3 ms·

In the post-mainframe era, tech centric companies have learned to age discriminate by shifting the platform out from underneath their workforces causing older w

by vaxman 3y ago

In the post-mainframe era, tech centric companies have learned to age discriminate by shifting the platform out from underneath their workforces causing older workers to stumble, typically laying off those older workers and/or turning around and hiring younger workers who are pre-trained (or willing to and cheap enough to be trained) in the new platforms. Sometimes the platform vendors themselves help their customers execute on such schemes, even targeting specific workers who might have authority to block such platform shifts. Even in small startups where the hiring entrepreneur may have been working in a different field with plenty of high-skill mature workers or living at (a parent’s) home playing video games pounding caffeine drinks just a few months earlier, there still seems to be an instinctive bias to hire young (and cheap) tech people and embrace whatever tech du jour that they prefer to maximize their chance of success. Even Y Combinator reportedly got its start poaching college age kids with $6K all-in packages and “incubating” them. (Get away from me with that thing!) It’s not The Way, of course, but with most mature workers permanently taken out of the industry during the dot-com crash and that flood of technicians filling critical roles for a while, it’s also not going to change until the new generation (currently their most senior workers are at about 17 years experience by my clock) takeover the game like “The Ancients” before them (that they never knew). Source: my six year education and 41 year pro career that began under people who had once fought in WWII and I’m still way (WAY!) younger than the youngest founder of Apple (#8)

JohnFen 3y ago
> shifting the platform out from underneath their workforces causing older workers to stumble But the older workers don't have to stumble. They can learn the new platform. I'm an older worker and have done so many times over my career. It's not a huge deal -- especially because keeping up with changes in technology is a thing that everyone of every age has to do anyway.
- nerpderp82 3y ago
  Most people who have been in industry a long time, have great skills when it comes to picking up new platforms. Granted, sometimes we can be jaded when new stack Foo claims to have all the same hotness as stack Bar did back in 2003. When I have encountered age discrimination, it is usually because the org wants young gullible people with "passion" who put up with horrid working conditions, broken tech stacks and whacked out business models. The last thing they want is someone that has seen this three times and can point out the needless churn to support a CTO that doesn't know what they are doing.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Granted, sometimes we can be jaded when new stack Foo claims to have all the same hotness as stack Bar did back in 2003. True, although I wouldn't characterize it as being "jaded" as much as that experience makes the bullshit much easier to spot. And, generally speaking, the more experienced the dev, the lower the tolerance they have for bullshit.
- gosub100 3y ago
  If you program with any regularity, learning new languages usually gets easier as you age.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    So much this. Once you learn a particular programming paradigm (functional, OOP, etc.), the differences between languages in that paradigm are mostly syntactic, and learning a new syntax is pretty easy. And there are only a small handful of different paradigms. If you've been developing long enough, you've probably become competent in most, if not all, of them.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      > learning a new syntax is pretty easy. Going from C++ to eg Python or Java isn't much fun. Try going to Haskell or Rust, with the borrow checker.
      - bluefirebrand 3y ago
        This is my experience too. I can switch to another programming language and write the For Loops and branching logic and all that jazz no problem. But there's often a lot of nuances that you just don't know and it takes a while to accumulate that knowledge. Those are usually referred to as "Best Practices" and there usually isn't a single source of truth document out on the Internet or anywhere to learn all of them. They just come with experience and time, and maybe if you're lucky mentorship from a more experienced dev who knows those practices. This is very clear to me having watched Java devs flounder their way through building JavaScript microservices using all of the old Gang of Four patterns and basically zero of the modern ES functionality.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      when i hire people i look for those that have learned at least two programming languages. because learning the first language is somewhat hard. the second one is hard too, mostly because you think it's going to be as hard as the first one. but once you learned it you realize that it's really mostly the same, and from then on learning most languages is easy. same goes for frameworks
- BadCookie 3y ago
  Sure, you can learn new platform X well enough to be productive in probably a matter of days, but you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X unless you lie about it. And many job postings expect you to not only have years of experience with platform X, but also significant experience with particular database Y and cloud service provider Z. How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody who helped you get your foot in the door. (Am I wrong?)
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X Why would you have to? You get the experience by working with the technology, just like everyone else. The older worker and the younger worker both need to have X amount of experience. I don't see how this aspect is related to age at all. > How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody. (Am I wrong?) You're wrong. Connections are important for getting any new position, but connections aren't what got me "in" on a new platform. I've learned new platforms either (usually) on my own, or because working with the platform became part of a job I already had.
    - BadCookie 3y ago
      So your company did a rewrite using platform X? Interesting. I think being in that situation requires a bit of luck. Many companies (understandably) don’t want to or can’t afford to rewrite their legacy code. I still don’t see how learning a platform on your own got you past HR resume screening. Learning something via a side project over a couple of weeks is hardly the same thing as having multiple years of professional experience already. Are connections always important for getting a new position? I doubt that a doctor needs to already know somebody at a hospital in order to get an interview … but I could be wrong about that, I guess. Age matters because someone just out of college probably at least did their internship in whatever platform is popular right now. They also will probably accept lower pay and worse working conditions. So the older worker has little or even negative advantage if they’ve been using the “wrong” platform in their recent job and don’t have a strong personal network.

