21 ms·

We Hire Old People

375 points by ccleve 5y ago

zigradett 5y ago
I bet they don't actually hire old people, but are publishing this for the publicity it might generate.
- mavelikara 5y ago
  Do you have evidence to believe so?
- colecut 5y ago
  Most of the publicity will result in job applications from old people
- ccleve 5y ago
  See my other comment. Yes, we will hire actual old people.
Alex3917 5y ago
How many Postgres core committers are there under 60? Except for the handful of people who do a Ph.D. under Michael Stonebraker or whatever, that seems like a hobby that most people don't even get into until they're retired.
gravypod 5y ago
> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this but IANAL.
- anm89 5y ago
  I mean, they say outright they hire old people and they hire young people. So I think you can make the argument fairly easily that that group includes everyone and that they are not discriminating.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    They meant employer NDAs, etc.
  - soneca 5y ago
    Not GP, but I assumed they are talking about the part that they quoted —- consulting gig while on another job, not any discrimination worries.
  - gravypod 5y ago
    I don't think there is discrimination immediately evident. I think there are legal implications in actively soliciting contract work from people who currently work at other companies under full time contracts that may preclude them from doing stuff like that (ex: FAANG).
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      I don't think that is true. Any agreement you have with google/faang is your agreement and your punishment. You cannot bind others into the agreement. They face no legal implications.
      - foldr 5y ago
        The issue would be with IP. Facebook might be able to claim that the code your contractor worked on for you actually belongs to them.
      - regulation_d 5y ago
        For the most part, this is correct. One exception is "tortious interference with a contract". Let's say I work full-time for Company A, and in my employment agreement, I agree not to do any work on the side. Then let's say Company B knows that I work for Company A and knows that I am contractually prohibited from working for them. If Company B induces me to breach my employment agreement with Company A, Company A can often sue them under the "tortious interference with a contract" cause of action. For most US jurisdictions, intent is required on the part of the obstructing party, but in a minority of jurisdictions, negligence is enough. I suspect this is why there's a clause in most employment agreements that I've signed, where the employee has to represent that they are free to enter into the agreement.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  What would you think is illegal about it? They make it clear that age is not an issue.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    Many full time jobs include language preventing you from working a second job in a similar role.
    - foxhop 5y ago
      I doubt the person they are searching for is currently in a similar role. They want domain specific knowledge about a stable and _old_ codebase. They want the person around as a teacher mentor, and the first gig is something the business needs but would prefer to sub out. Seems like a normal accepted practice when defined that way.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      Never accept such jobs unless you are desperate. Your employer does not control or own your spare time. Don’t cede control of it to them!
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      How far does that extend when interviewing? Some companies claim all code written. In theory that might include your leetcode.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Similar role? Or at a similar company? I would expect my company to be unhappy if I were to consult for a competitor on the side. There's probably language in the employment agreement that prohibits that, and even if there isn't, it's still the kind of thing you should avoid due to conflict of interest. But I'm not sure about an agreement not to take a similar role. If the employment agreement says that, I'm not sure that it's legally binding. Even if it is, you may be able to weasel around it with "but it's consulting, not a full-time position". Note well: IANAL. If you're concerned, get advice from a lawyer rather than from some rando on the internet.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  I wouldn't call it not legal, but it indeed can violate the terms many employees sign when they join a company. I think it's a matter of how they frame it. If they frame it as actually doing some work for the company then I would say that would be illegal for many. But if it's framed as an interview then maybe it's OK. Not a lawyer, I assuming it's gray area.
- jays 5y ago
  We did this at the last startup I founded. While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels. We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.
  - nomel 5y ago
    I imagine this simply would not work for someone with multiple offers though, which could act as a pretty severe filter of talent.
    - ljm 5y ago
      It just looks like a consulting gig with the potential offer of a job afterwards. If the rates are good and the offer is decently compensated, it's probably a fine way to recruit for what looks to be a highly specialised position. Probably not going to get that many low-level postgres specialists with deep experience walking through the door. If the consultant feels good about the project then they've got the chance to stick around in the long term.
      - jays 5y ago
        Well we didn't market it like that and while technically it is consulting for a period of time, it doesn't have to feel that way. The interview process was similar to any other company, but at the end we asked the candidate to do a short project (20 hours or less), which they would collaborate on with someone internally. So only the best candidates made it to the project and hopefully at that point there were pretty sold on the company. Did we lose some candidates? Sure, but we also didn't have any hires we regretted after changing to it.
  - zsmi 5y ago
    > No need to quit your day job to do this gig This might be true for the employer, but for the employee, I think there could be serious issues. For example, my present employer would be very unhappy if I agreed to this and I have no idea how it would play out. I'm almost positive it is in violation of my present employment contract. Did the candidate that went for it actually have full time employment? If so, did they get approval first?
- ryneandal 5y ago
  The fact that offering gig work to FT employees could have legal repercussions sounds off alarm bells about the US's unhealthy attitude towards employees. It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work.
  - gravypod 5y ago
    (Opinions are my own, not my employer's) > It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work. I think this, and the general brain-drain from the broader industry, is really holding the tech sector back. So much OSS could be written if contracts weren't abusive in this way.
    - Dhirvish 5y ago
      I mean the fundamental issue is we've created a society that's automated an INCREDIBLE amount of work, and yet the daily work week is no shorter. We've got automated switchboards, giant robots that make cars, giant robots that do our farming, massive plants for producing power. We even have enough housing already built in this country to house 6x the total number of homeless people. It's a false economy, and we know it because we're primarily a "service" economy. So if most of our food is produced by robots, we have enough housing, and most of our jobs just exist to push health care paperwork around. Why are we not all on 20-30 hour work weeks?! I'm pretty sure most people would be fine doing 5-10 hours a week of essential nursing or working a field or whatever outside their "primary" job if you got 10-20 hours off the rest of the week. Our system is freaking stupid.
- sahillavingia 5y ago
  We do this at Gumroad. Works great; will never go back.
  - hcta 5y ago
    Do you have any pointers/docs on how to make this work? At the most basic level, how do you prevent people from wasting your money with no effort on their part e.g. by transitively contracting the task to the lowest bidder and pocketing the difference? (Not to say there are many people out there who would actually do this, but incentives clearly need to be fixed if it is feasible.)
    - SergeAx 5y ago
      IF I am ready to pay XXX bucks for doing a given job in N days, I don't really care about who actually did it. I do care about quality, so if it is substandard - we'll part ways with this contractor sooner or later. But this actually may work for simple tasks, and a company in question doesn't looks like it is gonna throw simple tasks on their consultants.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Non-competes, anti-moonlighting clauses, and contract employment are all quite common and have been for a long time. The "legal implication" is that you read the contracts and follow it or work around it. Most corporate/employment lawyers, HR teams, or hiring managers should be fairly familiar with these situations. Also, the demands listed in employment agreements are not always legally enforceable, or not legally enforceable in as broad of a way that they appear to be phrased.
- dhosek 5y ago
  It's pretty common for companies to do contract to hire (enough so that recruiters will often just write CTH in their emails). This is a variation of that which seems a lot fairer than another approach I've experienced, which was a full-day pairing exercise which effectively translated to donating a day's work to the prospective hirer (admittedly, its value to them was relatively low since you were coming in with little knowledge or context, but its value to you is presumably non-zero).
