4 ms·

I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a sing

by fecak 11y ago

I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years. I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers as you might think. I know many over 50 (I'm mid 40s) that have never and will never have any difficulty finding jobs for the foreseeable future because they've stayed relevant. The main thing I would avoid is long tenures at employers where you are not working with newer technologies, not producing tangible accomplishments, or not challenged to learn on a regular basis. If you've been at the same thing for many years, it's difficult to differentiate age bias from a bias against someone who hasn't learned much or kept up with the industry. Older devs that work for (or consult to) employers that use newer tech have no choice but to stay relevant.

pc86 11y ago
Always happy to see your username on threads discussing these matters! I think you bring up an important point - your average 50 year old developer is much more likely to have spent the last 10 years at the same company, working with the same technology, maybe even with the same title, than the 35 year old developer. Most of my experience has been .Net web application development in the northeast/mid-Atlantic. I think it'd be damn near impossible for me to get a job writing Ruby or Go for a startup at this point unless I made it a goal (it's definitely not) and spent considerable effort in my spare time working on projects. I'm only 29. If you're a 52 year old developer who has spent 22 years writing RPG reports for AS/400s and you get laid off, you're either going to end up in doing the exact same job for another company, or you're going to be retiring.
- fecak 11y ago
  Thanks! And I think your point is pretty well made. Because of how attitudes towards job change have developed over time from being negatively labeled a 'job hopper' to now having it accepted (and somewhat expected), older devs tend to have longer tenures in one place. Now that even the youngest of the first dotcom engineers are probably hitting their 40s, it will be interesting to see whether ageism will still be a factor in hiring for the industry.
  - pc86 11y ago
    I've definitely seen the effect of that "job hopper" mentality - I left my first development job ca. 2010 after a year and a half. My parents were terrified I'd never find another job because it'd look bad not having been there for "4 or 5 years at least." Since, I've had more than one person surprised that I've stayed at places longer than 2 years.
    - fecak 11y ago
      Much of the career advice I provide serves to counteract poor advice given by parents or university career counselors. Even most general career advice doesn't apply to the industry.
JohnBooty 11y ago
> bias against someone who had a long tenure at a > single company perhaps with a single technology > on a single product development effort I'm not sure if this accounts for 0.1% or 99% of alleged "age bias" incidents but I agree with you: this is most definitely a bad thing for a developer to do to themselves. I would be very, very skeptical of a prospective employee with a resume like that. On the other hand, I'd think very highly of a prospective employee with a resume like that looked like that and had additional open-source or other programming projects they'd contributed to. I'd think, "This person loves to code, and has been pushing themselves to grow and diversify their skills despite being stuck in a daytime coding job that encourages no such thing..." What do you think? What if anything would sway your opinion of somebody that has been maintaining a PHP4 app at BigHugeBoringCo for the last 10 years?
- fecak 11y ago
  Most of my clients are, as you mention, skeptical of employees with incredibly long tenures marked by limited accomplishments and static skills. I also can't speak as to the percentage of potential 'age bias incidents' that stem from this type of situation, but attitudes towards employment and loyalty are certainly a factor. Career fluidity has only been a somewhat accepted industry trait for the past 10 or so years. I had clients circa 2005 that wouldn't look at a resume for any candidate that hadn't been at their current job for 7+ years, which eliminated everyone who had taken a chance on a startup during the first dotcom wave. The generation of technologists that started work in the 80s and early 90s likely had pensions and other retirement benefits that made staying at their job an easier decision, and they were likely raised with different feelings towards employer/employee relationships. Flash forward to 15-20 years into their career, and the job market, the definition of marketability, and job search itself changed dramatically. It's easy to point to ageism, but that's not really it, because the ones that joined startups or moved around a bit aren't seeing that same level of stigmatization. If someone is maintaining that PHP4 app at BigCo for 10+ years, I'd think that person would probably need to demonstrate that they've been paying attention to dev trends or they won't get looked at. If you're not getting challenging work at the job, you need to find it somewhere else. I started offering resume and career consulting services to job seekers over a year ago, and a large percentage of my clients are people in this boat who need to reinvent and market themselves to appeal to today's employers. It can be scary to look for jobs today if you haven't looked in 10 years.

