4 ms·

For those who haven't yet experienced ageism, it often starts for you when the hiring manager/director is younger than you are. Beware of the age of the bosses

For those who haven't yet experienced ageism, it often starts for you when the hiring manager/director is younger than you are. Beware of the age of the bosses when surveilling a potential new gig.

dimitrios1 5y ago
And you don't have to be 50+ to experience it. My former 30 year old self with a brand new baby had a 25 year old manager, and experienced it constantly. He just couldn't fathom why I wouldn't answer his random slacks at night, or why I thought beer taps, ping pong, and happy hours weren't suitable replacements for good benefits and incentive packages.
- bachmeier 5y ago
  Although this isn't the usual use of the term, your comment is a great example of the importance of a manager that values diversity. You can overlook, and drive away, really good employees for really bad reasons. It's not likely that a response to a random slack in the middle of the night had any value to the company's bottom line. Managers that can't accept that not everyone should be like them are bad for the company.
  - dimitrios1 5y ago
    You highlight another good point, in that ageism is just a symptom of a broader psychological phenomena of "othering" others. I suspect that even if I was indeed younger than my manager, simply having a child and entering a new life stage with newer, more important priorities caused me to be treated differently. In a way I think the manager just wanted people who are just like them because they were a lazy manager, and wanted an easy way to relate to others rather than the hard work of understanding other perspectives and experiences. A ton of companies I have worked for preached diversity of thought, opinion, and background, to the wazoo and very rarely have they practiced what they preached.
  - slumdev 5y ago
    This is real diversity--some single, some married, some with kids, some without, some older, some younger, coming from all different educational backgrounds, and living in different communities. If everybody went to the same handful of colleges, is roughly the same age, and lives in the same trendy suburb, it doesn't matter what color they are. That "diversity" is literally skin-deep.
runawaybottle 5y ago
How do you parse this out in an interview?
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  I'd go with something along the lines of: "I'm looking for a company where I can show up and work hard during the day, and go home to my family at night. Will that fit the culture here?"
  - runawaybottle 5y ago
    Oh god, that can’t be something anyone can get away with asking. I don’t have a family of my own, but I’m tempted to just fabricate one so I could actually ask something along the lines of what you are suggesting. ‘I have a family, how do you guys adjust cadence for people with outside commitments - eg let’s say I need to leave every day at 5’. Gah, there’s no way to ask without setting off the alarm bells with these bastards.
    - Kaze404 5y ago
      I'm a 23 year old software engineer and I ask this question on every single interview. It doesn't matter that I don't have kids and don't have to go to bed early every night. I have a life unrelated to my job, and I act in the belief that everyone else also does. I can't say for certain whether that's cost me a job before, but I'm also probably not missing much if that's the case.
    - ARandomerDude 5y ago
      > how do you guys adjust cadence for people with outside commitments - eg let’s say I need to leave every day at 5 This is actually the problematic mindset I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to work at a place where leaving at 5 is "adjusting cadence." I want to work at a place where management sets appropriate timelines, and we work hard to meet those timelines -- during the work day. The company I work for right now has a culture of work hard 9-5 then disappear. It's great.
    - 5y ago
driverdan 5y ago
> Beware of the age of the bosses when surveilling a potential new gig. This is also a form of ageism. Ask questions to find out how people act rather than relying on their age as a signal.
- nostromo 5y ago
  This is very true. It works both ways. Don't dismiss a younger person's ideas as naive without consideration, just like you shouldn't dismiss an older person's ideas as outdated without consideration. Being older doesn't automatically make you correct, but neither does being young.
  - nickd2001 5y ago
    +1 and, if as an older dev you show younger manager(s) that you respect and empathise with them, often they'll love you for your experience and perspective. One thing is to "meet them halfway" , not make them feel threatened. I love my current job so I hope to stay a long time, but, if I was interviewing with someone much younger, if it felt relevant I might ask them if it bothered them about my being much older, and what I could do to alleviate any concerns. That's the sort of frank conversation that might be good in interview (possibly not legal for the interviewer to start that topic, but OK for interviewee). Isn't a lot of this just that people simply need to TALK to each other. ;) Not just older and younger devs but democrats & republicans, different gender/ethniticty/religion , drivers/cyclists etc etc ;) This problem is as old as the hills!
rikroots 5y ago
My experience is that ageism only kicks in when the company culture is overtly focussed on a sort of "work hard; play hard" ethos. If the key influencers in the company enjoy working with a banterish atmosphere around them, then anyone over the age of 40 (and all women) are in for a stressful time. Thankfully, there are companies out there which do value older workers and will make the effort to encourage a more diverse/inclusive working atmosphere.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  We had a banterish atmosphere (lots of smack talk across the cubicle walls) with almost everyone on the team over 40. But it was grown-up banter, not high school banter. It wasn't passive aggressive, "hah hah only serious"; it was just fun banter. If we really wanted to communicate something to someone, it was handled very differently. And when a woman joined the team, well, there wasn't any sexual harassment or sexism. But don't turn your back on her when she's got a nerf gun...
- Aperocky 5y ago
  work smart, play hard. automate whenever possible.
hinkley 5y ago
I was precocious/fortunate so I ran into ageism being “too young” to be something like a Lead a couple years ahead of my peers. In part because I worked in college, but more importantly because that team was so well run, and saw the wisdom in trying out some of my ideas to make things better. So I came out into the world both with programming experience and practical project management exposure. “They” want very cookie cutter people. The more you try to control things, the fewer pleasant surprises you get.
acituan 5y ago
Aren't what you're suggesting also a form of ageism?
UncleOxidant 5y ago
I'm in my late 50s. All the jobs but one I've had over the last ~10 years (there's been about 5 of them) were where I was hired by people older than I am. The one job where I was hired by a person in their early 30s went spectacularly, terribly bad (only lasted 8 months before I bailed and I really should've bailed at 2 months, but I thought I needed to try to stick it out because "that's what you're supposed to do".). It's also a lot easier to get hired by people who are older than you as they don't have the same biases against older devs... but at my age there are getting to be fewer and fewer folks older than me as they're retiring at a good clip.

