and participate, and that's understandable. I think, however, that they need to be more up-front about it.
I work with a lot of people who are older than me, and it's definitely a drain. Not because they're any less competent, but more because there is enough of a generational disconnect that we can't really associate from a common viewpoint.
I don't think per se that Google is ageist, but I do think that they're cliquish and snobby, and like all such groups, rather than just saying, "Nothing personal, but you're not one of us" they invent a reason, in this case, the guy's age.
I agree with some of the above posters. The guy was an idiot to leave his university job. You chase the dollar signs, you lose.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I don't work for google, so please don't try and say that I do.
... you can't recite from memory what others could. You may not like that they want you to do so, but that's their choice and criteria.
Your argument is that of a strawman. You claim they are discriminating based on age because
I know quite a few folks who have interviewed at google, and a couple who were offered jobs. The interview is the same for everyone. It's very similar at Amazon.com as well, BTW, if you're interviewing for a senior position. One of my friends made sure to cram for about 2 weeks prior to his Amazon interview for this reason. He actually said it was the hardest interview process he ever went through.
And I'm not talking about 20-somethings straight out of school - I'm past the half-way point myself and so are most of the people I associate with (Well, except for some of the "kids" I work with these days, LOL).
- Roach
'nother middle-aged-Google-applicant here: I concur, although I didn't make it past the phone screen.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
"Not an USAian"
What the fuck is a "USAian"?
Did you mean to type "American" and didn't realize your mistake? Or did you want to look like a fucking idiot?
Because you do.
Don't worry, pretty soon Google will be getting old in Internet years and we will soon discriminate against it for a younger "more hip" search engine.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
They said his ideas where old. If that is the literal truth, then Goggle probably did the right thing. The article also states that his co-workers thought he was a fuddy-duddy (stupid phrase), so it may be that he just didn't fit the culture.
I am getting to be one of the older employees of the places I work, but I come in with fresh ideas and I challenge the status quo. I don't care how old someone is, if they stop believing that things can be better they become useless.
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
I'll second this. And this is not just my opinion - there was a similar discussion on one of the Java mailing lists regarding the Google interview process.
Several senior level developers expressed the same experience. At the end of the discussion (which included few G employees) it was generally acknowledged that that what Google does, but that's their business after all.
As someone put it in "they can chose the way to shoot themselves in the foot". Buck
BookDetective.net - book search engine and ranker I donate my skills to.
yeah,
;))
I had the same experience, allthough I'm still at the university.
I had to do explain the merge sort algo. Other questions were like, where are static variables saved and why (stack, heap), notify/wait.
After all they don't care about your culture at all. The only thing that counts is that you speak english, that you are young (every seen older people in their videos? I didn't.), and that you can blindly repeat stuff you once read at university. Hell you could even use google for the google interview (I think that's what they want you to do
That's not age discrimination. If they are looking for specific qualities for their workforce that you don't meet, that's not their fault. Whether it's intelligent of them to rule out a large number of capable and qualified individuals, well that's another matter. Practicality and legality are two separate ballparks.
Fwiw, I was a senior engineer at amazon... And while I worked with some great people I also worked with some morons. As the years passed we were forced to ignore the old hiring rules and increasingly pressured to hire lame candidates because they knew a mgr or director. And during that time much of the real talent left the company.. It ceased to become a fun place to work.
The point he is making, which I concur with since I too am a rather succesful in the realm of IT member of the older-fart generation, is that the ability to recall useless trivia from memory is not a criterion for selecting useful employees, but a method of screening for "snotty nosed kids" as he put it. Most people with any sort of technical achievments in any scientific discipline or even a craft trade will readilly confirm that an ability to locate information and use it effectively is far more important then memorizing it verbatim, which is what schools are all about (and wrongess of which approach versus its ease of managment for the teachers is another discussion alltogether).
So yes, if that are Google's "choice and criteria" then the lawsuit is quite justified indeed.
See above. Your very use of the word "cram" blows away any pretenses about the process of that selection. Ask an accomplished architect or industrial engineer or a world-class surgeon with, say, 30 years of practice what was the last time he or she "crammed" anything.
the questions were 'schoolboy' quizzed. its been decades (literally) since I had to recreate a search or sort algorithm by hand. and you know what? for the field I'm in (network management) I have not HAD to re-do existing algs. not once in my career! we usually BUILD on existing ideas, not waste time re-doing perfectly good wheels.
Some universities are just handing out degree certificates in Computer Science, without teaching the students the fundamental theory, "Oh, it's in a standard template library, you don't need to learn the algorithm, just the function calls"
We have those tests in the UK, things like: "How would remove an element from a double linked list?" or "How would you tell if there is a loop in a linked list?"
Or "What is your favorite book on C++?"
Then the recruiters do their Alan Sugar impersonations, "We can get graduates to that work. What can you do that graduates can't do?"
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
For example you said:
They want a new search algorithm. They don't want you buidling on something that already exists. Googlging to find how to write a new algorithm ain't going to cut it. You need to have that in your basic skills.This is not age discrimination. Your skills just do not match what they need.
"As a geek, I like to be in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever. However, I don't like when it gets used against good guys, like Google."
Brian was hired about a year before Google went public and beefed up the org chart (which helps for an IPO) because looks great on paper: invented the firewall, altavista, the PAIX, Scribe (which begat sgml which begat html) and quickly rose up the ranks to be director of engineering or vp of ops or something fairly high up. His only written review was glowing. Very very shorly before Google went public he was fired for "not fitting in with Google's youthful culture" thus saving Google from granting his significant stock options.
That's what it's really about: the money.
Even Gates and monkeyboy havn't done anything this capricious and arbitrary with employees as far as I can tell.
Net result: Google more evil that Microsoft, much as it pains me to say it.
Suck on that, fanboy.
Need Mercedes parts ?
And also the Federal government gives corporations the very right to exist, period. Without those provisions in the Constitution, corps would not exist, and there would only be private individually owned, and partnership commercial entities.... come to think of it, that would probably be a good thing, since the owners could then be held more liable for their misdoings.
At my interview, I was told that my age (I got my PhD as a mature student) might be a problem. I was in my mid 30s at the time. Curiously, the interviews seemed to go okay until my details went before a committee and then I was slapped down real quick. It was just as well because I was told that in this field, the job was fairly routine and uninspiring donkey work. Instead, I got a position at a university that wasn't as well paid, but has sure been fun because I've been able to lead my own research.
bang goes my karma... again...
"they might work great for the snotnose college hire,"
I worked there and no, it really doesn't.
The interviews at Google, with extremely rare exceptions, are simply pissing matches. You're there to be impressed by how clever the interviewer is, not to prove why you're qualified for the job. Which goes a long way to explaining why Google itself has never produced anything really interesting. Check for yourself, all the cool stuff was purchased and brought in. As for the founding idea, it already existed and without the fortuitous tie to purchased ad services, would have sunk under the weight of no revenues.
Google is a run like a club house, not a business, and the frontline maagers I worked with, and I worked with a lot of them in many different groups, quite frankly could not find their ass with both hands.
And this could be attributed to sour grapes but remember, I actually worked there. Once I realized how quickly my skills were deteriorating in that environment I found a real job with some true software pros. The irony of the whole thing being, those who have not gotten the job there and are serious about their profession are better off having been snubbed.
Oh, and for the good engineers in Google, and there are quite a few, they're very sorry about the way you were treated. It's frustrating for them too.
Again, you may not like how they are doing things, and that is a very valid opinion
I don't know if you interview anyone for your company or have done so lately, but I do and have to tell you
There are a LOT of folks who were employed during the boom who really don't have a solid foundation and have no clue about sorting, hashing, etc. Stuff that I consider pretty basic knowledge if you're interviewing to be an engineer. While we don't look for hard code examples from memory, but we do expect that the concepts are there, readily available in memory, and able to be drawn out on a whiteboard. You'd be amazed at how many people can't do that.
I agree on principle that knowing how something works and where to go to get the specifics is every bit if not more important than being a walking textbook, but that's not what they've decided (right or wrong). It's their company, they can do that.
But saying that it's "age discrimination" is silly IMO.
