
Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study - mcenedella
https://www.theladders.com/p/29083/older-tech-workers-fear-age-discrimination
======
bengalister
I am 41 years old, still doing software development and enjoying it for the
most part. I work in France.

Actually I enjoy it better than I used to since I find myself much more
productive and I make less bad design decisions than I used to. I code daily
in Javascript (NodeJs), Java and from time to time in groovy, python and
golang. Being able to switch from 1 language to another, deploying in
different cloud platforms also contributes to my enjoyment.

Recently I have had some bad experiences however when I had to work with
exclusively young developers in very small teams (3-4 people). I did not like
it mostly because either they were not really competent and did not recognize
it (wanting to code on hard topics when they showed poor coding skills on easy
ones) or because they were very arrogant (notably a Javascript dev who thought
that NodeJs was the alpha and omega of the server runtimes) and were showing
some signs of ageism. But I blame mostly the weak recruiting process of my
company and management persons (for not constituting well balanced teams).
Working with exclusively inexperienced (and not well recruited) people can
become a nightmare.

But I am mainly worried because in France (and I think the situation is the
same in all Western European countries) even if there's a shortage of tech
workers, companies are very reluctant to offer decent wages and still prefer
to hire young low paid people. Developers are still seen as blue collars in
the IT industry and developers tend to hit very quickly the (salaries) glass
ceiling. I tend to think that management persons do not recognize the added
value of experienced developers. (I admit that things like maintainability or
good design decisions are hard to assess).

I keep my skills up to date, but I am also considering about exit plans, well
at least moving away from doing exclusively development.

~~~
JohnnyConatus
I agree with everything you said except for one thing: developer salaries
later-on are not artificially kept down vs the value they create. The are
artificially inflated when they are younger due to the scarcity of developers.
This is why one can become a "Senior Developer" at 24 (such as I did) because
the title is matched to the salary as opposed to the actual amount of
experience it would take to be a "senior" anything in any other field.

~~~
Can_Not
Is there an official definition chart for terms like junior, mid, senior? I
keep hearing people sneer at the presumed miss-use of those terms as if
everyone knew the official definitions. Last place I worked, senior was just
the dev who's been there the longest.

~~~
philsnow
These terms are often defined in terms of autonomy and scope: if you can look
around and see what needs to be done, break it down into workable sub-units,
wrangle resources somehow (big projects tend to need more than one person
working on them), and get it done, that can mean that you're "senior".

I see people on various forums (fora?) asking what number of years of
experience makes someone "senior". The most common answer I see is 5. It
reminds me of this
[https://i.imgur.com/7sws9p8.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7sws9p8.jpg)

------
allengeorge
I suspect there are a couple of reasons - especially in the newer/startup
space:

* Salary. Older employees are more experienced, but, just as importantly, they've already job-hopped a bit, so their base is a lot higher. And they've probably a lot more personal financial responsibilities. All told, they're unlikely to go for the same salary as a new grad.

* Interview process. Anecdotal experience, but, the interview process is structured towards new grads. They've studied algorithms recently, so it's at their fingertips. Unless you've brushed up before interviewing you can look sloppy and unsure in comparison. This can be harder if you've an existing job and family commitments. (Note: I'm not saying you _shouldn 't_ study; just pointing out that this can happen.)

* It's hard to gauge experience. Simply because a person has been in the industry for 10 years doesn't mean that they're "more experienced". It's very tricky to gauge: it's easy to tell when someone is less experienced than you, but much harder if they're _more_ experienced. Plus, how do we evaluate experience? Design questions? Software architecture? Looking at code they've written? It's very fuzzy, and a lot depends on the skill of the interviewer and their own experience.

* Finally, we devalue experience. A personal bugbear is hearing hiring managers say that they can train up a new grad to be a tech lead in about a year. Unless you've worked on a couple of largish projects - _and seen your own designs evolve in response to requirements_ , I question that strategy. But, who knows - maybe I'm completely off-base there.

EDIT: I'd like to raise a final point: sometimes the impact of experience is
only apparent when you've to scale your product architecture or your team.
Assuming that most startups fail (i.e. never make it that far), this means
most very early stage teams can get by with an ad-hoc process and/or system
until they pass that hump.

~~~
dogruck
Some of those points are actually age discriminatory.

For example, why assume that an older person should earn more than a younger
person? Instead, it's better to think about paying people in proportion to the
value that they provide to the company.

I understand that many startups simply do not have the cash required to pay a
high base salary. But, that's what equity compensation is for.

~~~
davidcbc
Nobody is assuming you should pay an older person more because they are older,
but because they are more experienced. Paying someone with 30 years experience
more than someone fresh out of school isn't age discrimination.

Find me a fresh out of school 20 year old with 30 years experience and I'll
pay them more too.

~~~
dogruck
I can deliver a bunch of employees with 30 years of experience, who are
overpaid.

I can also deliver inexperienced employees who are underpaid.

~~~
Clubber
I would argue based on their contribution to the bottom line, all tech
workers, regardless of age, are significantly underpaid.

~~~
dogruck
I would argue that cannot be true. If it were true, new companies would emerge
that paid good employees more -- closer to their fair value.

(Also, most companies pay employees more than fair value, to discourage them
from shirking.)

~~~
RhodesianHunter
"new companies would emerge that paid good employees more"

This has been happening for a decade or more... Every time I look at salaries
they've gone up significantly more that other fields.

~~~
dogruck
It's likely that pay has gone up because tech workers are providing more
value.

Consider an employee working at an investment bank 15 years ago versus today.
15 years ago, most value was generated by hoards of sales people and traders
who cultured deep personal relationships with deep-pocketed customers. Today,
tech people command a greater share of the wallet, and banks are making deep
cuts to the ranks of sales people and traders.

------
curtis
My last job search (in Seattle) took me months longer than I was expecting.
This could be ageism at work (I'm 48), but I'm still inclined to think that
there's a more mundane explanation: The recruitment and hiring process for
software engineers has gone from crappy to damn near broken. If ageism is a
significant problem right now, it's possible that it is primarily a completely
unintended side-effect of how were doing hiring in the industry.

I don't know for sure, but we need to be careful about looking at obvious
problems and then simply assuming that we know the explanation.

~~~
seattle_spring
Out of curiosity, why does your LinkedIn not list months for all of the 1 year
jobs you have? It seems really suspicious to me, and as a hiring manager it
would almost certainly have been a red flag.