by vaxman 3y ago

JohnFen 3y ago

> shifting the platform out from underneath their workforces causing older workers to stumble But the older workers don't have to stumble. They can learn the new platform. I'm an older worker and have done so many times over my career. It's not a huge deal -- especially because keeping up with changes in technology is a thing that everyone of every age has to do anyway.

nerpderp82 3y ago
Most people who have been in industry a long time, have great skills when it comes to picking up new platforms. Granted, sometimes we can be jaded when new stack Foo claims to have all the same hotness as stack Bar did back in 2003. When I have encountered age discrimination, it is usually because the org wants young gullible people with "passion" who put up with horrid working conditions, broken tech stacks and whacked out business models. The last thing they want is someone that has seen this three times and can point out the needless churn to support a CTO that doesn't know what they are doing.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Granted, sometimes we can be jaded when new stack Foo claims to have all the same hotness as stack Bar did back in 2003. True, although I wouldn't characterize it as being "jaded" as much as that experience makes the bullshit much easier to spot. And, generally speaking, the more experienced the dev, the lower the tolerance they have for bullshit.
gosub100 3y ago
If you program with any regularity, learning new languages usually gets easier as you age.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  So much this. Once you learn a particular programming paradigm (functional, OOP, etc.), the differences between languages in that paradigm are mostly syntactic, and learning a new syntax is pretty easy. And there are only a small handful of different paradigms. If you've been developing long enough, you've probably become competent in most, if not all, of them.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > learning a new syntax is pretty easy. Going from C++ to eg Python or Java isn't much fun. Try going to Haskell or Rust, with the borrow checker.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      This is my experience too. I can switch to another programming language and write the For Loops and branching logic and all that jazz no problem. But there's often a lot of nuances that you just don't know and it takes a while to accumulate that knowledge. Those are usually referred to as "Best Practices" and there usually isn't a single source of truth document out on the Internet or anywhere to learn all of them. They just come with experience and time, and maybe if you're lucky mentorship from a more experienced dev who knows those practices. This is very clear to me having watched Java devs flounder their way through building JavaScript microservices using all of the old Gang of Four patterns and basically zero of the modern ES functionality.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    when i hire people i look for those that have learned at least two programming languages. because learning the first language is somewhat hard. the second one is hard too, mostly because you think it's going to be as hard as the first one. but once you learned it you realize that it's really mostly the same, and from then on learning most languages is easy. same goes for frameworks
BadCookie 3y ago
Sure, you can learn new platform X well enough to be productive in probably a matter of days, but you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X unless you lie about it. And many job postings expect you to not only have years of experience with platform X, but also significant experience with particular database Y and cloud service provider Z. How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody who helped you get your foot in the door. (Am I wrong?)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X Why would you have to? You get the experience by working with the technology, just like everyone else. The older worker and the younger worker both need to have X amount of experience. I don't see how this aspect is related to age at all. > How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody. (Am I wrong?) You're wrong. Connections are important for getting any new position, but connections aren't what got me "in" on a new platform. I've learned new platforms either (usually) on my own, or because working with the platform became part of a job I already had.
  - BadCookie 3y ago
    So your company did a rewrite using platform X? Interesting. I think being in that situation requires a bit of luck. Many companies (understandably) don’t want to or can’t afford to rewrite their legacy code. I still don’t see how learning a platform on your own got you past HR resume screening. Learning something via a side project over a couple of weeks is hardly the same thing as having multiple years of professional experience already. Are connections always important for getting a new position? I doubt that a doctor needs to already know somebody at a hospital in order to get an interview … but I could be wrong about that, I guess. Age matters because someone just out of college probably at least did their internship in whatever platform is popular right now. They also will probably accept lower pay and worse working conditions. So the older worker has little or even negative advantage if they’ve been using the “wrong” platform in their recent job and don’t have a strong personal network.