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Age Bias In IT: the Reality Behind the Rumors
CWmike writes "Is high tech really that tough on older workers, or are they simply not pulling their weight in an industry that never stops innovating? Age bias: Some consider it IT's dirty little secret, or even IT's big open secret. Older workers have been hit harder by the recession. '[Age bias is] something that no [employer] talks about. But it's a reality in tech that if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000 a year, the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long,' says Vivek Wadhwa, who currently holds academic positions at several universities, including UC Berkeley, Duke and Harvard. Wadhwa's observation indicates that age bias is a simplistic label for a complicated set of factors that influence the job prospects for senior tech employees."
The truth is that many of the managers in IT are younger and are not comfortable managing older workers.
Best regards.
I am over 45 but I work for a company with a HQ in japan. The work environment is completely opposite when it comes to age. In our shop if a older guy speaks everyone just shuts the hell up and does what he says.
Where I work we would gladly hire a C programmer, of any age, if we could find one.
Do you mean not willing to work 100hr weeks for 30 hrs pay?
$150k clearly goes a lot farther in your fantasy world than in reality.
We would kill for more Cobol programmers. Many of our big iron people have retired and we need to replace them. None of the younger applicants have the experience that we need to maintain our mainframe systems... and they don't want to learn. These systems are not going away but the human resources are.
Especially since a lot of IT managers in their 20s are usually the ones who arn't so great at producing actual software so are slowly moving sideways into project management before they get found out and don't like being picked up on stupid technical decisions by someone old enough to be their dad. I speak from personal experience.
There is an age bias in IT, always has been. It is my observation that this engenders a younger, and therefore, less experienced staff who have no access to older people who have a lot to offer in terms of their experience and developed skills. And so one sees these younger developers struggle with issues that an elder would have a ready solution to. In the development shop I work in it constantly amazes and frustrates me to see the inexperience manifest itself in the functional code delivered. FRs and NFRs that I take for granted are missed completely, requiring a return to the codebase to implement later, if at all.
It is not a matter of pulling weight. More, it is a different weight that the elder will pull, and that is not measured in sheer volume of code, but in quality and the reduction not only in gaps and defects, but also improved long-term productivity. Intangibles in a project-led culture that IT has become, where the load is transferred to in-production where disproportionate levels of human support are required to keep systems and services running.
soon they will want a post doc for help desk Level 1 and then can you a few year later.
$150k a year goes very far where I live. Correspondingly, though, there are no jobs which pay $150k a year here so the point is moot.
I would have though that anyone that is 45, making 150k and writing COBOL probably already developed most of the system they're working with and is in a pretty safe place until someone decides to drop SAP on top of everything.
Business is driven almost entirely by profit. If you're a highly paid person who has skills that aren't in the critical areas I'm at a loss for why any company should feel compelled to keep you on, regardless of your age. Knowing one or two languages, IMHO, is a suicide move. Besides, as one who helps technical and business folks achieve their goals, I don't want single-skilled people like programmers. Like it or not, I can get those a dime a dozen overseas. The needs for the organizations I've been with have been a mix of business process, design, and technical knowledge. Evolve or be unemployed. Or relocate. People bitching about there being no jobs often haven't explored relocation and there are jobs, just not in your locale perhaps.
Perhaps that was true in some startups, but eventually every organization starts hiring based on 'have you done that job before'.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Age is a minor issue if you ask me. A larger issue is that you tend to hit a wall on compensation around your early 30's. Meaning, my experience is that around $130K consistantly is about the best you can do working for someone. Once you reach that barrier, the logical next step is to start building/marketing your own products/services. Personally, I am not a big fan of services because you have to keep your work performance at such a rate that burnout because a big issue. Also, being an older developer, the advantage you have over younger developers is that hopefully you have saved a good part of that high salary rather than blowing it on fast cars and houses so that it opens up options for you...
In short... As a developer, you need to either grow or dwindle. Some do not have the skills/desire to move forward. For those, the decline in wages and stagnation of performance is clearly going to be a problem over the long haul.
Haha same here.
I think the GP lives on one of the coasts where renting a shithole apartment costs as much as maintaining a small aircraft.
But if you don't live somewhere insanely expensive, $50k is a pretty damn good year's income, so $150k is pretty damn good for 3 years' income.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
!
know why?
- I even didnt get an answer any more when saying how old I am
When I faked my age to 35 and still sent my list of features, they eagerly invited me for interviews
to withdraw with an: sorry we already filled the job
not saying: with someone cheaper!
I work as an interface between public and private sector IT. All the young and lower middle age guys work in the private sector. They move around a lot, pay varies wildly, do completely different jobs one to the next that require completely new skills(granted you must learn new skills in IT to even keep a job long term in most cases). Once they are over the hill, I see most of them move towards public sector IT jobs. Stable work, much lower new skill development required, steady pay, good bennies(you know, cuz you're old), and a pension plan so you can say you'll retire with 20 years in that pension at 70. Is it age bias as much as the natural progression of things when you see that kind of migration day in and day out? I don't think so. At some age you just get tired of all the learning, you get bad at remembering all those new things, or you just want to cruise out your final years. Employers like to make that decision for you before you do it to them, is all.
The problem with this industry (and not just this one in fact) is that while the industry never stops innovating, the individuals on the other hand hate innovation like nothing else. All of them? Of course not! Otherwise we wouldn't have any innovation. But most of ordinary workers do. And why do they hate it? Because it ultimately means they have to learn something new just when they finally got used to the old way of doing things. Do you find it surprising that most of the big things in computer science that we today take for granted, like the OOP, lambda calculus, or even high level languages needed about 20 years to get mainstream acceptance? It is roughly equivalent to a generation of programmers. If people refuse to constantly learn better ways of doing their job then the only real way to "learn" those things as a company is to hire new programmers for whom those new ways are just as natural as the relational model for you and me. It is not at all surprising that you won't find a lot of old and experienced programmers who can write high performance servers based on event loops, because not so long time ago we all thought that the only way to write servers was to use threads. Most of the people never change their opinions so if you want a programmer who understands how to write high performance servers then you will find it very difficult to hire someone below 40. The loom industry in the 1700s were also "age-biased" because the old people refused to learn how to use power looms. The history keeps repeating.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
you're an idiot.
you cannot see that your company is burning YOU and others out.
but you can call it 'pace' all you want. but its the company LAUGHING at you. you will be disposed of soon enough. so save me a laugh at your expense when you get your pink slip.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think it greatly depends on your domain. If you're a C programmer with 20-25 or more years experience with operating systems you're eminently employable. Extremely so, in fact. If your experience is application software on the other hand, then you're almost certainly in trouble. However, since this is about IT and not technology companies I think the finger is squarely on the second group. C is probably on its way out of IT - as a systems programmer I think that makes a ton of sense, myself. It may never be out of the systems space though.
As for COBOL, I think he's flat out wrong. If you can program COBOL you'll have a job - programmers are retiring faster than the systems they maintain. And, no, it wouldn't make any sense for someone new in the field either, because chances are good they'd outlive the systems. I bet just about every COBOL shop is hiring.
This is all Matt Groening's fault. Before the "Abe Simpson" character debuted, older Americans were treated with respect in every industry, from modelling to aeronautics, as they are in every other nation in the world.
Gently reply
And if everyone could retire at 40, there wouldn't be as much to lose in running your body into the ground. Those people willing to work 70-80 hours a week aren't even willing to think about making it to middle age and still having a job.
Yeah, I think that that statement if you're still writing Cobol code the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long was just a quip-- the author of the article was trying to be funny, and that was the oldest language he could think of. I expect that the workers who can maintain Cobol probably aren't likely to be laid off without warning, because they can't be replaced by twenty-one-year-old coders who are willing to work for ramen noodles and a vague promise of a stake in some future IPO.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I see a ton of you wanting C jobs here in the US, and a place hiring said coders. Look no further than Wal-mart. They are basically begging for programmers with C knowledge for their Store Systems. Plenty of spots open there if you want to do C.
$150k clearly goes a lot farther in your fantasy world than in reality.
Depends on where you live:
In SanFran or NTC? $150k will get you by, but not by too much. You could rent a somewhat comfy apartment with it and not have to drive too far to work,
Up here in Portland (OR), $150k is very comfy... not quite a king's ransom, but enough to get a decent 3-bdrm house in the 'burbs. Here, you can do pretty well on $80k/year.
Back where I'm from (Northwest Arkansas/Ozarks), $150k/year can get you a nice big house with acreage, all paid off on a 5-year note. You could then retire in 10 years on that income. Out there, you can live rather cozy on $40k/year.
In some parts of Mississippi, West Virginia, and Alabama? $150k/yr income can let you live like a near-deity. Out there, folks get by rather cozily on $25-30k/yr.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I work for a small IT consulting company. One of the owners is my age or a year older (I'm 44) and one is ten years younger.
