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Also, to be clear. I think that having many years of experience, hard-won judgement, really strong foundations, and experience with a variety of technologies (e

Also, to be clear. I think that having many years of experience, hard-won judgement, really strong foundations, and experience with a variety of technologies (even if they aren't the newest) SHOULD be enough to be seriously considered for a job. Someone who has been in the industry for 20 years and knows a bunch of languages and frameworks is most likely going to be able to pick up a new one quickly. And he or she will bring with them experience that a younger programmer with more knowledge of some specific new technology can't provide. In a perfect world, companies would understand that, and take it into account when they're hiring. But in reality, that doesn't always happen, and all I can do to prevent myself from being impacted by it is make sure I have the right keywords on my resume, along side my years and years of experience.

dasil003 11y ago
At 37 I'm somewhere in the middle and I think there are two major factors at play in terms of SV age bias. The first is a proliferation of young founders who have no experience and thus no frame of reference to evaluate older developers, so they just pattern match on the new tech they are familiar with. Nothing really to be done about that since convincing twentysomethings (particularly SV funded ones) of their hubris is a sisyphean task, and in any case it leaves talent on the table for those of us who actually know the value of a dollar. The second, more troubling factor is founders who actually understand the value of experience, but prefer to take advantage of ambitious kids who are willing to work extreme hours for little equity and less salary. All else being equal, it's easier to find strong talent that isn't aware of (or bad at negotiating) their own value at a young age compared to when they get old and jaded. As slimy as that is, I think it's a somewhat self-correcting problem in that good programmers are still too thin on the ground and startups who pass over old or minority candidates that are actually good will be at a competitive disadvantage. There is certainly a flood of young people going into technology via bootcamps or other means, but my experience so far is that there is a natural and unquantifiable talent component to being a good programmer which can not be solved by education. I firmly believe anyone can learn to program, but only a minority can ever learn to program well. At the moment, I interpret having learned to program before "startups" became a career move as a strong positive signal; chalk one up for the olds!
- Futurebot 11y ago
  They may very well be at a competitive disadvantage, but unless something magical happens to communicate to someone that fact as "having contributed to failure" or "at the margin, caused the failure", that disadvantage doesn't translate into anything that helps either discriminated against individuals, nor does it help improve cultures that allow or encourage discrimination. The individual or even group decision-making (with regards to not just company goals, but to lifestyles and associations) means that things like that end up as a wash. Make it more concrete: 28 year old founder decides to pass on excellent 47 year old programmer. What does that do the founder's life or company? Let's speculate on some possibilities: - It does nothing, because even though the older developer would have been better, their level of experience wasn't even necessary to do the job well. - The business winds up marginally less profitable, but still succeeds. - The business fails, somehow, because at the margin, missing out on hiring that older developer somehow started a chain of events that could have been prevented if said older developer were hired. In all cases, the founder goes on to find another job, makes plenty of money, is able to surround themselves with the type of people they'd rather be around (people their own age) and never is even aware of any impact on anything. To that person, it was just "didn't hire someone, something happened or didn't, life went on well, and founder was still happy, ultimately." What I'm saying is that the "disadvantage" and other related theories start sounding like a secular version