5 ms·

What I find about older people who complain about ageism in tech is that most of them really just wanna be in management or admin and not do the grunt work of a

What I find about older people who complain about ageism in tech is that most of them really just wanna be in management or admin and not do the grunt work of actual dev or ops. That or they insist that they are relevant despite knowing only the same frameworks or methodologies that haven't been in vogue for 15+ years, and only now they got laid off. I hate to generalize, but never in my experience (I am over 40) have I ever even seen a resume with potential ever get turned away due to age.

supramouse 5y ago
I have once a long time ago, but it was the mixture of age + experience and not expecting that the person would actually be interested in staying shit-show of a company I was working in at the time ( it folded 6 months later anyway)
nuclearnice1 5y ago
I’m no expert, but I don’t think it works like that. It’s not December 1955. No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim. But is she a cultural fit? Does he have the energy? A bit too senior? I imagine it plays out like that too much the same effect.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  > No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim. I was a recruiter for 9 years. Discrimination at an individual level is rampant, but the type of discrimination varies. One hiring manager told me a woman was the best he’d interviewed, but he heard kids in the background & wouldn’t hire her because he didn’t want to risk her going out on maternity leave. A manager told me he threw out all resumes with names sounding like they’d be from a specific country because he thought they all had poor communication skills. It’s really common for hiring managers to insist on 3 to 5 years of experience because they’re likely to be young and willing to work a lot of unpaid overtime.
- jgmmo 5y ago
  "culture fit" is how corp america dodges people for all those racist, sexist, bigoted reasons, without having to say it.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  > No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim They wouldn't throw it away publicly in a meeting since it's illegal, but when a recruiter is browsing LinkedIn profiles trying to find potential candidates to interview, I'm pretty sure they dismiss older candidates as they don't perform as well in the coding interviews. That being said, I know FAANG make a big deal of trying to interview as many minority candidates as possible and incentives recruiters to do so but AFAIU older candidates don't fall in the "minority" category.
ergonaught 5y ago
Just about 20 years ago, “we” (popular open source company) were told by big Silicon Valley names we’d all recognize that we were “too grey”. We were mostly 30s/40s. Didn’t have anything to do with any of our work or skills (every one of them was using and still uses our product). Just age, or the appearance of age.
Mc91 5y ago
> never in my experience (I am over 40) have I ever even seen a resume with potential ever get turned away due to age. No one has ever told me they turned someone down due to age, but probably because it is against the law. We interviewed a guy who knew what we were doing inside and out, and he was older than all of us. On top of this, he had a nice, friendly personality. We had been interviewing for this position for a while. The lead and manager turned him down. He would be paid less than a Google L3 would get paid (this was ten years ago, and it was not a tech company). I protested saying "what are you looking for? If he isn't good enough, what are you expecting to come in? what was wrong with him?" The reply was "I don't think he would be happy if we called him at 3 AM if some problem came up". The problem was they thought he was too old. He was probably in his late 50s.
- grogenaut 5y ago
  I generally call out those hangups in a hiring loop. If the manager has that concern, that manager can get on the horn with the candidate and find out if they'd actually have that issue, or the recruiter. Hell the manager should have hit on that DURING the loop or the phone screen. Don't guess on behalf of the candidate, ask.
  - caminante 5y ago
    Agreed. Easy way to de-risk a decision is ask, directly. Also surfaces any "real" reasons.
  - contingencies 5y ago
    I think the unspoken fear is that the person knows the technical side and could threaten to cut the middle manager out of the equation if they ever met senior management. A lot of this goes on in middle management. Never forget people are basically social apes. This is why those who climb the ladder are guaranteed to be sociopaths/psychopaths.
    - grogenaut 5y ago
      Senior managers don't have the bandwidth to manage line engineers, if the engineer is doing what you say middle managers fear they would be peering with the middle managers to organize across their projects, eg a staff or principal engineer. You can easily interview for that skill set. It's also a reason to have a senior outsider on hiring loops to detect when you have these types of managers. If the manager are actually attempting to do this pathological move, a staff or PE will notice and work to correct that issue with senior management. Otherwise engineers leave as it removes their growth areas. At least at non-pathological places.