One or two are 5 years younger but with similar life situations (married, working wife, young children) but most of them are late 20s, single and unmarried.
When you talk to these guys its almost like you have nothing in common outside of technology; several work events seemed really tailored towards this age group (ie, Christmas party held at Dave & Busters). I chose just not to go -- either I went without my wife, or we spent $50 on a babysitter to drive to a video game place I would probably amuse myself in but wouldn't seek out and where my wife would flat-out refuse to go.
I sometimes wonder if this kind of "age gap" isn't part of the problem -- younger tech managers want a "company spirit" and somehow find older workers uninterested in the video games, nerf guns and all the other frankly immature bullshit that passes for "employee engagement".
Hey old timers, if you're a US citizen and clearable, there's plenty of "work" for you in DoD contracting.
Want to be on the cutting edge of 1990s technology? Want to legitimately justify never doing anything? Afraid of new technology? Does the prospect of building a web app got you running scared? Enjoy being bogged down in process? Do you like the Kafka-eske labyrinth of OPSEC? Like being stuck on ancient platforms because of the specter (and paperwork) of "configuration management"? Do you enjoy doing activities like filling out justification forms more than you like design and programming? Do you look forward to having all of your ideas stymied? Is professional sclerosis appealing to you?
Then look no further! You can have all this and more by going to work for a big DoD contractor on a big multi-year contract.
You too can enjoy working in an environment where there are very few technical people under 30 years of age, and where everybody else is pretty much a loser.
I can't wait to get out of this f.cking job. I'd rather be broke and working for a startup. At least I'd be doing something constructive.
I've re-educated myself every few years, as needed from punched cards all the way to tablets. From Fortran all the way to C++, JS, CSS, etc. I've worked for the same company for 35 years, made it through over 20 layoffs. I think it is skill, training, work ethic, and yes, personality. I've moved to the tech ladder. I volunteer in the community and have a happy, close family life. Maybe, some of you should consider coming to the Hidden Silicon Vally, Oklahoma. Where the houses are reasonable, the taxes are lower, the recreation is abundant, the air clean. Our rush hour is from 5:00 to 5:05.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
It has nothing to do with your age. If you have been working on a Domino Mail server for the last 10 years, Im sure as shit not going to hire you to manage my 2010 Exchange cluster. If you have been writing C or COBAL for the last 10 years , why would i hire you to do my .NET programming?
it all boils down to "Do you have experience in ____________" if you reply NO, then your skills are not needed.
and BTW, just hired a 50+ year old DBA, who has all the UPDATED skills we are looking for. Didn't think twice about age.
No, and how the heck do you expect me to if everyone keeps asking exactly that question.
Seriously. I've been sitting in too many job interviews (as the interviewer, or actually, as the guy who assesses the person being interviewed by HR because HR knows pretty much NOTHING what I can use, hence I demanded to sit in there for the interview. I got kinda tired of the "javascript experts" they sent me for work that requires intimate knowledge of x86 assembler). And whenever we're hiring for a "junior" something (i.e. entry level, assistant position) and I hear HR ask exactly this question I feel like jumping at her throat. NO, of course he did NOT do this job before. Why the hell would someone with previous experience apply for a junior/apprentice level position at all?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Perhaps if you're 20 or 25, making $150K a year, and never plan to marry or have kids. As one of the old curmudgeons (not a coder, thank God) I can tell you that $150K, while comfortable (in many parts of the country) even with a sizable family, will NOT let you retire early. At least not if you worked your way to that pay level starting from typical 20-something slave wages.
I'm trying to see where the age discrimination plays a part here. They are saying "If you are over 45 and still writing in C or Cobol" your job is at risk? What does age have to do with this at all? Is the over 45 even worth mentioning besides for shock value? Let me rephrase it, "If you haven't kept up with modern technology and aren't willing to adapt to the companies new needs, but still want to be paid the same 145K salary you started with, your job might be at risk". I know every story sells more when they call it discrimination, but this dosn't sound like it. Discrimination is 2 candidates apply for the same job, and the company hires the one that has less of the needed skills, based on a different factor (age/gender/race). At least from what I am gathering, they are saying "a company would like to hire someone for 60k that will know the latest technology over someone who wants 140k and does not know what he needs for the job. How is this discrimination? That is like calling it sexism when a company will hire a man who has 5 years experience in C++, Java and SQL will likely be chosen over a woman who knows Microsoft Excel for a senior programing position. You aren't doomed if you are older, you have to study and keep up with modern languages. News at 11, technology moves fast, to work in technology you have to keep up with it or be replaced.
FTA:
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
When I got my first "real" development position the age of death was about 40. That was late 90s. Now it's 50-55? Seems there is an improvement.
The first thing in a technical interview is the evaluation of whether you know your stuff...
I now have 18 years of professional experience strictly in C++. I know it inside and out. I can't tell you how many interviews I've been on which I was asked why you wouldn't want any virtual functions in a class. Most answer, "because you don't need any." The real answer is in the event you are concerned for space you don't want the overhead of the vptr. Now what's the diff of a vptr and vtable? I've been told over and over again by the interviewers nobody gets either of those right.
Why exceptions? if you cannot give more than 5 good reasons then you're not going to make it.
Why not exceptions? If you cannot answer it then you're not going to make it!
Why is inline good? Why is it bad? explain both!
What's the difference between a stl list and an intrusive list implemented by Boost?
C++0x now C++11... What's an rvalue reference and how can it help with the dynamic resizing of a vector?
When should you use a map vs a hash map... Ahhh... now it's science not the language. Can't answer that when you are getting up there in age... they are not interested.
Multi-threading... What are the different types of locking? Explain them! What's an atomic operation? Lockless sync?
The second thing is how flexible you are. Your age is going to make them sensitive towards that. They will find things you don't know and judge your response. I've found "I don't know but this is my guess and this is how I would discover the real answer." The guess tells them how well you can extrapolate which is incredibly important in software development (i.e. gleaning relevant information from poorly written docs, which NEVER happens!) The second tells them that you are used to finding new things and utilizing them.
The third thing is your energy level and excitement. If you're an old goat you're going to cause problems. If they see the sparkle in your eye as you solve the problems they put before you then they won't see your age.
It all comes down to perception of reality. If in reality you are "old" then it is up to you to make them see young. If you are young then you are lucky, they are going to see young.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Oh come off it. How many years would you have to work on $150k/year to match earning median income until typical retirement?
I am trolling
That's the question. Who's willing to cut your salary, work more hours, expend more money training, live lower status level, expend more money with the kids education, pay pension, do a lot of trashing-code-like-hell-low-quality-web job?
This profession had better days.
So, a number of salary surveys have shown that engineers hit their peak salary around the age of 45-55, but it then declines. This is quite the opposite of very many fields - lawyers, doctors, etc can work until they are 70.
My son is planning to major in math and just take a minor in computer science, then work as a data analyst. What do you think?
UK companies do the vast majority of their recruitment through employment agencies - usually specialist ones where at least one of the staff can at least spell 'C' (though none can spell 'Perl'), even though none of them actually know what it is.
That allows the employers to keep their hands clean, disavowing an knowledge of the dirty practices that the agencies use every day: lying to candidates, fabricating vacancies (bait and switch), age/gender/race/disability discrimination and salary "negotiations" (see lying to candidates) all on the basis of "we don't think you'd fit in" or "that vacancy's been filled".
If you do leave your age off your CV, or "mistype" it down by 10 or 15 years, you'll get interviews but no offers on the basis that you lied on your application. If you put in a tru age of 40+ you won't even get an acknowledgement email - and if you phone up, you'll be fobbed off.
The agencies act as the gatekeeper. Most companies won't recruit directly and agencies come and go with such fleeting regularity that you can't nail a complaint to them - just like cowboy builders go bankrupt every few years to avoid liability for shoddy work - though oddly, they always seem to employ the same names and "type" of staff.
To see if there is an age bias, just look at the profile of the current employees. Although software development / support / design has been mainstream since the early 80's, few of the technical staff in any major organisation are over 35. That can't possibly be because all the older ones have been promoted (they haven't, the age of the supervisors is similar). it's simply that the staff who did start out in the 80's or 90's have largely been tossed on the scrapheap, or somehow don't meet the "fit in" criteria for vacancies.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The discussions seem to be pretty biased towards coding. In the sysadmin side of things, I don't tend to see a ton of age bias. Where I do see it is where you get 50-somethings who are applying to be sysadmins, but because they moved career's 5 or 10 years ago from something completely different. But otherwise, a late-40's or 50's sysadmin is usually in a pretty senior position, because they usually have a lot of root experience. I see a TON of older people when I do various training courses. They're excellent teachers simply because they have so much experience and can bring so much depth to the course. But I'm not a coder, so I can't comment to the coding side of things.
