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Median Age At Google Is 29, Says Age Discrimination Lawsuit
dcblogs writes: The typical employee at Google is relatively young, according to a lawsuit brought by an older programmer who is alleging age discrimination. Between 2007 and 2013, Google's workforce grew from 9,500 to more than 28,000 employees, "yet as of 2013, its employees' median age was 29 years old," the lawsuit claims. That's in contrast to the median age of nearly 43 for all U.S. workers who are computer programmers, according to the lawsuit.
Personally, I don't think he was talking to Google; at least not directly.
He got called by a recruiter, supposedly for Google, who set up a phone interview Looking for C/C++ and Java. Fine. There's an outside chance of Java, either as an Android App developer, or for some server back end crap at a company they purchased. It's unlikely, but it's possible (in 2011, they hired people to work at Google, and then groups decided to offer them, and then you got a choice of usually one of 3 groups... you didn't know what you'd be working on at interview time, and there was no such thing as "hiring for position" unless you were net.famous).
Then he didn't get sent a Google Docs link by the interviewer. You are *always* sent a Google Docs link by the interviewer, unless you are in a city/area where Google has a facility, then you are instead brought in to use the video conferencing at the Google location.
Then he got an interviewer who barely spoke English, and wouldn't take him off speakerphone. That never happens at Google.
The interviewer was 10 minutes late to the call.
Frankly, sir, IMHO, you got played.
You just got man-in-the-middled by an Indian or other foreign person who wanted a job at Google, and got you to ghost his or her phone interview for them, with the help of a "recruiter"/"interviewer" who had you on lousy speakerphone so that they could relay your answers directly via a cell phone to the person Google was actually talking to.
Yes, this happens.
No, savvy technical people generally don't fall for it, because they get an email from Google telling you the schedule, there's a Google Doc URL sent out with an @google.com address, and if you look at the email headers in the email of the schedule, you'll see that they are probably forged, assuming you got one at all.
Congratulations on being played, Mr. Robert Heath.
As I said, I was just offering a counter-generalization.
At my company we just fire the new grads with attitudes. All the old guys running the show have a real hard time firing (and in some cases not hiring) people if they are supporting families.
We seem to practice reverse age discrimination.
I can see the logic of the rationale you provided. It's just not the reality I see everyday.
I see young people who are very hard working and excited to gain experience from their older colleagues. I see older workers with bad attitudes that freak out when they don't feel they are given the appropriate level of respect. They are the ones acting like know-it-alls, and the code they write sucks. The code the young people write sucks too, but at least they take criticism well.
Maybe you're getting all the kids we fire.
Naw, we use C. Not a lot of kids applying who have the skills necessary to think about low level code that has to be small and efficient. We'd like more junior people I think but they're hard to find and if they're competent there's a lot of competition to snatch them up.
I am a tech "worker". I prefer the term "software writer", but who cares.
Tech workers are often prone to self-serving statements like the one you just made. If you wish people to value your position more, it won't become valued by dragging other professions (even the much loved "target" of lawyers) through the dirt.
If you think a lawyer's skills do not create value, then just wait until someone comes into your company and rips it off. Then it becomes easy to see the lawyers creating value by at least attempting to preserve the value that was there.
I see a company with cafeterias open late, games, etc, and I see a company that wants me to spend every waking hour at work.
Actually, Google doesn't. The cafes are open late because people work all sorts of odd schedules. Some don't come in until noon and leave late, some show up early and take off at 3. In the Mountain View office there's a lot of both of those patterns, mainly because traffic sucks so bad that people try to schedule around it.
As for the games and stuff, that's just recognition that taking a break is good for think time. Massage services, espresso bars, etc., are all parts of that.
I've been a Google software engineer for four years and there has never been the slightest pressure on me to work long hours. Not only has no one ever asked me to, no one has hinted, implied or anything else, and on a few occasions when I chose to work late my old manager noticed and told me to go home. I'm not saying every manager is that way, in fact I don't think my current manager would ever say anything to me about my work schedule, whether I worked around the clock or hardly at all. Eventually my lack of productivity would provoke a response, though it would probably take a quarter or so.
Now, there are people who work a lot of hours at Google. Mostly young people who don't have anything better to do and are really excited about what they're building. And mostly no one tells them not to. But there are plenty of others who work normal hours, and no one says anything to them, either.
BTW, I'm 45.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No. Legal skills take money from place A and move it to place B. Lawyers don't create value. Engineers do.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.