- Roach
Looks like you need help with your reading comprehension skills, as my post clearly indicated speculation on future events.
;)
Examine the title of my post:
"Google to become 'convicted discriminator?"
Note the "to become"; that implies future events. Note the '?'; that implies speculation. The combination suggests speculation on future events.
Examine the sentence you quoted:
"Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story."
Note the "Looks like"; that suggest speculation. Note the "in the future" and "will be"; those suggest future events. Combined, they suggest speculation on future events.
See how that works?
BTW, according to the court's words, "We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.", Google is indeed heading down the path to "conviction". Sure, the path could change, but attacking me for speculating that conviction is in the offing is baseless.
Of course the term "conviction" doesn't apply to civil cases, but that never stopped slashdotters from using that word for civil cases in the past, now has it?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
> Contrary to many people's perception, there is no difference in principle between employers and the rest of us
I disagree. Employers have the power to fire and hire, and a lot of control over work conditions while you're hired. So a few checks and balances in favor of the workers is not a bad idea. There was a time when the U.S. didn't have this, or not much: then, we had child labor, 14-hour workdays, and company cops to bust your head if you complained. Not to mention discrimination.
Those questions in an interview isn't about being smart or knowing something. It just shows if you are prepared or not (just like the SATs, GRE etc). "Snot-nosed" college kids don't like those questions either, just their college consolers told them the rules of the game and they came prepared.
One of the best policies is used on the set of the TV show Scrubs. Bill Lawrence set it down before they got started. It's a "no asshole" policy. I could care less about someone's age, sex, orientation, race ...., but if they are an asshole they have to go. I guess if every company used that though unemployment would skyrocket and we would have a severe shortage of middle managers.
Your argument is that of a strawman. You claim they are discriminating based on age because ... you can't recite from memory what others could. You may not like that they want you to do so, but that's their choice and criteria.
Not exactly.
He's not saying they are necessarily intentionally filtering out based on age, but rather the specific criteria is *inherently* biased against age. We all may have been taught how to do a binary search or implement a quicksort or heapsort and when I graduated university those algorithms were in my head, like any good student.
But not any more. I still have my textbooks, I still understand them, I still use them for reference, and I could still write the algorithms if I had to from scratch; well quicksort at least; I wouldn't know where to start on a heapsort anymore without at least glancing at a text to get my bearings. But in the real world you just use a library quicksort 99% of the time.
And I was actually tasked to implement one I'd probably start from an existing source code example rather than waste time writing one from scratch.
The number of people who can implement a quicksort or heapsort from scratch out of their head is definately going to be a rapidly decaying curve as you plot from 'just graduated to nearing retirement'.
And unless the argument can be made that being able to do that (from scratch out of your head) is somehow relevant to the job you are applying for, it would seem to serve little real purpose, intentional or not, of biasing against older applicants.
The trouble is, they probably do want people who =understand= these algorithms, who can estimate the time/space complexity of a given task, etc. And the ability to demonstrate a quicksort is at least in the right ballpark to screen for that. It might not be the best question to probe for the capabilities they really need and want, but most interview processes I've seen are biased against people who are qualified even ideal for the job.
From the technical screening at google to the honesty screening at the local mall retail job, they all reject people who are qualified and even ideal for the job.
On that tangent -- I recall a friend who failed one of those 'honesty tests' apparently because she was honest -- she'd said she "probably wouldn't rat out on a fellow employee she observed using their employee discount to purchase something for their girlfriend/boyfriend". Sure it was the 'wrong' answer, and she knew it, but she figured it was an honest one, and that -she'd- rather hire someone who was genuinely honest rather than someone who simply 'knew' how to pass an honesty test.
I agree that this kind of interview does not look like it finds the best candidates. The questions should be about (past) work behaviour in specific situations. You have to be able listen to the answer and close your eyes and see the candidate working on the job you offer.
No network guy writes sort algorithms, that kind of question is simply stupid.
Yet, this is only proof Google has a bad interviewing process, not that it has an age bias. Which does not mean that Google does not have one, it is just not proof of one.
They glanced over it, said, "Well, that doesn't perform very well, now, does it?"
They asked him how he'd improve performance, so he took back his paper, reworked it, and gave it back to them. They glanced back over it and said, "Right, so that would be the optimal solution, wouldn't it?"
The whole interview went more or less like that... quiz show style interview questions, and when he didn't regurgitate the correct algorithm from Knuth's books, he was chastised for it. Forget the fact that he could derive performant algorithms. Who'd want to hire that skill?
I think many confuse fascism with totalitarianism, which are, historically, joined at the hip but completely different animals.
(Please note, I am not saying Bush is or is not totalitarian - that was not my point and I am not interested in that argument.)
I'm 50 now, and (for me) the answer is Hell Yes. My rates are back where they were just before the dotcom bust (not the insane $150+ per hour rates, but the reasonable market ones back then). I'm turning away work again in Silicon Valley.
I find that I've gotten far, far better with age. You may have heard of the old mainframe guy with 30+ years of experience who can look at the output and tell you what the problem is. Well, I'm there. With the Linux/Unix kernel and other system work. I find that I'm the person who the younger guys come to with their questions, as I've worked on most of the code at one point or another. And I certainly get the toughest problems to debug.
So yes, if you keep your skills up and are hard working, there are indeed companies which value results over bigotry. A pity that Google isn't that way.
However, if you don't, you end up like the guys on the Dice board. You'll find a lot of people moaning that they can't find work, and that things are dead slow in Silicon Valley, yadda yadda. IMHO, things are hot, and those guys are missing the bus. Yes, they are probably smart. But the market for mainframe systems guys has long dried up. And IBM is doing their best to kill it.
Take the postings on Dice with a LARGE grain of salt; they are highly skewed. The Dice moderators are absolutely insane, deleting many posts without cause, and generally driving away the good commentators. It's rather telling that the only ones who can put up with that nonsense are the guys without jobs.
If anyone knows of a good board which discusses technical and contract issues, please do post. Dice absolutely sucks.
So, in summary, yes, the market is alive and well. But I'd get into development, because I see a lot of cheap button-pushers in IT. And most companies seem to not want to understand IT issues. They think that all they have to do is to push a button (E.g. Microsoft Exchange) and all their issues are solved. And the fact that certain architectures will bite them later on isn't an issue.
But that's most companies, not all. I'm at a hot, bright startup, and we've tried hiring a top notch IT person. It is tough. So there is demand out there, and probably always will be. But you have to keep your skills up.
And that's fine - Google will end up paying the price for hiring inexperienced employees. Not really a stock I'd want to hold long term, myself. In the end, though, the market works. Google should have every right to hire whoever they want, the market will punish them for their stupidity.
You can't test creativity. Especially under pressure in an interview. I think the person who says "I'll look it up" when asked to write a sorting algorithm is being truthful and honest. Also in the long run he/she will save your company money but not reinventing the wheel every other day.
And BTW The guy who developped quick sort didn't develop that algorithm in 30 seconds and during an interview.
If you emphasize, to the point of absurdity (as many people who were interviewed by Google seem to claim), the types of behaviours associated with young people in school environments (note that experienced people who go "back to school" at older age approach it in quite different manner) then it is pretty much transparent that your intention is to exclude anyone outside your target social category, in this case centered around a certain age group.
The answer to this is of course quite simple: Instead of subjecting them to stress-inducing, memory corrupting Spanish Inquisition style interrogation, you simply give them a task to accomplish, in a controlled environment, which would require all of the necessary skills you seek in your employees. Then you evaluate the results along with them, explaining any points of your displeasure. No possibility of any age-related (or any other) discrimination will be then credibly brought forth by anyone and -- as a bonus -- the people you hire will have a proven ability to accomplish the tasks expected of them. Or is this too far out a solution for all of you pointy-haired Human Resources types out there who can only grok questionaires and checklists?
Not if they run afoul of the labour laws (for which we should be all very, very thankful to our predecessors).