jonplackett 5y ago
Define ‘old’. How young counts as old in tech these days?
- Justsignedup 5y ago
  LOL heard how expensive engineers with > 5 years of experience are... So I guess > 27 is old!
- bjornlouser 5y ago
  36. (months of exp)
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The greater of 30 or <3 years younger than however old a disgruntled engineer is>.
- samcheng 5y ago
  A recruiter from a prominent SF / Silicon Valley tech headhunting firm once told me that 40 is the cutoff for individual contributors. As a counterpoint, I know plenty of over-40 (and older!) wise software engineers working for places like Google. So maybe the discrimination is worse at someplace like Uber? Personally, I value age diversity on a team, just as I value gender, ethnic, etc. diversity. The added perspectives benefit everyone!
  - api 5y ago
    That statement could be illegal.
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Not could be. Is.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    > A recruiter from a prominent SF / Silicon Valley tech headhunting firm once told me that 40 is the cutoff for individual contributors. That fits perfectly because 40 is when age discrimination becomes illegal: https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination You should report that headhunting firm.
outside1234 5y ago
To be clear, age discrimination happens far more broadly than just Silicon Valley. You just hear about it more because there are far more software engineers in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, but it is not a Silicon Valley only problem - it is a global problem. To finish on a positive note: love the contract to hire approach. :)
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  any concrete examples of the broad ageism claim?
  - outside1234 5y ago
    My friend in France recently complained to me that it was impossible for him, at 52, to find another job in the industry. He's at the top of his field (databases). Its pervasive.
- bloodyplonker22 5y ago
  The contract to hire approach is great for the company if the applicant accepts it, but any good applicant would not because the applicant would simply take another full time job with benefits instead. Especially in today's market.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Except in this case, it's a very short-term part-time CTH arrangement, which would allow someone to pursue the opportunity while still employed and get paid for their time. Better than an unpaid full-day interview from the prospective employee's perspective.
jpindar 5y ago
Damn, it's only one job. I was hoping it was a job board.
- mypastself 5y ago
  A more accurate title: “We Hire Old Person, Or Maybe Young”.
- ccleve 5y ago
  We'll hire more than one. A bunch, if this product works out.
mathgladiator 5y ago
Given the Principals only ask, this is interesting. There is something humble about asking for mentor, and this is something that I wish I had when I was younger. I wonder how far I could have gotten if I embraced asking for help sooner instead of just tinkering away and relearning old lessons.
- ebiester 5y ago
  Principals, in this context, means people applying directly, rather than recruiters on their behalf.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    I interpreted it as "Principal level engineers only". Clarification would be helpful.
    - Spoom 5y ago
      To contrast, I've seen this often enough that I knew immediately that they meant, don't try to send us blinded candidates and claim a finder's fee. But perhaps just adding ", no recruiters" would be enough to clarify.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  It is meant to tell recruiters to go away. Principal in this case means direct applicants.
908B64B197 5y ago
Clickbait basically. I feel they would be better off going to GitHub and messaging people working on the type of projects they are looking for. I like the consulting part. Maybe they don't absolutely need an FTE and are keeping the option of having a part time consultant on the table.
- dewey 5y ago
  > Clickbait basically. Not really, The "We Hire Old People" was just something the HN submitter picked. It's not the title of the original job posting.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    It’s basically diversity hiring, which is an accepted hiring practice.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The HN submitter appears to be affiliated with the company, though, and the text here does seem chosen in an editorial way in order to drive engagement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28304777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28304777
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      That's not really a surprise. YC companies can post job adds here, others can't. So you have to be clickbaity to get your add on the front page. And it's a pretty good place to post an add, signal to noise ratio wise.
LeoGovender 5y ago
Facebook logins Username = yagendreng@gmail.com Password = Alexiag123#
datavirtue 5y ago
Comes off like young people grasping for an adult.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Isn't that what old people say they bring to the table though? Experience?
dudeinjapan 5y ago
So do we at TableCheck (Tokyo, Japan) https://www.tablecheck.com/en/company/jobs/ https://www.tablecheck.com/en/company/jobs/
ajay-b 5y ago
I want more companies to follow this. Age is a good thing in most industries, maybe all. I think silicon valley’s stock market drove it towards a “younger is cheaper and will work for free lunch” and that pushed our elders out.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  Or that programmers who'd rather focus on things like "minimum viable products" and "just get something down" rather than "designing maintainable systems" and "avoiding sources of tech debt" skew young/inexperienced.
  - ianlevesque 5y ago
    I’m just as capable of adding tech debt as a younger engineer is!
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      I always thought engineers' job was to make designs in line with best practices, which should hopefully reduce tech debt (in contrast with technicians, whose job is to execute and worry less about the overall project). But that was a lonely and pointless hill to die on...
      - postalrat 5y ago
        Best practices are a great source of shared tech debt.
ccleve 5y ago
I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal referral into Facebook for a developer position. They do hiring centrally. A very young person in the HR department spoke to me, put me in the central database, and apparently shopped my experience around to a number of different groups. No takers. No one wanted to interview me, so the application died. Never did a tech assessment. So now I've started a new group, and I expect this thing is going to generate a lot more money than any work at Facebook ever would. So Facebook did me a favor. Still, it rankles.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview at all? Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?
  - ccleve 5y ago
    Don't even get to the interview stage. My tech skills never got assessed.
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      Damn. I have no great experience and can get interviews in a day or two. And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.
      - beepbooptheory 5y ago
        How do you get interviews in a day or two with no great experience??? These days, I just feel lucky to get an email rejection back at all
tomaszs 5y ago
In our society programming is only for young people. You always have to have a backup plan for job when you will be older. Mine is olympics games.
- snaidamast 5y ago
  I was thinking of Extreme Sports... :-)
bequanna 5y ago
Admirable, but in practice this is tough. We have always been age-agnostic and all our engineering hires are remote. I don’t explicitly ask, but can get a sense of how old someone is in the phone call portion of interview. My takeaway from doing hundreds of these interviews is that even after correcting for experience levels, age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+.
- hkrgl 5y ago
  > age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+. I am curious why you wouldn't offer market-rate salary with paid vacation and benefits to all employees. What does age have to do with it?
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    They have to treat older people with respect, and pay them accordingly. Apparently, they don't want to.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      We don't deserve a higher salary because we are older. "Respect your elders" is a very cultural thing. We should "respect" all people the same. We should "respect" (acknowledge) people that do things worthy of respect.
      - beebeepka 5y ago
        Presumptuous response. I responded to someone who literally said older guys ask for too much and that's why they don't hire them
        bequanna 5y ago
        Ugh, cmon. You are really straining to be outraged here. That is not at all what I said. In my experience, older people almost always ask for above market compensation regardless of experience. We don’t hire people that ask for too much money regardless of age.
volandovengo 5y ago
We hire old people too! We've found that experienced people are a perfect fit for a startup https://www.wrapbook.com/careers https://www.wrapbook.com/careers
zarkov99 5y ago