~~~
curtis
My LinkedIn profile is _not_ my authoritative job history -- my _resume_ is.
Your first job as a recruiter or potential hiring manager is to find my
resume. It's not hard.

I should also mention that when I'm looking for a job, I'm usually contacting
you. If I email you I will include a direct link to my resume. If I'm applying
through a portal it will ask me to upload my resume. Either way there's no
excuse for people in the recruiting/hiring pipeline to consult my LinkedIn
profile rather than my resume.

(Sorry if there's a little bit of attitude leaking through here, but this is a
personal soapbox of mine.)

~~~
twblalock
Most recruiters are going to look at your LinkedIn profile, and they won't do
the digging to find your resume unless they like your LinkedIn profile. That's
just the way it is, whether you think there is an excuse for it or not. You're
only hurting yourself by refusing to spruce up your LinkedIn profile.

~~~
curtis
> _and they won 't do the digging to find your resume unless they like your
> LinkedIn profile_

Yes, and that's a big part of my point. This is an actual problem, and we (the
software development industry) should try to fix it. Or at least make it suck
less.

When I switched to applying through AngelList I had much better luck, and
that's how I got my current job. Part of that is that early mode startups are
picky about other things than later mode startups or big companies. But mostly
I think it was because actual engineering hiring managers were looking at the
applications without requiring them to go through an HR/sourcer/recruiter
filter first.

~~~
dabockster
Question about AngelList, did you bother with their built-in coding challenge
that they are pushing? Or did you just start applying?

~~~
curtis
I just started applying. And I applied to pretty much every open position in
Seattle for which I was remotely qualified.

~~~
dabockster
Huh, I'll have to try it. I mean, since Indeed and Linkedin are flooded with
Amazon and CyberCoders spam.

------
oldboyFX
I see all these articles about the average employee age at startups being
20-30, and how older developers face discrimination.

Now this is 100% anecdotal, but I know a few 45+ year old developers and most
of them are long-time corporate employees and are not really interested in the
whole startup / bloggosphere / tech hype world. They have good stable jobs
(think Perl, .NET, Java), and are mainly focused on their families and other
hobbies. It’s well know that people tend to become more conservative with age,
so this doesn’t really suprise me. None of them thought they were being
discriminated against at all.

Moreover, my colleague worked with a 58 year old guy who started programming
when he was 50+. He currently works for a super hot "big data" startup as a
lead Ruby on Rails engineer, and from what I've heard, he's really, really
good at his job (and very well paid).

Older developers of HN, what are your experiences?

Everyone else, did you ever witness a case where someone was discriminated
based on their age?

~~~
DrNuke
>Older developers of HN, what are your experiences?

Over 40 here. The most difficult part is human interaction. Youngsters are
obviously well behind their own hype and have their right to try. Mature folks
like me take things with a grain of salt and acknowledge hard work is only a
part of the picture, often not the most important. From a technical point of
view, the headless chickens thing is also common but, again, youngsters have
their right to believe they are Einstein, Feynman or Jobs.

~~~
rpmcmurphy
The thing about being 40+ is you really start to see through bullshit. I
remember working for one company that was selling a product customers simply
did not want. I tried explaining this to the founders, and suggested
alternatives, but got branded "not a team player" for not drinking the Kool-
Aid. So it is important to work for companies that are actually doing
something useful, otherwise you are going to have a hard time concealing your
skepticism.

------
kayoone
I feel this might change when more of the current young generation of
engineers are getting older since there just weren't as many tech workers 20
years ago, so it's still relatively rare to see 50 year old developers.
Besides there are many places outside of Silicon Valley or the US were
experienced engineers are very welcome.

~~~
intellectronica
I agree. My experience has been that ageist views (just like sexism, racism,
homophobia, etc) are more often expressed by people of previous generations
and that millennials are actually more flexible and open to the idea that they
would work with someone older (or of another gender, different skin colour,
etc).

~~~
wott
Millenials express a level of hate towards the previous generations that I
never witnessed before (apart from the usual teenage rebellion times). Some of
the stuff I read or hear honestly scares the shit out of me, some of them
would throw people like my folks or older (or younger) in a dumpster if they
had the occasion.

Some of them bought into the libertarian craze, so they consider older people
useless, and anyone useless is garbage that can be tossed away; but it does
not only come from that side: other ones consider the previous generations
responsible for anything bad (and for a wide definition of 'bad') that happens
to them, and those guilty people (indistinctly guilty) should be punished.

Are these extreme cases? Probably. I hope so. But I do not remember such a
trend in previous generations.

To go back to the point about work, I have never witnessed or read the
previous generations express any problem working with people older than them,
on the contrary, they showed (some) respect and expected some knowledge to be
gained from them. I also think that the age stratification in jobs is higher
now than ever. The workplace is less and less varied over the years (I do not
give a damn about skin colour, I am concerned about age and social origin),
and tolerance (and simply knowledge) of people with a different social
background goes down.

------
ThomaszKrueger
We may be looking at this the wrong way. It isn't a question of ageism, rather
did that person keep up with the evolution of languages and ecosystems? It is
OK to be old(er) as long as one has what companies are looking for. Waiting
for the time go by and count on "seniority raises" alone is counterproductive.

I am 55. I am as current as I can be, including when it comes to cloud, nosql,
APIs, and the javascript renaissance. I try to do what companies need. My
experience is a bonus because of the things _I don 't do_, because of the
_problems I did not cause_ , because of the _things that didn 't happen_.
These in my experience are valuable even though almost impossible to measure.

------
SeanDav
> _"...Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said that young people are more
> intelligent while speaking to a group of entrepreneurs "_

I would be fascinated to hear if his opinion changes once he is 40+ ...

~~~
amptorn
That wasn't an opinion, that was propaganda. It was and still is in his best
interests that young people buy that line, because from his perspective young
people are not so much smarter as cheaper: fewer commitments, willing to put
up with longer hours.

~~~
hellbreaker
That's quite true. Once people have commitments like a family, they are less
willing to put up with companies that demand so much.

~~~
collyw
No family, but been around long enough to see through the bullshit.

------
fsloth
The best insurance against age is to find some domain, and excel at that. At
40, it's not so good if your top claim in CV is "I know C++ in an out".

