5 ms·

Ask HN: Is there a list of grey-hair-friendly IT companies?

93 points by rndaom 2y ago

E.g. something like that https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs but for being actively anti-ageist or at least not bothered by one's age?

MiscCompFacts 2y ago
Pretty much any defense contractor fits this description. Lots of older people in that sector. And they hire a lot of IT people.
e_i_pi_2 2y ago
I think the biggest thing that I haven't seen in another comment is that companies aren't being explicitly ageist, they just want cheaper labor and younger/less experienced people are willing to work for less money. I'm sure plenty of companies would be more than happy if you said "I have decades of experience but I'll take the salary of a junior position". Without something similar to a union or a change in laws to better incentivize pay raises, I don't see a great way out of this :/ I'd say my company is "grey-hair-friendly", but they're still hiring for way more junior roles than senior roles. I'm not sure if there are companies that explicitly don't hire junior engineers, but then you'd at least be competing against other people looking for the same salary range. Working with a recruiter might also be a good idea if they can help find companies that would be a good match
- vitaminCPP 2y ago
  This is match my experiences. Saddly, bad middle manager wants to hire a yesman (or women). Not an experienced engineer that will challenge them by highlighting to upper management the project technical debt, the lack of tests or the broken CD pipeline.
  - tjansen 2y ago
    Frankly no one wants to hire an engineer who highlights technical debt or a lack of tests without being asked for it. This kind of negative people is annoying and IMHO is indeed a reason why employers hesitate to employ older employees. Many are a pain in the... (and I say that as someone who's turning grey as well) Most employers want to hire someone who actively improves things, someone who solves issues, and not someone who just complaints about them and makes demands.
    - penguin_booze 2y ago
      Seeing and raising red flags as and when they arise--or even better, even before they arise--is the hallmark of a good employee. If you don't want to hire one such, good luck. That said, there's a difference between flagging and nagging. Again, a good one will know the difference.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    "Not an experienced engineer that will challenge them by highlighting to upper management the project technical debt, the lack of tests or the broken CD pipeline" So... everywhere? Haha the tests are always garbage.
  - nickd2001 2y ago
    Possibly they might like a tactful experienced engineer who's careful not to make them look bad to senior management, but quietly fixes some of the more glaring issues and makes the whole team look good? The trick I guess is showing in a job application that you will behave like that.
  - HenryBemis 2y ago
    Same. I've had interviews where people (younger than me) tell me "how do I know you won't be bored doing level-10 work, while your skills are clearly level-30 work? I don't want you to debate my budget or strategy" (because the team FTE costs is $2-3m and I'll be one of the pawns, while I've ran $20m teams as a rook or king).
- jacknews 2y ago
  It's not just about salary. Of course the assumption is that they have to pay more for more experience. But it's also about perceived power and control. Younger workers are seen as more compliant, and many managers do not feel comfortable hiring underlings who are older.
  - nickd2001 2y ago
    Agreed, there are indeed managers for whom sadly its about control and compliance. However, there are also nice managers who just might feel mildly insecure having a more experienced person as a subordinate. Perhaps the onus is on the older dev to be sensitive to that and find a way to make the manager feel comfortable with sometimes being "managed up"? To know that the experienced person is a helpful ally not someone who'd undermine them. It may be something to be direct about in interviews. Obviously the interviewer is prohibited from raising the subject due to discrimination laws, but there's nothing to stop an applicant saying that they really don't mind having a boss that's a lot younger, and that they just aim to be of help.