As what some would call an old person (~50), I love this. There is so much knowledge in old workers. Not all is relevant, sure, but there is so much that is timeless stuff that every young Engineer will learn, sooner or later, though varying degrees of suffering. If we could put away arrogance (from both young and old) we could do so much to advance the field.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Oh yeah, I absolutely love talking with the oldest possible people I work with. I'm not being sarcastic or anything. The older colleagues always have unbelievably awesome insight and interesting stories, and really wise advice. In a purely selfish way I'm always disappointed when someone retires because I know what kind of knowledge and wisdom is walking out the door. I always hope to be this type of person for those around me, sharing knowledge/experience to those who are up-and-coming in the career/industry. :)
- gorbachev 5y ago
  The thing that gets me is the cookie cutter interviewing approach a lot of places do. They ask about specifics, but that's not what is the really valuable stuff. As an example I've worked with so, so many web frameworks over the years, even created one or two of my own (small, limited functionality things). Most of them nobody uses any more, because newer frameworks are just better. But I bet the majority of recruiters see "Web Framework X, 1995" in my resume and think...wow, how outdated is this guy...what they don't seem to realize is that with some exceptions and advancements in technology, they all do the same things, even now. The issues you run into are mostly the same or so similar it's easy the spot the pattern, if you've got the experience I have. This is the same for any problem area for any experienced developer. That is very, very hard to convey in most interviews. What I do not have is skills to develop an implementation of a randomly selected algorithm in 20 minutes on the spot, because the last time I even saw it mentioned was 35 years ago, and even then I probably used a well tested library for it. Ask me about why you'd want to use that algorithm, or why I'd choose it over another one...that I could answer.
  - zarkov99 5y ago
yupper32 5y ago
Why do I feel uncomfortable with this listing? Maybe it's because I'm a 20 something dev in Silicon Valley? Maybe it's because I don't trust anyone who calls themselves experts in anything? Maybe it's because I work with plenty of "older" devs in Silicon Valley? Or that I think the two-jobs-at-once hiring process is horrible? I probably shouldn't feel uncomfortable with it, but I do. I guess the ad isn't for me, though.
- draw_down 5y ago
  There isn’t anything wrong with it
- kbenson 5y ago
  > Maybe it's because I'm a 20 something dev in Silicon Valley? So, you don't like competing with older people? They say they hire young people too, so I'm not sure why else your age would have any bearing. > Maybe it's because I don't trust anyone who calls themselves experts in anything? Some people or organizations really are though. They exist. Google are experts on search. I don't think anyone could support an argument against that adequately. > Maybe it's because I work with plenty of "older" devs in Silicon Valley? How old? The author of the post chimed in above, and they're close to 60. Is that about what you were expecting, or quite a bit older? > Or that I think the two-jobs-at-once hiring process is horrible? That's not a requirement, that's a relaxation of a requirement that allows more people to try out. Think the person working a non-tech job or working a current consulting gig that will end soon as well as those looking to switch from a current full time employment. As long as those people don't have legal requirements requiring they don't work elsewhere, I'm not sure what's the problem with letting people manage their own time for this stage.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    > So, you don't like competing with older people? They say they hire young people too, so I'm not sure why else your age would have any bearing. Huh? No, not what I said. They seem to try to say they don't bias against a group of people, and then turn around and be passive aggressive against younger devs in Silicon Valley. Age clearly has a bearing. They bold "We hire old people". They're already primed to think about the age of their candidates, and potentially bias towards older people.
donretag 5y ago
If anything, perhaps the current tech job market is moving away (for now) from junior developers. Assuming it is also exacerbated due to teams being remotely located. While searching for jobs, I look to avoid the "Senior Trap", when everyone on your team is senior, then by default, the new person is the new junior developer, regardless of actual title. While searching for a lead role recently, I have found companies where almost every dev is a lead. Startup, flat org. That is the Senior Trap ^ 2.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anoplus 5y ago
Other than "old" engineers which could obviously be valuable - I think having everyone finding their place in society is a great vision to have. Makes me happier seeing old, or even disabled people fulfill themselves
- dhosek 5y ago
  As an old—and disabled—person, I found this a rather patronizing comment.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
Ageism is a great gateway to get people talking about their personal biases. It's so rampant that most people don't even feel like it's taboo. It's so glaringly obvious in the tech industry, you get groups of 20-somethings interviewing and of course they're not going to hire someone their parent's age... they ultimately hire someone that's much closer to their own age. You then start to wonder, how else are they filtering hires to be more like themselves? I've been in a similar situation on the hiring side and people would openly talk about how they assumed an older person would have a harder time adapting, might not be up to date, couldn't fit into the culture, etc (all illegal discrimination, fwiw)... one person involved in particular had also gone on a rant about how they think the idea of racial biases are "played up." Very little self-awareness.
gabereiser 5y ago
Anecdotally I've had someone who was older than me, with less experience, talk to and treat me like a college graduate... They used soft language and acted like I didn't know what IoC was or how to model a domain. The guy was the worst coder of the bunch but for some reason he was in charge of the backend development because of his seniority. He was the worst developer/manager hybrid I've ever come across. It was a security software startup and he constantly challenged me with questions like "least privileged expansive" to describe the security models. I'd answer him, and a week later he would go through those motions again - and again. I definitely believe there is ageism in this sector, but I also believe it goes both ways.
glennonymous 5y ago
I naively moved from New York to Silicon Valley when I was 52. Not saying there isn’t age discrimination in NYC, but here it’s a nightmare. The drop in my interview track record since my 40s is stark. 2 years ago, after 6 months during which I failed to get 6 jobs for which I interviewed, I made it to the final round for a position at a startup and was subjected to the usual all-day grilling. The CEO was an older man and the hiring manager was in her late 40s, but all the other interviewers were in their early 20s. I left convinced I had nailed the interview and feeling optimistic. On the way home, the hiring manager, bless her soul, took the unusual step of calling to tell me the team had overruled her own enthusiasm for hiring me and she felt terrible about it. Without saying it in so many words, she made it plain it was because of my age. The age discrimination here extends beyond getting hired. I’ve been subject to cruel jokes and shunning in the workplace that, were I in another disenfranchised group, would be labeled workplace harassment and likely subject to strong discouragement by management at the very least. Some people in these comments ask the source of the age discrimination as if they are skeptical and astonished, Astonished!! such a thing could be going on. They look for a rational explanation. Here’s the explanation: we are tribal animals. From young people’s perspective, they are “Us” and we olds are “Them.” Sometimes young people are conscious of their hostility toward us and sometimes not, but that’s it. It requires no explanation more than that. It’s traumatic to be subjected to treatment like this, to the point I have stopped looking for a job. Humans are not built to tolerate constant social rejection, and it’s more important for me to be alive than to be wealthy. I’ve withdrawn from the tech world and started a business that will not make me and my family wealthy, but will support us, albeit with modest means. I hate the fact that I have become a bitter old man at 57!! I hate that Silicon Valley has come to this!! I’m working through my bitterness and will get over it someday. And I will have the good fortune to leave this dystopia.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  I've been called "The Dad of the Team" and Grandpa at jobs, and I'm in my early 40s. I have a good sense of humor and don't take offense to it at all, though. It is kind of shocking to take a moment, look around the office, and realize you might be the oldest person in the room, despite being middle aged! Definitely not looking forward to my next job hunt though. I understand it just gets tougher and tougher from here on. Best way to combat it I think is to just suck it up and obfuscate your age. Chop off all but the last 8 years on your resume. Remove the dates. I've even gone as far as getting a young-ish haircut and wearing clothes that feel silly but send the right signals. Might even have to dye my hair soon, too LOL. It can feel like the "How do you do, fellow kids" meme [1], but I figure it can't hurt. 1: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15966094/30-rock-buscemi-how-do-you-do-fellow-kids-meme-kill-it-please https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15966094/30-rock-buscemi-...
Shadonototro 5y ago
what about you hire people and stop focusing on age
- threatofrain 5y ago
