9 ms·

Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? I know I prefer t

Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? I know I prefer to hire people with experience because they deliver better work, faster. Part of that comes from managing their work/life balance better, but maturity in general have almost no downsides in the thinking business. Older workers are typically better at analyzing situations and also at telling me truths that they think I don’t want to hear, which is immensely valuable in decision making. Not that you’ll want only experience. A balanced work force is the best in my opinion. Get your experienced staff to mentor your hires fresh out of school, and they’ll teach each other. I know ageism is a thing in tech, and probably especially in startups which is mostly people in their twenties, but wasn’t there recently an article on how the most successful startups are actually started by someone aged 35-45? I wonder if the Chinese ageism is because China is approaching tech as a factory line? Which would be a radically different approach than we have in Scandinavia, where we want our engineers to be well educated and capable of self-management and teamwork.

ggg9990 8y ago
I know that without engineers over 30 Amazon Google Facebook etc. would have imploded by now
- raverbashing 8y ago
  It's the eternal September with some members of the younger generation.
kartan 8y ago
> sure they can work the young guys harder, If you are NOT a good manager, that is all that you care about. Did you fail to plan the rest release? Developers will do extra hours. Did you miss understood the requirements? Developers will fix it with extra hours. Did you decide to use the wrong technology for the project? Developers will work extra hours. A company that hires only people that does what is told and stays longer hours have incompetent management. > I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. Companies that value diversity (age, gender, nationality, etc.) are the ones looking for that high-quality output that makes products work in the long term. Sweden is as successful as China when it comes to software, even that there are orders of magnitude of the difference of population. The main reason is the respect for family and employees. Even that Sweden also is far from perfect.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dx034 8y ago
  Maybe software for international markets. But there's a lot of software produced in China for the huge domestic market. I doubt Sweden has the same software output as China.
  - staticelf 8y ago
    Per capita, I'm pretty sure Sweden has a higher output.
    - yesforwhat 8y ago
      Per capita they are also the largest arms dealers in the world. Per capita doesn't say much about a country overall.
      - deaddodo 8y ago
        It's the only argument that makes sense for disparate population sizes. The US and UK (and less so Germany, France, Israel and Japan) produce a sizable majority of software products, especially at an enterprise level. At a per capita level, that gap is even larger with China; and countries like Sweden and Norway become top players.
        kodablah 8y ago
        > It's the only argument that makes sense for disparate population sizes. Or you accept that a comparison simply can't be made and don't make the argument in the first place.
        deaddodo 8y ago
        Incorrect.
        8y ago
drvdevd 8y ago
I believe it’s simply easier to manipulate younger devs into taking lower salaries, in general. So the tech companies (and apparently in China as well), reinforce this ageism.
- nailer 8y ago
  > I believe it’s simply easier to manipulate younger devs into taking lower salaries I agree with this, but just wanted to add how interesting it is that it occurs in a country ostensibly run by a system which is ostensibly about the power of labour.
  - badosu 8y ago
    Isn't this rampant on US as well though? E.G. shallow perks as ping-pong table, snacks, videogame, beers in the office but totally disfunctional management and work-life balance. Using the latest shiny tech just because it makes it easier to target these groups and replace the burned out ones. I see this happening a lot on finance and consulting jobs outside of tech too: - Offer a reasonable salary for interns/trainees (not reasonable relative to the responsibilities though) - Promise a huge corporate salary with benefits for the ones that are able to remain more than x years - Burn all of them out, working overtime, abusing from young inexperienced people - Promote a couple from dozens of people to serve as an example of successful cases - Fire or continue abusing the rest - Rinse and repeat In the end you acquired a couple of indoctrinated corporate zombies as well as years of cheap hours from the other ones. Just take a look at every year's trainee program and the mind washing process from banks and corporate consultancies. Do the candidates really believe that the company needs so many trainees each year? The turnover is a feature, not a bug... Edit: Just noticed my point is not related to your argument, and I actually agree with you.
  - ataturk 8y ago
    Communism is not about the "power of labor." Communism is about taking the individual and beating him into the mud until they are a bloody pulp, unable and unwilling to ever resist again. It is the ultimate conformity at the point of a gun. And I find it increasingly alarming that young people don't understand what I just said. I also think that it is very illuminating that China, the giant human anthill, expresses every single abuse that the Industrial Revolution revealed to the world--you know, the very behaviors that Marx and Engels were so angry about?
wonton2 8y ago
Just imagine the sheer difference in size, there are millions every year finishing their higher education in china, chinese cities are bigger than scandinavian countries. When you have this many people labor is cheaper and you have more employees in the big companies. The way og managing people in scandinavia simply cannot happen there. It is like the only thing that can manage such big companies are policies and the chain of command. So for example i imagine if you told your managers to tell their sub-managers to hire senior staff all you would get is higher salaries because people get to where they are not based on merit but because how good they are at politics. So then the only rational choice would be to get naive young people who will believe what the boss say without questioning and cost less.
- oblio 8y ago
  There are plenty of big companies outside of China that are both big and don't follow military practices for management. You scale big companies like you scale anything: you break down the problem into smaller subproblems and solve those. You make it sound like only way to scale is by having a dictatorship and a strong chain of command. Historically the more power the peons had, as long as they didn't completely disregard the chain of command, the stronger the organization was. Also, despite China having 1 billion people, you don't need 1 billion employees to turn a profit. Even the biggest Chinese companies, outside of state owned ones (which have different, more social, objectives) aren't much bigger than other big companies worldwide.
lordnacho 8y ago
> Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? Especially with software, which is a creative business. Your first hour of a day is probably a lot more productive than your 12th. That last hour might even be counterproductive, when you create bugs and extra complication that needs to be sorted out later.
a_bonobo 8y ago
I have received results from BGI (Beijing Genomics Institute), which is the biggest genomics company in the world by now which does a lot of genome sequencing and assembly on demand. They employ a massive amount of undergrad and postgrad students to do their work with a high turnover, complete with living areas right next to the building, since that's cheaper than having people with experience. >BGI in Shenzhen has a staff of nearly 2700: scientists, lab workers and clerks. The average age is 27, and the atmosphere is university/YWCA/science club. Two-thirds of the employees live in sex-segregated dormitories near the BGI building [...] >Some geneticists have raised an eyebrow at BGI: noting this army of young and often not formally qualified workers Source: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/chinese-genome-mappers-bgi-explain-their-mission-to-change-the-world-20150129-131fm1.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/chinese-genome-mappers-bgi... Somewhat mirrored in the Glassdoor reviews: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/BGI-Shenzhen-Reviews-E537068.htm https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/BGI-Shenzhen-Reviews-E5... This is noticeable from the results I've received, as in the quality being all over the shop. Sometimes the results are documented nicely, sometimes there's no documentation. Sometimes a different genome assembler was used, but it's not in the documentation. Sometimes it's really good, sometimes it's complete crap. We've stopped doing business with them as it's simply not reliable.
- branko_d 8y ago
  Makes me glad I ordered prenatal genetic test for my daughter from Roche (Harmony) and not BGI (Nifty).
- yesforwhat 8y ago
  > >BGI in Shenzhen has a staff of nearly 2700: scientists, lab workers and clerks. The average age is 27, and the atmosphere is university/YWCA/science club. Two-thirds of the employees live in sex-segregated dormitories near the BGI building [...] Sounds like a nightmare.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thevardanian 8y ago
Well if that's the case Tech companies in China are going to have to learn to adapt, and start hiring older people considering the coming steep decline in the working age population of China. Millions of people are going to be vanishing out of the work force, because of the imbalance that was created by the one child policy. In 2018 alone China's workforce decline is expected by nearly 4 millions people, and this trend will only continue. https://imgur.com/a/KC2LtLR https://imgur.com/a/KC2LtLR
dnomad 8y ago
I think you would be very, very surprised at the quality, quantity and cost of engineering talent in China. This sort of ageism is awful but there's no doubt that China is still very much coming online with its engineering workforce. Moreso than in the West landing a good engineering job can be like winning the lottery. It's a prestigious title that can deliver more than just money... heck, in some regions engineers are more desirable than doctors when it comes to marriage. Combine this with significant state support and a huge internal and competitive market and it'll produce a ready, eager and willing workforce. This is all part of the master plan of the CPC to produce a viable middle class and a consumer-driven economy.
- nopinsight 8y ago
  Do you refer to just software engineers being more desirable than doctors for marriage in some regions, or all kinds of engineers? I thought that the bar to enter the engineering profession overall (except in some areas of software development) is still lower than medical. Wondering what the current situation in China is.
  - malloryerik 8y ago
    Also doctors presumably have professional lives lasting more than eight years.
  - eitally 8y ago
    In my experience, the real desirability in China lies in getting engineering jobs for the popular, growing tech companies (just like in the US). There are millions of engineering jobs in IT departments all over the country that are undervalued and paid minimally.
  - ataturk 8y ago
    I don't believe it will last for exactly the reasons mentioned in this thread--ageism. What good is a 40-something "engineer" in a society that doesn't value experience at all?
coldtea 8y ago
>Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? That would matter if their success was tied to the quality of the work -- not just rushing it to market, promoting it, and so on. Which is not usually the case, either in China or here...
d-sc 8y ago
> Not that you’ll want only experience. A balanced work force is the best in my opinion. Can confirm. I(college student) work in small remote product development lab with a guy in his 30s and one in his 70s. The rest of the team is 1,000 miles away in San Diego. It’s beeen one of the best learning experiences I’ve had. And they pay generously on to :)
dep_b 8y ago
I guess if you have well-behaved and disciplined people below 30 things might work in favor of them, but the majority of developers I meet in daily life refuse to grow up any time before their 30s. Long days? Sure. Get the product shipped within spec and on time? If they don't get distracted. But that might only be problem in the West.
the_watcher 8y ago
Personally, I definitely worked longer hours when I was younger, and was generally more available on weekends, evenings, etc. Now, I'm substantially more productive during the hours I do work. Overall, I'd say my output has increased and improved in quality, but ad hoc, after hours requests (nights, weekends when I'd have dropped what I'm doing to take care of them) take longer.
milesvp 8y ago
I don't know about the startup study you're thinking of, but I've seen studies that suggest the main difference between under 30 and over 30 in the workplace is that the over 30 crowd simply spend less effort. That is to say, they both output the same amount, but the older folks don't spin their wheels as much. I'm not sure how much of this is experience at a task, since I'd expect a more experienced worker to need less effort at a given task, and how much of this is physiological. My personal experience is that 20 somethings waste a lot of time on shit that doesn't matter in general, but, again, that could just be that I've wasted enough of my own time to have a better sense as to what's wasted energy. Where it gets murky for me, is that by 30, the majority of brain matter is now grey, which is great if you're dealing with things that don't change quickly, cause grey matter is smoking fast, but not so good for fast moving areas like tech, because it's not as plastic. I could see a slight argument for ageism in tech, for this reason, but I've been doing it so long, that I'm finally starting to see history repeat itself, and it's really easy to see past the hype of most 'new' technologies, given that they're often just repackaging of some idea from a decade ago, and it's a big mistake not to have someone on the team who can recognize these trends. Personally I really think it's a mistake in general to avoid diversity though. There are so many diverse tasks in software, that you really need people who are happy doing different things. Also getting different viewpoints and concerns can really round out a product, and can make finding bugs easier.

ggg9990 8y ago

I know that without engineers over 30 Amazon Google Facebook etc. would have imploded by now

raverbashing 8y ago
It's the eternal September with some members of the younger generation.

kartan 8y ago

> sure they can work the young guys harder, If you are NOT a good manager, that is all that you care about. Did you fail to plan the rest release? Developers will do extra hours. Did you miss understood the requirements? Developers will fix it with extra hours. Did you decide to use the wrong technology for the project? Developers will work extra hours. A company that hires only people that does what is told and stays longer hours have incompetent management. > I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. Companies that value diversity (age, gender, nationality, etc.) are the ones looking for that high-quality output that makes products work in the long term. Sweden is as successful as China when it comes to software, even that there are orders of magnitude of the difference of population. The main reason is the respect for family and employees. Even that Sweden also is far from perfect.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dx034 8y ago
Maybe software for international markets. But there's a lot of software produced in China for the huge domestic market. I doubt Sweden has the same software output as China.
- staticelf 8y ago
  Per capita, I'm pretty sure Sweden has a higher output.
  - yesforwhat 8y ago
    Per capita they are also the largest arms dealers in the world. Per capita doesn't say much about a country overall.
    - deaddodo 8y ago
      It's the only argument that makes sense for disparate population sizes. The US and UK (and less so Germany, France, Israel and Japan) produce a sizable majority of software products, especially at an enterprise level. At a per capita level, that gap is even larger with China; and countries like Sweden and Norway become top players.
      - kodablah 8y ago
        > It's the only argument that makes sense for disparate population sizes. Or you accept that a comparison simply can't be made and don't make the argument in the first place.
        deaddodo 8y ago
        Incorrect.
      - 8y ago

drvdevd 8y ago

I believe it’s simply easier to manipulate younger devs into taking lower salaries, in general. So the tech companies (and apparently in China as well), reinforce this ageism.

nailer 8y ago
> I believe it’s simply easier to manipulate younger devs into taking lower salaries I agree with this, but just wanted to add how interesting it is that it occurs in a country ostensibly run by a system which is ostensibly about the power of labour.
- badosu 8y ago
  Isn't this rampant on US as well though? E.G. shallow perks as ping-pong table, snacks, videogame, beers in the office but totally disfunctional management and work-life balance. Using the latest shiny tech just because it makes it easier to target these groups and replace the burned out ones. I see this happening a lot on finance and consulting jobs outside of tech too: - Offer a reasonable salary for interns/trainees (not reasonable relative to the responsibilities though) - Promise a huge corporate salary with benefits for the ones that are able to remain more than x years - Burn all of them out, working overtime, abusing from young inexperienced people - Promote a couple from dozens of people to serve as an example of successful cases - Fire or continue abusing the rest - Rinse and repeat In the end you acquired a couple of indoctrinated corporate zombies as well as years of cheap hours from the other ones. Just take a look at every year's trainee program and the mind washing process from banks and corporate consultancies. Do the candidates really believe that the company needs so many trainees each year? The turnover is a feature, not a bug... Edit: Just noticed my point is not related to your argument, and I actually agree with you.
- ataturk 8y ago
  Communism is not about the "power of labor." Communism is about taking the individual and beating him into the mud until they are a bloody pulp, unable and unwilling to ever resist again. It is the ultimate conformity at the point of a gun. And I find it increasingly alarming that young people don't understand what I just said. I also think that it is very illuminating that China, the giant human anthill, expresses every single abuse that the Industrial Revolution revealed to the world--you know, the very behaviors that Marx and Engels were so angry about?

wonton2 8y ago

Just imagine the sheer difference in size, there are millions every year finishing their higher education in china, chinese cities are bigger than scandinavian countries. When you have this many people labor is cheaper and you have more employees in the big companies. The way og managing people in scandinavia simply cannot happen there. It is like the only thing that can manage such big companies are policies and the chain of command. So for example i imagine if you told your managers to tell their sub-managers to hire senior staff all you would get is higher salaries because people get to where they are not based on merit but because how good they are at politics. So then the only rational choice would be to get naive young people who will believe what the boss say without questioning and cost less.

oblio 8y ago
There are plenty of big companies outside of China that are both big and don't follow military practices for management. You scale big companies like you scale anything: you break down the problem into smaller subproblems and solve those. You make it sound like only way to scale is by having a dictatorship and a strong chain of command. Historically the more power the peons had, as long as they didn't completely disregard the chain of command, the stronger the organization was. Also, despite China having 1 billion people, you don't need 1 billion employees to turn a profit. Even the biggest Chinese companies, outside of state owned ones (which have different, more social, objectives) aren't much bigger than other big companies worldwide.

lordnacho 8y ago

> Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? Especially with software, which is a creative business. Your first hour of a day is probably a lot more productive than your 12th. That last hour might even be counterproductive, when you create bugs and extra complication that needs to be sorted out later.

a_bonobo 8y ago

I have received results from BGI (Beijing Genomics Institute), which is the biggest genomics company in the world by now which does a lot of genome sequencing and assembly on demand. They employ a massive amount of undergrad and postgrad students to do their work with a high turnover, complete with living areas right next to the building, since that's cheaper than having people with experience. >BGI in Shenzhen has a staff of nearly 2700: scientists, lab workers and clerks. The average age is 27, and the atmosphere is university/YWCA/science club. Two-thirds of the employees live in sex-segregated dormitories near the BGI building [...] >Some geneticists have raised an eyebrow at BGI: noting this army of young and often not formally qualified workers Source: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/chinese-genome-mappers-bgi-explain-their-mission-to-change-the-world-20150129-131fm1.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/chinese-genome-mappers-bgi... Somewhat mirrored in the Glassdoor reviews: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/BGI-Shenzhen-Reviews-E537068.htm https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/BGI-Shenzhen-Reviews-E5... This is noticeable from the results I've received, as in the quality being all over the shop. Sometimes the results are documented nicely, sometimes there's no documentation. Sometimes a different genome assembler was used, but it's not in the documentation. Sometimes it's really good, sometimes it's complete crap. We've stopped doing business with them as it's simply not reliable.