But it's a reality in tech that if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000.
It is basic business, if you know C (or pick your language) and are just a programmer and well "experienced" making 150K, a company looks at your as an expensive asset. You may think you have 20 years of experience and add value, but chances are you really have 5 years of experience 4 times over. The company will just replace you with a 5 year experienced programmer or new-grad and pay them half your salary.
You need to be more than just a good programmer these days to stay in the top-earning spots. You need to constantly evolve and gain experience and never rest on your laurels. It isn't an age thing, it's a laziness/comfort thing. It's becoming more of a youth-entitlement thing, but in the end the result is the same. You stop moving forward in your contributions and expect to have your salary keep moving forward. Companies know this and weed these people out.
I have seen several types of IT people in my experience.
- At my first job the oldest guy was almost 50. But he hadn't learned anything new in the last 25 years, and was still operating like it was 1985. This guy would have a problem finding another job.
- At my current job I have a colleague who's 68, near retirement, but just learned Python. He's an expert in certain fields, and keeps up-to-date on programming techniques. I highly respect him, and would rather work with him than the almost 50 year old from my first job.
- Another guy of about 50 has basically moved out of programming and now is system admin as he couldn't keep up.
- Another guy of about 60 is very skilled in C++ and moderately in Java and Python. His code is of very high quality, even baffles big name vendors (we do cooperate with some).
- Some also have the skills to move to management positions, but not every programmer has the mindset for that.
So overall it's a mixed bag, but I find that those who are willing to keep learning and stay on top of their game, are valued employees. This is a two way process, the employer should also invest in their employees. But then an older programmer can be a vary valuable asset, given their experience. Especially because as long as you avoid RSI problems, they can stay highly productive well past the age of 70. (yes we have a officially retired guy here who still contributes).
Sure there are still a few places where they value a C, FORTRAN or COBOL programmer, but in most places it's C++, C# or Java, with some PHP, SQL and Python mixed in. If you keep updating your skill set, I think you can find employment even as an older programmer. Isaac Asimov told me to never stop learning new things. I think he was right.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
So how many of software people end up starting their own companies and developing their own lines of products or doing projects (and end up hiring more people as well)?
You can't handle the truth.
I can vouch for this.
I've got two kids to put through college - and they are both very skilled and capable of going to some of the best schools in the country where their combined bills could come to $500,000.
Then there's retirement - potentially without much social security thanks to the far right.
Then there's the possibility of getting an injury or illness - again, with very little safety net.
I'd do far better living off $60k in western europe.
Except for those just starting out with no experience, this is true in all industries.
If you're a company trying to tighten your belt in a recession, you are not going to lay off the people with enough experience to do the job, who are young enough to be ambitious and energetic, and who have relatively lower salaries. You are going to lay off those who are older and slower (let's face it, once you get into your 40's, and especially beyond them, you slow down), who have a lot of knowledge and experience (the bosses always figure they have the greater knowledge and experience, anyway), but who are larger compensation relative to the less experienced.
When I was laid off my (non-IT) job at the height of the recession, a couple of the vice presidents semi-joked that all that would be left of the company would be the partners and young kids, none of them particularly good at doing the day-to-day work.
I'm turning 50 this year. Have a good full time job and more side work than I can do. But I have an advantage, I didn't go to college so I never got a piece of paper saying I am an engineer, I have to prove it everyday! I learned C from the K & R book, then C++ as it came along. I learned Java in 96 or 97. PHP around 2003. Learning Scala these days. I can administer networks databases, and, servers of most types (I know several dead operating systems and languages). Because I never stop learning and I never refuse to do something just because I don't know how. I just say up front, I don't know that API, it will take a little longer. I love to do the things I don't know. Plus I don't live in a world that has a cleanly defined line between management and contributor. I have moved back and forth many times. I currently have a VP title in a smaller company, but spend most of my time writing java code, and when something like a DNS record needs to be changed or a new router needs to be configured, I just do it. I used to have to find the manuals, now I can pull it up on my phone. No excuses. Flexibility is what it takes to keep your career going as you get older. I have worked for big industry players as both an engineer and as a manager. Those companies don't always last and neither does any single technology, the only constant is change. If you don't love change, get out of this business.
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know." Mark Twain
For $150k a year, it goes pretty damn far in the real world. I could retire at 50.
Then again, unlike people making $150k, I don't own a $750k house with a balloon payment that doubled the mortgage. If that's the real world, then I guess all the "Insightful" mods are in foreclosure on taking on bad mortgage loans.
However, in my fantasy world, my mortgage is easily maintainable with a household income of just $70k a year. And in that world, $150k would pay the house off in 10 years, and bank a 401k in half the time for only one working adult in that house, with both able to retire at 45 or 50.
If reality only encompasses the Bay Area, you might have a point, supposing that "fantasy" is the rest of us, or the 50% of the world that lives on less than $2 a day. Haha, silly fantasy world, nobody really lives on less than $150k a year, right?
I8-D
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it probably has a lot more to do with the $150,000 a year salary versus the age. It has been a trend for a long time now that companies are cutting salaries and benefits of employees to reduce overhead costs and improve the bottom line/profit. If a company can bring in one of the millions of unemployed Americans to code C, COBOL, or your language of choice for less money, you bet they are going to do it. It doesn't take a professor affiliated with multiple universities to figure that one out...
If I was making $150k living in STL, I would be banging 12 gram rocks like Charlie Sheen everyday. Not everywhere is as expensive as NY.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
150k a year sounds sweet, but compare to the cost of living. 150k a year is worth jack if you need those 150k just to survive, to pay your rent, your mortgage, your car, your utilities and so on.
What matters is, how much is left after all bills are paid.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have a boat B-)
I have to unroll it and inflate it, but then I'll be on a boat BITCH!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
...then I guess we are screwed.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What, I can't wear my Dr.Who T-shirt?!
Do I need to get a shirt for some current hip-hop guy.
150k is even more than I earn, and I am earning quite well for my area. Of course, I only need about 15k a year to live, so there's a lot of money left over after everything is said, done and paid.
Only knowing how much someone earns is pointless if you don't know what he needs to get by and pay his running costs.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, are you're like telling me that I'm right or wrong? I'm confused. I was expressing the reality of the situation, not the recititude of it. You seem to be confirming exactly what I said, but lead off with a 'No, and how the heck', so it seems weird.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I once had a job where I was the last technical person on staff, and it was heartbreaking to watch all my friends (100+) get the red-slip one by one, just because the Government signed a newer followup contract, closed the old one, and hadn't done the necessary expenditure justifications under the new contract. So many lives ruined by a single Government signature on one single piece of paper. It's sad, what simple economics can force corporate management do.
As someone who is a couple years away from the black balloons I'd like to add, fitting in. I've had two situations where I went on interviews to meet the team. They were all in their early twenties with the exception of one. The exceptions wasn't old enough to drink. Technology has an "in" crowed. If your significantly older than the group they will not feel comfortable with you. You have to communicate with the people you work with. Age is a huge factor with the way you communicate. Take the three, brief and narrow, examples of how different generations communicate below. Hopefully, they will help you see the barrier I'm referring to.
The first where all about the hardware. They knew the Heathkit catalog like their calendar. For some, I'd go as far as to say, "it was their calendar." These/we folks communicated on BBS's and Gopher. Email and Newsgroups were new and cool. If you knew how to use them, and talked about MIPS and registers, DMA and IRQs, and the latest bus and memory technology, you were "in".
The second generation were mad gamers. They might not have known hardware outside of what processor or graphics cards were the best for gaming but they could build an IPX, and eventually IP, network in a heart beat. BBS's and Newsgroups where old and grubby things of the past. BB wha? Goph who? ICQ, IRC, and multiplayer games where/are their method of communication. If you could network and game you were "in".
The third generation could care less about the hardware. The amount of storage on a device or if it is capable of performing a multimedia function is as deep as they go in that direction. They are all about the communication. I'd go as far as saying, "they are one with communication." A device's technical stats are interpreted by how does it fit in with my music, movies, friendship network. You know your "in" with this crowed because they will have "friended" you.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I hire people based on their real abilities and attitudes.
Anything that's related to appearance is definitely useless.
All that happens because it's very rare to find people that's really able to understand abilities and real meat.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Put your hair in a pony tail and wear a tie-dye t-shirt to your next interview. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
60,000 USD
or
37,018 GBP - Not bad wage. The cost of living in the UK means you'll feel poor; but as you say we get a health care. You still need to save for retirement and you'll not be able to afford to buy a tiny tiny house on your own.
