6 ms·

I know a woman in her mid-60s who has been programming since the late 1960s. She's much more than an "experienced dev": she is a sage, a teacher, and a grand-ma

I know a woman in her mid-60s who has been programming since the late 1960s. She's much more than an "experienced dev": she is a sage, a teacher, and a grand-master of the art of computer programming: a true engineer in the very core of her being. Yet she can't find steady employment. She believes that is because of age discrimination, and I cannot help but to agree with her.

hjnilsson 11y ago
Don't know if this is the case in the US. But generally, mid-60s people are shied away from being hired because they will retire shortly. Investing in an employee that will be gone very soon is a thing few companies would do, and not unique to IT by any measure. The exception being when they have a need for her exact talent.
- huac 11y ago
  Which will end first, the employee's career or the startup? Funny that this is a consideration given how short most runways seem to be.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's a great point I haven't seen anyone else bring up. It's worth bringing up again in any discussion involving startups. Many barely last a few years. Who are they to talk about what an employee will do in the next 10 years lol? Answer: "If you're good and VC's like you, I'll be working with you on your third startup by then."
- JonFish85 11y ago
  How long do younger people stay at a job, on average? I'd imagine it's 5 years or less. In fact, I'd argue that a person closer to retirement might be more likely to stay longer than someone just starting out. The younger person doesn't have kids, a mortgage or roots put down, so it's much easier for them to leave.
  - kedean 11y ago
    On the flipside, neither does a person in their 60's, most likely. Kids probably have all moved out, mortgages are probably paid off. As a person ages, they become more able to shift themselves, barring special circumstances like a sick spouse.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >How long do younger people stay at a job, on average? I'd imagine it's 5 years or less. Yet if you admit that, it counts as a mark against you while being hired. It is one place where those hiring are outright ignoring reality, and instead prefer that everyone pretends we are making life long arrangements. Anything that breaks the playing pretend game counts against you; be it honestly stating you think there is a better chance than not that you'll have moved on in 5 years or being of enough age that the interviewer thinks you will retire within 5 years.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Looking at industries, I'm starting to feel that at the age of 50+ you can't really expect to pop up out of a blue with a nice CV and get hired. You have to keep in the flow - change projects, jump companies, build a network of people who know your skills and can recommend you when there are people needed for a new endeavour. It's probably not good, but it seems to me it works this way everywhere.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  An issue with 50+ is, everybody looks at your resume and says "Why do you want to work at our position?" Because, you've done so much at so many levels they assume you should be a VP or something, and no longer be developing.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Inverted funnel: suppose there are ten programmers to every VP. As the programmers age, what happens to this ratio?
endtime 11y ago
Could you link her GitHub profile?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Github profile is pretty meaningless as an evaluator of professional skill, outside a very small number of fields. Almost everything I've written professionally in my 15 year career so far is closed source and not going to turn up on Github.
  - naveen99 11y ago
    Not mutually exclusive. Why can't you have some hobby stuff on github ? I guess you might have to get permission in some companies, but not impossible anywhere I would think. Also isn't programming one of those fields.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      'pjc50 by "field" probably meant a subfield of software, like "sexy websites built on node.js". Not all types of software jobs yield Githubbable results. That said, she definitely has something to share - if not open-soruce hobby projects, then at least interesting stories from jobs she did and battles she fought. I'd love to read such account.
      - akuchling 11y ago
        I suggest Philip Hazel's technical memoir (http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ph10/CIHK.pdf http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ph10/CIHK.pdf), which goes through his career.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Downloaded and saved to my "to read" folder, thanks!
    - msandford 11y ago
TheCondor 11y ago
Is she a badass engineer or is she a sage? I don't mean it to be offensive but I've worked with oldtymers that wanted to coach more than actually do. They have tremendous knowledge and experience but if they're advisors or extra managers, they aren't building; some companies need and can afford that and value it, a lot of startup type places see that as an extra cost. Our industry has these polar ethos that are pretty deep: one group sees old product that has stood the test of time as an indicator of quality. Like "UNIX has been around over 40 years, it clearly did some things right." The other, and it's insanely popular right now, thinks that anything that is too old clearly has some damage and its no longer good technology, like the neovim crowd, "vim doesn't even use the newest C standards features.." Some times you have to believe that you're doing something different and everybody did it wrong before and that's while you'll succeed this time, that's how you take the risk and ignore the downsides. being old can be a detriment to that belief.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  To evaluate whether age can be used as a descriminator for those attitudes and behaviors, I suggest you substitute "woman" or "black" and see how that reads. There are young people who will only use the tools they are comfortable with. Ageism is the mistaken belief that this is somehow associated with your most recent birthday, akin to astrology.
  - TheCondor 11y ago
    I'm not endorsing or accepting discrimination, I simply offered up a meek rationalization as I see it. Honestly, if you find and older person that wants to work at a startup, there is a good chance that they could be doing a few things right to have that energy and drive. You want to know how they live and what they do.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Ahistoricity is one of the things I find infuriating about this profession. Because everyone's an autodidact. I don't mind the argument that "everyone did it wrong before" because that's sometimes true, or something underlying is really different, but it needs to come with some actual awareness of what constraints "before" was operating under, and what was and was not achieved.
brlewis 11y ago
Is she looking now? What does she want to do? My company has lots of openings.
danellis 11y ago
Does she have any prose or code online?

