
New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It - howard941
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/business/economy/age-discrimination-jobs-hiring.html
======
jtr1
A few years ago I worked at a ~50 person startup, where an informal poll
revealed everyone on the engineering team to be in an age range of ~24-30. One
day we interviewed an insanely qualified dude in his mid-50s. He’d worked with
technologicies up and down our stack, their competitors, and their
predecessors, and could speak at length to their relative strengths and
weaknesses. Tons of open source contributions, mentorship experience galore,
super nice - super nice, but also clearly nervous during a few rounds.

At the team standup afterward, pretty much everyone was an unreserved yes
except the engineering manager who directly said he was concerned about the
candidate’s age, and whether he would “fit in.” He wondered out loud whether
we could reject the candidate on this basis. The CTO was at the meeting and
immediately shut that line of questioning down, although none of us ever heard
from that candidate again. Something I’ll never forget as I get older in this
field.

~~~
hinkley
Engineering manager was afraid a more experienced dev could call him out on
his bullshit. Not being willing to manage someone older than you is likely a
sign of cowardice.

The first and second really good developers I worked with were around 35 and
45 when I met them.

~~~
LifeLiverTransp
This - basically if you are overqualified, and dont jump on the hype-train
anymore, and know that all the tech-"trends" are cyclic and have been there at
least once - you could wake up the whole team, destroying the cult like
atmosphere.

------
epc
Am 52. Served as IBM’s “corporate webmaster” in the 1990s (sort of like being
CTO but without the cool executive hat). Corporate Webmaster was responsible
for all technical operations of IBM’s corporate sites (from systems
administration to application development), as well as theoretically
responsible for all IBM web sites. As well as serve as the single point of
contact inside IBM for anything “internet”.

Have been mostly unemployed since leaving IBM in 2001, other than a few short
stints with NYC area startups.

To F100 corporate organizations I was too “internet” and claimed far too much
experience than possible (circa 2002), to startups I was (and apparently am)
too conservative, too corporate.

And yes, I tried the non–profit track. Every non–profit I interviewed with
decided that I was clearly going to drop them as soon as I could reacquire a
job in corporate America.

I’ve found other ways to make money instead of being employed by others.

~~~
docker_up
I'm almost 50 myself. I've been coding for 25+ years, and am looking for a new
job myself. I have one at a well-known company but I want to make more hay
while the sun shines. I currently have a week of onsites booked with the Big
N, and I'm in study mode. Because I'm still technical and hands-on and never
became a manager, I haven't had any trouble getting contacted constantly for
new jobs.

~~~
RickJWagner
What's the 'Big N'?

~~~
docker_up
That's a term used on Reddit /r/cscareerquestions, it's basically FAANG

------
scarface74
I’m 45. I didn’t start aggressively job hopping until I was 35, before then I
stayed at one job for almost 10 years. I haven’t once had a problem finding a
job quickly. I was a generalist when I was 35 and started down the road of
specializing in the Microsoft stack in 2008. I start pivoting in 2016 to more
architect level roles but still staying hands on but with more cross platform
languages (.Net Core, Node, Python), I also spent the last two years getting
_a lot_ of experience with AWS from a development/Devops/netops standpoint.

I’m slowly getting more into the front end $cool_kids stack with React, etc.

But, I don’t do the blind resume submittals to job boards and applicant
tracking systems. I keep a very strong network of external recruiters, former
managers, and former coworkers.

I have never studied leetCode, and won’t go near a job that’s more concerned
with how well I’ve read over “Cracking the Code” instead of how well I can
architect a system.

~~~
pmiller2
How many employers do you find yourself needing to exclude because of the “no
Leetcode” thing? Do you think you’re sacrificing anything in the way of comp
by doing so?

~~~
scarface74
None. I don’t live on the West Coast and that seems to be mostly a west coast
thing. According to all of the local salary surveys and anecdotal information
that I’m getting from recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers, I’m
slightly on the right side of the bell curve for architect/principal engineer,
etc. Not bragging, the salary and cost of living is well below the west coast.

My last job where I thought I was being hired as a senior developer I was
asked “what was my 90 day plan to create a modern software department to
create two green field projects”. It ended up they were looking for a dev
lead.

The next job interview I spent most of my time white boarding architecture. I
wasn’t asked a single development question. I just explained what I did on my
last job.

As far as comp, if I were in a position to travel a lot, there are plenty of
consulting companies willing to pay me more than I am making now - all I would
have to do is send out a few emails to my network. Again not bragging. After
working 20+ years if you can’t get some type of consulting gig you’re doing it
wrong.