You're right, but what options does he have? Almost all companies operate at the same 'pace' these days.
You can start your own company and then try to compete with the others that treat employees as consumables...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Same here - our brand new 3 BDR house was $110K, so a salary of 150K would allow us to sock away a million bucks in twenty years for retirement. As it stands, my husband and I make a combined $60K, of which the majority of my income goes to student loan payments...
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
The truth is that many of the managers in IT are younger and are not comfortable managing older workers.
That's one truth, not the only truth.
50K is enough? Do you have kids? Are you planning to send them to your local community college?
Tell your son to major in math and minor in finance. Much better combination.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Not always - there's a fair number of people who were great at the technical aspects of their jobs who were promoted to managers, despite their complete and utter lack of people management skills. I've found the best software developers usually end up making the worst managers, yet that doesn't stop many companies from choosing who to promote like that.
If he wants to stay in academia, great, if he wants to get into the software industry, he better take that math VERY seriously to work in the algorithm portions of software: compression or crypto, and sometimes data mining. If his math isn't up to snuff to really wrestle with those things, it will be unlikely his software skills will be at the ready for serious industry work without more significant post-grad industry experience vs that of a CS major. Though from interviews I've done, pure CS doesn't mean you know much more than syntax these days.. but maybe that depends on the particular school you go to.
I guess one thing I would say as well is, anyone who can wrap their head around pointers and recursion and make the step past those concepts, then they are among the rare few who truly belong doing software work and should go CS all the way.
See this post:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2409998&cid=37285262
We don't all live in NYC or SF.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The sickness of American companies. Middle management composed mostly of feather merchants. If you do not fit into their feathery kingdom, out you go.
This is so much horse hockey. I’m a 44 year old software architect and have no trouble make a 6 figure salary. As a consultant I change the company I’m working for regularly and don’t see any age bias. What I do see is a work environment that many over 40 workers do not like.
1) It is a learning business. The day you are not willing to learn the newest technology or language you are going to lose your job. Many over 40 workers get complacent and stop learning.
2) You must earn your salary. You can’t work as a programmer and expect 10% raises every year if you are not adding value. If you have been promoted to senior developer because you’ve been there that long but, can’t really do the job you are likely to be laid off.
3) Most new developers are crap. They might know the language but, they don’t have real world experience building applications that meet requirements, scale, are well documented and engineered for change. Older developers that have learned the hard lessons and can demonstrate that experience are well compensated.
I’ve seen lots of people young and old fired from this business. Mostly because for some reason people believe that just anybody can pick up a book and be a developer in 21 days. If you aren’t adding value commiserate with your salary you should not be making your salary and that is true for the young and old in every job.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Yes, bad programmers are bad, but let's consider the more numerous average programmers who have no intuitive sense of objects and their code reflects that fact. A good C++ program can be a thing of beauty, but the average C++ code is not - and the complexities of C++ make it darn hard to maintain the large quantity of average C++ code. Average programmers also produce average code in other languages, but at least, with the simpler languages like C, you have more than a snowball's chance in heck of figuring out what the code does. Design patterns are great, but, in my experience are unknown outside a very few of the elite programmers. And then you get average maintenance programmers trying to make sense out of some elite programmer's design-pattern-based code. (Of course, as Lispers like to point out, the common design patterns are used to overcome shortcomings in languages like C++ and Java.)
I'm 31, have 16 years of experience in professional IT work, and manage workers 5 years away from retirement as well as young 20-somethings. No problem. They respect me because I know my shit and get results every time and I have personally done their jobs at one time or another.
The key is actually knowing what you are doing and actually doing it. I keep up on tech and new trends and stay current and relevant and will continue to do so if I stay in IT for the rest of my career. Age really has no factor except in the many cases where people simply stagnate and fall so far behind willingly that they are not marketable and really shouldn't be.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
So in the city I live in, there's a reverse age bias.
Basically, sometime in the 80's most of the companies stopped investing in software development, and instead accepted the party line from IBM and kept increasing the capacity of the SYS-370 systems. The distributed computing age came and went, and many of them totally missed it. Now they're trying to fix the problem, before all those folks who were hired in the 70's and early 80's retire (not much turnover in many of these brick and mortar {read track and dollar} companies).
So what you have is a huge gap, caused by entry level job descriptions that require 5 to 10 years of experience. There's very few Gen-X software developers, and a bunch of Boomers and a handful of Millennials hired as interns. So banking, insurance, railroad and distribution industries here are trying to make the move from monolithic systems to distributed ones, and their experience lies in PHP and SYS-370 assembler.
Makes it kinda tough to push an OO architecture. But, heck they're too hard to understand anyway.
Its not just the code. Its domain knowledge. You are correct in that the skills needed to just write C or COBOL aren't worth $150K. That can be bought for a small fraction in India. But in every project I've worked (disclaimer: I've never worked for a major 'code only' contract shop), the s/w people were responsible for understanding quite a bit about the systems or processes for which they were writing. Flight controls software, for example, is written by flight controls engineers who also have programming skills. That's where the big money comes in.
Management would love to split the analysis/coding tasks into two pieces and send the code overseas. But in my experience, moving the code responsibility away from the systems engineering people is the root cause of many s/w project failures. Management likes to encourage its good systems people to write the requirements and sent them off to a contract shop. And money is used as the motivation to get people to make that choice. But it often turns out that the formal documentation, communications and contractual overheads of such a division of labor forces projects to go over budget and schedule.
Have gnu, will travel.
Then you're a good manager.
A good manager finds a way to motivate each worker to do his or her best in a position well suited to that worker's intellect, personality and abilities.
A bad manager blames workers for being incapable of doing work they should never have been assigned, and eventually creates a resentful, unmotivated work force where everyone is "looking out for number one" and nobody is trying to be part of a collective win.
I don't understand why the article keeps quoting Vivek Wadhwa and his demeaning generalizations.
"...if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000 a year, the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long,"
""If you can hire someone fresh out of college for $60,000 who is likely to know the latest technology, or you can hire someone 45 years old who's making $140,000, who are you going to hire? "
In my dreams would I make $60k, never mind $140k. And do I have stale skills? Nah. PHP, javascript, C# (ugh). How many of you have programmed PCL systems with ladder logic? I went into a job where some younger people had gotten a system up and running (nice work guys!), but I was aghast when I saw the code. And I had never even seen ladder code or PLC systems before.
An guess who it was that got laid off?
Best regards.
> Age really has no factor except in the many cases where people simply stagnate and fall so far behind willingly that they are not marketable and really shouldn't be.
That's why we call it age "discrimination". In theory discrimination can be for good and legitimate reasons, but as a practice of modern usage, we use the term to mean "discrimination without a basis that society [or law] recognizes as legitimate."
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
In the US HQ we have 8 application developers, 5 on the BI team, 10 on the AS/400 and SAP, 3 more in business engagement, a pair on Knowledge Management solutions, and 3 primary managers.
I think 2 of the people in that group are under the age of 30, and close to 50% are over the age of 45.
If agism is a problem in IT, it's not here. And it's not that we hire older people over younger people, a fair number of the folks here have been here since they were in their 20's, and in the last 3 months we hired a guy in his 50's and a 24 year old kid.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I read the "No, and how the heck do you expect me to ..." as answering the question "have you done that job before." -- effectively completing the scenario.
He is agreeing with you that HR types are morons that ask such questions and when he's in the hiring spot, he tries to block it (or point out that it really is a stupid question when the position in junior).
if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000 a year, the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long,' says Vivek Wadhwa, who currently holds academic positions at several universities, including UC Berkeley, Duke and Harvard.
The fact that this dipshit conflates C and Cobol, pretty much invalidates everything he can say on the subject.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
If you are 45+, been coding all of your professional life and you don't have a personal network of individuals that you have worked with before who would be willing and able to help you get a job at their company, then maybe the universe is trying to tell you something.
Don't get me wrong. Being older and looking for a CS job is something I don't look forward to (I've never been unemployed -- yet). I'm 37 and the kicker is that I also have no degree. How many companies are going to consider me when I'm 45+? How many would consider me today if I were 25? Very, very few, except for the ones that employ (or have employed) individuals who I have worked with in the past that would be willing to vouch for me, push my resume under their manager's doors and stake their reputations on my abilities.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
DO: Die your hair, shave your face, dress in "current" fashion, listen to "modern" music.
DON'T: talk about things that obviously date you, expect those younger than you to "respect" you automatically, think that you can get by on what you've already done.
Keep in mind that things that no longer grow are functionally... if not literally... dead; so don't stop learning and growing your skills base. And finally, quit thinking that society owes you anything. If you aren't willing to offer what they are buying, then don't expect them to buy what your selling.
- Captain Obvious
When those around you are loosing their heads while you are keeping yours, maybe you've misunderstood the situatiuation.