"I was part of a team delivering product X, Y and Z which produced this much
revenue for our company and which provided this and this value to our clients.
I'm experienced contributor in domain W, and am comfortable in providing value
using technologies A and B." is much better.

That is, in corporate-ese, where it's all about value and revenue. Learn to
explain your value, and forge a career that you can explain in terms of value.
As an engineer you create value, but no one else is going to help you capture
slices of that value financially - you need to do it yourself. It's not
'selling out', it's about being smart with your finances. Your skills are an
asset, and if you don't know how to capture value from your output _someone
else will_.

At 37, a software engineer, I'm pretty sure my career is more or less secure.
I do things which I find interesting, but I make sure as well that I can
explain my contributions in economic terms, should the need arise to find new
employment. I'm not very wealthy, but neither do I need to stress out about
money.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
By specializing in a domain, you live and die by it. It usually happens
anyways, but it isn't all upside.

~~~
fsloth
Domain as in 'aerospace', 'construction', 'finance', 'computational
geometry'... If any of those die software is kinda pointless anyway.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Those are too broad. For aerospace, you could specialize in avionics for
passenger jets, or design tools, or entertainment systems, etc...

We are seeing domain specialization at work now, though not many really saw
the Deep learning coming so most of those people aren't senior yet (and the
ones that did are super successful in their domains; e.g. A friend of mine has
done really really well in applying DNN to speech recognition very early). In
research, we talk about areas, but even these are not very well defined and
people aren't really interchangeable.

------
d--b
I'm 35 and I'm not worried AT ALL that I will be discriminated after I am 40.

I think in a way we're the golden tech generation, we screwed our elders by
discriminating against them when the industry was in disruption and now we're
screwing the younger generation like in any other mature industry.

I'm saying "we" as in "my generation", I don't feel I personally took a big
part in any of it.

~~~
Celarnor
I'm 'only' 28 and I worry constantly about this as 30 gets closer and closer.
When you're the oldest developer you have to work much harder to justify still
being employed, but not so hard that they start to worry about you jumping
ship for 5-10k more.

The only people around my company that are around your age are the owners and
the directors that report to them.

~~~
d--b
yeah, you shouldn't worry that much, there are an awful lot of tech companies
where the average age is higher.

And, when you're 30, you're a much better developer than when you're 20,
definitely worth the price difference.

------
nickjj
I'll be 40 in a few years but I give zero fucks about age discrimination.

I've found that most people don't really care how old you are as long as you
provide them value.

But I don't work at a corporation so I guess that puts me in a slightly
different position. Instead I record and sell video courses that teach modern
development practices. All of that started after I was 30.

I guess my point is there's plenty of ways to live a fulfilling life as a
software developer without ever being put in a position to be discriminated by
anything.

~~~
adventurer
You don't really have the opportunity to be discriminated against in the same
way, so you probably don't really count.

~~~
nickjj
Honestly I would say there's more chances of being discriminated against.

Instead of potentially dealing with HR reps or developers behind closed doors
people are consuming my content out in the open and judging every video /
piece of content.

~~~
5ilv3r
So... you're not a developer then. You're one of those "full stack rockstars"
everyone is talking about not talking about.

~~~
nickjj
I spend about 50% of my time doing freelance dev work and 50% course creation.

Then another 50% coding side projects, blogging and contributing to open
source.

But Nick, that's 150%. Yeah I know. What can I say. I love writing code. :(

It's all in an Indie Hackers interview btw if you google my name you'll find
it.

------
fecak
I recruited in tech for 20 years and now I write resumes, mostly for tech
professionals. I generally start talking to my resume clients about ageism
around 40 as well.

I may ask if we want to keep the oldest jobs on the resume (which tend to be
irrelevant anyway) or to list graduation dates that reveal age. I go through a
quick exercise with clients to show how old they are "on paper", the basic
formula being that we assume you were ~22 when you graduated college (or if no
grad date or college education is listed, we may assume you were between 20-22
when you started the first job on the resume). If we remove the oldest job(s)
and delete graduation dates, we can often mask age a little bit if that is
desired.

Many clients decide not to try masking age, as any company that might
discriminate based on age isn't a place they would want to work. I respect
that as well.

~~~
pdimitar
> _Many clients decide not to try masking age, as any company that might
> discriminate based on age isn 't a place they would want to work. I respect
> that as well._

That's exactly my attitude. I am aware of age discrimination and I am not
gonna hide my age. The people who do it aren't pleasant, and work is not only
about the money. You have to like your workplace else your life becomes a
wide-awake nightmare.

------
purplethinking
Not sure if it'll be a problem for the millenial generation, but I'm sure not
going to wait to find out. My goal is to not need a job by 45. If by then I
still have to "beg" businesses to employ me, I will have failed. That means
either enough money in the bank + low enough expenses, having my own stream of
income, or be good enough that I can do consulting for multiple businesses
(and thus diversify my across employers).

~~~
toyg
Good luck doing that with kids and a mortgage.

~~~
purplethinking
Have a kid and mortgage, but saving 60% of household post-tax income. We do
what we can to stay lean, and have been doing that for the past decade. That
means some sacrifices (e.g. no car(s)), but it's worth it for the peace of
mind.

Most people on this site are highly paid software engineers. If you have one
or even two of those salaries but live like the mean or even median family,
you will be able to save quite a lot. If you choose not to, that's fine too.
But to me, living like the median family is quite comfortable already. I'd
rather use the rest of the money as a safety net.

~~~
toyg
Something like living without car is very difficult to pull off in suburban
UK, I can’t even begin to imagine how one could do it in places like US or
Australia. We have one car and already it limits our opportunities and the
ones of our children so much that we’ve been discussing getting another for
years.

I’m sure I could save more (we do eat out a bit), but nowhere near 60% of
income. You must be making waaaay more than the median.

~~~
purplethinking
The trick is to not live in the suburbs if you can avoid it. They're money-
sucking black holes :) I know it hurts to hear, since having a house and a
back yard is part of the western dream, or having grown up in that environment
we even feel entitled to it. We imagine our children will be emotionally
scarred if they don't get their backyard, but the truth is it reflects more on
our own preference than our kids.

Long story short, if you make average decisions (as compared to people in your
socioeconomic group), then you'll end up with average outcomes: ones of living
pay-check to pay-check, and worrying about losing your job over stuff like age
discrimination.