He didn't get tenure at Stanford. Probably because he was too practical and commercial for Stanford CS of that period. (Back then, Stanford CS was part of Arts and Sciences and dominated by logicians and "expert systems" types. CS was moved to the School of Engineering around 1985). So he went to DEC, which used to have a very good research facility in Palo Alto. He ran their network R&D. When Compaq (remember Compaq? IBM PC clones?) bought DEC, they phased out software research, because Compaq didn't do much software. So he went to Bell Labs in Silicon Valley, which also shut down as Bellcore retreated from research.
Google hired him because he'd done AltaVista, the first big search engine. (Which, amusingly, was done as a demo for the DEC Alpha CPU.)
It's no longer fun being a theoretical computer scientist in Silicon Valley. All the great corporate labs are gone. Along with the ones mentioned above, HP Labs, PARC, and IBM Almaden have also tanked. Google, Microsoft, and Intel still do a little theoretical work, but not that much.
Keeping up with the tech and buzzwords isn't hard. What's hard is that most IT jobs regard frenzied, pointless, 24 hour a day activity as the epitome of fine workmanship, at the expense of common sense and experienced judgment, and a lot of them encourage off hour fraternizing, which isn't feasible or even enjoyable for non-single people who've grown up and have other interests besides work.
This is probably the core of the Google lawsuit. Google is a company where workers are rewarded for having no life outside the company. Just like hundred of others.
Fortunately, my current job doesn't fall into this category. I am still on call 24x7x365, but after 20 years of sysadmin experience I make sure nothing ever happens off hours.
Sooner or later I'll be unemployable, but only after I leave my current job, and 100% or IT jobs have finally turned into pointless tweaking sweatshops.
The truth is, however, that the most talented probably do the same -- it's just that more of the pointers point to internal locations in their heads instead of urls or indexes of books on their bookshelf. (I suppose there's a RAM / hard drive analogy in there somewhere.)
Then there is the sheer vigor of youth -- did you cram for two weeks before your interview? Me either.
Incidentally, Stephen Jay Gould agreed with you. I remember him in an interview once making a similar distinction in describing his own mental operating system.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
Whiner
This has NOTHING TO DO with age. Yes, there may be age discrimination there, but this is not it.
The reason they ask this questions is precisely why you can type a city in google maps, it comes up, zoom in an out in the blink of an eye.
Guess what, if you don't know the best sorting algorithm for a certain situation (and you only know that if you know how does it work), you will pick the wrong choice.
Samples from the web? It is not gonna cut it when you're trying to be the best.
To get in, people have to study, hard, and even then, it will only get you so far.
how long until
He's not saying they are necessarily intentionally filtering out based on age, but rather the specific criteria is *inherently* biased against age.
That would be true
I'm willing to bet that if you googled, you could find some details about how google interviews
http://www.google.com/search?q=google+interview+process&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
(How ironic, really)
I know if *I* were going to interview for google (or any huge internet operation), I would have done so.
"Be prepared". It's not just for Boy Scouts anymore!
- Roach
Or is this too far out a solution for all of you pointy-haired Human Resources types out there who can only grok questionaires and checklists?
Psst. I'm a Software Engineer. We do group interviews at my company so that everyone on the team has a say in who is hired.
See my other reply regarding the fact that a simple google of "Google interview process" (Oh, the irony) would pretty much have solved the problem. He came unprepared. Anyone of any age could have done the same.
- Roach
Oh, your only not allowed to discriminate against old people. God know as 23 year old I've never been denied jobs because I wasn't old enough to "handle that type of responsibility". I was pretty sure that age based discrimination was the only legal type. There are 100 of laws designed solely to screw over younger people. Drinking laws, housing laws, driving laws, Medicare and Draft laws. I guess he is "too old" to remember getting the short end of the stick for being too young.
The "corporate" in that paragraph refers to the government corporations, not private ones. In Mussolini's Italy did the government take over corporations? Who would own Google in a fascist America? Wouuld it be private or would the state take it over for "the common good"? If so, that sounds like Communism to me.
What would make fascist governement laws in regard to corporate hiring practices different than regular American federal hiring practices which state you can't descriminate based on race? Isn't that what the original poster was talking about?
I hope I don't come off as snippy, or overly critical. You sound like you have a background in history. I'd like to know more.
Thanks.
I was working on the KVM (like xen a virtual machine for linux) at home and posted some questions to the linux mailing list.
Google contacted me and after back and forth discussions asked for a resume. When they figured out approximately how old I was (I am 51) from the resume work history they said I didn't meet their qualifications and they were not interested. Kind of strange as they contacted me out of the blue. Its not like I tried to get a job with them.
I find that sort of action very insulting.
I have seen similar actions from many companies.
If they notice me doing something and contact me then discover my age and say something is wrong with me, isn't that an act of violence or a hate crime?
Could be worse. I'm precardial and worked at a place where computers were programmed using patch panels. The "upgrade" used punched cards.
And I'm 7 years younger than Brian.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Do you wear those snazzy red outfits and wide-brimmed red hats while you grill the hapless victims? Because clearly you do not actually assess any of their technical job skills.
Actually he could not. At least that is the general concensus amongst the older people ever interviewed by Google.
Or to put the lie to the test in a completely different way: what is the age breakdown of all employees at Google? I am sure that this little bit of statisics, which is wholly impossible to obscure by any smoke and mirrors manouvering about the interview processes and any hot air about "being prepared", will become the center-piece of this lawsuit sooner or later. And I am afraid Google will have a really hard time dancing its way out of this wee jam.
No, but it may well be a violation of federal law. I'm posting anonymously, since I'm involved in an age discrimination case right now.
The trouble is that it's hard to prove age discrimination. What I've got right now is that I have a prima facie case (they interviewed me, didn't hire me, and I'm over 40), and the reasons they gave to not hire me (once I filed suit) are clearly not the real ones, since they don't fit the timeline. If they contacted you, and were interested until they found out your age, there's almost certainly no way to prove discrimination.
Of course, there's limits to how many people Google can be jerks to and still keep their reputation. Right now, I've got them pegged as the new Evil Empire somewhere in the range of 2010-2015, after Microsoft loses relevance. The frightening thing is that they've got far more potential for document lock-in than Microsoft.
Mussolini did advocate private ownership of the companies, I believe he was however against the idea of competition which he saw as wasteful, competition between companies or between workers.
In corporativismo, companies are privately owned but are subject to heavy government control (which really means most of the property rights actually belong to the state), companies are not free to enter the market, and the corporations are organized as big vertical concentrations of syndicates. The whole idea was to spin the "class struggle" into a united "national struggle".
Back to your question, Google would probably have been partially privately owned. The state sponsored and controlled syndicate corporation of programmers would have provided a pool of workers at set wages. In this economy there is no competition or free entry, hence price formation is extremely difficult, thus price end up being decided by the state in a socialist way.
This is my understanding of italian fascism, I am by no mean a historian nor a specialist, merely a curious layman. I may be wrong, use with caution. (And fascism socialism or communism represent quite the opposite of my political philosophy, thus my presentation of the facts may not be bias-proof)
\u262D = \u5350
So yes, if that are Google's "choice and criteria" then the lawsuit is quite justified indeed. Wouldn't that also mean that a requirement of "10+ years experience" is age discrimination because it prevents a 25-year-old from getting the job? In fact, an experience requirement could be arguably worse, since nothing actually prevents a 60-year-old applicant from knowing how to write search algorithms, while it's pretty much impossible for a 25-year-old to have 15 years of professional experience.
Which, of course, would represent the Apex of Stupidity, if it were not, as many people already pointed out, a tool for ensuring that your employees belong to a certain social/age group.
Or to put it another way: this is the equivalent of asking questions about the sexual habits of sea cucumbers, after having put out a word on the University campus that this will be the required "curriculum". Uncritical students, having been indoctrinated in memorizing any odd crap the teachers demand, would simply subject themselves to this kind of treatment. Anyone with any sort of real-life experience would go: WTF?! And subsequently fail the "Interview" for being "unprepared" after having assumed that this must be some sort of a joke because no one with two neurons to rub together would ever consider this being a method of selecting skilled personnel. And the joke is on them, for, of course, this is not a method of selecting skilled personnel. It is a way to expand your circle of "cool kids".
In short, the "rules of the game" are rigged by Google (as they are rigged by the college teachers to their own ends) but unlike that of colleges, Google's "rigging" runs contrary to the Labour Laws. Oops!
