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Tech in general - and Silicon Valley in particular - have an ageism problem. Let me explain. - If you entered the industry when you were young, you are fine.

Tech in general - and Silicon Valley in particular - have an ageism problem. Let me explain. - If you entered the industry when you were young, you are fine. Myself and several colleagues/friends who started our careers in the 80s and 90s, even early 2000s when we were in our 20s are fine. Perhaps even at an advantage. We can get hired at principal / eng manager / director level engineering roles without answering brain teasers and tongue twisters. But there is another side to this story: If you’re in your late 30s or 40s (even 50s, though that’s rarer) coming into these companies, there is a dirty tactic used to discriminate legally- the up-levelled interview. Recruiters slot you into level beginner + 1 or 2, on the strength of you career experience. That is a trap, and an easy rejection for the company because obviously these candidates should be hired at a junior level. However the wisdom at these companies is that junior engineers are expected to mostly spend their time learning - so there is a strong implicit bias there. 30 year olds generally aren’t comfortable with spending time mentoring people older than them. Of the junior roles, you have fresh college grads with algo / data course they took last spring fresh in their mind, lots of free time to practice brain teasers (likely no job in college) taking up the bulk of the junior roles. Congressional black causus forced companies to report certain “under represented” minority hiring numbers - but nobody bats an eye at the age dichotomy. I wonder if it’s because you can’t play identity politics and garner votes on the basis of age. I know two women who decided to switch to developer roles in their 40s. One was asked a dynamic programming question and still looking for a job. The other worked in IT before (not software development) but was made to interview at junior level + 1 and unsurprisingly failed to get the job. Meanwhile her portfolio and projects are well made, responsive apps, following best practices, CI, tests etc. Very disheartening to see.

graderjs 6y ago
And if you pass the algo / data brain teasers, they need to invent other ways to reject you. Hiring in tech is broken to the extent that tech management is bad. I think because there's not the same level of people skills in order to manage teams in tech (maybe because the industry skews toward that as a whole, by deemphasizing people skills at the top of the funnel, and sometimes substituting for specialized "culture fit" as an inaccurate proxy because they don't know better). Due to this, i think they are scared to hire anything outside the mythological 20-something "sir, yes, sir, rightaway, sir" , no-brainer-to-manage report. At the consequences, of missing out on lots of great human resource. Vicious cycle. Some small tech teams compensate with elaborate "cultures", that are really like cults, as a substitute to having management skill. Everyone will behave inline with the haute cult-ure, which may be toxic, simply because, i believe, they don't understand people and know how to manage. The cult keeps people inline, so management doesn't really have to exist. And they don't know how to deal with disagreements, or to manage to get the best from people, so their only responses are: isolate or fire. Because they only have these measures, they need either people who require no skill to manage, or they use a proxy of culture-fit, to pre-screen some sort of conformity. I think the solution is people who are better interpersonal communicators, and better managers. Right now i don't see tech jobs valuing this. But i believe it must be out there, somewhere... The maybe in this industry it's very rare. I'm sure there's pockets of awesome in many tech companies that rival or exceed the best teams in other industries, but i do think the brokenness is a real thing. Also, the signal that some companies use, that they need to offer elaborate treats to entice people, while on the surface looks great, i think could also be an acknowledge that they know they don't have that much to offer people in terms of great teams otherwise. Catered lunch as compensation for nonsensical management.

graderjs 6y ago

And if you pass the algo / data brain teasers, they need to invent other ways to reject you. Hiring in tech is broken to the extent that tech management is bad. I think because there's not the same level of people skills in order to manage teams in tech (maybe because the industry skews toward that as a whole, by deemphasizing people skills at the top of the funnel, and sometimes substituting for specialized "culture fit" as an inaccurate proxy because they don't know better). Due to this, i think they are scared to hire anything outside the mythological 20-something "sir, yes, sir, rightaway, sir" , no-brainer-to-manage report. At the consequences, of missing out on lots of great human resource. Vicious cycle. Some small tech teams compensate with elaborate "cultures", that are really like cults, as a substitute to having management skill. Everyone will behave inline with the haute cult-ure, which may be toxic, simply because, i believe, they don't understand people and know how to manage. The cult keeps people inline, so management doesn't really have to exist. And they don't know how to deal with disagreements, or to manage to get the best from people, so their only responses are: isolate or fire. Because they only have these measures, they need either people who require no skill to manage, or they use a proxy of culture-fit, to pre-screen some sort of conformity. I think the solution is people who are better interpersonal communicators, and better managers. Right now i don't see tech jobs valuing this. But i believe it must be out there, somewhere... The maybe in this industry it's very rare. I'm sure there's pockets of awesome in many tech companies that rival or exceed the best teams in other industries, but i do think the brokenness is a real thing. Also, the signal that some companies use, that they need to offer elaborate treats to entice people, while on the surface looks great, i think could also be an acknowledge that they know they don't have that much to offer people in terms of great teams otherwise. Catered lunch as compensation for nonsensical management.