6 ms·

It's tragic and I wish younger devs could have even a small understanding of how pernicious this phenomenon is. No, you won't escape it because you're awesome,

by zmmmmm 8y ago

It's tragic and I wish younger devs could have even a small understanding of how pernicious this phenomenon is. No, you won't escape it because you're awesome, or because you love learning new things etc etc. I'm lucky: I switched into a role where deep domain experience is essential, I did a PhD, I'm one of the top experts in a growing field - I'm more or less insulated from this. Indeed, now I hire people and I'm actually one of the perpetrators of it. We get resumes, I look at them, and inevitably many of the younger people are both (a) cheaper and (b) more on-target with their skill sets. Then there is a much more subtle and non-explicit discrimination on top of that which involves a presumption that an experienced person will not be "happy" working in what they would perceive as a junior level role. That they would find another position and leave. So they honestly can't win - if they don't have the skills they don't get hired, if they do, it is presumed they are too experienced to be happy in the job. There must be a massive wave of ageing developers that is coming that is 10x the size of what we have seen so far. Something will have to change somewhere, hopefully it will help us all discard some of these discriminatory practices.

JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
I'm a (relatively) young developer, and I already worry about it. I enjoy and love working with new tech, I jump to new frameworks and ways of working quite often because it's good fun. I don't think that'll ever change. I'm already worried for the day where I won't be able to do that because people won't perceive me as a young, hungry up and comer wanting to attack problems, and instead they'll see me as an entrenched, slow, older worker trying to tackle stuff best left to the young'ins. When that day comes, I can see myself just setting my roots in a long term role in a particular tech that won't change, and I'll probably be bored out of my skull. I can envisage myself ending up going into management just to escape that. The best teams I've worked with were the teams that had a mix of young and old, it balances a team the same as having a good gender split imho.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Ageism is overblown. The way to get a job for an older worker - I’m in my mid 40s - doesn’t change no matter what your age is. Make sure you have skills that the market wants, don’t get complacent at one company and keep your network warm including local recruiters.
  - chrisbennet 8y ago
    Telling yourself that makes you feel better but it doesn’t change the reality that ageism is a thing. My wife looked for years until I told he to give up and retire. Working as a consultant, I’m making double what I made as an employee but I’m exceptionally lucky.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Yes because it’s not reality that I’m 45 and find jobs quickly. When I was looking for a job at 42, I submitted my resume to 8 companies through recruiters and had no rejections and three offers in the course of three weeks. Two years later it took one or two weeks. My former manager is in his 50s, decided he was tired of managing after his kids retired and now is a full stack React/C# developer working with Azure. All of the people he hired in his department who I still keep in touch with are over 40 and all found jobs shortly after he quit as either full stack JavaScript developers or back end .Net developers.
      - chrisbennet 8y ago
        Yes, and I suppose sexual descrimination isn’t a problem in your world either (if you’re a man) but you know what - you aren’t everyone or even most 50 years olds. I’m 0x39 and I don’t even look for work, it just finds me. My wife also has 30+ experience and a masters in CS. Her last job was something like 3 years ago hacking/attacking Linux for Darpa for gods sake. She’s a sharp girl just not an outgoing one. No problem getting jobs when she was as young as you are but now, crickets.
        scarface74 8y ago
        Hacking Linux is a specialized skill that isn’t your average everyday job that you can just walk out into the street and get like your bog standard enterprise developer for yet another software as a service CRUD app. Honestly, the broad market doesn’t care about a masters in CS. Of course it’s going to be harder to find a job with a highly specialized skill. Why does it necessarily have to be ageism and not just that she doesn’t have market fit?
098328 8y ago
Do you only hire young people or would you hire older PhDs?
- zmmmmm 8y ago
  So far we hired 2 younger and one older. However the older person did have some issues (not completely relevant to this discussion but perhaps indirectly so - he had some family obligations that became extremely burdensome) that resulted in him leaving. It sort of illustrates that part of the whole complexity of the situation is that older people can have complex lives and that has a business cost. So part of the discrimination is based on falsehoods, part of it is based on real things but is still discriminatory and part of it is actually genuine and legimitately pursing the interests of the business in a reasonable way. And none of that is clear when you are the one doing the hiring, it is all a murky mixture of your own perceptions, realities and emotions. edit: to answer your question, would absolutely hire older PhDs.
  - 09832 8y ago
    Would you consider hiring older PhDs in the future or does the previous incident make you hesitant?
  - hpcjoe 8y ago
    Glad to hear that, as a "mature" PhD
  - masonic 8y ago
    older people can have complex lives "Family obligations" affect young adults in their childbearing years more than 40+ with kids out and on their own way, generally.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
austincheney 8y ago
The presumption about the junior level role is accurate but for reasons different than what you are thinking. It’s less about the work and more about the people. Some junior developers have the potential to be great senior developers. They listen to mentorship and independently weigh decision criteria. Many juniors don’t have this potential and some shouldn’t even be there in the first place. The need for recognition, entitlement, and fear of challenges are common behaviors that are anti-thetical to becoming a senior. In the extreme shitty juniors will become hostile when they feel threatened. It is easy to feel threatened when a good senior can output superior quality work in a fifth of the time. Why would any competent person want to deal with that immaturity and insecurity? That kind of stupidity doesn’t just make me want to leave the job. It makes me want to abandon the career. You have to understand the senior person isn’t there to attack anybody or take anybodys job. They just don’t want to play the defensive survival games their peers may not realize they are playing. If it weren’t for the people a junior role wouldn’t be so bad. A strong senior will find a way to shape it into something better, or will learn to manipulate things until large amounts of free time are exposed.
- dev1n 8y ago
  When you put “sensitive people make me sad” In your HN profile it debases your point of view.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    I am ok with that for reasons sensitive people cannot accept.
- JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
  I take it you've worked with some junior engineers that brought neither the social nor the technical skill to their role. Instead of considering them to be "so bad", an adept senior would work to develop these people. As a senior, use your social acuity, and bring your emotional intelligence to the table. If your juniors feel threatened, talk about it. Assuage their fears -- point out where they are doing well, and where they can improve. Work through the difficult problems, most likely individually, but through team retrospectives too (when appropriate-- never give individual feedback in a group setting). This sounds like the approach is to avoid juniors as much as possible. And it's challenging to foster a high-performing team environment if that's the mindset one employs going into it.
WaltPurvis 8y ago
>> a presumption that an experienced person will not be "happy" working in what they would perceive as a junior level role. That they would find another position and leave I have never understood this line of thinking. How long will an inexperienced person, once they have gained a smidgen of experience, be happy in a "junior" level role? Young people are naturally inclined to be scouting for bigger and better opportunities, while older folks are more likely to value stability and the quality of their work environment, and are usually encumbered in various ways that make them less able to quit a job and move at the drop of a hat. I suppose there's a valid concern that older people won't be happy with a junior-level salary, but that's something that can be discussed, and many older people would be perfectly fine with a somewhat smaller salary (especially if the alternative is zero income or minimum wage). At any rate, I would presume young people are more likely than older people to chafe at their role and jump to another company, and I wonder why so many have the opposite perception.