Only those that know they don't know shit and are in management precisely because they don't know shit. Which is, like, 100% in management, else they'd do something productive.
I've taken the technical management position when I've looked around at the who else they would've put in that position and said "Oh, God! No!!" I usually wait until some other qualified person can take it over and go back to design and coding.
I've had hideous managers who thought that who ever the data entry clerk is on MS Project must be the technical lead.
Good management is every bit as daunting as good coding -- and a stellar manager is every bit as rare as a stellar developer. I still miss working for Sandy who realized that the best thing a manager could do was protect his people from other managers. His team was the most productive.
You know we're in an education bubble, right?
Maybe she asks because she knows if they have experience they won't be happy as a junior for long and will jump ship as soon as another job is available?
no, no that can't be it. You don't understand why she asks the question, so clearly you should strangle her.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Saying management isn't productive is like saying computer programmers only type.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
$150k clearly goes a lot farther in your fantasy world than in reality.
Ok. If I ever get there, I will let you know. I USED to make more than that, but now I make about half that. 23 years of professional IT experience, C, C++, java, Sybase and Oracle certified currently working as a Director of Development. Wrote 211,000 lines of code in the last two years.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If you do leave your age off your CV, or "mistype" it down by 10 or 15 years, you'll get interviews but no offers on the basis that you lied on your application. If you put in a tru age of 40+ you won't even get an acknowledgement email - and if you phone up, you'll be fobbed off.
It may different in the UK, but in the US you should absolutely not put your age in your CV (unless you are a baby auditioning for diaper commercials).
Only list positions from the last 15 or so years, not every job you've ever held. If you did relevant work in those older positions, you can have a "skills" section that isn't tied to an employer or time period.
For education, list school and concentration, but not graduating year.
And don't lie. Especially about something like your age. The UK may be different, but in the US at some point you will have give your employer your date of birth, even if it's just on your ID establishing you can legally work in the US.
I'm currently working in the field - in particular with a group of people from India. I have also worked with numerous Indians in the past. I *HAVE* seen Indian groups give preference to other indians. It wasn't uncommon at all with the major recruiting jobs competing for jobs. (Sidenote: that's starting to change - they used to not care which Inidian group got the contract as long as one of them did....but this recession is hitting everyone) I've worked with Indians who, frankly, knew way more than me. I've worked with ones that didn't know how to restart a deamon in RedHat. (And have been lectured about deamons from the same individual - sigh)
If you do leave your age off your CV, or "mistype" it down by 10 or 15 years, you'll get interviews but no offers on the basis that you lied on your application. If you put in a tru age of 40+ you won't even get an acknowledgement email - and if you phone up, you'll be fobbed off.
And I just want to add, Yes! That's the way to fight age discrimination--by portraying yourself as a dottering old fool who doesn't know how to proof read, is too stubborn to have someone else review his CV, and doesn't realize he isn't 29 (or even 39) any more.
Not sure I buy this. Who are the folks earning $150k to write C code? If they're writing, say, a trading platform designed to do microsecond-level financial transactions for a big trading house...then I don't see them getting canned.
I second that vouch. I have four kids, one in college, and live in the midwest, and even in this area, I estimate that it would take $120,000 for me to raise my kids comfortably, and that would be just living, not building retirement. I don't make anything like $120,000, so we live hand to mouth. Also like you, I have no hope of social security, but in my case, I blame the far left and not the far right.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As a sysadmin, in most of the places I've worked, particularly in the larger organizations that have been around for a while, the ages of the employees have been about the same: there are some younger ones, some older ones and a bunch in between. The young ones get paid less, while the old ones tend to have a better idea of how the organization works overall. Therefore, management will try to get rid of, or avoid, the older ones when they can simply because they are more expensive, but not that much more valuable. That's one way to look at it.
There's also another way to look at employees. On the one hand there are the dime-a-dozen types who are always needed for mundane tasks, but who are not good at working independently, solving difficult problems, recovering crashed systems, working in an organized fashion, writing coherent reports, etc. These people never constitute the brains of an organization's IT department. On the other hand there are the relatively rare people who actually do have good brains, are interested in the various technical challenges, solve difficult problems all the time, who write all the detailed reports and can be counted on when disaster strikes no matter when it does.
IMO, older IT people of the first type are much more likely to suffer from age-related discrimination than older IT people of the second type. In my experience, upper management always finds out who the really important people are in the IT department -- the people they know can be counted on to get things running again following a major incident.
The main problem for (prospective) employees of the second type is how to get recognized as such. Indeed, for an employer it's the much same: how to find these people and then how to retain their services.
The intro to the posting was an answer to the "have you done this job before" question, and the answer I'd fully expect from someone applying for a junior position. I really wish someone would finally have the guts to spit that in the HR droid's face.
I'll sure as hell put my weight behind hiring him. I need people who have the guts to tell me when I'm wrong.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When I was younger, I used to think that my future was very uncertain - after all, I had to re-learn everything every five years.
Now I'm older (41), I've realised in the past six or seven years that I now have *experience*. This counts for a lot, lot more than you'd think. I can fix an NT 4.0 VM that would leave younglings scratching their heads, for instance. I can still call on my DOS years when scripting. And the site migrations I've done with OS's and hardware aren't things you can pick up from the MCSE's (or similar).
This leads to two interviewers - those that have figured this out, and those that haven't. For those that haven't, I would end up doing much more work at the site that one where they have, so I avoid those anyway.
Age also means that you're much more likely to have a permanent residence, and children - two things which mean you're less likely be jumping ship just because the business isn't as excited about (for example) the Cloud as you are.
The very reason why we're putting ads for junior level positions is that it's virtually impossible to get senior ITsec professionals with a relevant level of work experience. The market ain't THAT big and whoever caught someone doesn't let go willingly.
There's exactly two kinds of "senior" ITsec people on the market. The ones that got fired because even after 2+ years of "professional" experience they still don't know jack past their textbook learn-by-heart crap and the job-hoppers who try to crib as much as they can so they can open their own business.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm beginning to resemble the older folks getting in a rut. I'm 41 now, though I can't figure where the time went. But I am trying to learn new stuff as well. I learned Java and have written 211,000 lines of code in it in the last two years.
On the other hand, our company, when it first started, had a 65 year old guy writing VB code and out entire system worked off of it. Then a 60 year old guy came in, declared that the VB was archaic and proceeded to replace it with classic ASP. Now I am fighting to replace this system, which is essentially taxed to the max and being held together by duct tape, baling wire and the grace of God. Unfortunately, the guy who only knows classic ASP (and apparently only knows cut and paste in that) is politically connected and is fighting back every step of the way as we try to modernize the system before it all comes crashing down around us.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I blame the far left AND the far right for the probably-unavoidable demise of Social Security. Different color pigs feeding at the same tough.
You can get by on less, of course... but like I said, while $150K a year might sound like a whole big pile of money to a 25 year old with no kids (and it would be), it's not going to make a 50 year old with kids in college rich. Even if those kids get decent scholarships -- it's shocking what those don't cover, and how fast even a conservative, responsible college student can blow through money.
I actually had that kind of manager, exactly once. He gave us the details what's to be done, and from there on he saw his job in making it possible, keeping meetings and other tedious time wasters away from us and providing resources in a timely manner.
I've had the other kind far more often. The kind that assumes some kind of god-like status (at least in his own little mind), saw his position as the whip-cracker who has actually nothing really to do but to hover about and bother us with stupid questions that keep us from working while essentially providing nothing to make us productive.
Sadly, the latter form is far more common.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's say that the average company employs 1 senior engineer for every 10 fresh outs. By the pigeonhole principle, there is going to be a lot of unemployed senior engineers.
In my set of old college friends, only two of us are senior engineers. The rest, all of whom are great engineers, have found other positions. Some by encouragement, some by changing interests, some by following the path of least resistance and some by means that I am not aware of. It has to be that way.
"I was always the youngest person wherever I went; now I'm one of the oldest," Ayr says.
Ayr must have some wicked telepathic skills, as I've been saying those exact same words since late 2007. I'd gone to work for a rather insular company back in 2000, and when the company moved out of state, re-entering the job market was night and day. In just 8 years, I'd gone from being the youngest in the room by 15-20 years (think reverse age discrimination) to being the oldest by 8-10. What I found interesting was the major shift in average age downwards in just that short time.
I expect you to do whatever you want to in your spare time, so that you can then list it on your resume, and prove it during the interview.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
My parents sent two kids to private expensive colleges and made less accounting for inflation. Try not spending every dime you make, try paying for this you can afford and not leasing/making payments on everything.
"No, and how the heck do you expect me to if everyone keeps asking exactly that question."