- giantg2 2y ago
  "I'm sure plenty of companies would be more than happy if you said "I have decades of experience but I'll take the salary of a junior position"." I'm not so sure. I think many tend to see that as a too good to be true situational and toss your resume.
oaix_oug_4 2y ago
[flagged]
mcsniff 2y ago
Gov. Gov generally wants stability and is very slow to move to new technologies (pros and cons). It's not huge money, but you can clear 6 figures a year, having better than normal job security, and a good work-life balance being a sysadmin at a gov agency.
talldayo 2y ago
In the United States, any ageism will usually exist at an administrative/personal level. Age is an equal-opportunity attribute that cannot be legally discriminated against, so on paper all of them will technically claim to be "friendly". I don't know how you'd really compile a list like that any more than you'd make a "junior friendly" hiring list.
- rndaom 2y ago
  Anecdotal evidence from people already working there. It's not a list of companies breaking the law but the inverse. A list of companies that we know from inside that they are fully OK with older age. This is to save aged job seekers time dealing with the rest that will fail them deeper in the interview process once they figure out they are older.
- tracker1 2y ago
  Same as any other $IMMUTABLE_CHARACTERISTIC-friendly company. I would think that any such statements might be mostly meaningless. It's really hard to say. You can't even rely on the apparent age of senior management as a rough guide.
  - Lutger 2y ago
    I don't think meaningless is the right word. It would be deeply meaningful for a woman to know if a company is inclusive to her needs, for someone of color to know if a company isn't racist, etc. The information is sensitive and damages companies reputation who are explicitly not on the list. Except maybe, these days, if a company wants to be known for its non-wokeness or such nonsense. Maybe one of Musk companies? However, I do think this is an opportunity for sites like glassdoor.
    - tracker1 2y ago
      If everyone is $foo-friendly, it becomes meaningless... it's mostly marketing at that point. It's the HR side of hot-new-shiny, where consulting companies have a product to sell even if it makes no sense in practical terms.
retrocryptid 2y ago
we may have to start our own.
- tracker1 2y ago
  Graybeard Consulting, LLC edit: there are actually similar named companies that exist.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1503504D:US https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1503504D:US
retrocryptid 2y ago
Avalara didn't seem to be overtly ageist. Plenty of kids in their 30s. Smattering of tech workers in their 50s. They seem to be off-shoring most of their tech work though.
- eric-hu 2y ago
  I just looked at their careers page. Dozens of engineering jobs but only in India https://app.careerpuck.com/job-board/avalara https://app.careerpuck.com/job-board/avalara
- iosjunkie 2y ago
  > Plenty of kids in their 30s. Did I miss the memo on who is considered a kid these days?
  - xeromal 2y ago
    A kid is anyone 40% younger than you
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
ahartmetz 2y ago
I think there's less ageism in Europe - I'm German and in Germany and I don't hear the same stories as on HN about that. Pay is lower, though.
- nopelynopington 2y ago
  Maybe lower pay but you don't have to pay for healthcare there right?
  - tjansen 2y ago
    You do. It's about 15% of the first 5775 EUR of your monthly salary. Officially it's split between employer and employee, so on your payslip you see only 8% if you are not self-employed. Co-payments are very low though. Dental is partially included. Kids are included, wife/husband also if they are not employed.
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      Also worth mentioning that not heaving healthcare almost doesn't exist as a concept here. You have to be an illegal immigrant or something to not have healthcare.
      - ahartmetz 2y ago
        *having, oops