~~~
pmiller2
Interesting. What region do you live in, and how do you think your bottom line
compares to what you’d see in a comparable role in the Bay Area?

I’m not really architect / principal level just yet (probably 3-5 years of
continuous improvement from that I would say), but I feel like I’m just barely
getting ahead as a senior making $200k paying $2300/month in rent with no hope
to buy and about a 40-60 minute commute (depending on whether I drive to BART
or walk). Just wondering if there’s something better out there.

~~~
oblio
Excuse me, but at $200k you're making $100k net so about $8k per month. With
rent at $2.3k, you should be able to save enough to buy something at some
point, no? Or at least you could rent something more expensive, closer to
work?

~~~
geggam
He said BART so he is in SF bay area.

If he is only paying 2300 rent he is living in a small apt even 60 minutes
out. The cost of everything in the bay makes you wonder where money goes.

Lunch is a minimum of 25 bucks, bottle of cheap beer 10.

~~~
aiisjustanif
Don't buy beer, meal prep?

~~~
pmiller2
Beer and lunch money isn’t the problem.

------
freyr
Can someone tell me where the older software engineers in the Bay Area have
gone? I recently moved into the software industry (after years in the telecom
industry), and the lack of older software engineers is disconcerting in a
Soylent Green type of way.

I guess some have moved into management, and others have made enough money to
retire, or they've moved somewhere with better value than the Bay Area.
They're likely to avoid companies where everyone's in their twenties and the
offices looks like frat houses. But even so, I'd expect to see many more gray-
haired engineers around here than I do.

~~~
darkmarmot
A lot of people want to have kids and a yard, etc. You can work on interesting
things for a decent wage outside SV and have these things...

------
mykowebhn
I'm 48, on the West Coast, and recently finished interviewing, receiving
multiple offers.

I did 250 Leetcode problems, practiced System Design, and Behavioral. In the
end, I found doing 250 Leetcode was probably overkill, but it definitely
helped.

This will probably get me severely down-voted, and I do understand the
antipathy toward having to Leetcode, but the way I see it is that I'm really
lucky. I get to sit on my butt, do what I love, and I get paid really well to
do it. If interviewing is extremely hard and I have to study, yet again, at 48
so be it. There are plenty of people in the world who are so less fortunate
than I am.

[Edit] s/250 Leetcode/250 Leetcode problems/

~~~
scarface74
If leetCode is what you have to do to compete in your market so be it. In the
grand scheme of things, it would be hypocritical for me to criticize someone
for spending hours upon hours on leetCode considering the amount of time I’ve
spent on books about architecture, spent a year learning the ends and out of
AWS, and the time I spent networking.

Not to mention the fact that I will spend the next two year learning front end
frameworks and Docker ecosystem. I’m 45

~~~
xfitm3
I think as our sector matures its more about emotional intelligence, and less
about technical aptitude. I can’t help but think leetcode is a echo chamber. I
personally disagree with this approach, I’ve met a few folks who think the CLI
is useless and can be learned in a few days. But they score really well in
algorithms.

With today’s data privacy concerns and tough European regulations I don’t
think this attitude is acceptable.

I hope the field makes a return to appreciating fundamentals.

~~~
superfrank
I get why companies want to use Leetcode for evaluation. It basically
quantifies an applicant down to a number which makes hiring easier and more
scalable. There's a lot less room for bias if every candidate can be boiled
down to pass or fail by a single test.

That being said, I was on the hiring committee at my last job and personally,
I found the best way to hire engineers is to just chat with them about
previous projects. I'd usually run through one or two, "just confirming you
can code" whiteboard questions and then ask them to tell me about a project
they are proud of that they had a large part in. If you ask questions that dig
into the project ("How did you do X?", "Why did you do Y?", "Now that it's
over, what would you change?") you can usually get a pretty good idea of their
skill level and knowledge as a developer as well as some great insights into
their personality.

Obviously, that's much harder to scale and more subject to bias, but it worked
for me.

~~~
bradleyjg
In addition to being hard to scale and subject to bias, it's hard to know,
even for you, if it was actually a good system or not. The best you can hope
for is to have decent confidence it had a low false positive rate.

Short of industry wide collaboration with some kind of longitudinal study,
getting an idea of what does and doesn't work in terms of false negatives is
nearly impossible.