  If age is a predictor then the incentives are there. The right way to combat inherent incentives is a legal framework which can direct society against natural tides, not by asking harder. The question then is whether age is a predictor.
poisonborz 5y ago
As a general question, why would someone write age/birth date in a CV? Maybe it's different per region, but I never saw this as a strict requirement. Profile pictures may be skipped as well (although a good quality image is hardly telling much). As a personal experience, hiring personnel sometimes asked about it, some even told this is required by employer/customer, I told them they can drop my application then - it never turned out to be a problem after all. To note, the problem goes both ways, a teenager can have an impressive portfolio/knowledge and be rejected regardless.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  > As a general question, why would someone write age/birth date in a CV? If someone graduated university in 1986 (or 1976), it doesn't matter if they've written their birth date on their CV or not.
- jp57 5y ago
  It's not just age and birthdate. What about the year I graduated college? The year I started working? These are not perfect, but you can put a pretty tight lower bound on a candidate's age with these. You can leave these out, or say, lower your claims number of years of experience, I suppose.
  - poisonborz 5y ago
    Per my experience in recruiting, not many will make these inferences during a process, especially with a lot of candidates/large company. But even as such, other "telling" signs can be worked around: - College graduation years can easily be skipped - what purpose do they serve besides the count of years? - You only need to put in the last few positions anyway, anything 10+ years is mostly irrelevant.
- TrackerFF 5y ago
  One can probably infer the age from things like school/employment dates, or if your CV lacks those, things like number of earlier employers or tech used at earlier jobs. A couple of years ago I played around with this idea that it'd be great with a completely censored hiring process, where at the screening stage you can't really see info such as: - Names are censored or made into generic placeholder names - All dates are removed. And rather than having from/to date of employment, maybe make more general groups, like "short","mid","long" periods of employment. - No profile pictures etc. But then I read some study from France where they tried out just that, and it didn't really help on diversification. Strong candidates still had a much stronger resume, while those you'd want to help up still had fundamentally weaker resumes.
armchairhacker 5y ago
My dad is a programmer in his 60s. He has some interesting stories. And yes, when he was interviewing he got passed off as "overqualified". It's true that software development now is a lot different than it was back then. There are many new skills and technologies to learn, and old ones that no longer apply. But what people need to understand is that old people can and do learn the new skills and technologies. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" doesn't apply at all to software engineering, believe it or not old people are super familiar with the AWS and machine learning and Agile and other "new" stuff.
notshift 5y ago
Question: Where can I find these companies that heavily bias towards hiring young people / new grads? I'm 23 with 1.5 YOE and so far my experience has been the opposite: Startups and companies I want to work for only have open positions for seniors and seem to mostly discard my applications, despite the fact that I've been programming in my free time for practically a decade now and consider myself a strong developer. At this point I've honestly just given up and decided to work for crappy companies for a few years until I have the resume to get a job that I actually want.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Junior positions can be difficult to come by as well. We can’t all be 28. What are these people thinking?
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
When companies say there's a shortage in labor they mean there's a shortage of cute fresh 25 year olds who don't talk back and accept bad treatment. Employers will do anything not to hire 40+ year olds including recruiting people from Greece or Lithuania. Enter the great European brain drain. Meanwhile the government wants everyone to stay in employment until the retirement age of 67.
- varispeed 5y ago
  Let's not forget that those corporations are allowed to avoid paying tax while workers are taxed through the nose. Proxy taxation doesn't work, because you don't see people enjoying the same growth as corporations wealth wise. The whole system needs an overhaul and big corporations need to pay the money back.
SergeAx 5y ago
So that's what "Senior software developer" really means.
1-6 5y ago
Wow, and I love this company!
protomyth 5y ago
I am glad someone is going for the older set (selfishly since I'm in the older set), but it has been a concern of mine as students get attracted to the technology fields. I work at a TCU (Tribal Colleges and Universities) and most of our students start later than average and graduate much later. Age discrimination is problematic to populations that receive their degree when they are already in their thirties. Tech's love of 20 year olds is a real problem.
tetrainfo 5y ago
In theory, us older folk are cheaper because we have Medicare. Short term memory is reduced, but good note taking and Prevegin fixes that. I have fond memories of older programers when I was a 20 something. Code is more than algorithms.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Found this: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-new-york-state-charge-marketers-prevagen-making-deceptive https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-n...
crunkykd 5y ago
There's putting in tons of hours of effort to uncover an answer. There's knowing all the ways that didn't work before and why, and then knowing where to look for an answer. Certainly depends on the field, but choose which way you want to go.
readonthegoapp 5y ago
Would have preferred "We hire olds" But this is still good
Imhodoc 5y ago
I wish more ads said that the company hires old people. I work in the pharmaceutical industry at a company where the CSO stated he didn’t want anyone over 50 working there. If you are over 50, you won’t be promoted and they want to push you out the door while hiring inexperienced younger people to be leaders. These people make a lot of mistakes and often have poor judgement as well as a terrible work ethic. But they did go to an ivy league school! If I had my own company, I’d be damm sure to only hire those over 40. And perhaps only those who didn’t go to an Ivy.
solidworker 5y ago
I switched from IT to construction 20yrs ago and never look back. My question to Mark Zuckerberg regarding his 2007 comment would be if he would let a young lawyer out of college defend his company in the supreme court? If he would hire a startup to build his new fancy campus? Would he send a fresh graduate from the Mid West to DC to lobby for his agenda? If software fails they send an apology and a bug fix. If the engineer fails a condo building crumbles, a lawyer will not get a retrial and the lobbiest is not getting anywhere. Trial and error works in SW but almost nowhere else.
salz150 5y ago
Great job with the add. I am in my early forties. I have been doing contract work that has to be bid every 4-5 years. I had considered finding something more stable when I was a little bit younger because I know as you get older in tech it gets harder to find work. I am still doing the contracting because I like the people I work with and stuff. Hopefully it can take me through to retirement!
Danamo51 5y ago
Young people fail to appreciate the fact that the technology they use was actually created by older generations.
dendrite-PA 5y ago
You know it really hurts when (at the age of 64) you can not be hired as a FORTRAN programmer even with 10 years of FORTRAN programming experience.
ardontaymoore 5y ago
Who would respond to this ad? No viable company would hire a moron to write job descriptions.
tonySunbelt 5y ago
I am a 78 year old contract developer, maintaining/developing a medium size system +- 200 modules. it takes me about 4-5 hours a day which is fine! Experience teaches you to tread carefully with critical systems (and people). There really is no need to work 10-12 hour days! Unless it is an unforeseen disaster this usually means you are not very well organized! The "bright young things" are busy rewriting this system in mvc c# etc, which I help with in a minor role. This has been going on for 9 years with very little signs of completion! Not only have local developers been involved but also software companies in Russia and India have been involved! Developers have grown old on this project (including me!). So whatever malaise has hit this project it seems to be international. My background on projects is mainly using the "waterfall" approach. My customers wanted a fixed price and so must have a fixed specification. I however appreciate the agile approach as being more flexible and reactive. But both methods must require users and developers to think through the problem and draw up at least a framework of requirements? This hasn't happened on this project and probably accounts for the slight overrun!
simaahdoot 5y ago
Great to hear. Not old, more experienced, wiser
simasarir 5y ago
Great to hear. Not old, more experienced, wiser
missbonnie 5y ago
I'm so sorry to see you've taken the ad down! I lead a creative team and teach marketing/advertising classes, and would love to use it as an example of thought-provoking creativity. I understand it may have been controversial but personally thought it was brilliant. Is there someplace I can still find the ad? The fact it was taken down just adds to the discussion value, IMO.