By the way, we make about $170k household income, in Northern Europe, which is
definitely more than the median here, but the difference in post-tax income is
less than you'd think, with a maximum tax-rate of 55%.

~~~
matwood
> The trick is to not live in the suburbs if you can avoid it. They're money-
> sucking black holes

Interesting considering living in the city with anywhere near the same quality
of life of living 5-10 miles away will cost 2-3x more money.

Outside of money, I'd much rather sit in my backyard and look at the
marsh/water over seeing some drunk/high person passed out in front of my
house.

I see you're in Europe which, based on my travels, is a much more city
friendly place. Public transportation options are good, services are good, and
based on my limited research there are still decent city apartments for
reasonable prices. One day I play to live in Europe for a period of time and
it will definitely be in a city.

------
m23khan
If you are applying for a Development job with 10+ years experience, that is
wonderful. But what is not wonderful is to fill up your resume with
tools/languages which are either dead/obsolete or which are not relevant for
the job posting itself.

As part of a team in my office who currently interviewed and hired DevOps
Engineers (I admit it is different than hiring a Programmer): there were quiet
few older candidates we reviewed and interviewed but majority of them (as per
their resume) seemed to be stuck in the past or it seemed there peak was 10
years ago.

And oh yes, we hired a 40+ year old whom we are extremely happy to have in our
team.

------
troels
Article draws a lot of conclusions based of averages and statistics that may
as well be correlations as causes.

The industry is expanding rapidly. 20 years ago we were a lot fewer people.
Even if we had perfect retention, the +40yo's will comprise a much smaller
part of the workforce, than in an industry with less growth.

It's also not very surprising that older workers are more experienced,
limiting the potential positions. But I suppose there could be an issue if you
are older than average yet have mediocre skills.

~~~
Clubber
>The industry is expanding rapidly.

The industry had two major contractions, in the 80s and aughts that it still
hasn't recovered from based on CS graduation rates.

[https://www.geekwire.com/2014/analysis-examining-computer-
sc...](https://www.geekwire.com/2014/analysis-examining-computer-science-
education-explosion/)

------
mr_tristan
I'm 40, worked in the SF bay area, San Diego, Vienna, and now Portland. Office
cultures are definitely different in each city, but the chances of running
into a major-league asshat goes up significantly in the areas where there's a
ton of money and risk taking.

Things often become wacky are when you have a massive glut of growth, thus,
you get a ton of people hired into "senior" positions without actually having
to know anything.

I remember my first "senior" title was after having about 1-2 years of
experience. Everyone was like that, they threw titles around like mad, in part
because I think it made the company look smarter on paper for an acquisition.

Anyhow, I avoid places that seem to inflate egos and expectations, and I've
had far fewer issues with age-ism. You just have to be prepared to move on
when the environment gets toxic in any way.

------
alpeb
Considering there's a shortage of labour supply in this industry, if you're
good enough, at some point it is you who is screening candidate companies
you'd like to work with and not the other around. And just as it's hard for
companies to find the right candidates, it's hard for you to really tell how
work is gonna be like with any given company. Things like ageism, culture-fit
crap, ping-pong tables benefits (instead of better pay) are all great hints
that give away places you don't wanna work in. Not just because those things
are bad by themselves, but also they reveal a lack of moral principles that's
gonna be reflected later on in the job in many other ways.

------
throw2016
Something for students to think about, in most other careers you study for,
experience is valued and you usually end up being respected and highly paid,
think management, doctors, civil engineers etc.

In tech it works the other way and you will be insignificant by 40.

~~~
FabHK
Not sure why this is down voted. It is an important consideration, unless you
don't plan to live a long and meaningful life.

~~~
intellectronica
Because it's not true. The right lesson to learn is that in any occupation,
tech included, experience alone isn't enough and you need to always continue
to learn and acquire new skills to stay relevant.

------
vhogemann
I don't know how it would make sense for business, unless they're trying to
replace you with somebody less experienced because it's cheaper. In that case,
it doesn't sound like the kind of place I would want to work for anyway.

~~~
intellectronica
It doesn't make sense, but often people and businesses are concerned about it
being awkward for someone to report to a manager younger than them. Rather
than educate and reassure they prefer to avoid this altogether by not hiring
older people. For many, there is also a perception that for someone to not
have climbed the corporate ladder by the time they reach their 40s is a signal
of failure. With younger workers this signal doesn't exist.

~~~
humanrebar
> ...there is also a perception that for someone to not have climbed the
> corporate ladder by the time they reach their 40s is a signal of failure...

How is this not age discrimination? Or do people make the case that age
discrimination makes business sense?

~~~
eric_h
Age discrimination can also be salary discrimination. People with more
experience rightfully require more in salary.

~~~
intellectronica
This is a view that actually sometimes prevents older people from managing it
in market. Because of how fast technology moves, much of your experience from
10+ years ago isn't very relevant today, so if you expect a higher salary
because of it you will be disappointed. It's important to be realistic and
accept that if you've been working since your early 20s, you accumulate
experience that might result in a higher salary, but only until you reach your
late 30s. At that point you just compete in a market with other experienced
people and your value (based on experience) doesn't increase much. You can
still increase your value to an employer by acquiring a skill that is in high
demand, but you're not more qualified than someone less experienced who has
that skill.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
>much of your experience from 10+ years ago isn't very relevant today

>you're not more qualified than someone less experienced who has that skill.

I'd gently disagree with this. An extra decade or more of working and
navigating the relationships of a workplace, and honing a sense of
professional judgment and problem solving is worth something. An employee does
far more than implement a specific skill. You need some of that extra stuff
too.

~~~
intellectronica
"You need some of that extra stuff too". Indeed. but whether you have 10 years
or 25 years of that extra stuff might not make more than a marginal
contribution to how you're valued.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
Looks like I missed that point in your original post. Seems about right. I
think I was led astray by your last sentence about the skills.

------
nul_byte
I really don't worry about this as a 46 year old engineer. For me I still feel
young and I still love tech and my age just does not factor , and for anyone
who it would factor, I don't want to work for. I have always had quite a good
positive opinion of my talents / knowledge (but not to the point that I am a
narcissist arsehole) and that has carried me well.

------
peterlk
I have found that working with older engineers has made me a significantly
better developer. For example, it's really easy for new devs to become caught
up in the latest libraries, even if they replicate functionality that's been
in the OS you're (or whatever) using forever.

I was guilty of this with databases when we had the NoSQL fad; why was I
giving up ACID compliance? "Because we're entering a new generation of
database design, also, what's ACID?"

Shameless plug: at Aha! we have pretty decent age diversity on our engineering
team (and in the rest of the company). If you want to work with us, check out
[http://aha.io/jobs](http://aha.io/jobs)

------
SQL2219
Hmmmm, "shortage of tech workers".

------
kbos87
At 32, this worries me. I’ve already begun to plan for my eventual exit from
tech.

When friends nudge their kids in the direction of building skills or a career
in tech, I try to find ways to let them know how I look at our industry - a
somewhat lucrative place to spend the first 15 or so years out of college, but
sadly not a place to build a sustainable, lifelong career.

I wish that weren’t the case, but it seems to be true. Our government needs to
step up and hold companies who have a dramatically skewed employee age
distribution accountable.