  - marcuskane2 2y ago
    Healthcare costs are essentially meaningless to tech workers in America. My salary works out to roughly $120 per hour. I pay a $15 premium to insurance from each paycheck and a $20 fee to see a doctor. Even if I had some catastrophic car crash and spent months in the ICU, my maximum annual payment for all healthcare is capped at $5,000. Healthcare costs can be a huge burden for low and middle-income Americans, but for a senior tech worker, healthcare is a tiny expense compared to income.
999900000999 2y ago
You want old finance companies. In fact any company older that 30 probably won't care. I'm not a grey hair yet, but I actively hate startups. We aren't changing the world, we're helping cat photos load 3 milliseconds faster...
- pipes 2y ago
  And finance companies offer better pensions and benefits than anywhere else I've seen in the UK. Plus real life useful domain knowledge. Now I'm older I prefer working with older staff, seems to be less bullshit.
- Terretta 2y ago
  > You want old finance companies. ... I actively hate startups. Or consider some finance startups. For us it's not age or title, it's ability to learn and apply, throughout a span of experience. We've found those who learned and applied while the commercial Internet was being made, the web being made, the cloud being made, are better equipped for learning and applying today's higher abstractions. If you helped build the stuff of which it is made, you can better create new things on top of it.
- dpkirchner 2y ago
  s/photos/ads and you got it
- exhaze 2y ago
  > I actively hate startups Have you asked yourself why you hang out on this website given how you feel about startups? Also, is it really fair to apply such a strong statement to all startups? Look at your screen and the browser you're using, the user interface concepts, the computer itself. Where do you think those came from?
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    Fine. I hate *working for* startups. It's fun when your young, not when you have bills.
  - 2y ago
jmclnx 2y ago
In the US, the only ones I can think of are companies like McDonalds or Food Markets. I know one company that does not fit that bill, IBM. In last April they had a lay-off, I heard from friends who worked there, the only people let go in their Dept were all over 50. Do a search and you will see many articles about that. I wish you luck
- sir-dingleberry 2y ago
  [flagged]
Zaheer 2y ago
As a proxy for this consider companies that have better benefits in areas that'd favor middle age / older populations. Example: Better maternity / paternity benefits: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Maternity-Leave/ https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Maternity-Leave/ Sabbatical programs often kick in after a certain number of years. A more structured program could indicate being more receptive to higher tenure / older populations: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Sabbatical/ https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Sabbatical/
- mathgeek 2y ago
  Could you elaborate on why you’d consider new parent benefits to be a middle age and older perk? I would assume most new parents are in their 20s and 30s, making it most beneficial for new grads and folks not yet “grey haired”, so to speak. Anecdotally, I’m just past forty, and new parent benefits are no longer directly relevant to me.
  - gtirloni 2y ago
    Because delaying maternity is a trend. The median age is 27-30 in the US and you can expect people delaying further than that if they had other priorities.
- neilv 2y ago