We Hire Old People

375 points by ccleve 5y ago

zigradett 5y ago

I bet they don't actually hire old people, but are publishing this for the publicity it might generate.

mavelikara 5y ago
Do you have evidence to believe so?
colecut 5y ago
Most of the publicity will result in job applications from old people
ccleve 5y ago
See my other comment. Yes, we will hire actual old people.

Alex3917 5y ago

How many Postgres core committers are there under 60? Except for the handful of people who do a Ph.D. under Michael Stonebraker or whatever, that seems like a hobby that most people don't even get into until they're retired.

gravypod 5y ago

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this but IANAL.

anm89 5y ago
I mean, they say outright they hire old people and they hire young people. So I think you can make the argument fairly easily that that group includes everyone and that they are not discriminating.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  They meant employer NDAs, etc.
- soneca 5y ago
  Not GP, but I assumed they are talking about the part that they quoted —- consulting gig while on another job, not any discrimination worries.
- gravypod 5y ago
  I don't think there is discrimination immediately evident. I think there are legal implications in actively soliciting contract work from people who currently work at other companies under full time contracts that may preclude them from doing stuff like that (ex: FAANG).
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I don't think that is true. Any agreement you have with google/faang is your agreement and your punishment. You cannot bind others into the agreement. They face no legal implications.
    - foldr 5y ago
      The issue would be with IP. Facebook might be able to claim that the code your contractor worked on for you actually belongs to them.
    - regulation_d 5y ago
      For the most part, this is correct. One exception is "tortious interference with a contract". Let's say I work full-time for Company A, and in my employment agreement, I agree not to do any work on the side. Then let's say Company B knows that I work for Company A and knows that I am contractually prohibited from working for them. If Company B induces me to breach my employment agreement with Company A, Company A can often sue them under the "tortious interference with a contract" cause of action. For most US jurisdictions, intent is required on the part of the obstructing party, but in a minority of jurisdictions, negligence is enough. I suspect this is why there's a clause in most employment agreements that I've signed, where the employee has to represent that they are free to enter into the agreement.
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
What would you think is illegal about it? They make it clear that age is not an issue.
- dharmab 5y ago
  Many full time jobs include language preventing you from working a second job in a similar role.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    I doubt the person they are searching for is currently in a similar role. They want domain specific knowledge about a stable and _old_ codebase. They want the person around as a teacher mentor, and the first gig is something the business needs but would prefer to sub out. Seems like a normal accepted practice when defined that way.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Never accept such jobs unless you are desperate. Your employer does not control or own your spare time. Don’t cede control of it to them!
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    How far does that extend when interviewing? Some companies claim all code written. In theory that might include your leetcode.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Similar role? Or at a similar company? I would expect my company to be unhappy if I were to consult for a competitor on the side. There's probably language in the employment agreement that prohibits that, and even if there isn't, it's still the kind of thing you should avoid due to conflict of interest. But I'm not sure about an agreement not to take a similar role. If the employment agreement says that, I'm not sure that it's legally binding. Even if it is, you may be able to weasel around it with "but it's consulting, not a full-time position". Note well: IANAL. If you're concerned, get advice from a lawyer rather than from some rando on the internet.
tinyhouse 5y ago
I wouldn't call it not legal, but it indeed can violate the terms many employees sign when they join a company. I think it's a matter of how they frame it. If they frame it as actually doing some work for the company then I would say that would be illegal for many. But if it's framed as an interview then maybe it's OK. Not a lawyer, I assuming it's gray area.
jays 5y ago
We did this at the last startup I founded. While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels. We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.
- nomel 5y ago
  I imagine this simply would not work for someone with multiple offers though, which could act as a pretty severe filter of talent.
  - ljm 5y ago
    It just looks like a consulting gig with the potential offer of a job afterwards. If the rates are good and the offer is decently compensated, it's probably a fine way to recruit for what looks to be a highly specialised position. Probably not going to get that many low-level postgres specialists with deep experience walking through the door. If the consultant feels good about the project then they've got the chance to stick around in the long term.
    - jays 5y ago
      Well we didn't market it like that and while technically it is consulting for a period of time, it doesn't have to feel that way. The interview process was similar to any other company, but at the end we asked the candidate to do a short project (20 hours or less), which they would collaborate on with someone internally. So only the best candidates made it to the project and hopefully at that point there were pretty sold on the company. Did we lose some candidates? Sure, but we also didn't have any hires we regretted after changing to it.
- zsmi 5y ago
  > No need to quit your day job to do this gig This might be true for the employer, but for the employee, I think there could be serious issues. For example, my present employer would be very unhappy if I agreed to this and I have no idea how it would play out. I'm almost positive it is in violation of my present employment contract. Did the candidate that went for it actually have full time employment? If so, did they get approval first?
ryneandal 5y ago
The fact that offering gig work to FT employees could have legal repercussions sounds off alarm bells about the US's unhealthy attitude towards employees. It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work.
- gravypod 5y ago
  (Opinions are my own, not my employer's) > It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work. I think this, and the general brain-drain from the broader industry, is really holding the tech sector back. So much OSS could be written if contracts weren't abusive in this way.
  - Dhirvish 5y ago
    I mean the fundamental issue is we've created a society that's automated an INCREDIBLE amount of work, and yet the daily work week is no shorter. We've got automated switchboards, giant robots that make cars, giant robots that do our farming, massive plants for producing power. We even have enough housing already built in this country to house 6x the total number of homeless people. It's a false economy, and we know it because we're primarily a "service" economy. So if most of our food is produced by robots, we have enough housing, and most of our jobs just exist to push health care paperwork around. Why are we not all on 20-30 hour work weeks?! I'm pretty sure most people would be fine doing 5-10 hours a week of essential nursing or working a field or whatever outside their "primary" job if you got 10-20 hours off the rest of the week. Our system is freaking stupid.
sahillavingia 5y ago
We do this at Gumroad. Works great; will never go back.
- hcta 5y ago
  Do you have any pointers/docs on how to make this work? At the most basic level, how do you prevent people from wasting your money with no effort on their part e.g. by transitively contracting the task to the lowest bidder and pocketing the difference? (Not to say there are many people out there who would actually do this, but incentives clearly need to be fixed if it is feasible.)
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    IF I am ready to pay XXX bucks for doing a given job in N days, I don't really care about who actually did it. I do care about quality, so if it is substandard - we'll part ways with this contractor sooner or later. But this actually may work for simple tasks, and a company in question doesn't looks like it is gonna throw simple tasks on their consultants.
kube-system 5y ago
Non-competes, anti-moonlighting clauses, and contract employment are all quite common and have been for a long time. The "legal implication" is that you read the contracts and follow it or work around it. Most corporate/employment lawyers, HR teams, or hiring managers should be fairly familiar with these situations. Also, the demands listed in employment agreements are not always legally enforceable, or not legally enforceable in as broad of a way that they appear to be phrased.
dhosek 5y ago
It's pretty common for companies to do contract to hire (enough so that recruiters will often just write CTH in their emails). This is a variation of that which seems a lot fairer than another approach I've experienced, which was a full-day pairing exercise which effectively translated to donating a day's work to the prospective hirer (admittedly, its value to them was relatively low since you were coming in with little knowledge or context, but its value to you is presumably non-zero).

jonplackett 5y ago

Define ‘old’. How young counts as old in tech these days?