For those who haven't yet experienced ageism, it often starts for you when the hiring manager/director is younger than you are. Beware of the age of the bosses when surveilling a potential new gig.

dimitrios1 5y ago

And you don't have to be 50+ to experience it. My former 30 year old self with a brand new baby had a 25 year old manager, and experienced it constantly. He just couldn't fathom why I wouldn't answer his random slacks at night, or why I thought beer taps, ping pong, and happy hours weren't suitable replacements for good benefits and incentive packages.

bachmeier 5y ago
Although this isn't the usual use of the term, your comment is a great example of the importance of a manager that values diversity. You can overlook, and drive away, really good employees for really bad reasons. It's not likely that a response to a random slack in the middle of the night had any value to the company's bottom line. Managers that can't accept that not everyone should be like them are bad for the company.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  You highlight another good point, in that ageism is just a symptom of a broader psychological phenomena of "othering" others. I suspect that even if I was indeed younger than my manager, simply having a child and entering a new life stage with newer, more important priorities caused me to be treated differently. In a way I think the manager just wanted people who are just like them because they were a lazy manager, and wanted an easy way to relate to others rather than the hard work of understanding other perspectives and experiences. A ton of companies I have worked for preached diversity of thought, opinion, and background, to the wazoo and very rarely have they practiced what they preached.
- slumdev 5y ago
  This is real diversity--some single, some married, some with kids, some without, some older, some younger, coming from all different educational backgrounds, and living in different communities. If everybody went to the same handful of colleges, is roughly the same age, and lives in the same trendy suburb, it doesn't matter what color they are. That "diversity" is literally skin-deep.

runawaybottle 5y ago

How do you parse this out in an interview?