When you do your internship at school, don't go for the fun one that has you goofing off and playing foosball all day. Get the one that offers the most experience. Once you're out in the workplace, do each job with the next one in mind. If the technology you're using is getting stale, find a way to use newer, more skills-marketable technology in your workplace. If your workplace won't let you do that, find a new one before your skills are completely out of date. If you fall off the treadmill, I'm not sure how you get back on, but those steps will at least help keep you from falling off in the first place.
the problem with IT is, for someone 45+, much of your network has deteriorated by attrition--some retire, many leave the industry, some die (7 funerals in 5 years of older colleagues--although one was 46). And it can be difficult to add "younger" people (say 20s-early 30s) to your professional network to keep it growing. Even professionally, people prefer to associate and be associated with people like themselves and within their age-range. Not that it can't be done, but it becomes more difficult.
What the fuck are you spending it on?
What does a three bedroom place run a month in flyover country? $500/month?
15k to live tells me you're not in the area that pays 150k. In SF a non-shithole studio of 600sf runs about 1200 right now (and you'll have to commute, that's the outside the city central price). That's all of your 15k right there, and that's for a very small apartment. If you want something more sane, be prepared to pay about 1800.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
He'll be fine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, a number of salary surveys have shown that engineers hit their peak salary around the age of 45-55, but it then declines. This is quite the opposite of very many fields - lawyers, doctors, etc can work until they are 70.
My son is planning to major in math and just take a minor in computer science, then work as a data analyst. What do you think?
So after imitating the Soviet Union and creating a bifurcated consumer-military industry after 9/11 we are now almost down to the Soviet/Eastern Block admonition of mathematicians to their sons/daughters/students: "Find the most arcane branch of mathematics. specialize in it and you'll have some freedom" - which in our case is translated to "job security". Does anyone else see a problem with this? If your son's passion is CS then do CS. And do great things, solve great problems. If his passion is mathematics, there is much more available than being a data analyst. Data mining (which might be what you meant) is of course not arcane and is being tapped more worldwide. Data mining will provide a nice background in statistics and that will be a useful tool for problem solving going forward since even now most people are math phobic.
I don't know how this guy comes up with this crap - let's talk Big Lie, why don't we? How man straight programmers, oh, sorry, "developers", who make $150k/yr, except maybe living in Silicon Valley? I've lived in Philly, Austin, Chicago, the Space Coast of FL, and now DC, and with the highest salary of my career, I can see $100k coming... about the time I retire.
"Old skills" (COBOL, C) - where's the budget, *ANYWHERE* for training at any company? How many times have any of you been handed the chance to learn the newest, latest fad language of the year (never mind no one will be using it in two more years)? It's been 10 or 15 years for me.
Let's also not forget that HR department angle in all this: the 95% of them (it's "only" 45% or so among recruiters) who have no idea of what they're hiring for, and DO NOT CARE to learn (even though they'd be able to do their jobs better, and provide more value to the company), and so only know the acronyms they've been given, or looked up without the hiring manager telling them what's actually needed, and requiring additional degrees, and not accepting equivalent experience.
Oh, and there's always the point that H1-B's and the newly graduated, these days, will work for a *lot* less, in absolute dollars, than we started at decades ago.
I've been the oldest on my team for quite a number of years. I edit my resume to skip the first so-many years, and started resorting to dying my hair years back, right before I got a job where my manager turned 30 while I was there.
To sum it up: salaries, HR, and prejudice.
mark
The truth is that many of the managers in IT are younger and are not comfortable managing older workers.
and part of the reason for that is that many older works are not comfortable being managed by younger workers, which fact makes the former more difficult to manage. This is also a problem in the Army, in which older sergeants often have contentious relationships with younger officers. Part of officer training involves handling such situations properly.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
"Truth is a three-edged sword"
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
It's not that they don't want to hire older workers. It's that older workers don't want to take a job at the new wage levels that are popping up all over.
That's not true at all. Many older software engineers would be happy to take lower pay even if the project weren't interesting (although interesting projects help of course).
Younger people, just out of school, are happy to take anything. Finding out that your $150k job now pays $60k sucks, but it's the new reality for lots of people.
Look - in the Second Great Depression $60k is better than $20k unemployment or even nothing.
Conversely, I work with a guy who is just a few years older than me and is likely on his way out of this industry. Differences? He's *completely* unwilling to learn anything new; I joined this firm in part to help them modernize their web stack -- ColdFusion -- and promptly recommended Rails (which I hadn't worked with previously) and learned enough to do functional Rails coding in a couple of weeks. This other guy, however, has been whining about having to learn something new, asking why ColdFusion isn't good enough (the answer to that question is too long to begin!) and saying he doesn't want to have to "learn Linux" (he's an old Microsoft guy; we're in the Pac. NW)
Well he's an idiot who is cutting his own throat. I have seen some people like that but not many. The case is more that people gang up on another and project their views in order to justify terminating the person. But if those are really his attitudes then the manager or another developer need to confront him and work with him. If he's really unwilling to change then there's the door.
Couple his utter unwillingness to learn and keep up with technology with the fact that his family is always the reason he can't work late and sometimes is out of work, and I could see passing him over at hiring time. I stay current, or at least try to, love to learn new things, and don't have a family that I'm beholden to (not that there's anything wrong with having a family, but come on-- if you're picking between two employees, one with a family asking him to leave work early and take little Missy to the dentist, and one without, all else being equal, who are YOU going to hire?)
So I could definitely see some age discrimination going on, but also... it's complicated.
We have to make accommodations for people's family life. We are not just utilitarian widgets to be used at corporate whim.
> If your son's passion is CS then do CS.
That sounds great - but the reality is that engineers have discovered that much of their field has relocated overseas, and that it starts to become difficult to stay employed, competitive and current after 25 years in the field. Of course, it's possible - I've been working in the field for 30 years, continue to love it, and have no problems with employment. But there are 10 people who've dropped out for every person such as myself - and the reality is that CS is only a half-career - something that you can only do for the first half of your life with any certainty. So, it's worth being practical.
> If his passion is mathematics, there is much more available than being a data analyst
Right - I'm using generic terms since I don't know what exactly he might end up doing: machine learning? statistician? data mining?
He's interested in both fields - and feels that he could probably do more programming and math as a mathematician of some sort than as a CS major - who may end up as yet-another application developer doing very little math and constantly racing to stay current.
Vivek Wadhwa is a self-promoter who puts a lot of effort into getting his name in the press, but hasn't actually done much. He once had a company doing Y2K COBOL conversions with semi-automatic tools. It did not do too well. His academic positions are all hanger-on type, like "Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program". That's not being on the Harvard faculty.
This guy is on Slashdot twice today.
Managing older workers have some baggage that comes with them. You start out your new job as a manager with a group of people who are already annoyed at you for being younger and having a higher level position then they do. Secondly IT is not like it was 10 years ago. It has became a corporate controlled job and lot of those processes that use to have the seat of the pants solutions too now have best practices and common policies to follow. Yes IT is less fun than it use to be and it is far much more organized. But you have a bunch of people to manage who are hard to mold.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I do not understand how older people cannot code but they can be managers.
If the job of a manager is more difficult than the job of a programmer, then why is the older person incapable of being a programmer? if he can be a manager, then he can be a programmer, since management is more difficult then programming.
Or is it not?
Perhaps this situation (you are old, you can't code any more), is an indirect way to admit that programming is, in fact, more difficult than management: you can't do the more difficult job, so we put you in the easier one.
However, the above is not verified by the numbers: managers have bigger salaries than programmers, therefore management is considered more difficult than programming.
So, the question is: how come older people can do the most difficult of the tasks (i.e. management), but cannot do the easiest of the tasks (i.e. development)?
Part of officer training involves handling such situations properly.
Ah, I see yer problem right here. You think that managers get managerial training.
I've seen formalized mentoring or training at a few places. Many will encourage MBA's without guiding the new manager toward programs that focus on managing tech and budgets'. But too often, tech managers are created via a concept whose mere mention may date me -- the Peter Principle. They did job-X well, so they got promoted and everyone else suffers while they try to figure out what this managerial job entails. Based on my experiences, many low-level managers never make the leap.
You mean 'not using the new shiny for no other reason than it is the new shiny?'
Seriously. We've been there. Done that. Learned what not to do. And yet that experience is not valued and the PHBs want to drive forward with making the same mistakes with the newest tech that we've already been through and fixed.
Look at things like tapatalk, that was developed to solve the problem of easily viewing forums (mostly phpbb) on phones. I dare say usenet was a much better system. That's just one example.
This is exactly how I ended up in my current position. Changed career paths (was in broadcasting, didn't enjoy it, love applications development) and had that question asked by the HR drone. I made the department head laugh with my reply. Now I couldn't be happier.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As we all know: True, False, and File Not Found.