of Karma; people use them as a way to tell themselves there will be justice (not that you're necessarily doing that, I have no idea), when in truth it's likely there will be none. You can try to "prevent" the discrimination through your own actions, which is by no means easy (https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/dealing-with-ageism-in-technology-f9632a345c7c https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/dealing-with-ageism-in-te...), but as the article makes clear, even in egregious cases, it's hard to prove or do anything about. Look how long we've had these various kinds of incredibly well-intentioned anti-discrimination laws, and look at the success rates on the suits / how often they're brought. The results are terrible. It's just too hard to prove.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    You raise a very good point. To be clear, I don't think the problem will solve itself, the key bit is awareness of the problem, which gives the necessary information for the market to correct itself, at least partially. Here's how I think this could possibly play out: Facebook and Google start paying 21-year-old kids $200k directly out of school, startups start paying ridiculous unsustainable salaries based on VC salaries. Savvy founders and hiring managers at other companies realize they can't economically compete for 25-year-old golden boy talent and start looking at other demographics to find the talent. Over time those savvy companies will thrive while the others are crushed by having to pay for inferior talent at inflated prices with bubble-time VC funds. Obviously this only works if people realize that older and minority talent is getting unduly passed over. And also I don't know how strong this effect will be or whether the existing tidal wave of bias is too overwhelming for such an anti-trend to even register in the marketplace. Whether or not this would even constitute justice goes beyond my thesis (I believe in ethical business, but justice is quite a tall order). Nevertheless, as a hiring manager, I see any market bias that I am aware of as a competitive advantage to me, and I'm convinced that effect is real no matter how small.
edwinnathaniel 11y ago
I was on the other side of the table: as an interviewer (plus a resume screener). I've seen this before with my own eyes but then my experience is just an anecdote: back in the 1998-2005 era, people keep piling on multiple technologies: C, C++, Java, Perl, XML, XPath, XQuery, XForms, SOAP, etc but whenever I looked into their resume, it becomes quite clear that they "learn" these technologies while working on something that: 1) I've never heard of, 2) or the needs to incorporate enterprise solution from back in the days (e.g.: form builder, complex enterprise frameworks, etc) doing some enterprise system In most cases, again this is my anecdote, none of these developers pass the interview. NodeJS was hot in the last 2 years (thought it has cool down a bit lately) but to me, NodeJS seems to have the risk of becoming one of those X[technology] revolution in which could lead to a negative signal if one has it in one's resume (plus it's a chance for me to grill candidate how good he/she is when it comes to JavaScript idioms, patterns, best-practices, automation-testing because at the moment, I know the majority of developers who put JavaScript on their resume don't actually practice "good hygiene" when it comes to JavaScript while I know for sure the number of Java developers whom I've interviewed before at least could demonstrate a better/solid software engineering skill).
- ryandrake 11y ago
  The programming language keyword padding is a response to employers who inexplicably list very specific language and technology demands. You never see a job posting that says: "Wanted someone who's smart, works hard, and ships software". Imagine a want ad for a carpenter: "Home builder wanted. MUST use Makita brand circular saw."
  - edwinnathaniel 11y ago
    In my area, usually the employers with job-posts that mention a long-list of techs are from health insurance/claim industry. Occasionally I saw ads like that being posted by small game companies/digital marketing companies; they fall under the "fishy/avoid" type of companies. Luckily the sane/majority of the companies here listed their main preferred technology.
- pm24601 11y ago

dasil003 11y ago

At 37 I'm somewhere in the middle and I think there are two major factors at play in terms of SV age bias. The first is a proliferation of young founders who have no experience and thus no frame of reference to evaluate older developers, so they just pattern match on the new tech they are familiar with. Nothing really to be done about that since convincing twentysomethings (particularly SV funded ones) of their hubris is a sisyphean task, and in any case it leaves talent on the table for those of us who actually know the value of a dollar. The second, more troubling factor is founders who actually understand the value of experience, but prefer to take advantage of ambitious kids who are willing to work extreme hours for little equity and less salary. All else being equal, it's easier to find strong talent that isn't aware of (or bad at negotiating) their own value at a young age compared to when they get old and jaded. As slimy as that is, I think it's a somewhat self-correcting problem in that good programmers are still too thin on the ground and startups who pass over old or minority candidates that are actually good will be at a competitive disadvantage. There is certainly a flood of young people going into technology via bootcamps or other means, but my experience so far is that there is a natural and unquantifiable talent component to being a good programmer which can not be solved by education. I firmly believe anyone can learn to program, but only a minority can ever learn to program well. At the moment, I interpret having learned to program before "startups" became a career move as a strong positive signal; chalk one up for the olds!

Futurebot 11y ago
They may very well be at a competitive disadvantage, but unless something magical happens to communicate to someone that fact as "having contributed to failure" or "at the margin, caused the failure", that disadvantage doesn't translate into anything that helps either discriminated against individuals, nor does it help improve cultures that allow or encourage discrimination. The individual or even group decision-making (with regards to not just company goals, but to lifestyles and associations) means that things like that end up as a wash. Make it more concrete: 28 year old founder decides to pass on excellent 47 year old programmer. What does that do the founder's life or company? Let's speculate on some possibilities: - It does nothing, because even though the older developer would have been better, their level of experience wasn't even necessary to do the job well. - The business winds up marginally less profitable, but still succeeds. - The business fails, somehow, because at the margin, missing out on hiring that older developer somehow started a chain of events that could have been prevented if said older developer were hired. In all cases, the founder goes on to find another job, makes plenty of money, is able to surround themselves with the type of people they'd rather be around (people their own age) and never is even aware of any impact on anything. To that person, it was just "didn't hire someone, something happened or didn't, life went on well, and founder was still happy, ultimately." What I'm saying is that the "disadvantage" and other related theories start sounding like a secular version of Karma; people use them as a way to tell themselves there will be justice (not that you're necessarily doing that, I have no idea), when in truth it's likely there will be none. You can try to "prevent" the discrimination through your own actions, which is by no means easy (https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/dealing-with-ageism-in-technology-f9632a345c7c https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/dealing-with-ageism-in-te...), but as the article makes clear, even in egregious cases, it's hard to prove or do anything about. Look how long we've had these various kinds of incredibly well-intentioned anti-discrimination laws, and look at the success rates on the suits / how often they're brought. The results are terrible. It's just too hard to prove.
- dasil003 11y ago
  You raise a very good point. To be clear, I don't think the problem will solve itself, the key bit is awareness of the problem, which gives the necessary information for the market to correct itself, at least partially. Here's how I think this could possibly play out: Facebook and Google start paying 21-year-old kids $200k directly out of school, startups start paying ridiculous unsustainable salaries based on VC salaries. Savvy founders and hiring managers at other companies realize they can't economically compete for 25-year-old golden boy talent and start looking at other demographics to find the talent. Over time those savvy companies will thrive while the others are crushed by having to pay for inferior talent at inflated prices with bubble-time VC funds. Obviously this only works if people realize that older and minority talent is getting unduly passed over. And also I don't know how strong this effect will be or whether the existing tidal wave of bias is too overwhelming for such an anti-trend to even register in the marketplace. Whether or not this would even constitute justice goes beyond my thesis (I believe in ethical business, but justice is quite a tall order). Nevertheless, as a hiring manager, I see any market bias that I am aware of as a competitive advantage to me, and I'm convinced that effect is real no matter how small.

edwinnathaniel 11y ago

I was on the other side of the table: as an interviewer (plus a resume screener). I've seen this before with my own eyes but then my experience is just an anecdote: back in the 1998-2005 era, people keep piling on multiple technologies: C, C++, Java, Perl, XML, XPath, XQuery, XForms, SOAP, etc but whenever I looked into their resume, it becomes quite clear that they "learn" these technologies while working on something that: 1) I've never heard of, 2) or the needs to incorporate enterprise solution from back in the days (e.g.: form builder, complex enterprise frameworks, etc) doing some enterprise system In most cases, again this is my anecdote, none of these developers pass the interview. NodeJS was hot in the last 2 years (thought it has cool down a bit lately) but to me, NodeJS seems to have the risk of becoming one of those X[technology] revolution in which could lead to a negative signal if one has it in one's resume (plus it's a chance for me to grill candidate how good he/she is when it comes to JavaScript idioms, patterns, best-practices, automation-testing because at the moment, I know the majority of developers who put JavaScript on their resume don't actually practice "good hygiene" when it comes to JavaScript while I know for sure the number of Java developers whom I've interviewed before at least could demonstrate a better/solid software engineering skill).

ryandrake 11y ago
The programming language keyword padding is a response to employers who inexplicably list very specific language and technology demands. You never see a job posting that says: "Wanted someone who's smart, works hard, and ships software". Imagine a want ad for a carpenter: "Home builder wanted. MUST use Makita brand circular saw."
- edwinnathaniel 11y ago
  In my area, usually the employers with job-posts that mention a long-list of techs are from health insurance/claim industry. Occasionally I saw ads like that being posted by small game companies/digital marketing companies; they fall under the "fishy/avoid" type of companies. Luckily the sane/majority of the companies here listed their main preferred technology.
pm24601 11y ago