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If you'd apply this exact reasoning to gender (Or sex? I don't know what's the correct term here, sorry), you'd get downvoted into oblivion. Maybe younger peop

by Joe-Z 9y ago

If you'd apply this exact reasoning to gender (Or sex? I don't know what's the correct term here, sorry), you'd get downvoted into oblivion. Maybe younger people (or men, to further my point) are inherently better suited to do software engineering. Or maybe the way the whole system is set up just optimizes for young males to succeed, while others, objectively just as qualified, can't compete.

rsj_hn 9y ago
The thing is, should CS ever become a shrinking field, it will suddenly be skewed by older people because of the same dynamic, and then all these natural talent arguments will go out the window. This is primarily a queueing problem for the industry as a whole. In the U.S., the median worker age is about 43, but the median age of software developers is 40, or 3 years younger than average. (https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm) I really think this 3 year discrepancy is because of the queueing dynamics. Now, in silicon valley, it's a bit of a different story -- maybe. But a lot of silicon valley developers live a bubble and are shocked to discover that 1) Almost all programmers in the U.S. live outside the valley, and 2) The median programmer age is not 29. So then you have to ask yourself what is it about the valley that makes it skew younger. Then you look and see that it's not the entire valley that skews younger, but companies like Google skew much younger than firms like Oracle or HP. One might almost say that these companies have a younger "culture". Now all of a sudden, the natural abilities argument start to seem weaker. Now, for gender, if the national skew of women/men software developers was 50/50, but at google it was 80/20, I'd be asking questions about what is going on with google. But Google has a similar skew to the national average. Therefore talking about large group differences is at least plausible. So once the median age at google for developers is more in line with the median age of developers at other companies -- e.g. closer to 40 -- then we can start discussing whether the difference between 40 and 43 (median age of all workers vs. programmers) is due to group differences (which I don't believe) or just queueing effects. Again, I don't want to say that Google is intentionally discriminating. Maybe developers stay in the same company, so older companies have older developers and younger companies have younger developers. I think there is some truth to that. There are many possible reasons. But whatever reason you give, the national median age of software engineers is a full 10 years older than the median age of software engineers at Google, and that's something that bears looking into.

by Joe-Z 9y ago

rsj_hn 9y ago

The thing is, should CS ever become a shrinking field, it will suddenly be skewed by older people because of the same dynamic, and then all these natural talent arguments will go out the window. This is primarily a queueing problem for the industry as a whole. In the U.S., the median worker age is about 43, but the median age of software developers is 40, or 3 years younger than average. (https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm) I really think this 3 year discrepancy is because of the queueing dynamics. Now, in silicon valley, it's a bit of a different story -- maybe. But a lot of silicon valley developers live a bubble and are shocked to discover that 1) Almost all programmers in the U.S. live outside the valley, and 2) The median programmer age is not 29. So then you have to ask yourself what is it about the valley that makes it skew younger. Then you look and see that it's not the entire valley that skews younger, but companies like Google skew much younger than firms like Oracle or HP. One might almost say that these companies have a younger "culture". Now all of a sudden, the natural abilities argument start to seem weaker. Now, for gender, if the national skew of women/men software developers was 50/50, but at google it was 80/20, I'd be asking questions about what is going on with google. But Google has a similar skew to the national average. Therefore talking about large group differences is at least plausible. So once the median age at google for developers is more in line with the median age of developers at other companies -- e.g. closer to 40 -- then we can start discussing whether the difference between 40 and 43 (median age of all workers vs. programmers) is due to group differences (which I don't believe) or just queueing effects. Again, I don't want to say that Google is intentionally discriminating. Maybe developers stay in the same company, so older companies have older developers and younger companies have younger developers. I think there is some truth to that. There are many possible reasons. But whatever reason you give, the national median age of software engineers is a full 10 years older than the median age of software engineers at Google, and that's something that bears looking into.