Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Have You Experienced Ageism? (observer.com)
Friday the Huffington Post wrote that "Ageism runs rampant through Silicon Valley, where older workers are frequently overlooked for jobs." They ran tips from the man who recruited Tim Cook for Apple, who pointed out that it's difficult and expensive to recruit new talent, urging businesses to "stop seeing workforce diversity as a good deed; it's good business."
And earlier this month The Observer ran an article by Dan Lyons, a writer for HBO's "Silicon Valley," who shared his perspective on ageism from his time at HubSpot. Their CEO actively cultivated an age imbalance, bragging that he was "trying to build a culture specifically to attract and retain Gen Y'ers," because, "in the tech world, gray hair and experience are really overrated."
Meanwhile, Slashdot reader OffTheLip writes: Information technology is a young business in comparison to many other industries but one of the few where older workers are not valued for their institutional knowledge... As a recently retired techie I experienced this firsthand, both as an older worker, and earlier in my career [as] one who didn't see the value in older workers. As Lyons states, older workers are good business.
What are your thoughts? And have you experienced ageism?
Meanwhile, Slashdot reader OffTheLip writes: Information technology is a young business in comparison to many other industries but one of the few where older workers are not valued for their institutional knowledge... As a recently retired techie I experienced this firsthand, both as an older worker, and earlier in my career [as] one who didn't see the value in older workers. As Lyons states, older workers are good business.
What are your thoughts? And have you experienced ageism?
Am 51, and for the last decade I've experience some, yes. The most overt was for a Bay Area startup position that was going swimmingly until I did a Skype with the (much younger) DoE, and he saw I was "old". (Guess he couldn't read a resume.) But the more annoying ageism is a general assumption by some of the kids that if there is a difference of opinion on an engineering question, it's because the old guy is clinging to his anachronistic ways. Version control? Testing? Even a one-page design doc? Don't be such an old fuddy duddy!! :-)
It has its plusses, though. As an old guy, you realize that there's serious money to be made cleaning up after the kids. And experience can often tell you which projects are sure failures, which can save working on something hopeless for a year.
serious money to be made cleaning up after the kids.
YES!!! There's also serious money to be made in the support of 40 year old technology running on critical systems whose documentation was lost years ago.`
Just look no further than slashdot. All these young whippersnappers with 7 digit slashdot user id numbers are taking over the place.
As a tech employer that recruited a 19 new techs for a new cloudstack operation in our business I can say that the millenials are feckless, lazy and generally (not all) way less skilled and capable than they believe about themselves.
At the other end of the scale in the 50+ range I found that older people had a reluctance to learn new technologies and techniques even when they were far more appropriate for the task at hand. They are also much harder working than most millenials which was personally suprising to me.
In the end the average age of the team we settled with was 38. 2 of these were under 25yo, 3 were over 50yo, 5 were 40-50yo and the remaining 9 were 25-39yo.
I am guilty of ageism: I prefer to work with older people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
More properly he's a Libertarian.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your position pretty much sums up the problem of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Aside from salaries, the biggest cost differential between older and younger workers is medical insurance. That's why the country needs a single-payer medical scheme, instead of today's setup which delivers the highest medical cost in the world.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Who wants to hire a rock star? I want to hire someone who can do the job, and the job doesn't involve preening and prancing and ego.
The biggest problem I've seen is young jocks wanting to use "buzzword technology" just for the sake of using them
Free advice: Pick your battles carefully, and avoid being overly negative. Instead, point out the drawbacks of new-fangelism, and make constructive suggestions. If your organization is, say, going with JavaScript so everything will be "cross-platform", then go with the flow, but suggest a framework/library that is actually cross-platform, familiarize yourself with JS static analysis tools like JSHint and Closure, and become the expert in on-device debugging (notoriously hard with JS). You won't be the high-flying trapeze artist, but you will be the guy with the safety net.
More free advice: Don't ever, EVER say "I told you so", no matter how tempting it may be.
I'm 40 which I can't decide if it's old or not in this industry. I generally feel quite young among my peers.
To be honest, I agree with you with the exception of with my Asbergers "friends". I have worked with some of the most exceptional minds in computational mathematics and physics over the years and to be fair, these guys are genuinely unmarketable. They are the best people at what they do and they work extremely hard and for the most part diligently and make miracles happen in code. Companies around the world are desperate for their skills and talents. But they need to work the job they got when they graduated the university until they retire or they're screwed.
I know of at least three of these guys living on unemployment (maybe for the rest of their lives) because they are utterly unable to communicate with anyone with an IQ under 170 (I use the term IQ just to have some numerical reference... I just mean really really good at solving puzzles). It's not because they check IQ cards or they black list people because their IQs are too low. It's because they actually are medically incapable of being interested in holding an interest in communicating with anyone who doesn't provide "valuable input" to solving their puzzles. They have absolute focus on problem solving and have absolutely no interest in the outside world. These are real life Sheldons x10. I had a conversation with one the other night who displayed a very unusual level of emotion and excitement since his roommate (a girl with severe communication issues... crippled by fear of other people) had taught him to use a vacuum cleaner properly. He'll probably vacuum that apartment 16 times a day for three weeks.
I honestly never have any problems finding work in this business and my age has had absolutely no impact other than positive. I do recall having major problems with age when I was in my teens and early 20's. At 40, people simply assume that I know what I'm doing.
I guess we all have different experiences. At 50+ myself, I'll use VBA when I have to, but most of the time you will see me code in Python, or R if that's the better fit. The people in my circles have been dabbling with Python since version 1.0. As for web-scraping data: I didn't even associate that with younger people.
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
I have hired over-40 programmers who were rockstars, and some over-40 workers who just could not deliver.
Age is just one variable among many, but people obsess over it because it is easier to ballpark someone's age in an interview than it is to get a read on other indicators of talent.
The biggest problem is that over-40 workers are universally more expensive than the 20's workers. They all want to jump in at the senior level, and feel justified in this based on their experience. This makes them a bigger risk to take, and ultimately more expensive if they don't pan out.
On the other hand, too much investment in kids results in software that works upfront but absolutely does not scale, and winds up full of ticking time bombs.
I think the money thing is a big issue alright. Apart from the knowledge and experience they bring, the over-40s have mortgages to pay and kids to put through college so working for entry level salaries is not an option. Like with offshoring, many employers assume that 3 cheap (but inexperienced) developers for the price of one expensive (but experienced) developer is a good deal. It isn't; it's a false economy.
A couple other things I've seen. Employers who assume that the brain ossifies at 40 and that "old dogs" are incapable of learning new tricks. We aren't. I'm continually learning new skills. And then there are folks who are concerned about managing developers who are older and more experienced than they are. A bit of honesty and respect goes a long way; we've seen most "management du jour" fads and we know that most of them are BS.
If you treat us greybeards right we can be surprisingly good value for money. :-)