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Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274
theodp writes "The 1976 science fiction film Logan's Run depicts a dystopian future society where life must end at the age of 30. So, it's a world that kind of resembles today's Silicon Valley, where the NY Times reports that the median age of workers is 29 years old at Google and 28 years old at Facebook. The report that technology workers are young — really young — comes on the heels of other presumably-unrelated stories that Silicon Valley execs can't find enough skilled workers and no one would fund Doug Engelbart in the last four decades of his life. On the bright side, at least old techies don't die in Silicon Valley — they just can't get hired."
I work at a technology company on the opposite side of the Country and we joke that we will not even interview anybody under 35 years old. We have the opposite problem except a lot of us old timers have skills in system administration, programming and project management so with a very small staff and some long hours we implement some pretty cool stuff. Our biggest impediment is our CEO.
It's a good thing Google and Facebook aren't the only employers, then. I was at a local conference lately where I met techies who work for organizations like the state police and fraternal societies (the Freemasons, Shriners, etc.). At another talk, a bank VP told the crowd "when we looked at how dependent we are on software and how much of it we develop in-house, we realized we're a software company."
I don't mean to understate the problems age discrimination causes for tech workers. I do want to point out that IT has penetrated very deeply into the economy, creating a need for programmers and sys admins and whatnot in places you might not expect them. Look around. I don't know how salaries compare, but you can probably find a company whose culture is a better fit for people over 40.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Very, very good point about the Valley being a lousy place if you have a family. Truly lousy - unless you have a bucketload of money, of course. We moved away when we were looking to start a family and haven't regretted it for a microsecond. It was a simply awesome place before kids though.
Ageism exists, zero doubt about it, and I think that it is particularly important to note given the looming changes to immigration. If you want more H1Bs, prove that you are not discriminating against older workers (or anyone for that matter.)
By the way, If you think that companies are bad, try a VC. I'm in mid forties, have done several successful startups (as either a founder or employee number one) and have had VCs tell me, straight to my face, that I was too old. You kind of respect those VCs. At least they are honest.
That said, there is also no shortage of older engineers who are simply unable or unwilling (my bet: mostly the latter) to update their skillsets. Yeah, great, so you've been doing it that way forever. The world has changed. Stay current.
And, if you are young, pay heed. If you're lucky, you'll be old someday too. Chances are you won't make that pile of cash and chances are you, too, will face age discrimination. Might want to work against it now.
Only hiring young people to keep salaries down *is* age discrimination.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Ummmm, that's not called promotion. Promotion means you move up in the same company.
*Woosh*
For instance, before too long, you find that you are 30 in Silicon Valley and evidently nobody wants to hire you.
The people who can't find jobs at 30 are those who spent 8 years working at one company on dead end technology only to get laid off with no current skills or connections. I've had friends hit that wall and it's not pretty to be playing catch up while burning through savings. You know those co-workers I mentioned in my previous post? They're not 20 year olds and yet they find jobs without difficulty.
Hopefully in all of those jumps you develop some management skills along the way because by 40 you'll need them to keep your job from going to some kid.
Hopefully? I plan for my future, I try to not rely on luck and good fortune.
You think you're more likely to be promoted to management or to find a new job in management (or a lead of some kind) at a different company? I've found the former an utter crap shoot to pull off (and most who I've seen do it were ass kissers foremost) and personally I prefer not to gamble on my future.
No, I don't think I'm more likely to be promoted to management. I already am in management and do the IT hiring for a very large entity. Here is what we look for in our employees: the ability to work as part of a team; the ability to communicate well with customers (internal/external) and others; the ability to eventually lead a team; knowledge of the business/industry; overall attitude; stability; project management and eventually the IT skills in question.
Why are the IT skills so far down the list, particularly behind the soft skills? Because we can train the right people to give them the skill set needed for the task at hand. It's a lot more difficult to train for the soft skills.
We work with several local colleges and tech schools and encourage them to add non-tech courses to their IT curriculum. Why? Because we aren't hiring just programmers or network administrators or whatever. We are hiring people that represent our company. Many of our IT personnel do not even have CS degrees but come from a varied background of degree programs. Why? Because, diversified backgrounds lead to better solutions.
Just like most people get their impression of their bank from the tellers, our customers get their impression of us, by the people we send to them. Technical skills are easy to obtain and at the rate that technology changes, we have to keep retraining anyway. People and soft skills, that is what we value most.
BTW, if you are interested, we have very low turnover, we are good to our employees. We have found that if you treat your employees like the valued resource they are, then they stay. It's good for them and it's good for our customers and good for us.
Then again, we are not a Silicon Valley company, so maybe that's the difference.
Just started a new job in Apple R&D. I'm 44.
No company will hire you if you don't have the skills they want, but I'm hardly the oldest person in my (fairly small) group; likewise in general on the floor around me. That's not to say there aren't younger people around - of course there are, it's just that age doesn't appear to be any sort of criteria.
Physicists get Hadrons!