  Good thinking about proxies. But I don't put any stock in (non-professor) sabbatical programs, specifically, anymore, at least not the month-ish kind. It's easy for a company to advertise sabbaticals, whether they mean it or not (e.g., no cost if you layoff or have a hostile work environment in the first 5 years), and there's also odd incentives, as well as perceptions. For one example, you can imagine a stereotypical coked-up CEO saying, "If someone is still here in 5 years, they must be complacent, not top players. Sabbatical means they document their duties, and we send them home for 4 weeks, to test whether the docs are enough. It's time to check the freshness date, bro." And on the employee side, you can imagine people approaching 5-6 years holding out a little longer for that bonus/vacation, but seeing no real refresh of incentive after (unlike RSUs). I've seen industry sabbaticals like this used for job-hunting, and the occasion almost looks like a sign that's time. (With professors, OTOH, it's different: it might be a year, and a chance to refresh your research, break into a new area, write a book, be a visiting researcher, etc. Which potentially has upside for the university. And the real commitment signal by the employer is tenure.)
pdx6 2y ago
You could add just about any University to the list. At least in California, many UC IT people left due to poor pay and long hours, however the UTPE CWA 9119 union has grown in numbers and strength and the trend in pay and hours is quickly improving. There's plenty of gray beards, the UC is starving for seasoned talent, and the HMO plans are inexpensive and cover a lot -- 5 years to vest in the pension that matches nearly 100% and you can take distributions starting at age 50.
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  many UC IT people left UCSF (and I believe other campuses) went all in on shipping IT jobs overseas so job security isn't great. And the pay is… not great. I went looking for examples and was immediately reminded just how poorly organized their job listings are. Cal actually doesn't show anything until you click through to "featured listings" — that doesn't actually show any listings but has a link to the aggregated job listings across all campuses. A Unix BOFH spot that tops out at under $180k in a HCOL area? It's something I guess. http://jobs.universityofcalifornia.edu/?action=search http://jobs.universityofcalifornia.edu/?action=search
fwungy 2y ago
In my niche, platform engineering, grey-hairs is a positive indicator of competence.
chasd00 2y ago
Consulting industry won't care. If you can bill hours at 40% more than you cost then any firm will happily employ you for as long as you want to work.
- nunez 2y ago
  This. Consulting pays old heads a lot of money if they've got skills and industry experience.
- gnz11 2y ago
  I think this is only true if you can get into a management position. Not to mention that the "consulting industry" burns through people doing the actual work pretty quickly.
jki275 2y ago
Anything in DOD.
snakeyjake 2y ago
I don't know if this is a startup or valley or techbro thing but in my industry there is no ageism that I can detect. In aerospace they seem to prefer people who know where the bodies are buried, know how to bury bodies, have buried a few bodies themselves, and can instruct others on body burying.
- homarp 2y ago
  >body burying not related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39673589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39673589
- iamthefury 2y ago
  This comment is why I come to HN for the comments and articles, but really just stay for the comments :)
- zdragnar 2y ago
  I've worked at a mix of companies, corporate and startup, and I can't say that I've seen an instance of it. The closest thing I've seen is that people who have X number of years of experience doing the same thing over and over again don't get opportunities that people with the same number of years doing different things do, unless there's a position that needs X exclusively.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
Actually the Venn diagram of remote jobs and not being bothered by one's age pretty much overlaps. Remote work has a way of prioritizing professionalism and solid communication over in person social signaling which is likely to help be anti-ageist. So the list you posted: https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs Should be a good place to start
- jacknews 2y ago
  Perhaps, but online seems to be a race to the bottom. The list of age-friendly industries others are posting are difficult remote - insurance, banking, defense, education - all usually need to be in-person due to security/data concerns.
masherm 2y ago
IBM, Lenovo come to mind. Some family friends were hired there at age 50+