by zmmmmm 8y ago

JauntyHatAngle 8y ago

I'm a (relatively) young developer, and I already worry about it. I enjoy and love working with new tech, I jump to new frameworks and ways of working quite often because it's good fun. I don't think that'll ever change. I'm already worried for the day where I won't be able to do that because people won't perceive me as a young, hungry up and comer wanting to attack problems, and instead they'll see me as an entrenched, slow, older worker trying to tackle stuff best left to the young'ins. When that day comes, I can see myself just setting my roots in a long term role in a particular tech that won't change, and I'll probably be bored out of my skull. I can envisage myself ending up going into management just to escape that. The best teams I've worked with were the teams that had a mix of young and old, it balances a team the same as having a good gender split imho.

scarface74 8y ago
Ageism is overblown. The way to get a job for an older worker - I’m in my mid 40s - doesn’t change no matter what your age is. Make sure you have skills that the market wants, don’t get complacent at one company and keep your network warm including local recruiters.
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  Telling yourself that makes you feel better but it doesn’t change the reality that ageism is a thing. My wife looked for years until I told he to give up and retire. Working as a consultant, I’m making double what I made as an employee but I’m exceptionally lucky.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Yes because it’s not reality that I’m 45 and find jobs quickly. When I was looking for a job at 42, I submitted my resume to 8 companies through recruiters and had no rejections and three offers in the course of three weeks. Two years later it took one or two weeks. My former manager is in his 50s, decided he was tired of managing after his kids retired and now is a full stack React/C# developer working with Azure. All of the people he hired in his department who I still keep in touch with are over 40 and all found jobs shortly after he quit as either full stack JavaScript developers or back end .Net developers.
    - chrisbennet 8y ago
      Yes, and I suppose sexual descrimination isn’t a problem in your world either (if you’re a man) but you know what - you aren’t everyone or even most 50 years olds. I’m 0x39 and I don’t even look for work, it just finds me. My wife also has 30+ experience and a masters in CS. Her last job was something like 3 years ago hacking/attacking Linux for Darpa for gods sake. She’s a sharp girl just not an outgoing one. No problem getting jobs when she was as young as you are but now, crickets.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Hacking Linux is a specialized skill that isn’t your average everyday job that you can just walk out into the street and get like your bog standard enterprise developer for yet another software as a service CRUD app. Honestly, the broad market doesn’t care about a masters in CS. Of course it’s going to be harder to find a job with a highly specialized skill. Why does it necessarily have to be ageism and not just that she doesn’t have market fit?