In a way it is, but that is an artifact of the types of positions for which the "10+ year experience" employees are supposed to be hired. What should occur, and what the Labour Laws are aligned with, is that the "entry level" positions of companies are filled (statistically speaking - exceptions are always possible) with young, bushy-tailed whipper-snappers with next to no experience and the "senior" positions with older farts.
But no company should use age as a criteria, only the experience/skill set and match those to appropriate positions accordingly with the rather common sense rules of workforce.
Not if you tailor your interview specifically to the types of knowledge expected of school kids. An older expert in the field will be unlikely to respond to that sort of assault positively because he will quickly realise what is going on and assume, correctly, that he is not wanted for other, social reasons.
I personally sense that this is a very strong indication of a bias, but you are right that it, in itself, is not a proof. But then if you couple it with other data, like for example the overall breakdown of Google's employees by age, and things start to stink to high heaven.
I think Google is going to have to revise its policy of the "cool kids" running the show in accordance with their party crowd preferences or find itself in serious legal trouble.
Note that this is by no means the first accusation of age discrimination at Google. As a matter of fact there has been a very steady and rather obvious stream of them since the very beginning of Google made by a quite considerable number of people now, all with first-hand experience.
I also interviewed at google and agree completely. The questions were not only college exam type, but the college exam type where the instructor knows the One True Answer and will accept only that. And I was easily the oldest person in the room at lunch and got very odd looks (and overheard a couple of comments about my age).
Don't bother applying there if you're over about 35.
Does this make them evil? No. It does make them more than a bit shortsighted and it indicates that the quality of the management is not what it should be. Still their search is great.
Yeah, use the full force of government to hammer on everyone except people that you personally like, whether or irrational reasons or not.
You, quite frankly are part of the problem. Please seek some spiritual guidance. You desperately need it.
While it has been 30+ years since I met Brian, he is really really really bright. One of the biggest problems in the computer / software space is that most of the practicioners tend to dismiss the highly experienced people as old fogeys.
The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
I am in a computer-related field and have seen similar problems. I am not yet old enough to be impacted, but soon, I think... Soon.
At least it is my experience that it is mostly older people who value memorized data, while younger people put relatively more value in knowing how to find the data.
I agree with everything you say until the last paragraph.
The rules are not rigged in favor of young people, you are not playing the game because you think the rules are stupid. A young person on the other hand doesn't know any better and assumes everyone asks the same stupid questions (which is becoming more and more true).
Er, where in the article did you read that he wasn't hired for not answering stupid questions in his interview?
It truly is all about money IMHO but even beyond those good points already mentioned. There's also this perception that a young person would be more likely to come up with something radically new which could be incredibly profitable or cost-reducing. I certainly don't agree with it and my technology staff is diverse in every respect including age as those gentelemen and women have a wealth of knowledge and experience (I'm the head of IT and not a business-person per se.)
However, in America it's about the stock market, patent trolling, gambling and thousands of other ways to make maximum profit from minimal effort. Most Americans would rather play the lottery every day in hopes of making it big (regardless of how unlikely it is) than save or invest the same small amounts over time. We truly do think 10 minutes ahead and rotating in young staff is like being a new lottery ticket to them while ensuring at least the bottom line is reduced (which of course it's not.)
The heart of the problem IMHO is all about measurement. Many business people still measure a web presence's success solely on 1990s approaches such as number of hits. I could go through a ton of inaccurate if not completely incorrect ways to do measurement at the business level which are still in practice today and staff utilization is certainly one of them. But, it's virtually a lost cause as it's always translated into "that will cost more (insert resource here) and what we have is good enough." Even as overly litigous as we are here in America I believe suits like this are healthy and great to see. Too bad it came out of California as it's already notorious in business as heavily favoring employees over employers...
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
I was referring to what, apparenly, is a general attitude at Google, of which this latest article is just a sample. Accusations of this sort have been coming out very regularly for years now, in different shapes, forming a steady pattern which at this point makes Google's denials sound rather hollow.
Infosys INSISTS that you put your high school graduation date on resumes sent to them.
Given this kind of corporate behavior, I INSIST on lying to them. I worked my way through college in 11 years-- if the company requires a high school graduation date, I put a date 5 years before my college graduation date. They can validate the college date but my high school hasn't existed for a long time.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They want a new search algorithm. They don't want you buidling on something that already exists. Googlging to find how to write a new algorithm ain't going to cut it. You need to have that in your basic skills.
This is not age discrimination. Your skills just do not match what they need.
actually, I didn't even disclose which kind of job I was applying for.
I'm an "IT" guy (again, network management) and I'm -very- senior in my field. without drudging up my resume, just take me at my word for just a few minutes. please tell me (if you have been in this field) how being able to re-code a tree-walk or tree-insert from memory, in 10 minutes or less, on a whiteboard is relevant to solving problems in my field (they didn't even allow me a proper emacs or vi session, which is also VERY artificial if they are trying to test my ability to work out problems, live, in front of them).
in my field, you care more about polling devices for health and there are a whole SLEW of questions that I'd ask about 'polling science' (yes, there's a whole lot to polling and being smart about it in large scale networks). you care about database issues since when you poll and collect data, you have to store and search that effectively. I know my sql pretty well and THAT is entirely the level that us netmgt types live at. I've written entire NMS systems and agents, as well, but they didn't ask spudnutz about that. they asked mundane stupid offtopic questions that just wreaked of artificiality. I could tell almost none of them that interviewed me even spent any real time in the field DOING network management.
so, fwiw, I know my field very well and have been at most of the big name players here in the valley. the google interview was the worst experience of my professional career, in all aspects of how it was handled. it was more a show of how 'cool' the company was and but NOTHING about the actual job you'd be doing there. which I found very unsettling. why should I consider leaving a good job (btw, they called me - I didn't call them) when google would not even tell me WHAT, exactly, I'd be working on?
they are guilty of having a 'silicon valley pre-bubble' attitude. I don't think this will scale well, as we say.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
But you could do it right? You are smart enough to recreate a simple algorithm from first principles, on the fly? This is not about memory. This is about whether or not you're so dependent on copying code that you've forgotten how to actually think. It sounds to me like you thought the questions were beneath you, and I'm sure that the interviewers picked up on that.
You complain that they don't value thinking skills as much as they value recall, and yet your response to their search question was "I'd look it up" - i.e. retrieve it from a memory store - and not "Let me think about that and do it right now". And doing math is not memory either. Your complaint and your facts simply do not match up.
There are plenty of "seasoned pros" who are actually "seasoned script kiddies", i.e. just very very good at searching, copying and pasting, and there are "seasoned pros", who were extremely smart snot noses when they were young, and are now extremely smart old-farts. And then there are old-farts who expect to be treated differently because they are older and somehow superior human beings. If I was Google, I'd be looking for the smart ones who can work with the little-uns.
But you could do it right? You are smart enough to recreate a simple algorithm from first principles, on the fly?
/usr/src (which I have on my linux and bsd boxes) I'd solve any of their problems, live, in front of them. but I was put in 'school mode' and only allowed a whiteboard. what a farse...
in fact, I wanted them to take note of that fact. that I was not just repeating a recently learned alg but actually deriving it again after having it sit unused for 20 yrs. THAT should count even more! if I was fresh out of school, I think I'd take maybe 5 minutes to draw out the basics of their alg. style questions. but that would just be testing my memory and not really my understanding of the concepts.
so yes, it took me quite a while to remember all the little details to write the C code on the whiteboard for them. I think I finished one or two of their tests but EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEWER asked me more and more of the same! after the first 2, I was just too tired or too annoyed to even want to play their stupid 'quiz me' games anymore.
note to google: assign just ONE person to do such tests and then leave the poor candidate alone! ask them job-relevant questions, mostly and just let one of your minions do the schoolboy grilling.
again, if I had access to a laptop, emacs, some sample code in
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
They had you right C on a whiteboard? Ok, well, that's just stupid.
No network guy writes sort algorithms, that kind of question is simply stupid.