I don't think it's job description, but that culturally, jobs where you are likely to earn more than your boss are very unusual. Pharmacist might be the only well-known job where it's common.
Ah, I see yer problem right here. You think that managers get managerial training.
I was speaking of army officers. My point is that one reason younger managers might dislike managing older workers is that the prejudice of some older workers against younger managers makes these workers more difficult to manage. The Peter Principle is irrelevant here, insofar as that principle applies to managers regardless of age and level.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Maybe if you spend your money like a drunken sailor, then yeah. If you exercise some judgment and restraint in your spending, $150k should go pretty damn far no matter where you live.
The area in the US with the highest median household income is City of Falls Church, Virginia: $113,313.
$150k puts you well above average in even the richest community in America.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
I'm 60 and I'm coding, but I don't demand top dollar [pound] because I don't need to. Also I'm a Perl person who is used to big codebases. I've just discussed this with a young [50] colleague. We agreed that a lot of people my age can code but are not used to modern development tools, subversion, continuous builds, test-based and [ugh] agile. Also they often re-invent, pure stupidity for Perl because CPAN is one of the best [and worst] things about it,
I don't want and probably can't get a permanent job either. I agree with the top post in this bit, most agencies are useless, clueless and sometimes fairly unethical. Hey, time for a startup, anyone?
On y va, qui mal y pense!
They'll figure out your age soon enough when they interview you. Plus if you're interviewing for a senior position they want to see LOTS of work experience, which means amount of time at each job not just number of jobs.
However if interviewing for a junior position then it may be a good idea to leave off the older stuff and don't put in graduating year just to get past the HR filters.
"On top of that, I have insight into how to do things well that only come from experience. Not to mention the experience with the business processes that you only learn by being in a company for a few years."
No joke, experience can save an organization money and time. But when you have inexperienced managers, in an organization where there seems to be no accountability, well, I guess they'd rather re-learn the lessons themselves. It's hard not to become apathetic under those conditions.
The good news is that the younger crowd can compensate for bad decisions by working longer and harder. Been there, too. Again, apathy follows.
Best regards.
I have found that people who were in some type of 'commander' position in the military AND are technical, make the best managers. They actually understand the tech stuff and they know how to positively get people to do things. Of course there are those that are like a drill sargent too. Those people would be assholes no matter where they came from.
I guess I'm getting to that age where I'm slower to pick up new technologies. You know why? They're usually stupid. The coolgeewhizbang flavor of the month will be gone next month, and we know better than to waste time on it. Let some kid who already has wasted their time on it try to make it work and then learn their lessons. You start reading a manual and you get to some point and you go "really? really? This is fucking stupid." The last time I really had that feeling was when my employer started trying to use Remedy. Never worked better than the homebrew system. Or the homebrew payroll system written by some delicate genius. Seriously, how many fucking drop down boxes (that act differently on different browser versions) can you put in there?
When new software makes things easier, just about everyone embraces it. When it makes things harder, like it usually does, nobody embraces it except the gell haired, toe-walking junior manager who is trying to implement it.
Tough shit, that's capitalism, deal with it.
Tough shit, that's capitalism, deal with it.
Well that's not capitalism that's exploitation. Then American capitalism isn't the only economic system on the planet and people have feet to vote with. Keep that attitude and you won't be able to import enough workers from impoverished places.
However even massively underemployed now I work 80 hrs a week (just not getting paid for many of them). When I was employed and highly paid I almost always worked about 80 hrs a week so I really don't understand the statement. We work to solve interesting problems. Sometimes it takes less than 80 hrs and then we move on to another problem. Time doesn't really matter per se but people need time for their families for sure and to relax to invent new and noivel solutions to interesting problems.
Food is no cheaper and neither are electronics, clothing or other consumer goods. Gas is only a little cheaper. Utilities are a little cheaper. A mortgage on a typical 3 bedroom house is probably $1,000 a month. What kicks your butt is taxes and insurance. My property tax and insurance escrow is 40% of my overall payment.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Food is cheap period, clothing is cheap if you are willing, and electronics are generally optional. Sounds like maybe renting would be a cheaper option. At least until you no longer need three bedrooms.
Like a guy who has no life, no family, and no clue. If you do have a life and a family then you're doubly damned because you ought to have a clue.
First, the programmers you get overseas aren't worth the penny you spend on them. I have managed many projects with overseas coding teams and they're all nightmares. They don't speak the language. They don't share your culture. They don't share your timezone. They don't understand professional standards. The ink isn't dry on their software certificates and it won't dry before they've jumped to another outsourcing company, so any time you spend building up effective communication is wasted.
Second, relocation sounds easy to a college kid who spent a semester abroad in Spain, drinking and picking up girls. It's rather less simple when you're a bona fide adult trying to take a job away from a local. The bureaucratic red tape you have to hack through to even get a work visa is insane. And that's for countries that like us. So speaking the language and having spent 2 weeks at Club Med: Bali does not for an easy transition make.
Third, got a wife and kids? Got brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, friends you like? Dropping them like a rock to chase an outsourced job overseas is not going to make you popular in your domicile.
Or maybe you're an MBA who thinks he's immune to being hoisted on his own petard. Well, huh, you've got a shock coming to you in the near future, my friend. Remember all those Indian, Chinese, Latino, etc. folks you drank beers with while skipping Corporate Finance 101? They're positioning themselves to get your job outsourced to them in Bangalore where they can live like kings. I have seen the wave of stuff like this happening in New York, and it fills me with a gentle, happy glow.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I wrote the following Journal entry about 8 years ago (2003): http://slashdot.org/journal/52223/Banish-Programmer-from-your-vocabulary Some of the advice there is dated (specific tools that are no longer interesting), but the overall message, I believe is still valid.
I was 39 then; I had been working in technology for 7 years (since I was 32 - I spent 12 years in the military and some years in college prior to that) - which makes me 47 now. I saw the writing on the wall since I began working, and vowed not to become 'just-a-programmer'. But I have been programming since I was 16, and couldn't see doing a job where making computers jump through hoops was not involved - so I became a jack-of-all-trades who could program instead.
In that time, I saw the whole IT developer team outsourced, and weathered numerous downsizing initiatives. Yet here I am today - still employed. And while coding is not my primary function, I still get to write code and solve interesting problems. Today I'm a technical architect, and valued for what I bring to the table when it comes to design. I've worked in Technical Support, as a System Admin, in the Network Engineering team, and later as a developer analyst for a subsidiary group that needed that function for things IT couldn't or wouldn't do - using all the information I gleaned from those other positions. I continued to grow and learn new things; today I primarily code in Python - and I never stop learning new things about technology.
Today people are surprised when I tell them my age, because everyone thinks I'm in my 30s when they work with me. I can thank my mom and dad - since I don't have grey hair yet, but also I think my attitude had a lot to do with my success - while I'm certainly not untouchable, I've become a valuable asset for those above me, beyond the words in my resume, or the list of my skills. This makes me more valuable than just-a-programmer, and also gives me a deeper well of skills to fall back on if the axe were to fall.
Looking back on the intervening years, I believe I made the right decision. That would be my advice to you as well: don't be just-a-programmer, and expect to have a job when young people fresh out of college and outsourced people in other countries will do the same job for 1/2 the pay. Re-imagine yourself as something more, and go do it. Beg forgiveness later. ;)
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Keep that attitude and you won't be able to import enough workers from impoverished places.
Sure we can, we just have to make sure that they have it slightly more miserable than us. This is the function of war and the WTO.
And when the old guys who have walked develop revolutionary productivity software and restrict it's usage to the second and third world - what then? No more need to import labour at all - the capitalist exploiters will be able to farm literally everything out. The people who walked will have what they need to survive. This can be a race to the bottom and people on the losing end of what is in effect an economic can still have a few cards to play legally (cards that the bosses currently don't expect). And that will be the end of the software industry as an industry in the post-industrialized world.
Except the Marines.
My 'Marine boss' might have been an exception, but he could never get it through his head that he didn't have the power to send us to Leavenworth pen for 20 years. He wasn't a drill Sargent, he was a backstabbing politician who's goto move was 'lie (carrot) and threaten (stick he didn't actually own)'.
He sure didn't like it when you told him the truth.
Then again he never made much rank (Captain, post Korea era), the Marines might have been onto him.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've got to say that 'the worst software developers, make the worst managers'.
People skills are an independent variable. But being in management makes it more important that they have a basic understanding of software and how the process can and can't work.
The best managers are at least competent programmers with decent or better people skills and enough honesty to keep the staffs respect. The very worst managers don't even understand GIGO.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Nobody get's it when I state that 'I discriminate against tweekers' and that I'm not ashamed to admit it.