~~~
humanrebar
I've seen plenty of people working well past 40. Lots of them don't work for
"tech" employers, though. They write software for defense contractors, banks,
insurance companies, etc.

------
ojbyrne
“Indeed found that 17% of survey respondents said the average employee age at
their company is between 20 and 30 years old, while 29% of survey respondents
said the average employee age is between 31 and 35. An additional 27% of
respondents said the average age at their company was 36-40 years old.

That leaves just 26% of the workplace roles for staffers over 40, Indeed
found.”

Innumeracy sucks at any age.

------
cyclonetiger
I find so many things wrong with this article.

This is coming from Indeed, which is a job searching site. I think its fair to
infer that younger people would always look for jobs more than older people
since younger people are just getting out of college and/or trying to figure
out what really interests them by job hopping. I would imagine an older
developer that has already his/her interests figured out, and has a network
built out would visit a site like Indeed less.

I'm only 26, so you would think that I'm the "prime" years of my career, but I
work for a large enterprise tech company, where I'm the only one under 40 on
my team. I would say the average age overall is around 40 for the people that
sit around me. They all seem to like place they work, and much more relaxed
about their career future compared to me or my friends that are still deciding
what we want to do.

------
bdcravens
Being 40 years old, can I play the devil's advocate?

Many older developers I know are often unemployable due to the fact they have
let their knowledge stagnate, but as a 40 year old looking around and seeing
older developers taking longer to find that next role, perhaps you chalk it up
to discrimination.

------
dba7dba
Ageism is not really the problem. The problem is looking for that someone that
will fit into the elusive culture fit. And I see this culturism as worse than
any kind of discrimination practiced in the past and now (racism, sexism,
etc).

What is culture in a work place as we know it these days in the realms of
startup shops?

It's stuff like:

\- can you be a good drinking buddy?

\- do you look young and hip?

\- can you carry on a small talk and talk about stuff like favorite rock band,
movies at company events? Never mind that to be a rockstar coder at your young
age, you never watched a movie or went to a concert BUT instead spent all your
time coding and learning how to code faster/better.

\- do you have any interesting hobby like rock climbing or traveling that
makes you an interesting person? Never mind that having an interesting hobby
will actually damage your chance of becoming a good coder, cause it will take
so much time away from coding. With so many things to learn and keep up with,
how do you have the time to have an interesting hobby?

\- oh also, can you give a good talk on a tech topic? like a good tech sales
person? But why would you want to be a coder that will surely hit an arbitrary
salary cap while working full 50+ hr a week, when a salesman will make more
than coders due to sales commission (while working practically a part time
job)? And don't forget about all the extras salespeople get like traveling.

\- are you an extremely pleasant person to deal with? Buy why? Are you hiring
a sales clerk or a coder? Can a coder be just a normal human being, not one
with a forced smiles on face?

\- are you all of the above so that ones you refer to the company as potential
hire will be clones of yourself?

\- oh and can you code?

All this in workplaces that are automating human interaction out of daily work
and personal life.

And now increasingly shops that encourage/tout remote working where coworkers
don't see each other in person.

------
scioto
I'm hitting another 0-year shortly, but I have few worries about my losing my
job. The thing I worry about is not having shiny assignments to put on my
resume. I haven't seen a shiny assignment in years. That's probably because my
employer and I have unintentionally agreed upon my best fit.

What do I do? I clean up after the cowboys are gone. We start a new project
that has bells and whistles and does nifty cool things, and the young guys
come in and work it because it's shiny, and they gladly put in the hours. They
ship version 1.0. They add the tech TLAs to their resumes. And then they
leave. Often times they go on to new shiny projects. Often times they go to
newer shinier companies. And they leave their software behind.

We all know that time-to-market is everything. And the cowboys deliver the
product. It may not be the highest quality work, and it may not be the most
maintainable bit of code. But the product shipped, and that's what mattered.

Then comes sustaining. Time to address the warts, and when you address the
warts, you see that the code has a lot of symbol names like "a1" and "b2".
Yes, I know fireable offenses in some coding shops. But it shipped!

And this is where I come in. I clean up what the cowboys left behind. Usually
this happens when we start addressing issues after the stabilization period is
over, or start adding features the customers asked for but never got since we
had to get the product out the door.

What do I do? Give symbols meaningful domain-specific names. Refactor code to
remove antipatterns, mostly the copy-paste pattern. I also apply our company's
coding standards with which the cowboys didn't want to be bothered. I add unit
tests to code that changes. I comment the code (though it's mostly self-
documenting when I'm done). I replace ad-hoc functions with calls to standard
libraries our company uses that the cowboys didn't bother to learn. I apply
idioms and frameworks that our company uses to allow code to take advantage of
cross-cutting functionality, such as automated logging. I make the code aware
of the daylight-savings-time transition. I remove egregious pattern uses
people put in to say they used a pattern.

I also try to not be the expert at my applications, since I don't want to be
called at 3am to resolve issues. So I maintain notes on our wiki pages as to
what it takes for the software to run, and a list of frequent issues that have
more to do with environment and upstream issues than with the code. I've
trained our Ops people and given them analysis tools such that it's been years
since I've been called at night. I also maintain a list of lower-priority code
issues that weren't worth addressing, but that could use work some time.

I don't mind the cowboys. I've had a couple of them compliment me on my
refactoring since they had long-forgotten what their code did. I still have
this dream of being one. But for now, this is what I tend to do.