;)
I'll give a little more of my background away. I'm a very long term SNMP guy. I've implemented whole SNMP managers (guis, databases, snmp walkers, pollers, trap receivers, etc) and even whole agents (the thing that responds to the SNMP requests from the NMS). I started doing this at work back in 1987 or so. yes, its been a very long time - 'snmp been berry berry good to me'
and in all that time, my interface on the NMS has been sql. I can quote sufficient 'select foo from' lines all you want. I leave it to the sql engine guys (of which I am not one) to work out HOW they do the sort/searching. that's just a level that is not relevant to me - I care more about the data itself and the network devices and watching trends, looking for traffic problems and stuff like that.
again, no one asked any job-relevant questions, yet I was applying for what was described as a network management job. I have heard that 'all heads are equal' to some degree or another and that they look to have anyone do any job there. I think that's an absurd concept and specialists (like myself) get filtered out in the process. no, I have no desire to work on the linux kernel. that's not what I spent my years specializing in and its not where I bring value-add based on my years of experience.
I've also demonstrated some cool innovations in my field (you'd have to, if you spent so many years in it!) but they never seemed to give 'credit' for creative thinking - and I did mention some pretty novel ideas I've actually developed and used in the past, during my on-site interview with them.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Albert Einstein never bothered learning his phone number. He found that if he needed it, he could always look it up in the phone book.
By your criteria, you'd never hire him.
I don't think the less intelligent one here is Einstein.
fwiw, I don't think I've lost a job offer, in the past, due to not 'cramming'. ok, so google was the first, I guess, for me ;)
I believe in truth-in-advertising and so I NEVER cram before an interview. I show them my thinking skills and the fact that I can solve job-relevant problems well.
if I can't get a job based on who I am, I don't really want it based on some just-memorized buzzwords that impressed the interviewers.
I know what you're saying and most people do seem to agree with the 'cram before interview' method but it just doesn't seem like you are being honest with your self or your employer.
its interesting to note that the filter works both ways. perhaps its better that I not work for google. I don't want to be at some place that wants only young abusable ('you must work ALL waking hours for us') eggheads and shuns those of us with a few grays in our beards.
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See above. Your very use of the word "cram" blows away any pretenses about the process of that selection. Ask an accomplished architect or industrial engineer or a world-class surgeon with, say, 30 years of practice what was the last time he or she "crammed" anything.
I'll second this, the only thing I'm "cramming" before an interview are the standard bits about the business and their space before the interview. Should I be asked "school" type questions that recall some of the tests I took long ago, I'd probably start thinking about my next interview, elsewhere. I've found that companies that engage in that sort of questioning usually are uninspiring places to work, or at least the position you're interviewing for will be.The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Wouldn't that also mean that a requirement of "10+ years experience" is age discrimination because it prevents a 25-year-old from getting the job?
the way Work works is that you have various positions and some are for college hires, some for engineer-II some for staff engineer (names/titles vary between companies) and some for senior scientist or 'fellow'.
the point is that you should have in mind what level of person you need for that req. and then ask skill-appropriate questions. you ask 'knuth 101' to younger kids and that's fine - they have mostly just school as their background and that makes sense. but for those who have a higher ratio of work-to-school - asking Knuth stuff isn't really sensible and you lose good people because of this one-size-fits-all filter.
my point is that if ALL the jobs are favoring the younger applicant, something is basically wrong with the corp. ethic in hiring. I don't consider it 'responsible hiring' to favor almost entirely 20somethings.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
if its the same guy who worked at DEC in palo alto many years ago, then I worked with the guy for a very short period of time on a (amazingly enough) network management project! I was in DEC back in Maynard (at the Mill, actually) and brian was part of DEC west. he was VERY well respected as an 'IP god' of sorts ;) this was back in the late 80's - around the time that I left the boston area and moved out to the sf bay area.
again, I only worked with brian for a very short time and only on 1 netmgt project, but his reputation was one that I'd be proud to have, myself. if he couldn't 'pass muster' in google's eyes I would guess that it was google that was in the wrong and not brian.
sheesh. this is weird. and a bit upsetting, too.
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A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Uh huh. He's smart so he can't ever do anything stupid? I've known people so smart that they were often mistaken for being mentally retarded...Intelligence doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being able to make a good decision, and often the smartest people are hopeless when it comes to day to day decision making.
In short, smart people do stupid things all the time; if you haven't noticed this, you don't know many smart people.
He got pursued by a young, hip company, to fix a specific problem. That would ring alarm bells for me, especially if I'm upper middle aged, and I've (apparently) just left the lab environment. I personally have been hired full time to do project work...The reality of it is, that project is your job, and when it's done, so are you. It's definitely a less secure choice.
Now he's out of a job and stuck in a lawsuit against a wealthy, well-lawyered company, which probably means he doesn't have people lining up to hire him. The lawsuit isn't going all that well either...I mean, this is a victory for him, because now the suit can actually go forward, but that they got it dismissed at all suggests he's got a long fight ahead. They'll keep him tied up in it for years to come.
Just a fricking mess. So yea, I think it was a dumb decision. Mind you, if I'd been cheated out of a share of the google IPO (and fired 9 days before it is cheated, no matter how you cut it), I'd sue too.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
...the ability to recall useless trivia from memory is not a criterion for selecting useful employees, but a method of screening for "snotty nosed kids" as he put it. Most people with any sort of technical achievments in any scientific discipline or even a craft trade will readilly confirm that an ability to locate information and use it effectively is far more important then memorizing it verbatim, which is what schools are all about (and wrongess of which approach versus its ease of managment for the teachers is another discussion alltogether). I don't think that testing a programmer's understanding of basic algorithms is out of place.Memorizing stuff verbatim is what _bad_ schools are about. Good schools teach ideas, not technology. There's nothing wrong with teaching students how to look at an algorithm, break it down, understand it and implement it. That's an incredibly useful skill to learn and practice. There's no better way to teach a student how to do this than to make them do it with a few simple algorithms (oh, I don't know, sorting algorithms perchance?).
There's also nothing wrong with trying to find out which "snotty nosed kids" are better than the others at understanding algorithms (you could call them the 'smart ones'). A reasonable way (not perfect, but reasonable) way of doing this is to present them with a few _basic_ algorithms that most students run across in school (oh, I don't know, sorting algorithms perchance?). See above. Your very use of the word "cram" blows away any pretenses about the process of that selection. Ask an accomplished architect or industrial engineer or a world-class surgeon with, say, 30 years of practice what was the last time he or she "crammed" anything. Assume an accomplished architect is faced with a task (let's say preparing for an interview with Google). Being 'accomplished' we can assume that they have a strong ability to "locate information and use it effectively". How does that ability translate to this context? It seems that they would research likely interview questions, gather resource material, and 'use it effectively', aka study in this context. When studying is combined with a modicum of passion and diligence (also important to being accomplished), the end result might be quite similar to 'cramming'.
You don't become an accomplished architect without the ability to learn (or forget, and relearn) something. You also don't become accomplished without recognizing when this is necessary. Whether you're fresh out of school or whether you've been around for years, it doesn't matter - if you're not willing to find out that something is a test and study for it(or cram, if you have to), don't expect Google to hire you. I certainly wouldn't.
What's in a Sig?
Old people = old ideas.
Old people = no innovation.
Old people = old ways.
This has been the way of things when the Romans were looking for some new chariot designs. The concept that there are lots of "new" things with computers has led to this being more rigorously enforced.
The biggest problem with this are things like file systems, memory management and such where experienced people are passed over for "new innovation" from younger people with no experience. Then we get to see the same problems that were fixed in 1970 being recreated and needing to be fixed again.
I don't see it having much to do with salary. It is the idea that older people do not have anything to contribute because somehow we have moved past all of the things that the old people know about. The thinking goes that now we have new problems and need younger people uncorrupted by old problems and old solutions to solve these new problems. Then they find out that these "new" problems aren't so new after all and they only reason they are cropping up now is that some inexperienced person didn't research things well enough to know about existing solutions.
But still we have managers that want "younger, energetic people" to work for them. Yup, older people are a rarity in the IT world. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I'd say it really depends on the individual. For myself, technology is a lifestyle, and as such I'm continually learning new things and (doing my best at) staying up-to-date. I know a lot of old hats at any jobs - and tech is a big one for this - that have the attitude of "this is the way it's always been" or have the assumption that "because of my experience, I know best." The problem is, that these individuals lose the will to learn, which can be death in the IT industry.