supramouse 5y ago

I have once a long time ago, but it was the mixture of age + experience and not expecting that the person would actually be interested in staying shit-show of a company I was working in at the time ( it folded 6 months later anyway)

nuclearnice1 5y ago

I’m no expert, but I don’t think it works like that. It’s not December 1955. No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim. But is she a cultural fit? Does he have the energy? A bit too senior? I imagine it plays out like that too much the same effect.

devoutsalsa 5y ago
> No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim. I was a recruiter for 9 years. Discrimination at an individual level is rampant, but the type of discrimination varies. One hiring manager told me a woman was the best he’d interviewed, but he heard kids in the background & wouldn’t hire her because he didn’t want to risk her going out on maternity leave. A manager told me he threw out all resumes with names sounding like they’d be from a specific country because he thought they all had poor communication skills. It’s really common for hiring managers to insist on 3 to 5 years of experience because they’re likely to be young and willing to work a lot of unpaid overtime.
jgmmo 5y ago
"culture fit" is how corp america dodges people for all those racist, sexist, bigoted reasons, without having to say it.
yodsanklai 5y ago
> No one throws away a resume in a public meeting declaring she’s too old, queer, brown, and Muslim They wouldn't throw it away publicly in a meeting since it's illegal, but when a recruiter is browsing LinkedIn profiles trying to find potential candidates to interview, I'm pretty sure they dismiss older candidates as they don't perform as well in the coding interviews. That being said, I know FAANG make a big deal of trying to interview as many minority candidates as possible and incentives recruiters to do so but AFAIU older candidates don't fall in the "minority" category.

ergonaught 5y ago

Just about 20 years ago, “we” (popular open source company) were told by big Silicon Valley names we’d all recognize that we were “too grey”. We were mostly 30s/40s. Didn’t have anything to do with any of our work or skills (every one of them was using and still uses our product). Just age, or the appearance of age.

Mc91 5y ago

> never in my experience (I am over 40) have I ever even seen a resume with potential ever get turned away due to age. No one has ever told me they turned someone down due to age, but probably because it is against the law. We interviewed a guy who knew what we were doing inside and out, and he was older than all of us. On top of this, he had a nice, friendly personality. We had been interviewing for this position for a while. The lead and manager turned him down. He would be paid less than a Google L3 would get paid (this was ten years ago, and it was not a tech company). I protested saying "what are you looking for? If he isn't good enough, what are you expecting to come in? what was wrong with him?" The reply was "I don't think he would be happy if we called him at 3 AM if some problem came up". The problem was they thought he was too old. He was probably in his late 50s.

grogenaut 5y ago
I generally call out those hangups in a hiring loop. If the manager has that concern, that manager can get on the horn with the candidate and find out if they'd actually have that issue, or the recruiter. Hell the manager should have hit on that DURING the loop or the phone screen. Don't guess on behalf of the candidate, ask.
- caminante 5y ago
  Agreed. Easy way to de-risk a decision is ask, directly. Also surfaces any "real" reasons.
- contingencies 5y ago
  I think the unspoken fear is that the person knows the technical side and could threaten to cut the middle manager out of the equation if they ever met senior management. A lot of this goes on in middle management. Never forget people are basically social apes. This is why those who climb the ladder are guaranteed to be sociopaths/psychopaths.
  - grogenaut 5y ago
    Senior managers don't have the bandwidth to manage line engineers, if the engineer is doing what you say middle managers fear they would be peering with the middle managers to organize across their projects, eg a staff or principal engineer. You can easily interview for that skill set. It's also a reason to have a senior outsider on hiring loops to detect when you have these types of managers. If the manager are actually attempting to do this pathological move, a staff or PE will notice and work to correct that issue with senior management. Otherwise engineers leave as it removes their growth areas. At least at non-pathological places.