93 points by rndaom 2y ago

E.g. something like that https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs but for being actively anti-ageist or at least not bothered by one's age?

MiscCompFacts 2y ago

Pretty much any defense contractor fits this description. Lots of older people in that sector. And they hire a lot of IT people.

e_i_pi_2 2y ago

I think the biggest thing that I haven't seen in another comment is that companies aren't being explicitly ageist, they just want cheaper labor and younger/less experienced people are willing to work for less money. I'm sure plenty of companies would be more than happy if you said "I have decades of experience but I'll take the salary of a junior position". Without something similar to a union or a change in laws to better incentivize pay raises, I don't see a great way out of this :/ I'd say my company is "grey-hair-friendly", but they're still hiring for way more junior roles than senior roles. I'm not sure if there are companies that explicitly don't hire junior engineers, but then you'd at least be competing against other people looking for the same salary range. Working with a recruiter might also be a good idea if they can help find companies that would be a good match

vitaminCPP 2y ago
This is match my experiences. Saddly, bad middle manager wants to hire a yesman (or women). Not an experienced engineer that will challenge them by highlighting to upper management the project technical debt, the lack of tests or the broken CD pipeline.
- tjansen 2y ago
  Frankly no one wants to hire an engineer who highlights technical debt or a lack of tests without being asked for it. This kind of negative people is annoying and IMHO is indeed a reason why employers hesitate to employ older employees. Many are a pain in the... (and I say that as someone who's turning grey as well) Most employers want to hire someone who actively improves things, someone who solves issues, and not someone who just complaints about them and makes demands.
  - penguin_booze 2y ago
    Seeing and raising red flags as and when they arise--or even better, even before they arise--is the hallmark of a good employee. If you don't want to hire one such, good luck. That said, there's a difference between flagging and nagging. Again, a good one will know the difference.
- giantg2 2y ago
  "Not an experienced engineer that will challenge them by highlighting to upper management the project technical debt, the lack of tests or the broken CD pipeline" So... everywhere? Haha the tests are always garbage.
- nickd2001 2y ago
  Possibly they might like a tactful experienced engineer who's careful not to make them look bad to senior management, but quietly fixes some of the more glaring issues and makes the whole team look good? The trick I guess is showing in a job application that you will behave like that.
- HenryBemis 2y ago
  Same. I've had interviews where people (younger than me) tell me "how do I know you won't be bored doing level-10 work, while your skills are clearly level-30 work? I don't want you to debate my budget or strategy" (because the team FTE costs is $2-3m and I'll be one of the pawns, while I've ran $20m teams as a rook or king).
jacknews 2y ago
It's not just about salary. Of course the assumption is that they have to pay more for more experience. But it's also about perceived power and control. Younger workers are seen as more compliant, and many managers do not feel comfortable hiring underlings who are older.
- nickd2001 2y ago
  Agreed, there are indeed managers for whom sadly its about control and compliance. However, there are also nice managers who just might feel mildly insecure having a more experienced person as a subordinate. Perhaps the onus is on the older dev to be sensitive to that and find a way to make the manager feel comfortable with sometimes being "managed up"? To know that the experienced person is a helpful ally not someone who'd undermine them. It may be something to be direct about in interviews. Obviously the interviewer is prohibited from raising the subject due to discrimination laws, but there's nothing to stop an applicant saying that they really don't mind having a boss that's a lot younger, and that they just aim to be of help.
giantg2 2y ago
"I'm sure plenty of companies would be more than happy if you said "I have decades of experience but I'll take the salary of a junior position"." I'm not so sure. I think many tend to see that as a too good to be true situational and toss your resume.

oaix_oug_4 2y ago

[flagged]

mcsniff 2y ago

Gov. Gov generally wants stability and is very slow to move to new technologies (pros and cons). It's not huge money, but you can clear 6 figures a year, having better than normal job security, and a good work-life balance being a sysadmin at a gov agency.

talldayo 2y ago

In the United States, any ageism will usually exist at an administrative/personal level. Age is an equal-opportunity attribute that cannot be legally discriminated against, so on paper all of them will technically claim to be "friendly". I don't know how you'd really compile a list like that any more than you'd make a "junior friendly" hiring list.

rndaom 2y ago
Anecdotal evidence from people already working there. It's not a list of companies breaking the law but the inverse. A list of companies that we know from inside that they are fully OK with older age. This is to save aged job seekers time dealing with the rest that will fail them deeper in the interview process once they figure out they are older.
tracker1 2y ago
Same as any other $IMMUTABLE_CHARACTERISTIC-friendly company. I would think that any such statements might be mostly meaningless. It's really hard to say. You can't even rely on the apparent age of senior management as a rough guide.
- Lutger 2y ago
  I don't think meaningless is the right word. It would be deeply meaningful for a woman to know if a company is inclusive to her needs, for someone of color to know if a company isn't racist, etc. The information is sensitive and damages companies reputation who are explicitly not on the list. Except maybe, these days, if a company wants to be known for its non-wokeness or such nonsense. Maybe one of Musk companies? However, I do think this is an opportunity for sites like glassdoor.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    If everyone is $foo-friendly, it becomes meaningless... it's mostly marketing at that point. It's the HR side of hot-new-shiny, where consulting companies have a product to sell even if it makes no sense in practical terms.

retrocryptid 2y ago

we may have to start our own.

tracker1 2y ago
Graybeard Consulting, LLC edit: there are actually similar named companies that exist.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1503504D:US https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1503504D:US

retrocryptid 2y ago

Avalara didn't seem to be overtly ageist. Plenty of kids in their 30s. Smattering of tech workers in their 50s. They seem to be off-shoring most of their tech work though.