Where I work, a lot of the long-term techs, who were trained on Novell Netware, insist that it is better than the Linux systems being implemented. One in particular will take every opportunity to point at a server problem, or whatever, and say "this isn't an issue with Novell" (while completely ignoring that the issue might actually be user/admin-error, or that there were a host of *other* issues with the previous system). Now that Novell has gone to Linux that's quieted down a bit, but it still comes frighteningly close to email flamewars between her and the pro-linux techs. Personally I'm all for replacing the Novell boxen because they're old, cost licensing fees, and don't support newer hardware (in other words when the physical equipment fails, it's toast), but try to step to aside when the vitriol starts spewing back and worth. The fact is though, that people who were "trained with system X" are often unwilling to try "alternative Y."
In some cases this is good, because there are plenty of people that want to try "Y, Z, and A B C 1 2 3" and are constantly hopping on to new bandwagons. The voice of reason, and experience, can prevail indicating the need for solid cost/benefits analysis, infrastructure analysis, and transition plans. The voice of experience can organize, and has many skills to top off the technical ones.
So you have two contrasts here. The older, more experience admin that still has a strong cabinet of experience to offer the company VS the older, outdated admin who is fast in holding on to "what he knows" VS "what does the job best." You can have either one, or both in one package. I'm not sure which of these the gentleman in question was.
**Note: For simplicity I have used a masculine reference in this comment, apologies to all the female sysAdmins and techs out there. If you are under 30, single and cute, please accept this diamond ring and my proposal as apolo... er, I mean, have a nice day.
This isn't age discrimination.
This is just bad interview technique. When I first started having to interview people with no guidelines this is the same sort of drivel I'd push. Everyone else was doing it this way so it seemed right. However having been through many more interviews now on both sides it's easily apparent how bad that earlier process was. An interview these days is as much making sure the person will fit in as it is measuring their skill set. It's no good if you are amazingly talented and a perfect fit for the role if your presence there will drag down the work of your four co-workers. Google is notorious for trying to get people of a certain fitness, if it works for them, yay! Be thankful that you were able to get out during the interview process.
Anyone giving interviews: Ask the person to solve problems unrelated to their field. Put them in moch situations, how do they cope? Joke, share a story, do they open up? Relate a negative aspect if your current work environment and see how they react to it. Non-manual labor can require extensive employee collaboration, make sure everything clicks.
--- I do not moderate.
I don't think a profession's core knowledge is trivial. Since "knowledge is power" and power is defined (in Physics) as work per unit time, a person with more knowledge can work faster.
An architect must understand how an arch supports weight.
An industrial engineer should know that hydrostatic force is proportional to the dam wall's area, and not the total water volume.
A world-class heart surgeon should know what the aorta & superior vena-cava are without reading a book mid-operation.
Why shouldn't a software engineer know the binary search or quicksort algorithms?
Why shouldn't a software engineer know the binary search or quicksort algorithms?
Because it's enough in real life that I know that quicksort is O(n log n), and that I can get it all coded and debugged for me as qsort(). Sure, when I was an undergrad I coded it up and analyzed it. Wasn't a waste of time then, I learned some things, filed away the important bits (see above) and moved on. Since then I have repurposed those neurons for more useful information. As the GP points out, the important thing is knowing what bits to assemble, and where to get them. This leaves more neurons free for solving new problems instead of reinventing the wheel.
If I were interviewing someone who proposed that coding up quicksort was likely the best solution to a sorting problem, I'd likely wash him/her out right then and there.
This is actually done as a BS check to try to determine that the person being interviewed really is a programmer and really does have the resume being shown. It sucks, but it's not there for age related reasons, it's because it's the quickest way they can determine that you haven't simply been coached by whoever gave you the resume.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
Easy solution to being asked puzzle questions.
When they ask if you have any other questions, say yes, and then ask a nasty logic puzzle problem.
MAKE them answer it.
I have promised myself that next time I am asked a question like this, I am going to force them to answer mine.
Your argument is that of a strawman. You claim they are discriminating based on age because
That's the issue -- maybe it's not Google's choice to make, since older people are a protected class. You see, courts have ruled that intelligence test questions can be discriminatory if they create a "built-in headwind" protected groups must face and have no relevance to the prospective employee's actual qualifications to do the job. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co. : http://www.finduslaw.com/griggs_v_duke_power_co_1971_401_us_424_91_s_ct_849
You can read about "disparate impact" here: http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G702.htm
From the text: "Even where an employer is not motivated by discriminatory intent, Title VII prohibits an the employer from using a facially neutral employment practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class."
Again, you may not like how they are doing things, and that is a very valid opinion
Disparate impact on a protected class.
Their interview questions suck, but it probably stems more from the company's early days than some sinister plot to keep out older engineers. Early on they were all about data structures and algorithms. Now they are huge and I chalk it up to the initial culture that they haven't broadened their interview process. The people in at Google passed the interview process, so the company as a whole is self-selected to continue it.
ps: Using capitals would make your posts easier to read.
So is not being able to differentiate between "write" and "right" ;)
What you bring up would be valid
I'm not 40, but I'm much closer to that than 20. I would not be able to pass that interview cold if I took it today. Most people I know wouldn't be able to without refreshing their memory a bit. Therefore, it's not "Age Discrimination", is it? Unless your "protected class" is
It seems there's lots of folks who say that what they (google) are asking for in their interviews is "stupid" and "isn't what they should be asking". Well, that may well be but it's their process. If you want to work at Google, you'll need to cram a bit before the interview.
Perhaps they are looking for people who bother to take the time to bone up a bit before showing up to an interview instead of saying "I know how to look that up".
- Roach
The only time company cops were called in to "bust heads" was when strikers were beating and murdering replacement workers, or blockading company premises.
ps: Using capitals would make your posts easier to read.
;)
I do agree - and I claim carpal tunnel (really) in that typing in mostly lc is just easier on the wrists.
don't you agree?
ok, I'm showing -some- signs of age, I'll admit. which is to say, I am human. but we all will face this if we have jobs that require -so- much typing! I've been using computer keyboards since I got my first pc (trs-80) back in 1978 or so. do the math. assuming the person uses a keyboard most of the day at work and is also a computer enthusiast at home, so he logs in and continues to type a few more hours in the evening. the human body was -not- made for that kind of repetitive stress!
if there was a good auto-cap program, I would use it. is there one that works with text-area forms and such, in browsers?
at any rate, I'm not applying or a tech writer job. if I was, well, you'd have a point
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I'd rather ask them things like how their business model is going to provide continued growth and revenue or will that growth meet current burn rates to prevent bankruptcy (for startups or troubled companies), and how this position I'm interviewing for fits into the corporate vision. Not only do I want to know the answer to those questions for myself, but sometimes it's fun to watch the prima donnas swallow their tongue.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Wouldn't that also mean that a requirement of "10+ years experience" is age discrimination because it prevents a 25-year-old from getting the job?
Of course it is. However, that sort of age discrimination is not actually illegal.
C//
We need to support the Mprize (www.mprize.org) goal of slowing and then stopping and periodicaly reversing aging (first mice models, then in people) so that we can eventualy develop advance nanoech and really elimnate and reverse aging in even old people.
Ironicaly, even Google has been interested in the Mprize and invited it's founder (Aubre de gray) to give several talks on the Mprize and the research program SENS (www.sens.org) to accoplish this feat.
Cost: about 100 million to 1 billion, a fraction of the war budget in Iraq (over 1000 billion and counting!).
Perhaps even Google could and should support its workers and it's "do-no-evil" policy and suport the Mprize and show that it indeed cares about it's current world force and won't throw them to the wolves when their "clock" hits 45 to 50 years rang (like in that movie: Logans Run" !!)
Us techies know of moors law and how it doubles progress every year or so for computer tech, well, now biotech is entering an age of computerization, (DNA sequencers, gene chips, MIT biobricks etc), and is really starting to take off with eventually nanotech robots will be fixing our cells and making old people young again.