My only concern is that one day we'll get a shiny CTO who'll figure out that
it's better to outsource all the IT to save money (and to give his buddies
where he came from the outsourcing business), and I'll be on the street, after
training my replacements. How marketable are the above skills? "Hi, I can keep
your software running and maintainable." In another five years I figure I'll
have made my numbers and the only thing I'll have to worry about is another
2008.

~~~
fatbird
I still tell people that my proudest day as a developer was when I deleted
70,000 lines of code that I'd made irrelevant, following a year of incremental
refactoring that was consciously leading up to this point. It was, in my mind,
an exquisite act of long-term maintenance programming. Older coders know what
I mean and grin when I tell them about it.

~~~
Joe-Z
I just came here from the "Yosemite bolt replacement"-thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15529497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15529497)),
where someone linekd the GP.

The company I'm with at the moment has some horrible, horrible code, but
there's nothing quit like the satisfaction you get from deleting a bunch of it
because you just made it OBSOLETE.

It's gotten to the point where my boss is joking that my favourite programming
activity is deleting code. Cheers to us maintainers!

------
xux
Sorry, I don't buy this whole "older workers more likely to see through
bullshit" narrative that many presumably older folks on HN push.

It sounds awfully like the arguments that traditionally nationalist groups use
against immigrants, contending they're less intelligent and accept lower wages
because they're culturally inferior and just don't know better

Maybe it's just that younger workers legitimately provide better labor for
lower cost. For a small startup, you really don't need someone with 30 years
of experience, and it's better to spend your money on someone demanding a
lower wage and will work fast.

~~~
georgeburdell
_It sounds awfully like the arguments that traditionally nationalist groups
use against immigrants, contending they 're less intelligent and accept lower
wages because they're culturally inferior and just don't know better_

Is this the new Godwin's Law?

~~~
xux
Perhaps you can offer a rebuttal to my arguments instead of doing an implicit
name-calling?

Immigrants do work harder and offer cheaper labor, not unlike the example of
younger developers vs older developers. Companies can feel free to make the
trade off

~~~
manigandham
Big difference in unskilled vs skilled labor. Knowledge workers do better when
they are more educated and experienced, something that there is no shortcut
for.

But you don't have to take it from me:
[https://twitter.com/werner/status/867323121019351041](https://twitter.com/werner/status/867323121019351041)

------
rdl
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I think a lot of the discrimination is
specifically anti-Boomer or anti-people-who-didn't-grow-up-with-Internet, not
specific to age. If true, then 40 will be the 30 of 10 years ago.

~~~
scaryclam
Which would be funny since the people who didn't grow up with the Internet are
the ones who invented it.

~~~
rdl
A very small percentage of people born in 1930-1955 were involved in building
the Internet. I suspect people like Vint Cerf don't get age-discriminated
against -- we're mostly concerned with age discrimination against people in
the ~35-70 age range who don't have specific major accomplishments.

(I was born in 79, but first got (limited) Internet access in 1986 or so, and
much more Internet access in 1990. At the time, everyone was ~18-~40yo. There
were some BBS people who were slightly younger, but even that only kicked off
in the 80s.)

There really weren't a lot of people working on Internet technology until the
first dotcom boom of the 1990s -- people who were generally young at the time.
Even then, it was a small percentage of people compared to today. There were
more people involved in UNIX, telcos, general technology, etc. who were early
adopters of the Internet in the 90s, or who retained access from university in
the 70s or even 80s and continued in parallel with their primary career, but
in the mid/late 90s, "knows how to use the Internet" was still a useful
selector in hiring, as it was rather rare.

There are all the _other_ reasons why older people get discriminated against
(perceived and real higher salary expectations, working requirements, location
inflexibility), but those aren't as specific to technology. Hence, I think the
actual level of discrimination in tech is going to fall to be the same as a
lot of other fields.

------
brightball
I’ve operated under the assumption that I won’t be able to get a job as a
programmer after age 49 from the beginning. It affects how I plan for
retirement, how I look at investments, how I view my career path, etc. My wife
is well aware of this and we both plan accordingly.

That’s why we have a 15 year mortgage. It’s how we plan for our kids college,
etc. The goal is that as soon as the kids get out of school our monthly
expenses will be as low as possible so that we can live very light or seek
alternative income if needed.

Either that or I’ll complete a multimillion dollar side project. :)

------
onlite_67
I am nearing 40 and hard of hearing. So far I have survived with fellow
people's help, but not sure how it would go, going forward when I am expected
to be in supervisory or managerial position attending meetings, conference
calls and managing people, which I am not good at, because of the handicap. I
am good with technology, though, and fairly updated with cloud skills and
other latest stuff. Hmm.

------
kartan
For an informed answer you can see: "Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of
Programming"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc)

Please, see the video. It is an awesome informative and it will give you a lot
of insight on our current situation. It is not about startups, but about the
maturity of the industry itself.

------
nomercy400
As somebody who does interviews for developers in a Java shop, a very blunt
view of things:

Any coding you've done more than five years ago isn't relevant anymore. I
can't remember what I did five years ago. It is probably outdated, replaced or
not in use any more. Looking back at my projects from five years ago, I would
probably not agree with most of the code, as I've learned a lot of new things.
I do care about your projects. This is the most important part for me. What
projects have you done, what was your role, what did you do, what did you use,
what was the result, and what are your proud of. Also, I hope you varied your
work a bit, because when I read you worked 10 years on the same system, it
tells me you didn't think enough out of the box and I'd worry about your
skills outside of that system. Also, surely you did smaller projects in those
10 years than just saying you 'maintainted and implemented new features for
system X'.

I don't care about your Delphi, BASIC, COBOL or Java 1.2 skills (looking at
your CORBA). I do care about your Java 8, mobile, and recent webtechnology
skills. You don't know what the technology behind a website is? Then it's a
minus, as you've missed out on ten years of technological advancements in your
field. I'm not saying you should be expert in web technologies or frameworks,
but at least have a basic understanding about HTML5, CSS and Javascript, what
they do and what they are used for. Like, the basics.

I care little about your soft skill trainings, they might have some value. I
don't care about your framework trainings, I'd rather see you use them in your
work experience. I do care about your Java (Programmer 2) certification,
because you are working in a Java shop and as somebody who has done the
certification I know the value of preparing for the certification, and I know
you are dedicated for this.

I care about what libraries/frameworks you would use, and will ask about the
reason for using one over the other. This gives me an idea that you can look
outside of your comfort zone, be able to accept other ideas, know how to
analyze functionalities of a framework, and know that you should understand a
library's internals before using it because of the hype.

I care about your theoretical/general skills: Do you know how to structure
your program, do you know about SOLID principles, do you know design patterns,
etc. These give me an idea if you can write larger programs, that can be
maintained.

I care about how you answer my questions, how you respond to be challenged on
a point, how you will defend a point, how you will convince me to use a new
library that I don't know about (which I actually do) and sell me it's good
points. This is because I want to see you speak the same language of the team,
and can communicate your opinion in a professional manner. Get irritated or
super-defensive, you probably aren't a good fit for the team, as you'll have
colleagues that challenge you as well, and you will just be irritated all day
long.

All these give me an idea on how passionate you are about developing software.
Not passionate as in 'go spend 70hrs a week here', but passionate as in seeing
software development as your craft, your reputation, your skill.

In the end I care about three things: Can your do the work in a professional
way (hard-skills), will you be able to work well with your colleagues (soft-
skills), and will you be happy to work here (retention).