eric-hu 2y ago
I just looked at their careers page. Dozens of engineering jobs but only in India https://app.careerpuck.com/job-board/avalara https://app.careerpuck.com/job-board/avalara
iosjunkie 2y ago
> Plenty of kids in their 30s. Did I miss the memo on who is considered a kid these days?
- xeromal 2y ago
  A kid is anyone 40% younger than you
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

ahartmetz 2y ago

I think there's less ageism in Europe - I'm German and in Germany and I don't hear the same stories as on HN about that. Pay is lower, though.

nopelynopington 2y ago
Maybe lower pay but you don't have to pay for healthcare there right?
- tjansen 2y ago
  You do. It's about 15% of the first 5775 EUR of your monthly salary. Officially it's split between employer and employee, so on your payslip you see only 8% if you are not self-employed. Co-payments are very low though. Dental is partially included. Kids are included, wife/husband also if they are not employed.
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    Also worth mentioning that not heaving healthcare almost doesn't exist as a concept here. You have to be an illegal immigrant or something to not have healthcare.
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      *having, oops
- marcuskane2 2y ago
  Healthcare costs are essentially meaningless to tech workers in America. My salary works out to roughly $120 per hour. I pay a $15 premium to insurance from each paycheck and a $20 fee to see a doctor. Even if I had some catastrophic car crash and spent months in the ICU, my maximum annual payment for all healthcare is capped at $5,000. Healthcare costs can be a huge burden for low and middle-income Americans, but for a senior tech worker, healthcare is a tiny expense compared to income.

999900000999 2y ago

You want old finance companies. In fact any company older that 30 probably won't care. I'm not a grey hair yet, but I actively hate startups. We aren't changing the world, we're helping cat photos load 3 milliseconds faster...

pipes 2y ago
And finance companies offer better pensions and benefits than anywhere else I've seen in the UK. Plus real life useful domain knowledge. Now I'm older I prefer working with older staff, seems to be less bullshit.
Terretta 2y ago
> You want old finance companies. ... I actively hate startups. Or consider some finance startups. For us it's not age or title, it's ability to learn and apply, throughout a span of experience. We've found those who learned and applied while the commercial Internet was being made, the web being made, the cloud being made, are better equipped for learning and applying today's higher abstractions. If you helped build the stuff of which it is made, you can better create new things on top of it.
dpkirchner 2y ago
s/photos/ads and you got it
exhaze 2y ago
> I actively hate startups Have you asked yourself why you hang out on this website given how you feel about startups? Also, is it really fair to apply such a strong statement to all startups? Look at your screen and the browser you're using, the user interface concepts, the computer itself. Where do you think those came from?
- 999900000999 2y ago
  Fine. I hate *working for* startups. It's fun when your young, not when you have bills.
- 2y ago

jmclnx 2y ago

In the US, the only ones I can think of are companies like McDonalds or Food Markets. I know one company that does not fit that bill, IBM. In last April they had a lay-off, I heard from friends who worked there, the only people let go in their Dept were all over 50. Do a search and you will see many articles about that. I wish you luck

sir-dingleberry 2y ago
[flagged]

Zaheer 2y ago

As a proxy for this consider companies that have better benefits in areas that'd favor middle age / older populations. Example: Better maternity / paternity benefits: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Maternity-Leave/ https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Maternity-Leave/ Sabbatical programs often kick in after a certain number of years. A more structured program could indicate being more receptive to higher tenure / older populations: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Sabbatical/ https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Sabbatical/