After all, Bill Gates himself could not have got his genes sequence 20 years ago, now, in less than a few years everybody could get their genes sequenced for about $1000 in their doctors or local testing labs offices, the future is hapenning now and we need to support it and make it grow. After all, if we were to develop this tech and offer it to the middle east, I bet there would be a lot less war (who would want to die in pointless war?)
Most employees were treated as just a resource, no much different to a server or a desk. In many cases people don't even have a permanent desk. If you left for a trip, you could find your desk with someone else when back. Google makes sure that you undestand that working for them is a privilege and if you don't agree, some else will instead of you.
Then you have the "culture" which to be honest felt suffocating. Everything is google here, google there... People are called googlers, new employees nooglers, you wear google clothes, you use goobuntu or goobian, you eat google cakes in the google cafeteria... Unless you are semi-retarded, it feels embarrasing and gets to your nerves. At the end, when I left and came back to the "real world" it was like a breath of fresh air.
By the way, my interview process was also the most stupid I have had in my life, including this interview where I had to solve a cards game or solve questions totally unrelated to my skills.
Yeah, thats pretty embarrassing. ;)
Well simply saying "It's their company, they can do that." is a bit silly. If they ask questions that don't reflect the real life >i?actual requirements tobe able to perform the job then clearly the questions have some other purpose. If the questions are oriented so that the typical 20 year old gets a better score than the typical 40 year old then they are defacto discriminatory based on age. Now in some cases that discrimination may be legitimate in which case it should be clearly stated in the job description and be defensible in a court of law if necessary.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Uh, you seriously think someone is going to come up with a *new* search algorithm in 10 minutes, or even 10 days? Do you understand what that would entail?
If the questions are not representative of what you would actually do on the job then they have some purpose other than determining if you are capable of doing the job. If the questions tend to partition a candidate group by age then by definition they discriminate by age. And if those results are used for hiring then the hiring process discriminates based on age. What part of this don't you get?
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
It is surprising, but I also got my PhD after 30 and even did an internship at google during the course of it. They offered me to go through what they call "conversion process" to become a regular employee after the internship finished. Everything seemed to be in order but the hiring committe did not approve my manager's hiring request. They never disclosed the motivations (actually, once that happens, everybody at google stopped answering to my e-mail, even people I thought were my friends, but that's another story about their "culture") but the only issue I could think of was my age.
If they ask questions that don't reflect the real life >i?actual requirements tobe able to perform the job then clearly the questions have some other purpose
... again, A) all the OP had to do was google "Google interview process" and they would have known exactly what they were in for. The fact that they didn't even have to foresight to do that ... speaks volumes. The process is apparently the same for everyone they interview, and it's easy to "look up" that information.
... I would have googled before I walked in the door blind, then memorized what I needed to and not had a problem. Much like any other interview, I'd have come as prepared as possible. The OP did not.
Sorry
It has *nothing to do with age*. I've met (and know) plenty of "typical 20 year olds" that would blow that interview as well. I am not exactly young , and *I* would fail that interview cold. Of course
Welcome to the real world. Life isn't fair. Sometimes you have to answer "stupid" questions that you feel aren't relevant. I've been doing so my entire life in various capacities, so I'm amazed that people here seem to think the world works like it doesn't.
- Roach
As a programmer with 30 years of experience, solid or otherwise.
How useful is a Cobal programmer today? I wouldn't pay any more for someone with Fortran experience than without, because it's entirely irrelevant. Maybe it'll settle out, but it hasn't yet. A 54 year old programmer is almost guaranteed to just be old and in the way. If they can keep a youthful mindset (and hours), great. If not, there's the iceberg, fuck off.
You're a failure. That's all there really is to it.
The only time company cops were called in to "bust heads" was when strikers were beating and murdering replacement workers, or blockading company premises.
And the women and children in the tent cities that were shot up, knocked down and set on fire, what horrible sins had they committed?
That would be true .... if it were impossible for someone in their '50s to memorize a search alg. It's not.
...
That isn't the point. Most decent grads won't have forgotten stuff like this yet. Most 50 year olds will have. Its not that 50 year olds can't relearn it in 15 seconds from a code sample or a text book... but they'll need that 15 seconds.
I'm willing to bet that if you googled, you could find some details about how google interviews
That may be true, but what if the same interview questions were posed by StartupX ?
The fact that google happens to be large and popuplar enough that their interview process is fairly well documented by its prior applicants doesn't excuse them from having bad criteria in their interview. If anything it exacerbates the problem because people like you defend their interview process by asserting that you can use these blog posts etc to prepare yourself.
The point he is making, which I concur with since I too am a rather succesful in the realm of IT member of the older-fart generation, is that the ability to recall useless trivia from memory is not a criterion for selecting useful employees, but a method of screening for "snotty nosed kids" as he put it.
I had a similar experience with Microsoft. I knew the answer to the trivia since I was once the snottiest of them all, but I simply tuned out and gave half hearted answers. I just didn't want to work for a place that couldn't tell the difference between how you interview a kid fresh out of college and a veteran. For sure you put them through the paces both, but the challenges ought to be different. Say ask the recent grad to write a tree traversal, ask the seasoned veteran what would he/she do if a project under them is stalling and shipping date is a month away.
If your assertion that people are simply "unprepared" for the wholly "reasonable", "job skill relevant" and "completely age non-discriminatory" interview process at Google is true, then I am sure Google has a healthy mix of technical employees which spans accross various age groups, with middle-aged people (good experience at reasonable salary levels) being the bulk of employees ...
Right?
Right?!
I do not know what it it is whith all these Google worshippers around here willing to completely destroy their own personal credibility in defense of a emotionless corporate entity which is incapable of having even one singular good thought about its martyrdom-seeking defenders.
Wake up and realize that Google is just another large corporation, like many others were before it, and many others will be after it, with its own unique mountains of follies, mistakes and prejudices of its employees and bosses. Your personal emotional attachment to such an artificial, amoral, sentience-free entity is just making you look sad and silly.
Unless, of course, you hold a good chunk of Google's stock, in which case you are simply duplicitous.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
It sounds like you work in a mid sized company with a stagnant IT department.
I pity you.
Experience counts. I can't tell you how many kids I've seen who only know Linux and think there is nothing better because they simply haven't even seen the alternatives. They spend countless hours trying to hammer everything in sight when they needed a screw driver. That old guy has probably forgotten more than you've ever known.
Here's a thought for you: I was here before Linux existed, I'm here now doing Linux, and I shall be here after Linux is gone and only pushed by old guys who only knew Linux and refused to learn anything else. Don't be one of those guys.
Linux is just the thing now. Tech moves fast and being inexperienced is not the advantage you seem to think it is.
And finally, a cliche for you to ponder as well, "What is old is new again".
Nothing is ever new in IT. Just new to you.
Is your Kool Aid blue or the original red?
I know everyone else is really loving the new blue Kool Aid but I'm a traditionalist so I always go for the red.
Do No Kool Aid! That's my motto!
again, you can store 10x or 100x info or a few links to the info. I know which is the better way. after years and years in the field, you can only hold onto so much. you start to condense info and keep fuzzier and fuzzier pointers to the info. that does slow down the info access but not by any meaningful amount.
look, if I'm an auctioneer, speed talking is important. speed-coding is never important - and it leads to errors. impressing people is very academic but when writing SUPPORTABLE code, you often want a dumbed-down block of code that can be read at 3am and not some obtuse 'impress-me' bit of code.
when I write code, I NEVER have dragons hanging over my back watching what I do, letter by letter. its just not how the working/engineering world works.
come on and be serious. their interviews are not realistic no matter how you try to justify it. its kids interviewing adults and trying to 'have a party' all the while. that'll show them 'grups'*. right?
*) ST olde-school ref.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Where has Google said that? Making up stuff makes you the definition of an idiot.
I have long been leery of some of the things Google has done, all the while saying "Do no evil". I know the concept of discrimination being evil has already been discussed here, but that is just the icing on the cake they have been baking for years.