by fecak 11y ago

pc86 11y ago

Always happy to see your username on threads discussing these matters! I think you bring up an important point - your average 50 year old developer is much more likely to have spent the last 10 years at the same company, working with the same technology, maybe even with the same title, than the 35 year old developer. Most of my experience has been .Net web application development in the northeast/mid-Atlantic. I think it'd be damn near impossible for me to get a job writing Ruby or Go for a startup at this point unless I made it a goal (it's definitely not) and spent considerable effort in my spare time working on projects. I'm only 29. If you're a 52 year old developer who has spent 22 years writing RPG reports for AS/400s and you get laid off, you're either going to end up in doing the exact same job for another company, or you're going to be retiring.

fecak 11y ago
Thanks! And I think your point is pretty well made. Because of how attitudes towards job change have developed over time from being negatively labeled a 'job hopper' to now having it accepted (and somewhat expected), older devs tend to have longer tenures in one place. Now that even the youngest of the first dotcom engineers are probably hitting their 40s, it will be interesting to see whether ageism will still be a factor in hiring for the industry.
- pc86 11y ago
  I've definitely seen the effect of that "job hopper" mentality - I left my first development job ca. 2010 after a year and a half. My parents were terrified I'd never find another job because it'd look bad not having been there for "4 or 5 years at least." Since, I've had more than one person surprised that I've stayed at places longer than 2 years.
  - fecak 11y ago
    Much of the career advice I provide serves to counteract poor advice given by parents or university career counselors. Even most general career advice doesn't apply to the industry.

JohnBooty 11y ago

> bias against someone who had a long tenure at a > single company perhaps with a single technology > on a single product development effort I'm not sure if this accounts for 0.1% or 99% of alleged "age bias" incidents but I agree with you: this is most definitely a bad thing for a developer to do to themselves. I would be very, very skeptical of a prospective employee with a resume like that. On the other hand, I'd think very highly of a prospective employee with a resume like that looked like that and had additional open-source or other programming projects they'd contributed to. I'd think, "This person loves to code, and has been pushing themselves to grow and diversify their skills despite being stuck in a daytime coding job that encourages no such thing..." What do you think? What if anything would sway your opinion of somebody that has been maintaining a PHP4 app at BigHugeBoringCo for the last 10 years?

fecak 11y ago
Most of my clients are, as you mention, skeptical of employees with incredibly long tenures marked by limited accomplishments and static skills. I also can't speak as to the percentage of potential 'age bias incidents' that stem from this type of situation, but attitudes towards employment and loyalty are certainly a factor. Career fluidity has only been a somewhat accepted industry trait for the past 10 or so years. I had clients circa 2005 that wouldn't look at a resume for any candidate that hadn't been at their current job for 7+ years, which eliminated everyone who had taken a chance on a startup during the first dotcom wave. The generation of technologists that started work in the 80s and early 90s likely had pensions and other retirement benefits that made staying at their job an easier decision, and they were likely raised with different feelings towards employer/employee relationships. Flash forward to 15-20 years into their career, and the job market, the definition of marketability, and job search itself changed dramatically. It's easy to point to ageism, but that's not really it, because the ones that joined startups or moved around a bit aren't seeing that same level of stigmatization. If someone is maintaining that PHP4 app at BigCo for 10+ years, I'd think that person would probably need to demonstrate that they've been paying attention to dev trends or they won't get looked at. If you're not getting challenging work at the job, you need to find it somewhere else. I started offering resume and career consulting services to job seekers over a year ago, and a large percentage of my clients are people in this boat who need to reinvent and market themselves to appeal to today's employers. It can be scary to look for jobs today if you haven't looked in 10 years.