Justsignedup 5y ago
LOL heard how expensive engineers with > 5 years of experience are... So I guess > 27 is old!
bjornlouser 5y ago
36. (months of exp)
sokoloff 5y ago
The greater of 30 or <3 years younger than however old a disgruntled engineer is>.
samcheng 5y ago
A recruiter from a prominent SF / Silicon Valley tech headhunting firm once told me that 40 is the cutoff for individual contributors. As a counterpoint, I know plenty of over-40 (and older!) wise software engineers working for places like Google. So maybe the discrimination is worse at someplace like Uber? Personally, I value age diversity on a team, just as I value gender, ethnic, etc. diversity. The added perspectives benefit everyone!
- api 5y ago
  That statement could be illegal.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Not could be. Is.
- yupper32 5y ago
  > A recruiter from a prominent SF / Silicon Valley tech headhunting firm once told me that 40 is the cutoff for individual contributors. That fits perfectly because 40 is when age discrimination becomes illegal: https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination You should report that headhunting firm.

outside1234 5y ago

To be clear, age discrimination happens far more broadly than just Silicon Valley. You just hear about it more because there are far more software engineers in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, but it is not a Silicon Valley only problem - it is a global problem. To finish on a positive note: love the contract to hire approach. :)

maerF0x0 5y ago
any concrete examples of the broad ageism claim?
- outside1234 5y ago
  My friend in France recently complained to me that it was impossible for him, at 52, to find another job in the industry. He's at the top of his field (databases). Its pervasive.
bloodyplonker22 5y ago
The contract to hire approach is great for the company if the applicant accepts it, but any good applicant would not because the applicant would simply take another full time job with benefits instead. Especially in today's market.
- dhosek 5y ago
  Except in this case, it's a very short-term part-time CTH arrangement, which would allow someone to pursue the opportunity while still employed and get paid for their time. Better than an unpaid full-day interview from the prospective employee's perspective.

jpindar 5y ago

Damn, it's only one job. I was hoping it was a job board.

mypastself 5y ago
A more accurate title: “We Hire Old Person, Or Maybe Young”.
ccleve 5y ago
We'll hire more than one. A bunch, if this product works out.

mathgladiator 5y ago

Given the Principals only ask, this is interesting. There is something humble about asking for mentor, and this is something that I wish I had when I was younger. I wonder how far I could have gotten if I embraced asking for help sooner instead of just tinkering away and relearning old lessons.

ebiester 5y ago
Principals, in this context, means people applying directly, rather than recruiters on their behalf.
- dharmab 5y ago
  I interpreted it as "Principal level engineers only". Clarification would be helpful.
  - Spoom 5y ago
    To contrast, I've seen this often enough that I knew immediately that they meant, don't try to send us blinded candidates and claim a finder's fee. But perhaps just adding ", no recruiters" would be enough to clarify.
MattGaiser 5y ago
It is meant to tell recruiters to go away. Principal in this case means direct applicants.

908B64B197 5y ago

Clickbait basically. I feel they would be better off going to GitHub and messaging people working on the type of projects they are looking for. I like the consulting part. Maybe they don't absolutely need an FTE and are keeping the option of having a part time consultant on the table.

dewey 5y ago
> Clickbait basically. Not really, The "We Hire Old People" was just something the HN submitter picked. It's not the title of the original job posting.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  It’s basically diversity hiring, which is an accepted hiring practice.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The HN submitter appears to be affiliated with the company, though, and the text here does seem chosen in an editorial way in order to drive engagement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28304777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28304777
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    That's not really a surprise. YC companies can post job adds here, others can't. So you have to be clickbaity to get your add on the front page. And it's a pretty good place to post an add, signal to noise ratio wise.

LeoGovender 5y ago

Facebook logins Username = yagendreng@gmail.com Password = Alexiag123#

datavirtue 5y ago

Comes off like young people grasping for an adult.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Isn't that what old people say they bring to the table though? Experience?

dudeinjapan 5y ago

So do we at TableCheck (Tokyo, Japan) https://www.tablecheck.com/en/company/jobs/ https://www.tablecheck.com/en/company/jobs/

ajay-b 5y ago

I want more companies to follow this. Age is a good thing in most industries, maybe all. I think silicon valley’s stock market drove it towards a “younger is cheaper and will work for free lunch” and that pushed our elders out.

bee_rider 5y ago
Or that programmers who'd rather focus on things like "minimum viable products" and "just get something down" rather than "designing maintainable systems" and "avoiding sources of tech debt" skew young/inexperienced.
- ianlevesque 5y ago
  I’m just as capable of adding tech debt as a younger engineer is!
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    I always thought engineers' job was to make designs in line with best practices, which should hopefully reduce tech debt (in contrast with technicians, whose job is to execute and worry less about the overall project). But that was a lonely and pointless hill to die on...
    - postalrat 5y ago
      Best practices are a great source of shared tech debt.

ccleve 5y ago

I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal referral into Facebook for a developer position. They do hiring centrally. A very young person in the HR department spoke to me, put me in the central database, and apparently shopped my experience around to a number of different groups. No takers. No one wanted to interview me, so the application died. Never did a tech assessment. So now I've started a new group, and I expect this thing is going to generate a lot more money than any work at Facebook ever would. So Facebook did me a favor. Still, it rankles.

MattGaiser 5y ago
What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview at all? Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?
- ccleve 5y ago
  Don't even get to the interview stage. My tech skills never got assessed.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Damn. I have no great experience and can get interviews in a day or two. And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.
    - beepbooptheory 5y ago
      How do you get interviews in a day or two with no great experience??? These days, I just feel lucky to get an email rejection back at all

tomaszs 5y ago

In our society programming is only for young people. You always have to have a backup plan for job when you will be older. Mine is olympics games.

snaidamast 5y ago
I was thinking of Extreme Sports... :-)

bequanna 5y ago

Admirable, but in practice this is tough. We have always been age-agnostic and all our engineering hires are remote. I don’t explicitly ask, but can get a sense of how old someone is in the phone call portion of interview. My takeaway from doing hundreds of these interviews is that even after correcting for experience levels, age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+.

hkrgl 5y ago
> age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+. I am curious why you wouldn't offer market-rate salary with paid vacation and benefits to all employees. What does age have to do with it?
- beebeepka 5y ago
  They have to treat older people with respect, and pay them accordingly. Apparently, they don't want to.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    We don't deserve a higher salary because we are older. "Respect your elders" is a very cultural thing. We should "respect" all people the same. We should "respect" (acknowledge) people that do things worthy of respect.
    - beebeepka 5y ago
      Presumptuous response. I responded to someone who literally said older guys ask for too much and that's why they don't hire them
      - bequanna 5y ago
        Ugh, cmon. You are really straining to be outraged here. That is not at all what I said. In my experience, older people almost always ask for above market compensation regardless of experience. We don’t hire people that ask for too much money regardless of age.

volandovengo 5y ago

We hire old people too! We've found that experienced people are a perfect fit for a startup https://www.wrapbook.com/careers https://www.wrapbook.com/careers

zarkov99 5y ago

As what some would call an old person (~50), I love this. There is so much knowledge in old workers. Not all is relevant, sure, but there is so much that is timeless stuff that every young Engineer will learn, sooner or later, though varying degrees of suffering. If we could put away arrogance (from both young and old) we could do so much to advance the field.