mathgeek 2y ago
Could you elaborate on why you’d consider new parent benefits to be a middle age and older perk? I would assume most new parents are in their 20s and 30s, making it most beneficial for new grads and folks not yet “grey haired”, so to speak. Anecdotally, I’m just past forty, and new parent benefits are no longer directly relevant to me.
- gtirloni 2y ago
  Because delaying maternity is a trend. The median age is 27-30 in the US and you can expect people delaying further than that if they had other priorities.
neilv 2y ago
Good thinking about proxies. But I don't put any stock in (non-professor) sabbatical programs, specifically, anymore, at least not the month-ish kind. It's easy for a company to advertise sabbaticals, whether they mean it or not (e.g., no cost if you layoff or have a hostile work environment in the first 5 years), and there's also odd incentives, as well as perceptions. For one example, you can imagine a stereotypical coked-up CEO saying, "If someone is still here in 5 years, they must be complacent, not top players. Sabbatical means they document their duties, and we send them home for 4 weeks, to test whether the docs are enough. It's time to check the freshness date, bro." And on the employee side, you can imagine people approaching 5-6 years holding out a little longer for that bonus/vacation, but seeing no real refresh of incentive after (unlike RSUs). I've seen industry sabbaticals like this used for job-hunting, and the occasion almost looks like a sign that's time. (With professors, OTOH, it's different: it might be a year, and a chance to refresh your research, break into a new area, write a book, be a visiting researcher, etc. Which potentially has upside for the university. And the real commitment signal by the employer is tenure.)

pdx6 2y ago

You could add just about any University to the list. At least in California, many UC IT people left due to poor pay and long hours, however the UTPE CWA 9119 union has grown in numbers and strength and the trend in pay and hours is quickly improving. There's plenty of gray beards, the UC is starving for seasoned talent, and the HMO plans are inexpensive and cover a lot -- 5 years to vest in the pension that matches nearly 100% and you can take distributions starting at age 50.

inferiorhuman 2y ago
many UC IT people left UCSF (and I believe other campuses) went all in on shipping IT jobs overseas so job security isn't great. And the pay is… not great. I went looking for examples and was immediately reminded just how poorly organized their job listings are. Cal actually doesn't show anything until you click through to "featured listings" — that doesn't actually show any listings but has a link to the aggregated job listings across all campuses. A Unix BOFH spot that tops out at under $180k in a HCOL area? It's something I guess. http://jobs.universityofcalifornia.edu/?action=search http://jobs.universityofcalifornia.edu/?action=search

fwungy 2y ago

In my niche, platform engineering, grey-hairs is a positive indicator of competence.

chasd00 2y ago

Consulting industry won't care. If you can bill hours at 40% more than you cost then any firm will happily employ you for as long as you want to work.

nunez 2y ago
This. Consulting pays old heads a lot of money if they've got skills and industry experience.
gnz11 2y ago
I think this is only true if you can get into a management position. Not to mention that the "consulting industry" burns through people doing the actual work pretty quickly.

jki275 2y ago

Anything in DOD.

snakeyjake 2y ago

I don't know if this is a startup or valley or techbro thing but in my industry there is no ageism that I can detect. In aerospace they seem to prefer people who know where the bodies are buried, know how to bury bodies, have buried a few bodies themselves, and can instruct others on body burying.

homarp 2y ago
>body burying not related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230790 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39673589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39673589
iamthefury 2y ago
This comment is why I come to HN for the comments and articles, but really just stay for the comments :)
zdragnar 2y ago
I've worked at a mix of companies, corporate and startup, and I can't say that I've seen an instance of it. The closest thing I've seen is that people who have X number of years of experience doing the same thing over and over again don't get opportunities that people with the same number of years doing different things do, unless there's a position that needs X exclusively.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

Actually the Venn diagram of remote jobs and not being bothered by one's age pretty much overlaps. Remote work has a way of prioritizing professionalism and solid communication over in person social signaling which is likely to help be anti-ageist. So the list you posted: https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs Should be a good place to start

jacknews 2y ago
Perhaps, but online seems to be a race to the bottom. The list of age-friendly industries others are posting are difficult remote - insurance, banking, defense, education - all usually need to be in-person due to security/data concerns.

masherm 2y ago

IBM, Lenovo come to mind. Some family friends were hired there at age 50+