branko_d 8y ago
Makes me glad I ordered prenatal genetic test for my daughter from Roche (Harmony) and not BGI (Nifty).
yesforwhat 8y ago
> >BGI in Shenzhen has a staff of nearly 2700: scientists, lab workers and clerks. The average age is 27, and the atmosphere is university/YWCA/science club. Two-thirds of the employees live in sex-segregated dormitories near the BGI building [...] Sounds like a nightmare.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

thevardanian 8y ago

Well if that's the case Tech companies in China are going to have to learn to adapt, and start hiring older people considering the coming steep decline in the working age population of China. Millions of people are going to be vanishing out of the work force, because of the imbalance that was created by the one child policy. In 2018 alone China's workforce decline is expected by nearly 4 millions people, and this trend will only continue. https://imgur.com/a/KC2LtLR https://imgur.com/a/KC2LtLR

dnomad 8y ago

I think you would be very, very surprised at the quality, quantity and cost of engineering talent in China. This sort of ageism is awful but there's no doubt that China is still very much coming online with its engineering workforce. Moreso than in the West landing a good engineering job can be like winning the lottery. It's a prestigious title that can deliver more than just money... heck, in some regions engineers are more desirable than doctors when it comes to marriage. Combine this with significant state support and a huge internal and competitive market and it'll produce a ready, eager and willing workforce. This is all part of the master plan of the CPC to produce a viable middle class and a consumer-driven economy.

nopinsight 8y ago
Do you refer to just software engineers being more desirable than doctors for marriage in some regions, or all kinds of engineers? I thought that the bar to enter the engineering profession overall (except in some areas of software development) is still lower than medical. Wondering what the current situation in China is.
- malloryerik 8y ago
  Also doctors presumably have professional lives lasting more than eight years.
- eitally 8y ago
  In my experience, the real desirability in China lies in getting engineering jobs for the popular, growing tech companies (just like in the US). There are millions of engineering jobs in IT departments all over the country that are undervalued and paid minimally.
- ataturk 8y ago
  I don't believe it will last for exactly the reasons mentioned in this thread--ageism. What good is a 40-something "engineer" in a society that doesn't value experience at all?

coldtea 8y ago

>Ethics aside I wonder if it’s a good for efficiency. I mean, sure they can work the young guys harder, but is the work they are getting good? That would matter if their success was tied to the quality of the work -- not just rushing it to market, promoting it, and so on. Which is not usually the case, either in China or here...

d-sc 8y ago

> Not that you’ll want only experience. A balanced work force is the best in my opinion. Can confirm. I(college student) work in small remote product development lab with a guy in his 30s and one in his 70s. The rest of the team is 1,000 miles away in San Diego. It’s beeen one of the best learning experiences I’ve had. And they pay generously on to :)

dep_b 8y ago

I guess if you have well-behaved and disciplined people below 30 things might work in favor of them, but the majority of developers I meet in daily life refuse to grow up any time before their 30s. Long days? Sure. Get the product shipped within spec and on time? If they don't get distracted. But that might only be problem in the West.

the_watcher 8y ago

Personally, I definitely worked longer hours when I was younger, and was generally more available on weekends, evenings, etc. Now, I'm substantially more productive during the hours I do work. Overall, I'd say my output has increased and improved in quality, but ad hoc, after hours requests (nights, weekends when I'd have dropped what I'm doing to take care of them) take longer.

milesvp 8y ago

I don't know about the startup study you're thinking of, but I've seen studies that suggest the main difference between under 30 and over 30 in the workplace is that the over 30 crowd simply spend less effort. That is to say, they both output the same amount, but the older folks don't spin their wheels as much. I'm not sure how much of this is experience at a task, since I'd expect a more experienced worker to need less effort at a given task, and how much of this is physiological. My personal experience is that 20 somethings waste a lot of time on shit that doesn't matter in general, but, again, that could just be that I've wasted enough of my own time to have a better sense as to what's wasted energy. Where it gets murky for me, is that by 30, the majority of brain matter is now grey, which is great if you're dealing with things that don't change quickly, cause grey matter is smoking fast, but not so good for fast moving areas like tech, because it's not as plastic. I could see a slight argument for ageism in tech, for this reason, but I've been doing it so long, that I'm finally starting to see history repeat itself, and it's really easy to see past the hype of most 'new' technologies, given that they're often just repackaging of some idea from a decade ago, and it's a big mistake not to have someone on the team who can recognize these trends. Personally I really think it's a mistake in general to avoid diversity though. There are so many diverse tasks in software, that you really need people who are happy doing different things. Also getting different viewpoints and concerns can really round out a product, and can make finding bugs easier.