amatecha 5y ago
Oh yeah, I absolutely love talking with the oldest possible people I work with. I'm not being sarcastic or anything. The older colleagues always have unbelievably awesome insight and interesting stories, and really wise advice. In a purely selfish way I'm always disappointed when someone retires because I know what kind of knowledge and wisdom is walking out the door. I always hope to be this type of person for those around me, sharing knowledge/experience to those who are up-and-coming in the career/industry. :)
gorbachev 5y ago
The thing that gets me is the cookie cutter interviewing approach a lot of places do. They ask about specifics, but that's not what is the really valuable stuff. As an example I've worked with so, so many web frameworks over the years, even created one or two of my own (small, limited functionality things). Most of them nobody uses any more, because newer frameworks are just better. But I bet the majority of recruiters see "Web Framework X, 1995" in my resume and think...wow, how outdated is this guy...what they don't seem to realize is that with some exceptions and advancements in technology, they all do the same things, even now. The issues you run into are mostly the same or so similar it's easy the spot the pattern, if you've got the experience I have. This is the same for any problem area for any experienced developer. That is very, very hard to convey in most interviews. What I do not have is skills to develop an implementation of a randomly selected algorithm in 20 minutes on the spot, because the last time I even saw it mentioned was 35 years ago, and even then I probably used a well tested library for it. Ask me about why you'd want to use that algorithm, or why I'd choose it over another one...that I could answer.
- zarkov99 5y ago

yupper32 5y ago

Why do I feel uncomfortable with this listing? Maybe it's because I'm a 20 something dev in Silicon Valley? Maybe it's because I don't trust anyone who calls themselves experts in anything? Maybe it's because I work with plenty of "older" devs in Silicon Valley? Or that I think the two-jobs-at-once hiring process is horrible? I probably shouldn't feel uncomfortable with it, but I do. I guess the ad isn't for me, though.

draw_down 5y ago
There isn’t anything wrong with it
kbenson 5y ago
> Maybe it's because I'm a 20 something dev in Silicon Valley? So, you don't like competing with older people? They say they hire young people too, so I'm not sure why else your age would have any bearing. > Maybe it's because I don't trust anyone who calls themselves experts in anything? Some people or organizations really are though. They exist. Google are experts on search. I don't think anyone could support an argument against that adequately. > Maybe it's because I work with plenty of "older" devs in Silicon Valley? How old? The author of the post chimed in above, and they're close to 60. Is that about what you were expecting, or quite a bit older? > Or that I think the two-jobs-at-once hiring process is horrible? That's not a requirement, that's a relaxation of a requirement that allows more people to try out. Think the person working a non-tech job or working a current consulting gig that will end soon as well as those looking to switch from a current full time employment. As long as those people don't have legal requirements requiring they don't work elsewhere, I'm not sure what's the problem with letting people manage their own time for this stage.
- yupper32 5y ago
  > So, you don't like competing with older people? They say they hire young people too, so I'm not sure why else your age would have any bearing. Huh? No, not what I said. They seem to try to say they don't bias against a group of people, and then turn around and be passive aggressive against younger devs in Silicon Valley. Age clearly has a bearing. They bold "We hire old people". They're already primed to think about the age of their candidates, and potentially bias towards older people.

donretag 5y ago

If anything, perhaps the current tech job market is moving away (for now) from junior developers. Assuming it is also exacerbated due to teams being remotely located. While searching for jobs, I look to avoid the "Senior Trap", when everyone on your team is senior, then by default, the new person is the new junior developer, regardless of actual title. While searching for a lead role recently, I have found companies where almost every dev is a lead. Startup, flat org. That is the Senior Trap ^ 2.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

anoplus 5y ago

Other than "old" engineers which could obviously be valuable - I think having everyone finding their place in society is a great vision to have. Makes me happier seeing old, or even disabled people fulfill themselves

dhosek 5y ago
As an old—and disabled—person, I found this a rather patronizing comment.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

Ageism is a great gateway to get people talking about their personal biases. It's so rampant that most people don't even feel like it's taboo. It's so glaringly obvious in the tech industry, you get groups of 20-somethings interviewing and of course they're not going to hire someone their parent's age... they ultimately hire someone that's much closer to their own age. You then start to wonder, how else are they filtering hires to be more like themselves? I've been in a similar situation on the hiring side and people would openly talk about how they assumed an older person would have a harder time adapting, might not be up to date, couldn't fit into the culture, etc (all illegal discrimination, fwiw)... one person involved in particular had also gone on a rant about how they think the idea of racial biases are "played up." Very little self-awareness.

gabereiser 5y ago

Anecdotally I've had someone who was older than me, with less experience, talk to and treat me like a college graduate... They used soft language and acted like I didn't know what IoC was or how to model a domain. The guy was the worst coder of the bunch but for some reason he was in charge of the backend development because of his seniority. He was the worst developer/manager hybrid I've ever come across. It was a security software startup and he constantly challenged me with questions like "least privileged expansive" to describe the security models. I'd answer him, and a week later he would go through those motions again - and again. I definitely believe there is ageism in this sector, but I also believe it goes both ways.

glennonymous 5y ago

I naively moved from New York to Silicon Valley when I was 52. Not saying there isn’t age discrimination in NYC, but here it’s a nightmare. The drop in my interview track record since my 40s is stark. 2 years ago, after 6 months during which I failed to get 6 jobs for which I interviewed, I made it to the final round for a position at a startup and was subjected to the usual all-day grilling. The CEO was an older man and the hiring manager was in her late 40s, but all the other interviewers were in their early 20s. I left convinced I had nailed the interview and feeling optimistic. On the way home, the hiring manager, bless her soul, took the unusual step of calling to tell me the team had overruled her own enthusiasm for hiring me and she felt terrible about it. Without saying it in so many words, she made it plain it was because of my age. The age discrimination here extends beyond getting hired. I’ve been subject to cruel jokes and shunning in the workplace that, were I in another disenfranchised group, would be labeled workplace harassment and likely subject to strong discouragement by management at the very least. Some people in these comments ask the source of the age discrimination as if they are skeptical and astonished, Astonished!! such a thing could be going on. They look for a rational explanation. Here’s the explanation: we are tribal animals. From young people’s perspective, they are “Us” and we olds are “Them.” Sometimes young people are conscious of their hostility toward us and sometimes not, but that’s it. It requires no explanation more than that. It’s traumatic to be subjected to treatment like this, to the point I have stopped looking for a job. Humans are not built to tolerate constant social rejection, and it’s more important for me to be alive than to be wealthy. I’ve withdrawn from the tech world and started a business that will not make me and my family wealthy, but will support us, albeit with modest means. I hate the fact that I have become a bitter old man at 57!! I hate that Silicon Valley has come to this!! I’m working through my bitterness and will get over it someday. And I will have the good fortune to leave this dystopia.

ryandrake 5y ago
I've been called "The Dad of the Team" and Grandpa at jobs, and I'm in my early 40s. I have a good sense of humor and don't take offense to it at all, though. It is kind of shocking to take a moment, look around the office, and realize you might be the oldest person in the room, despite being middle aged! Definitely not looking forward to my next job hunt though. I understand it just gets tougher and tougher from here on. Best way to combat it I think is to just suck it up and obfuscate your age. Chop off all but the last 8 years on your resume. Remove the dates. I've even gone as far as getting a young-ish haircut and wearing clothes that feel silly but send the right signals. Might even have to dye my hair soon, too LOL. It can feel like the "How do you do, fellow kids" meme [1], but I figure it can't hurt. 1: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15966094/30-rock-buscemi-how-do-you-do-fellow-kids-meme-kill-it-please https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15966094/30-rock-buscemi-...