~~~
gerbilly
>You don't know what the technology behind a website is? Then it's a minus, as
you've missed out on ten years of technological advancements in your field.

Huh, we hired a guy who worked on the JVM and the Java compiler.

Not much web experience.

Would he have been technical enough for you?

You don't like COBOL it seems, but you do realize that web development and
it's byzantine combination of random languages, document standards and
frameworks is maybe even worse than COBOL was?

We have nothing to be proud of as web developers, if you ask me. At least some
programmers in the 60s and 70s were discovering brand new algorithms that we
still use today, not just marshalling data in JSON (JSON is a crappy XML
replacement) between layers of code and the NOSQL database (NOSQL is a worse
SQL) and re-inventing their web framework every 3 months.

~~~
edgan
Many people hate XML more than JSON, and I would agree with them. I hate both,
and prefer yaml.

~~~
sk5t
Have you really read the YAML spec? It's a rather complex grammar. I get that
YAML is visually cleaner than JSON; however, unless we're constrained to very
trivial use cases there's probably too much to think about. JSON's strong lack
of TMTOWTDI is an asset here.

As for XML: namespaces, DTDs, entities, XSD, XSL, XPath, and on and on, have
resulted in some absolutely horrendous architecture astronautism. XML itself
is (mostly) perfectly fine but there are too many unqualified people in the
industry wielding XML, poorly, and creating massive headaches. XML also
presents some interesting security challenges.

------
pm24601
I have personally experienced it. I had happen when interviewing - the person
very explicitly said that he didn't think I could do the job because I was
older than 35.

This was the most explicit, but not the only example.

This is why I am so happy about the recent turn against sexism in the bro-
workforce. Bros are ageist not just sexist.

------
sgt101
Is this to do with health insurance costs? Are young developers cheaper to
insure?

~~~
alkonaut
No, simply because it's not limited to the US where employers pay health
insurance.

------
lttlrck
Maybe the concerned workers could lay the groundwork for their own future and
enact change themselves by putting ‘culture fit’ aside and become proponents
for older employees.

------
leroy_masochist
> Indeed found that 17% of survey respondents said the average employee age at
> their company is between 20 and 30 years old, while 29% of survey
> respondents said the average employee age is between 31 and 35. An
> additional 27% of respondents said the average age at their company was
> 36-40 years old.

> That leaves just 26% of the workplace roles for staffers over 40, Indeed
> found.

Seriously? This conflates "range of average ages among companies" with "range
of ages of employees at companies" to a galling extent. There's no way this
whole argument is a typo...how does something like this get past an editor?

------
toephu2
It seems like no one is talking about the obvious move here: becoming an
engineering manager.

Can anyone share their two cents and pros/cons of being an EM vs IC? Any
regrets?

------
j10t
There is substantial scientific evidence showing age-related cognitive decline
begins relatively early in adulthood. The science is not controversial.

[http://examinedexistence.com//wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/cry...](http://examinedexistence.com//wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/crystallized-fluid.jpg)

This is a simplified view but communicates the idea.

Some might say crystallized intelligence is under-valued in tech. That might
be true. But then we should discuss that, not through the lens of social
justice against age discrimination.

~~~
sillysaurus3
On behalf of all old people: Fuck that, and fuck the idea that cognitive
performance alone should determine whether someone in our industry can eat.

Because as much as we love to tout that every programmer is living with a
house and a mortgage and a happy family, I happen to know for a fact that some
are struggling to eat.

Eh. Not exactly an objective viewpoint, I know. But to maybe drain away some
of the energy I just threw into that: Being old is our shared destination.
It'll happen to you too. It'll happen to me. How is this a productive outlook?

I've known some amazingly productive old people. I learned from one of the
best in the gamedev industry. He was my mentor, and basically a mini carmack.
When I hear statements like this, I cannot fathom how people believe this myth
that old people are inherently less able to kick your ass at programming.

I really hesitate to bring this up, but there's this dopey argument that HN
trolls love to bring up, where they point to a certain area of science and say
"Look! Black people are inherently dumber. The science says so." Yet the one
black man that I was fortunate enough to work with in our industry -- one, out
of six companies, there was only one -- was the most effective, cool coworker
I was fortunate enough to know.

It's incredibly easy to point to some science and say "Oh, I'm objective." But
I invite you to re-read
[http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html)
carefully, and realize that if what you say is true, then our industry is
populated with stellar outliers. That's the definition of bias, right? They
have to be stellar to overcome it.

So why would you want argue that the stellar people that managed to get
through the gauntlet of discrimination should be looked down upon?

~~~
andai
I must be missing the point, but isn't programming _literally_ cognitive
performance?

As you age, your speed and ability to learn new things gradually decline
("fluid intelligence"), but what you've already learned and mastered
("crystallized intelligence"), can remain very strong until the end :)

But have heart! Many people have demonstrated that complex skills (playing
musical instruments, and even reading and writing) can be learned well past
the age of retirement.

~~~
sillysaurus3
This isn't responsive to my comment. One helpful thing to do is to paste a
quote you disagree with or want to ask about.

I _think_ you're asking "Since programming is cognitive performance, is it
reasonable to discriminate against those who can't do the work?"

My answer would be yes, if they can't do the work. But out of all the old
people I've worked with, only one was a detriment to the team. How many of
your coworkers were? How many were old?