All they know is 'discrimination bad'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Older managers are more likely to have reached their level of incompetence.
Older organizations will have a higher percentage of management at their level of incompetence.
That's why the military will retire an officer after a few times being passed over for promotion. The assumption is that they are at their level of incompetence. Without that rule the military would, at least in theory, be asymptotically approaching 100% run by people at their level of incompetence.
CIC's have been at their level of incompetence for my entire life.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm a zOS systems programmer with over 32 years experience. I'm in my early 50's with only two jobs under my belt (16 years in both positions). I'm very well paid, and worth every cent.
When system down time is measured in thousands of dollars lost per minute down, and I'm tasked with maintaining our 99.999% availability requirements, you gotta pay the price.
Someone right out of college, or with only a few years of experience, while less expensive than I am, wouldn't be able to do a fraction of the experienced based tasks that I do on a daily basis to achieve this availability.
I thought it was "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The US has virtually eliminated training for replacement workers. Turns out that money is "better" used to hire more accountants or to service the stockholders. But it is shortsighted in the extreme.
Many retirees have been asked to return because they have a skill set that just doesn't exist elsewhere. In addition, that dude that has been in the company for 30 years? He comes in on time, doesn't come in with a hangover, probably isn't going through a nasty divorce, and doesn't spend half the day on Facebook.
An as for young workers these days, I'm seeing a disturbing trend. I think the age of inculcating high self-esteem has overshot it's goal. Recent hires seem to want a promotion for just showing up at work, and have other issues too. We had one young lady that apparently believed that anyone near her parents age or older were supposed to do stuff for her. This appears to be an extension of some of the "Boss Children" I've seen in public, churning out the order to their parents, who amazingly enough, obey their every whim. She didn't last too long, and quit and moved back with her parents. I'd give more examples, but I sense a "Get the hell off my lawn!" reply coming.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yup. Earning 150k would be obscene where I live. My flat (20 minutes walk from town center, 5 minutes by subway) costs me about 200 bucks a month. Ok, for just about 600 sqf and I own the flat (it's pretty much the "homeowner's cost"). Rent would be about 600-700. But then again, you're almost downtown capital, expect to pay a wee bit more than in the outskirts (you can actually get a 1000 sqf for about 400-500 rent a month if you're willing to spend half an hour to an hour in the subway when going to the town center. I'm not).
About 300 for power and gas, another 100 for internet, phone and other communication tidbits (yes, being able to talk with others costs rather much 'round here) and about 200 for groceries and other things to live. Keep in mind that some of that is due to the current exorbitant EUR:USD conversion rate (it's not that bad in Euros, actually).
Now compare that to an average income of 15k (lower income brackets) to about 75k (upper bracket, ignoring top level managers and the like), and I'd say we're living rather cheaply for a rather nice level of income. That's also why our economy didn't crash. Even our low income people still have spending money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the landlords are doing it right, renting is more expensive than owning a home. Otherwise they would go out of business.
Food is not cheap. Have you been to a grocery store lately? Milk is $4 a gallon. Meat is $4 a pound. Yes, we do eat ramen several times a week and that helps keep the costs down some.But our grocery bill is still about $1500 a month.
Clothing is cheap for me. I spend less than $100 a year on myself, but unfortunately clothing is not cheap for kids, because kids grow. We are fortunate to get lots of clothes from grandparents and stuff, but we still have to buy some stuff, mostly shoes, swimwear and the like.
Undoubtedly you can get to where you can support a family on next to nothing. In fact, about 10% of the population has made an art form out of surviving completely on government (excuse me, MY) handouts. Unfortunately, that is a little bit more sacrifice than I am willing to put my kids through. I mean, other than cars and electronics, I generally have nicer things than most people surviving off of the government.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There is no age bias,only a cost bias. In Canada, a new graduate for Object oriented programming gets around $40k, if he / she is lucky.
As the developer gains seniority, experience and knowledge of applications, and more education, that amount will climb to $80k.
Only a consultant on short term contracts gets more. In fact, for the company, the consultant is not more expensive when you subtract out the benefits, group insurance, government unemployment fees, training fees, etc. etc. etc.
And Canadian companies are not running to the USA for what we consider "overpriced talent".
Bottom line. The USA has priced itself out of the market. Companies go offshore, if they can.
I am a small businessman and my team of two and myself would each love to make $150k per year. Best we can do is around $100k, on long term (2 year) contracts. And we code in Windows, Linux, Mainframe, in C, C++, Python, Perl, Cobol, Pascal and any other language that customers demand.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I'm roughly ten years younger than you and actually look (I'm told) ten years younger than I am. I'm fit, very fit so that probably helps as I have high energy levels. My experiences parallel your own as does my attitude, I like what I do, that's why I got into IT I want to code and create things, make things and I enjoy the challenge of solving problems. When people saw my full resume they easily worked out that I was mid-early 40's but when I cut the resume down and just got rid of 10-15 years worth of experience (yes I started really early) the job interviews started coming in and fortunately, because of my appearance, so did the job offers.
Whilst relieved, I am now mindful of this attitude in IT and really question the long term viability of it as a career path, but I like technology work why should I have to give it up for a management career, it's not who I want to be.
I am saddened by how utterly vapid IT seems to be and it's quite obvious that I will have to engineer a backup plan in case this career path is no longer viable. Where these perceptions come from is anyones guess. I keep updating my skills because IT interests me and I'm good at it. It seems the lack of respect to older people isn't a problem for the younger guys because they will never get old.
Funny that, how we devalue experience.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I wrote autocoder and 1401 code. I programmed patch panels. I wrote fortran and cobol, and couid analyse application dumps when data caused the burp. Sometimes bad data just came from bad tapes. (we used tapes more than disks in those days)
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Renting is cheaper, because apartments are smaller than houses.
Ramen is not a good meal idea, no matter how much you think it might save you. It is not even particularly cheap. For the same $1 you might spend on ramen for 4 people you could make a nice meal of red beans and rice. WTF are you spending $1500 a month on food on? There might only be two in my household, but we don't even spend 1/3 of that. Maybe if you include my expensive imported/craft beer habit it hits that level.
What meat is $4 a pound that you eat so often, beef steak? Chicken sure as hell is not. Pork is not either, even pork tenderloins are only $3/lb. I am looking at a flyer from the local grocery chain right now, Tops Markets which is not a discount place either a normal supermarket, Sirloin Tip $2.99, Chicken Legs $0.99, Whole Chicken $1.29, Pork Spareribs $2.29, Pork Shoulder Steak $2.29. Last week I bought a pork shoulder for $1.19/lb, 5-7lb shoulder. That made enough Carnita for 10 individual meals if not more. Food is cheap, unless you drink nothing but milk and eat nothing but boxed shit.
Clothing for children is indeed a very real cost when they are in a growth spurt. Unless you had them all at once in some sort of litter, hand me downs are the way to go.
I am not trying to be a dick, just understand how someone can require that much money to live. I don't doubt that you have nice things, but if you cannot save for the future then you have bigger problems than things.
Given that older people by virtue of more service generally get more pay, it makes sense for companies to hire younger people. (retire 2 oldies and get 3 young hands) As to the supposed quality that comes with experience, it is redundant in today's world given the nature of software tools, ability to throw more hardware at the same price, knowledge base (internet for everything)etc. An example from programming. When I missed a comma in my early programming days, (Autocoder in IBM 1401T), I had to wait one whole day for the compile results to be turned around to me for correction. So I developed a certain precision and table debugging skills. But who cares? Today you can compile a progam 100 times a day if you want to. An example from support. Recently one of our vendor's programmes gave an error saying that the transaction needed to be serialised. My knowledge of serialisation, ACID test etc mattered not a whit to their programming team. I finally got them to accept to change their programmes by pulling some examples from the DBMS provider's knowlwdge base. Fact is, the world has changed. Oldies are competing with younger people in an environment where their old skills dont matter a dman. This is not new. OK
Quinn impersonates his recently deceased double on a world where the young dominate society and middle-aged people are prohibited from working and are subject to curfews.
Yeah - that's IMHO the true face of the "land of equal opportunity" (disclosure: I wasn't born here and thoughout my lifetime Americans have invariably snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on the issue of equality - we finally got rid of segregation (at least legally) in 1964, and now LGBT people have been deemed to be human so there has been some progress but legalized age discrimination based is just as abhorrent [and de facto age discrimination is virtually a legalization]) .
If you're indeed looking for entry level people that have never done the job before, it's a valid question to ask if they have or have not. The difference is that "No." is the correct answer toward getting the job instead of "Yes. I have X years experience." which should actually get them shown the door. You shouldn't assume either way.
"Why the hell would someone with previous experience apply for a junior/apprentice level position at all?"
Because they're desperate for a job, and it beats Home Depot?
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA