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Ask HN: I'm an old programmer, do I qualify for diversity consideration?
- ddorian43 10y agoWhat about me? (I'm young but feel old from all the js-framework-of-the-week/pico-services(a service for every non-constant value) /docker-in-kubernetes-in-vm/golang mumbo-jumbo)
- inyorgroove 10y agoI empathize, we are migrating from flat systemd services to containers/kubernetes because its the new thing. I don't understand change for change sake is somewhat annoying and pointless.
- ddorian43 10y agoI once worked on a company that was using s3/sqs/etc even on dev/testing. I grew old just from the latency!
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y agoLook at the bright side. Now that youre familiar with both, you have another skill to list on your resume, making yiu a slightly more attractive candidate in the job market.
- collyw 10y agoReading through articles and comments on micro services I can't help but think the same. Much of it seems to be moving complexity from the application layer to the ops layer.
- bryanrasmussen 10y agoI'm 113 in web-dev years.
- Yoric 10y agoHow do you compute these? Also, does it involve funky JavaScript arithmetics?
- andai 10y agoAre those like dog years?
- bryanrasmussen 10y agoNot sure, in web-dev nobody knows if you're a dog.
- purple-dragon 10y agoSerious question: are you trolling? I hire programmers for a startup. When I do, we do not care at all how old you are. We care about attitude, skills, and aptitude.
- wyclif 10y agoYours is an anecdotal comment. I'm glad to hear that your company doesn't engage in ageism, but just because you don't doesn't mean others embody the same cultural values. [EDIT] Relevant story from HN last year: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/64-year-old-engineer-sues-google-for-age-discrimination/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/64-year-old-engin...
- purple-dragon 10y agoOf course it is anecdotal. It has to be. There is no official, legal definition of diversity consideration in hiring. Nor is there any universal culture of applying it to hiring programmers. Edit: I certainly understand that this type of discrimination occurs... I just don't think that age is typically an active consideration for companies with mature/experienced management. We all know that "not a good culture fit" can be code for things both fair and unfair.
- jacquesm 10y ago> I just don't think that age is typically an active consideration for companies with mature/experienced management. That's spot on, now you have to wonder how many companies have such management and how many - unfortunately - do not.
- cauterized 10y agoNeither are race or gender an active consideration for the vast majority of hiring managers. Just because it isn't among the criteria that they actively apply when filtering candidates doesn't mean the bias doesn't exist.
- 10y ago
- hex13 10y agohow old? 60+? 50+? 40+? 30+? 20+? (I'm serious, sometimes even 25 year old devs feel old).
- jaimebuelta 10y agoWtf? 25 years?
- kyberias 10y agoHow do 25 year old devs "feel old"?
- hex13 10y agoDon't ask me. They're exaggerating ofc but I sometimes hear that somebody in his twenties feels old.
- throw_away_777 10y agoAt every moment in your life, you are older than you have ever been before. If you compare your life when you are 19 to 25, that is a much greater difference than your life from 50 to 56.
- Yoric 10y agoTechnology fatigue: you have just spent the last few years becoming an expert in a technology stack, and suddenly, nobody cares about that stack. Or worse, people start reinventing stuff that was trendy – or possibly even old – when you were tinkering with it as a teenager, and they make all the same mistakes. Happens a lot with the web for the past few years (every JavaScript GUI framework, WebSockets ~ sockets, WebASM ~ asm, WebGL ~ OpenGL, etc.) and in the programming language community (generics, functional programming, concurrency becoming mainstream after the industry spent 40 years decrying them, etc.) Probably in other places, too. Also called Future Shock when I was a kid so even the concept itself is making a cyclic comeback :)
- jk4930 10y agoNot on the right trajectory to retire as a startup billionaire with 30.
- shams93 10y agoYou might if you have a disability. Companies can get federal tax credits for hiring disabled.
- jackyinger 10y agoAge based discrimination is a thing, but it is nearly orthogonal to the context in which corporations think about diversity. This orthogonal its is a product of senior folks supposedly expecting more pay, and lack of oversight using age as a metric of diversity. At the tech giant I work at, older technical folks seem to either climb the corporate ladder a few rungs or get ground into contracting peons. It's not pretty... I find that a lot of 'new' ideas in computing are just the latest iteration. So there's certainly value in having folks around who have seen many iterations.
- ThePawnBreak 10y agoNo, diversity is doublespeak for women or black people.
- Yoric 10y agoI wouldn't be so sure about that. In the past, I have interviewed for management positions and some of the questions involved about diversity – when I answered with some anecdotes my experience working Indian or Singaporean colleagues and how we have different blindspots, this seemed to satisfy the recruiters.
- Natanael_L 10y agoDoublethink, newspeak. (If you're referencing 1984)
- ThePawnBreak 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
- gracenotes 10y agoMaybe? The type of diversity that companies care about (to contrast with the many strawmen out there) happens to be good for the bottom line. That is, a team with 5 men and 5 women is likelier to perform better than one with 10 men [1]. Some explanations I have heard are that diversity brings perspective that wouldn't be present in a monoculture, and that it improves psychological safety which is a huge determiner of team performance [2]. There are models out there made by actual social scientists of why diversity helps. See [3] for instance, has both elements. It does seem like age-based discrimination would have a negative effect on psychological safety, as with any discrimination due to conscious or unconscious biases. Regarding perspective, an experienced individual could either bring in valuable insight from their experience or constantly veer towards the status quo, partly depending on how you want to look at it. I think the answer is: it is complicated. You now have my ideas on why diversity is valuable. Does age fit that model? (Even if not, of course, age-based discrimination is not good.) [1] https://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom-line-1007 https://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-botto... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learn... [3] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation [4] https://www.fastcompany.com/1841060/redefining-diversity-new-global-workforce https://www.fastcompany.com/1841060/redefining-diversity-new... - bonus
- throw_away_777 10y agoThe sources you linked are rather weak evidence for your claims. This type of observational research is difficult, and in the social sciences, especially about political topics, you should be very skeptical. The majority of published papers in this field are wrong. Diversity may or may not be good for companies bottom lines, but there is no conclusive evidence (at least from what you linked) - and it also matters the magnitude of the effect. Some of these articles are implying a size of an effect that is completely ridiculous, there is just no way that diversity "could increase revenue by 41%" - we'd see way more diversity in work places if this was true. Here is an article with a different conclusion - and here the "educational diversity" only had a more reasonable 2% effect, while "demographic diversity" is allegedly harmful [1]. But you have to be careful, all of these studies appear to suffer from testing multiple hypothesis - breaking diversity down into sub-categories and looking at each one independently should decrease confidence in the conclusions of these studies. [1] http://ftp.iza.org/dp6973.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp6973.pdf
- ewr24 10y agoProbably not as old (white?) male. But there is a simple way to increase your diversity. You could start identifying as a woman, it is just a verbal identification, no other changes are required. This way you would also become lesbian. In some countries you can legally change your race, by religious conversion (Sikht in UK). Again, religion is just a verbal identification.
- cloudjacker 10y agoIn the United States age is a protected class over 40 years old.
- Yoric 10y agoQuestion from overseas: what's a "protected class"?
- bmh100 10y agoThis refers to a category of person protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964[1], Title VII, as extended by other laws over time. It "prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin". Those of age 40+ years are covered specifically by the "Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967". In other words, "age of 40 or more years" is a "protected class". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employment_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employme...
- tominous 10y agoI'm curious as to whether these laws make a positive difference in practice. If someone is truly racist/sexist/ageist then they could probably invent a lawful excuse for their hiring behaviour anyway. On the other hand, if they are rational then (a) they would already benefit from hiring these workers cheaply because the demand is lower, so they would win in the market, and (b) the discrimination laws would increase the expected cost due to the increased potential for lawsuits. It reminds me of the recent Linux discussion about how lawsuits are poisonous to the community and cause companies to avoid participating. [1] Does anyone have any empirical data on the actual outcomes of these laws? [1] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2016-August/003580.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/...
- ntlk 10y agoYes.