4 ms·
No one seems to talk about the elephant in the room: salary. Isn't a more experienced person going to cost more? Are you going to feel comfortable offering them
by Fradow 11y ago
No one seems to talk about the elephant in the room: salary. Isn't a more experienced person going to cost more? Are you going to feel comfortable offering them a low salary (relative to their experience), because that's all you got to offer?
And the other way around, even if you would love to have an experienced developer, what do you do if for the same salary you can get an average developer (who will get the job done, because you already have experienced enough people to help), and another profile (sales for exemple)?
This is especially true at small companies, where there just isn't that much latitude to adjust the salary.
- rmah 11y agoPerhaps, but it's not like you have to pay 2x or 3x more to hire a programmer in their 50's. More like 20% or 30% more. For 200% to 300% more experience. That's a deal, in my book.
- throwaway101916 11y agoIt depends. It's possible to find a younger programmer who is less confident in their skills or vastly underestimates his net worth. This tends to normalize with age and experience, so an older programmer with the same skillset is likely going to be more expensive simply because they know how much they can ask for. Similar to the effect of women being paid less because they are less likely to ask for raises.
- vellum 11y ago>Isn't a more experienced person going to cost more? Sure. But everyone's looking for senior developers. And salary tends to top out for senior devs, so it's not like salary scales linearly with age.
- jasonlotito 11y ago> No one seems to talk about the elephant in the room: salary. This is not true at any company that "hires the best." If it is, they don't "hire the best." They hire the best they can con into accepting a competitive/artificially-low salary.
- jpindar 11y agoSo how should an older developer who doesn't need a high salary communicate this? All the usual job hunting advise is about making yourself seem more valuable - i.e. expensive.
- vellum 11y agoA lot of companies ask what salary range you're expecting. The standard advice is not to be the first one to give out a number, but here you can specify a lower range.
- jpindar 11y agoSo you're OK with discriminating against someone due to a factor they have no control over because of what you think some people like them might do (in this case, want more money)?