The problem with discrimination is that it's easy to believe. People _want_ to
believe it. That's why it's easy to say something glib like "don't be afraid,
you'll still be able to learn complex skills." That seems rather like saying
don't worry, you'll still be able to be a person, since people learn complex
skills.

Here's a riddle: How old do you think Satoshi was? He was writing oldschool
C++ in 2008. That means he probably learned his trade in the 90's.

------
1065
Lets look at the recruiters' situated logic.

People who agree with me and readily comply with my will are more intelligent.

Who you gonna hire?

------
code4tee
Startups and such typically don’t want young people because their smarter,
it’s because their more gullible career wise. Sure some people get a bit stale
with age but some also get far far smarter and their experience can be very
valuable.

“Hey guys we have no business plan or customers, but please pull a few more
all nighters to finish this bit of code.”

22 year old living with 5 roommates is like “yes sure, whatever you say” while
40 year old with lots of experience is like “you don’t know what the F you’re
doing... I’m outta here.”

That’s why.

~~~
donatj
It’s also family and responsibility. When I was young and single I had no
reason to really go home after work, so I’d linger at work to finish things
and I would work on work things at home in my spare time. Now that I’m
married, I have more important things to do and my company gets much less free
labor.

~~~
sotojuan
> When I was young and single I had no reason to really go home after work, so
> I’d linger at work to finish things and I would work on work things at home
> in my spare time.

I am 23 (started working in programming at 22) and this view confuses me. I
don't want to sound rude but... you didn't have hobbies? Friends? Partner?
Errands to run? Non-work programming projects? Even when I was single and
lived alone, I had plenty of reasons to leave after 8 hours.

Again, everyone lives life differently but I can't imagine having no reason to
leave work, at any age.

~~~
bitsnbytes
"I am 23 (started working in programming at 22) and this view confuses me. I
don't want to sound rude but... you didn't have hobbies? Friends? Partner?
Errands to run? Non-work programming projects? Even when I was single and
lived alone, I had plenty of reasons to leave after 8 hours."

When I was 23 I had a very active fun social life as you appear to have as
well. BTW I had the same opinions as you at that age as well.

The difference is most of those activities are at your discretion and OPTIONAL
and you have enormous amount of 'myself' time available . When you have kids
and a family your OPTIONAL activities diminish and your 'myself' time is non
existent, due to REQUIRED commitments.

In addition staying up to 3am or 4am or all night sometimes was common for me
at that age.

After having a kid and family you can still do that. The issue is your kid
doesn't give a F that you stayed up till 3am to fix something and you have to
take care off all your REQUIRED responsibilities throughout the day. After a
while it takes it toll on you.

~~~
sotojuan
Good point in differentiating between optional and required activities. I
definitely think it is more important for a father or mother to work
reasonable hours than someone like me. I just don't like the attitude some
companies have that because I am 23 I have nothing to do so of course I'll
work longer than I need to.

~~~
bitsnbytes
Agreed and I didn't mean to suggest your time is any less valuable , its at
that age you have more freedom to decide what is a priority when it comes to
optional time allocation and flexibility to shuffle the time.

BTW companies especially the big ones will push you as far as your
demographics or industry will allow them too. Their priority is too push the
"what is acceptable line" furthest as possible to save that dollar. The smart
ones know better of the consequences, but most are too focused on the quick
savings.

BTW when I stayed late or worked for free it was never for the benefit of the
company. It was always for my benefit as I was never under the illusion that
any company considered me more important than their bottom line. I viewed
giving away my free time as an investment on my part to get experience in
something that benefited me in the end.

------
ben_utzer
two popup in less than 5 seconds after I opened the link. Goodbye
theladders.com

------
lightedman
Not a surprise when there are job recruiter sites out there that explicitly
discriminate against older applicants, going so far as to actively remove
profiles of anyone older than say age 26 (JobRivet was one of these sites -
they're now defunct.)

------
acty1
No one owes you anything in life.

Do not buy into the whole victimization of you based on your age. Resist this
temptation.

The truth is that some "old" people are actually "weird" as are some really
young people may be "annoying".

Of course the typical 60 year old will not fit in with a bunch of mid-20's
people working on the next Godforsaken social sharing app.

DO NOT FALL FOR VICTIMIZATION TALK.

Everyone has a choice of how they save, invest, learn and who they associate
with.

Do not like many companies and how they operate? Good, me neither.

Do not like drab catered lunches amd having to eat with assholes and listen to
their vapid conversation? Good, I hate it too.

Don't want to work with know-it-all 20's kids (one that you probably were too
at that age). Good, I don't either.

Therefore I don't.

I'm an independent software developer and stashing away as much of my money
into Rental properties, Bitcoin, dividend producing investments and boring but
safe bonds.

If you are worried about losing your job for ANY REASON, then it is your fault
amd responsibility to fix your own emotion state:

\- why did you take on a bigger mortgage than necessary?

\- why did you spend 10's of thousands of dollars on a fancy car (or borrow
the money for it)

\- why did you not invest your money to work for you.

Instead of you working for money (by 40 you should be able to pull in minimum
wage for sleeping and doing nothing).

But most people screwed their 20's and then maybe realized late 30's that
there's a thing call Passive Income (as defines by tax code) and Investment
Income.

We have a generation of men and women who made terrible life choices and now
are shocked that they feel the need to continue working with young people.

Now the victimization brigade is coming to tell you that "It's not your fault
you are being discriminated for your age".

Fuck yes it is. Why the hell are you working with assholes?

No one is preventing you from starting your own business, doing amazing work
as an independent consultant or pursuing additional lines of income.

What did you think was going to happen when you got older? That's right, you
will be treated as you treated older worker when you were young.

Heck, I just called my father "old man" for his birthday last night. Is that
discrimination?

Yes.

Is it UNFAIR discrimination?

NO. He did live a longer life and is factually older. Who knows, I may not
experience as many years as him. It is FAIR discrimination in a lot of cases.

Only unjust and unfair discrimination is what we should concern ourselves
with. The article makes no attempt to articulate beyond a bunch of numbers cuz
"discrimination"

You are not a victim.

------
asdfasdfasd333
This is much bigger problem than gender discrimination in tech. Until this is
addressed, I won't take the latter seriously.

~~~
seattle_spring
Do you have any proof to back up this very large claim?

As my own personal anecdote, I would say that it's the exact opposite. The
only time I see claims of age discrimination are from people who have grown
into a very awful attitude.

