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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.
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.
$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 had an interview yesterday, in fact. first one in months (been out of work a while...)
they didn't even let me finish the interview.
I've been writing C since the mid 80's. and while I don't know every corner of C (and certainly not c++), I do get my job done and my code does tend to run and run well. many shipping networking boxes have my code inside them.
but I can't find a C programming job.
and I'm 50. in the bay area.
I also hate to say it, but there is racism, too. I look around and find the indian guys trying to thumbs-down the westerners. makes me sick to even say such things but I'm finding its true. I enjoy working with indian guys but I am very much turned off by the 'take-over' that I'm seeing right before my eyes. over the last 10 years, the tech industry is flushing out western guys and making it an 'import only' field.
its not just age. its 'reverse racism' too and I wish I was kidding!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
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.
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"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.
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
$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?
Disagree.
Writing a GUI in C, maybe. Writing an embedded controller, not a problem.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.
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
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.