Google has collected and archived so much personal data -- much of it collected in ways that could honestly be called "sneaky" -- that they practically invited the government to subpoena their records... which it did. They did not record that personal data for the benefit of their users. It is for the benefit of themselves, and their corporate customers who pay for that data. When you factor in their methods and intentions, that definitely falls on the "evil" side of the fence.
Google agreed to help China censor its internet, claiming that "we would lose business otherwise" and "if we did not do it, someone else would." Now, wait... since when is one allowed to just dump one's ethics for those reasons? People of higher integrity (or less greed) would have said "No!" Trading ethics for money is "classic" evil behavior. There are so many stories and movies and even ancient fairy tales about that, you would think people would see it coming...
Their youth does not impress me. They have behaved like a bunch of greedy young punks. Their "new" services are things that people have been talking about for many years but never bothered to actually do... for good reasons! They were bad ideas. Anybody who wants to do word processing on someone else's web server is an idiot. That is just one example, of course, but other than some searching and Google Maps (which was really just an incremental improvement of what Microsoft was already providing), they are not doing anything I want. And I think I will go back to Yahoo for my searches.
Google had a very good idea in their original search algorithms... then they took that idea and grew it into a behemoth of a company that is unethical, of little interest, and hardly worth my time.
I joined Google some months ago. My experience has been very pleasant. We do *not* get told to "work all waking hours". I actually tend to arrive at the office at 11 and leave at 7. I think it is quite the opposite, specially compared with my previous experience at a big name software company (one of those 3 or 5 that show the most in Slashdot).
I did not prepare for the interviews in any way, other than the obvious "get good rest" or "make sure to have paper/pencil for phone screens". I always got the feeling that the interviewers wanted to see if I could quickly compute the complexity of *ANY* algorithm (once I understood the algorithm), *NOT* if I could remember the complexity of any particular algorithm. Sure, people who can't compute the complexity of, say, quick sort will whine that knowing the complexity of qsort or reimplementing qsort is irrelevant, but I think the point was to see if, given a reasonable task, you can quickly computer an algorithm to solve it and then estimate its complexity.
Furthermore, during my interviews I very often replied to questions stating that I didn't know the particulars for something and that I would look them up in a manual. The interviewers would often just tell me what I would find. For example, I would say "uh, I don't remember exactly the parameters that system call foo takes, I know it receives at least the quux and a bar, but I think it receives some more things, right?" or "Well, I don't remember the specific order of the columns in the output of the foo command, but I would find the one that has quux". The focus, again, was not to see if I was familiar with the details, it was whether I would be able to solve a larger problem (and the interviewers were happy to give me any details I needed).
I will very soon have to start interviewing candidates myself and I think I will do interviews pretty much like the ones I had, with the goal of being able to tell whether a given candidate has all the skills required to do a job similar to the one I do. For that, I think interviews like the ones I had are an excellent tool. I won't care if you can *remember* the complexity of qsort, but if you can't even solve a basic algorithmic problem like reverting a list or shuffling a vector or, well, sorting a vector, and then state the complexity of your algorithm, I don't think your skills would be a good match for the requirements of the type of job I have.
I just turned 50 this summer, and I've never felt more appreciated as an engineer than the last couple of years.
As other people here have commented, the real secret is to simply be _very_ good at what you do: Keep up your old skills, and make sure you learn (i.e. teach yourself) something brand new every year or two.
Over the last 5+ years I've been the "IT Fire Brigade Chief" in the Fortune 500 company I work for, i.e. I get all the really interesting problems, all the cases that none of the others can figure out, and all the bleeding edge stuff that doesn't fit nicely into one of the existing departments.
I also get to spend discretionary time writing and optimizing system code, so I really don't see any reason to complain. (I've worked on one of AES contenders http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/~helger/research/aes/, the windows port of NTP http://ntp.org/, HD-DVD decoding, Ogg Vorbis optimization as well as lots of other kinds of code. I am also the Scandinavian coordinator of the Confluence Project http://confluence.org/.)
My role model within the company retired a few years ago, 67 years old, and he's still enthusiastic about brand new technology.
OTOH, living in Norway I also know that it would be effectively impossible to fire me, unless I completely stopped coming into work, and started doing drugs instead.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Agreed. If the question was about high-level design ("What kinds of algorithms would be best for this kind of problem?") rather than low-level implementation ("Write a merge-sort in ruby - now!") then I'd see more value to testing rote recall ability. That is the kind of stuff that an engineer should generally be knowledgeable about - how to solve particular problems in the best way.
When it comes to writing code it is always best to recycle and look-up details - you're less likely to make a mistake.
When it comes time to doing high-level design it is good to be aware of a number of different ways to solve a problem so that you don't pick the wrong one out of ignorance.
Google is doing itself a disservice by focusing on qualities that don't really matter that much in the real world. They should focus more on thinking skills, higher-level knowledge (that tends to come more from experience), the ability to adapt work done by others (either by borrowing code, integrating 3rd-party products, etc), and the ability to work well in their environment (teamwork/leadership/etc). Sure, the ability to design/code at a low level is important in many jobs as well - but if you want to test that give somebody an obscure problem to design an algorithm around - not a textbook one.
You have the same powers over a cleaner or a baby-sitter. You don't control the conditions of your food and other vendors, but you have the same full power to fire and hire. So, let me repeat the question: would you like the government to be reviewing your hiring, dining, entertainment, and shopping choices, to ensure non-discrimination and other fairness?
All of these — except for the head-busting, which is just plain illegal anyway and needs no additional regulation — were due to less-developed industries. They went away not because of the laws, but because the life in general changed. Even if we were to repeal the anti-child labor laws today, there'll be few children working. As for 14-hour workdays — I, and many people I know, pull these regularly. Fortunately, it is legal for us to do so, and I certainly do want it to remain my choice...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The latter is for a management position.
I was interviewing for a VP (reporting to Balmer or one below) position. I don't know if I would go as far as calling that age discrimination though. It certainly was foolish on their part, but discrimination? not sure about that.
In the case of the Ludlow Massacre, the women and children were in a camp that had been set up near the mouth of a canyon leading to the coal camps for the purpose of harassing replacement workers. They suffocated in a pit beneath a tent when the tent was set on fire.
The court proceedings make them look like they have no clue about how to handle the situation. If the case goes to trial, more stuff will be disclosed that reveals their lack of organization.
I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately, as I've recently hit a new decade. It's all about the context. Put someone with just slightly more experience in with a bunch of newbies, and they'll be a natural leader who can guide them forward. Put someone with tons more experience in with the same bunch of newbies, and it'll be a disaster.
Just imagine if the (smart) CEO of the company was dropped into the middle of an IT or development department. At the first meeting where they debated whether to use this or that methodology, the CEO would probably tell them it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference -- the most important thing for this department is to hit this deadline, get this feature close enough to finished that the salespeople can add it to their checklist, or conform to some obscure government regulation to avoid months of red tape for some other department. Doesn't matter how true it is, that viewpoint wouldn't be welcome.
Think of some area where you have many years of experience -- XML, Java, coding standards, Linux, whatever. Chances are you have dealt with aspects that have been the subject of heated community debates. Chances are also good that you have evolved your position over time, maybe to the point of reaching precisely the opposite conclusion than you originally would have. Or maybe you've even switched back and forth several times. (It's better to get code correct than make it fast; but fast code delivered early can make a good first impression in the market; but sloppy code is hard to refactor; but well-planned code can be refactored successfully.) So what happens if that if you are only a little more experienced than your peers, maybe you can convince them that your counterintuitive suggestion makes sense. But if you are a lot more experienced, it's hard to get across the reasoning for your counterintuitive suggestion, if that involves thinking through several levels like that.
One of Google's pet interview questions is "what is the biggest challenge you've faced". If you've got a couple of years of work experience, you've probably only had one challenging project and the answer is a slam dunk. If you've got many years of experience, it gets more complicated -- do you want the biggest teamwork challenge, the toughest code to write, the most ridiculous deadline...? And some of the most impressive accomplishments don't really fit that answer, because by now it's routine to crank out great code under ridiculous deadlines while dodging company politics. Google might prefer to hear that your last startup crashed and burned, but now you've really learned your lesson. (Lesson #2 of 50 that the old-timer has internalized.)