Shadonototro 5y ago

what about you hire people and stop focusing on age

threatofrain 5y ago
If age is a predictor then the incentives are there. The right way to combat inherent incentives is a legal framework which can direct society against natural tides, not by asking harder. The question then is whether age is a predictor.

poisonborz 5y ago

As a general question, why would someone write age/birth date in a CV? Maybe it's different per region, but I never saw this as a strict requirement. Profile pictures may be skipped as well (although a good quality image is hardly telling much). As a personal experience, hiring personnel sometimes asked about it, some even told this is required by employer/customer, I told them they can drop my application then - it never turned out to be a problem after all. To note, the problem goes both ways, a teenager can have an impressive portfolio/knowledge and be rejected regardless.

meepmorp 5y ago
> As a general question, why would someone write age/birth date in a CV? If someone graduated university in 1986 (or 1976), it doesn't matter if they've written their birth date on their CV or not.
jp57 5y ago
It's not just age and birthdate. What about the year I graduated college? The year I started working? These are not perfect, but you can put a pretty tight lower bound on a candidate's age with these. You can leave these out, or say, lower your claims number of years of experience, I suppose.
- poisonborz 5y ago
  Per my experience in recruiting, not many will make these inferences during a process, especially with a lot of candidates/large company. But even as such, other "telling" signs can be worked around: - College graduation years can easily be skipped - what purpose do they serve besides the count of years? - You only need to put in the last few positions anyway, anything 10+ years is mostly irrelevant.
TrackerFF 5y ago
One can probably infer the age from things like school/employment dates, or if your CV lacks those, things like number of earlier employers or tech used at earlier jobs. A couple of years ago I played around with this idea that it'd be great with a completely censored hiring process, where at the screening stage you can't really see info such as: - Names are censored or made into generic placeholder names - All dates are removed. And rather than having from/to date of employment, maybe make more general groups, like "short","mid","long" periods of employment. - No profile pictures etc. But then I read some study from France where they tried out just that, and it didn't really help on diversification. Strong candidates still had a much stronger resume, while those you'd want to help up still had fundamentally weaker resumes.

armchairhacker 5y ago

My dad is a programmer in his 60s. He has some interesting stories. And yes, when he was interviewing he got passed off as "overqualified". It's true that software development now is a lot different than it was back then. There are many new skills and technologies to learn, and old ones that no longer apply. But what people need to understand is that old people can and do learn the new skills and technologies. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" doesn't apply at all to software engineering, believe it or not old people are super familiar with the AWS and machine learning and Agile and other "new" stuff.

notshift 5y ago

Question: Where can I find these companies that heavily bias towards hiring young people / new grads? I'm 23 with 1.5 YOE and so far my experience has been the opposite: Startups and companies I want to work for only have open positions for seniors and seem to mostly discard my applications, despite the fact that I've been programming in my free time for practically a decade now and consider myself a strong developer. At this point I've honestly just given up and decided to work for crappy companies for a few years until I have the resume to get a job that I actually want.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Junior positions can be difficult to come by as well. We can’t all be 28. What are these people thinking?

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

When companies say there's a shortage in labor they mean there's a shortage of cute fresh 25 year olds who don't talk back and accept bad treatment. Employers will do anything not to hire 40+ year olds including recruiting people from Greece or Lithuania. Enter the great European brain drain. Meanwhile the government wants everyone to stay in employment until the retirement age of 67.

varispeed 5y ago
Let's not forget that those corporations are allowed to avoid paying tax while workers are taxed through the nose. Proxy taxation doesn't work, because you don't see people enjoying the same growth as corporations wealth wise. The whole system needs an overhaul and big corporations need to pay the money back.

SergeAx 5y ago

So that's what "Senior software developer" really means.

1-6 5y ago

Wow, and I love this company!

protomyth 5y ago

I am glad someone is going for the older set (selfishly since I'm in the older set), but it has been a concern of mine as students get attracted to the technology fields. I work at a TCU (Tribal Colleges and Universities) and most of our students start later than average and graduate much later. Age discrimination is problematic to populations that receive their degree when they are already in their thirties. Tech's love of 20 year olds is a real problem.

tetrainfo 5y ago

In theory, us older folk are cheaper because we have Medicare. Short term memory is reduced, but good note taking and Prevegin fixes that. I have fond memories of older programers when I was a 20 something. Code is more than algorithms.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Found this: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-new-york-state-charge-marketers-prevagen-making-deceptive https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-n...

crunkykd 5y ago

There's putting in tons of hours of effort to uncover an answer. There's knowing all the ways that didn't work before and why, and then knowing where to look for an answer. Certainly depends on the field, but choose which way you want to go.

readonthegoapp 5y ago

Would have preferred "We hire olds" But this is still good

Imhodoc 5y ago

I wish more ads said that the company hires old people. I work in the pharmaceutical industry at a company where the CSO stated he didn’t want anyone over 50 working there. If you are over 50, you won’t be promoted and they want to push you out the door while hiring inexperienced younger people to be leaders. These people make a lot of mistakes and often have poor judgement as well as a terrible work ethic. But they did go to an ivy league school! If I had my own company, I’d be damm sure to only hire those over 40. And perhaps only those who didn’t go to an Ivy.

solidworker 5y ago

I switched from IT to construction 20yrs ago and never look back. My question to Mark Zuckerberg regarding his 2007 comment would be if he would let a young lawyer out of college defend his company in the supreme court? If he would hire a startup to build his new fancy campus? Would he send a fresh graduate from the Mid West to DC to lobby for his agenda? If software fails they send an apology and a bug fix. If the engineer fails a condo building crumbles, a lawyer will not get a retrial and the lobbiest is not getting anywhere. Trial and error works in SW but almost nowhere else.

salz150 5y ago

Great job with the add. I am in my early forties. I have been doing contract work that has to be bid every 4-5 years. I had considered finding something more stable when I was a little bit younger because I know as you get older in tech it gets harder to find work. I am still doing the contracting because I like the people I work with and stuff. Hopefully it can take me through to retirement!

Danamo51 5y ago

Young people fail to appreciate the fact that the technology they use was actually created by older generations.

dendrite-PA 5y ago

You know it really hurts when (at the age of 64) you can not be hired as a FORTRAN programmer even with 10 years of FORTRAN programming experience.

ardontaymoore 5y ago

Who would respond to this ad? No viable company would hire a moron to write job descriptions.

tonySunbelt 5y ago

I am a 78 year old contract developer, maintaining/developing a medium size system +- 200 modules. it takes me about 4-5 hours a day which is fine! Experience teaches you to tread carefully with critical systems (and people). There really is no need to work 10-12 hour days! Unless it is an unforeseen disaster this usually means you are not very well organized! The "bright young things" are busy rewriting this system in mvc c# etc, which I help with in a minor role. This has been going on for 9 years with very little signs of completion! Not only have local developers been involved but also software companies in Russia and India have been involved! Developers have grown old on this project (including me!). So whatever malaise has hit this project it seems to be international. My background on projects is mainly using the "waterfall" approach. My customers wanted a fixed price and so must have a fixed specification. I however appreciate the agile approach as being more flexible and reactive. But both methods must require users and developers to think through the problem and draw up at least a framework of requirements? This hasn't happened on this project and probably accounts for the slight overrun!

simaahdoot 5y ago

Great to hear. Not old, more experienced, wiser

simasarir 5y ago

Great to hear. Not old, more experienced, wiser

missbonnie 5y ago

I'm so sorry to see you've taken the ad down! I lead a creative team and teach marketing/advertising classes, and would love to use it as an example of thought-provoking creativity. I understand it may have been controversial but personally thought it was brilliant. Is there someplace I can still find the ad? The fact it was taken down just adds to the discussion value, IMO.