098328 8y ago

Do you only hire young people or would you hire older PhDs?

zmmmmm 8y ago
So far we hired 2 younger and one older. However the older person did have some issues (not completely relevant to this discussion but perhaps indirectly so - he had some family obligations that became extremely burdensome) that resulted in him leaving. It sort of illustrates that part of the whole complexity of the situation is that older people can have complex lives and that has a business cost. So part of the discrimination is based on falsehoods, part of it is based on real things but is still discriminatory and part of it is actually genuine and legimitately pursing the interests of the business in a reasonable way. And none of that is clear when you are the one doing the hiring, it is all a murky mixture of your own perceptions, realities and emotions. edit: to answer your question, would absolutely hire older PhDs.
- 09832 8y ago
  Would you consider hiring older PhDs in the future or does the previous incident make you hesitant?
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  Glad to hear that, as a "mature" PhD
- masonic 8y ago
  older people can have complex lives "Family obligations" affect young adults in their childbearing years more than 40+ with kids out and on their own way, generally.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

austincheney 8y ago

The presumption about the junior level role is accurate but for reasons different than what you are thinking. It’s less about the work and more about the people. Some junior developers have the potential to be great senior developers. They listen to mentorship and independently weigh decision criteria. Many juniors don’t have this potential and some shouldn’t even be there in the first place. The need for recognition, entitlement, and fear of challenges are common behaviors that are anti-thetical to becoming a senior. In the extreme shitty juniors will become hostile when they feel threatened. It is easy to feel threatened when a good senior can output superior quality work in a fifth of the time. Why would any competent person want to deal with that immaturity and insecurity? That kind of stupidity doesn’t just make me want to leave the job. It makes me want to abandon the career. You have to understand the senior person isn’t there to attack anybody or take anybodys job. They just don’t want to play the defensive survival games their peers may not realize they are playing. If it weren’t for the people a junior role wouldn’t be so bad. A strong senior will find a way to shape it into something better, or will learn to manipulate things until large amounts of free time are exposed.

dev1n 8y ago
When you put “sensitive people make me sad” In your HN profile it debases your point of view.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I am ok with that for reasons sensitive people cannot accept.
JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
I take it you've worked with some junior engineers that brought neither the social nor the technical skill to their role. Instead of considering them to be "so bad", an adept senior would work to develop these people. As a senior, use your social acuity, and bring your emotional intelligence to the table. If your juniors feel threatened, talk about it. Assuage their fears -- point out where they are doing well, and where they can improve. Work through the difficult problems, most likely individually, but through team retrospectives too (when appropriate-- never give individual feedback in a group setting). This sounds like the approach is to avoid juniors as much as possible. And it's challenging to foster a high-performing team environment if that's the mindset one employs going into it.

WaltPurvis 8y ago

>> a presumption that an experienced person will not be "happy" working in what they would perceive as a junior level role. That they would find another position and leave I have never understood this line of thinking. How long will an inexperienced person, once they have gained a smidgen of experience, be happy in a "junior" level role? Young people are naturally inclined to be scouting for bigger and better opportunities, while older folks are more likely to value stability and the quality of their work environment, and are usually encumbered in various ways that make them less able to quit a job and move at the drop of a hat. I suppose there's a valid concern that older people won't be happy with a junior-level salary, but that's something that can be discussed, and many older people would be perfectly fine with a somewhat smaller salary (especially if the alternative is zero income or minimum wage). At any rate, I would presume young people are more likely than older people to chafe at their role and jump to another company, and I wonder why so many have the opposite perception.