hjnilsson 11y ago

Don't know if this is the case in the US. But generally, mid-60s people are shied away from being hired because they will retire shortly. Investing in an employee that will be gone very soon is a thing few companies would do, and not unique to IT by any measure. The exception being when they have a need for her exact talent.

huac 11y ago
Which will end first, the employee's career or the startup? Funny that this is a consideration given how short most runways seem to be.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  That's a great point I haven't seen anyone else bring up. It's worth bringing up again in any discussion involving startups. Many barely last a few years. Who are they to talk about what an employee will do in the next 10 years lol? Answer: "If you're good and VC's like you, I'll be working with you on your third startup by then."
JonFish85 11y ago
How long do younger people stay at a job, on average? I'd imagine it's 5 years or less. In fact, I'd argue that a person closer to retirement might be more likely to stay longer than someone just starting out. The younger person doesn't have kids, a mortgage or roots put down, so it's much easier for them to leave.
- kedean 11y ago
  On the flipside, neither does a person in their 60's, most likely. Kids probably have all moved out, mortgages are probably paid off. As a person ages, they become more able to shift themselves, barring special circumstances like a sick spouse.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >How long do younger people stay at a job, on average? I'd imagine it's 5 years or less. Yet if you admit that, it counts as a mark against you while being hired. It is one place where those hiring are outright ignoring reality, and instead prefer that everyone pretends we are making life long arrangements. Anything that breaks the playing pretend game counts against you; be it honestly stating you think there is a better chance than not that you'll have moved on in 5 years or being of enough age that the interviewer thinks you will retire within 5 years.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Looking at industries, I'm starting to feel that at the age of 50+ you can't really expect to pop up out of a blue with a nice CV and get hired. You have to keep in the flow - change projects, jump companies, build a network of people who know your skills and can recommend you when there are people needed for a new endeavour. It's probably not good, but it seems to me it works this way everywhere.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
An issue with 50+ is, everybody looks at your resume and says "Why do you want to work at our position?" Because, you've done so much at so many levels they assume you should be a VP or something, and no longer be developing.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Inverted funnel: suppose there are ten programmers to every VP. As the programmers age, what happens to this ratio?

endtime 11y ago

Could you link her GitHub profile?

pjc50 11y ago
Github profile is pretty meaningless as an evaluator of professional skill, outside a very small number of fields. Almost everything I've written professionally in my 15 year career so far is closed source and not going to turn up on Github.
- naveen99 11y ago
  Not mutually exclusive. Why can't you have some hobby stuff on github ? I guess you might have to get permission in some companies, but not impossible anywhere I would think. Also isn't programming one of those fields.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    'pjc50 by "field" probably meant a subfield of software, like "sexy websites built on node.js". Not all types of software jobs yield Githubbable results. That said, she definitely has something to share - if not open-soruce hobby projects, then at least interesting stories from jobs she did and battles she fought. I'd love to read such account.
    - akuchling 11y ago
      I suggest Philip Hazel's technical memoir (http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ph10/CIHK.pdf http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/ph10/CIHK.pdf), which goes through his career.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Downloaded and saved to my "to read" folder, thanks!
  - msandford 11y ago

TheCondor 11y ago

Is she a badass engineer or is she a sage? I don't mean it to be offensive but I've worked with oldtymers that wanted to coach more than actually do. They have tremendous knowledge and experience but if they're advisors or extra managers, they aren't building; some companies need and can afford that and value it, a lot of startup type places see that as an extra cost. Our industry has these polar ethos that are pretty deep: one group sees old product that has stood the test of time as an indicator of quality. Like "UNIX has been around over 40 years, it clearly did some things right." The other, and it's insanely popular right now, thinks that anything that is too old clearly has some damage and its no longer good technology, like the neovim crowd, "vim doesn't even use the newest C standards features.." Some times you have to believe that you're doing something different and everybody did it wrong before and that's while you'll succeed this time, that's how you take the risk and ignore the downsides. being old can be a detriment to that belief.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
To evaluate whether age can be used as a descriminator for those attitudes and behaviors, I suggest you substitute "woman" or "black" and see how that reads. There are young people who will only use the tools they are comfortable with. Ageism is the mistaken belief that this is somehow associated with your most recent birthday, akin to astrology.
- TheCondor 11y ago
  I'm not endorsing or accepting discrimination, I simply offered up a meek rationalization as I see it. Honestly, if you find and older person that wants to work at a startup, there is a good chance that they could be doing a few things right to have that energy and drive. You want to know how they live and what they do.
pjc50 11y ago
Ahistoricity is one of the things I find infuriating about this profession. Because everyone's an autodidact. I don't mind the argument that "everyone did it wrong before" because that's sometimes true, or something underlying is really different, but it needs to come with some actual awareness of what constraints "before" was operating under, and what was and was not achieved.

brlewis 11y ago

Is she looking now? What does she want to do? My company has lots of openings.

danellis 11y ago

Does she have any prose or code online?