ARandomerDude 5y ago
I'd go with something along the lines of: "I'm looking for a company where I can show up and work hard during the day, and go home to my family at night. Will that fit the culture here?"
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  Oh god, that can’t be something anyone can get away with asking. I don’t have a family of my own, but I’m tempted to just fabricate one so I could actually ask something along the lines of what you are suggesting. ‘I have a family, how do you guys adjust cadence for people with outside commitments - eg let’s say I need to leave every day at 5’. Gah, there’s no way to ask without setting off the alarm bells with these bastards.
  - Kaze404 5y ago
    I'm a 23 year old software engineer and I ask this question on every single interview. It doesn't matter that I don't have kids and don't have to go to bed early every night. I have a life unrelated to my job, and I act in the belief that everyone else also does. I can't say for certain whether that's cost me a job before, but I'm also probably not missing much if that's the case.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    > how do you guys adjust cadence for people with outside commitments - eg let’s say I need to leave every day at 5 This is actually the problematic mindset I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to work at a place where leaving at 5 is "adjusting cadence." I want to work at a place where management sets appropriate timelines, and we work hard to meet those timelines -- during the work day. The company I work for right now has a culture of work hard 9-5 then disappear. It's great.
  - 5y ago

driverdan 5y ago

> Beware of the age of the bosses when surveilling a potential new gig. This is also a form of ageism. Ask questions to find out how people act rather than relying on their age as a signal.

nostromo 5y ago
This is very true. It works both ways. Don't dismiss a younger person's ideas as naive without consideration, just like you shouldn't dismiss an older person's ideas as outdated without consideration. Being older doesn't automatically make you correct, but neither does being young.
- nickd2001 5y ago
  +1 and, if as an older dev you show younger manager(s) that you respect and empathise with them, often they'll love you for your experience and perspective. One thing is to "meet them halfway" , not make them feel threatened. I love my current job so I hope to stay a long time, but, if I was interviewing with someone much younger, if it felt relevant I might ask them if it bothered them about my being much older, and what I could do to alleviate any concerns. That's the sort of frank conversation that might be good in interview (possibly not legal for the interviewer to start that topic, but OK for interviewee). Isn't a lot of this just that people simply need to TALK to each other. ;) Not just older and younger devs but democrats & republicans, different gender/ethniticty/religion , drivers/cyclists etc etc ;) This problem is as old as the hills!

rikroots 5y ago

My experience is that ageism only kicks in when the company culture is overtly focussed on a sort of "work hard; play hard" ethos. If the key influencers in the company enjoy working with a banterish atmosphere around them, then anyone over the age of 40 (and all women) are in for a stressful time. Thankfully, there are companies out there which do value older workers and will make the effort to encourage a more diverse/inclusive working atmosphere.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
We had a banterish atmosphere (lots of smack talk across the cubicle walls) with almost everyone on the team over 40. But it was grown-up banter, not high school banter. It wasn't passive aggressive, "hah hah only serious"; it was just fun banter. If we really wanted to communicate something to someone, it was handled very differently. And when a woman joined the team, well, there wasn't any sexual harassment or sexism. But don't turn your back on her when she's got a nerf gun...
Aperocky 5y ago
work smart, play hard. automate whenever possible.

hinkley 5y ago

I was precocious/fortunate so I ran into ageism being “too young” to be something like a Lead a couple years ahead of my peers. In part because I worked in college, but more importantly because that team was so well run, and saw the wisdom in trying out some of my ideas to make things better. So I came out into the world both with programming experience and practical project management exposure. “They” want very cookie cutter people. The more you try to control things, the fewer pleasant surprises you get.

acituan 5y ago

Aren't what you're suggesting also a form of ageism?

UncleOxidant 5y ago

I'm in my late 50s. All the jobs but one I've had over the last ~10 years (there's been about 5 of them) were where I was hired by people older than I am. The one job where I was hired by a person in their early 30s went spectacularly, terribly bad (only lasted 8 months before I bailed and I really should've bailed at 2 months, but I thought I needed to try to stick it out because "that's what you're supposed to do".). It's also a lot easier to get hired by people who are older than you as they don't have the same biases against older devs... but at my age there are getting to be fewer and fewer folks older than me as they're retiring at a good clip.