~~~
Hermitian909
I think you can tell if it's a good system for _your company_. As an
individual employer all I care about are:

1\. are my false positives low?

2\. is the time it takes to fill a position low?

If the answer to both of those questions is "yes" then the system is great for
me (and I've seen the system described above provide affirmative answers to
both these questions in a startup setting).

Determining whether a hiring system is _locally_ good is significantly easier
than determining if it's good in general.

~~~
okaram
You can say if it's acceptable ... but not necessarily good

The problem is that you don't know the cost of the false negatives; you don't
know whether the people you didn't hire would have greatly improved your
processes / code / business

~~~
hinkley
Software is a collaboration. Almost by definition, all the stuff I don’t know
how to do well is at least as important as the stuff I do, even as full stack
person.

It’s probably not the stuff you know how to do that makes or breaks your
company. Either someone else does it, or you “figure it out” and hopefully you
know if you did it right before it’s too late.

How do you hire someone to be good at stuff you aren’t already good at?
There’s gonna be a lot of those in the false negatives pile.

------
emit_time
Anecdote: My dad (finance/accounting guy) lost his job in his 40's and was
never able to find another one.

Thankfully my mom makes enough for things to work out, and they own a piece of
rental property, and my dad stashed away a lot of money for retirement while
he worked (to the dismay of my mother).

Additionally, the company I work at is half (or more) people hired straight
out of college which kinda makes me feel weird. It's a small company that has
been around ~15 years or so, and I feel like their hiring practices would lead
to their ass getting handed to them in court.

I like the people I work with, but something definitely feels wrong.

~~~
andrewprock
Employment is not an efficient market. Transaction costs are very high,
bidding is not public, and utility is a non-linear function of more than just
compensation.

~~~
bongobongo
It’s not a market at all, because participation, realistically speaking, is
involuntary for most sellers. It’s closer to a feudal contract than an actual
market.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
I love it. Economists are in total denial about such things. EVERYTHING IS A
MARKET RUBBER STAMP.

Almost all of the US economy is a monopoly or cartel dominated by 1-3
corporations per segment.

~~~
bongobongo
Yep. Glad that there are at least a few people whose brains haven't been
turned to mush by decades of propaganda and inflexible market fundamentalist
orthodoxy.

------
nimbius
Is this something exclusive to white collar jobs or is it mostly programming?
Asking as my day job is in the skilled trade of engine mechanic.

If youre over 45 in a machine shop or in any trade (plumbing, electrical,
automotive, HVAC, etc...) your biggest barrier to getting any job is picking
up the phone when it rings. Johnson Control, Honeywell, heck even people like
Nest and Ford are kicking down your door and offering you any money to join.

~~~
hourislate
I feel like this applies more to programming. It should act as writing on the
wall for anyone who thinks they can make a career out of it. You have 15-20
years and then you're considered old I suppose.

I don't find this to be the case with other areas of IT. We have a lot of
folks in the late 40's to middle 50's working through out our IT Department
and organization.

------
StaticRedux
As a generalist developer nearing 40, I worry about this all the time. I have
extensive and valuable experience in certain areas, including management, but
I have started investigating other directions I can take my career and more
focused specialities I can pursue to extend my shelf life, because it's seems
pretty clear that it's not really viable to continue my current path.

~~~
tyingq
It is less of a problem if you focus on the IT departments of non-tech
companies. Still exists, but nowhere near the same degree.

------
drchewbacca
One thing I'm a bit confused about is why doesn't salary bidding fix this?

For example if a 25 yr old coder is $X per year surely, even if you have
terrible age discrimination, there must be some salary level, say $0.75*X
where having the older worker is preferable?

Is it that older workers are much more expensive and are bidding themselves
out the market? Is it that people value youth so much they will pay a 3x
markup for it or something?

If there's a large pool of super skilled people begging for work I don't quite
understand why someone wouldn't want to leverage that. I get why maybe you pay
older workers less if you discriminate, but to not hire them at all seems
strange.

~~~
adventured
> Is it that older workers are much more expensive and are bidding themselves
> out the market?

On one cost issue. Let's say you're in a city other than SEA, LA, SF, NYC and
Boston. A 55 year old on a good insurance plan will often cost you anywhere
from $6,000 to $10,000 more per year in healthcare benefits versus a 20-25
year old. The cost of a 45 year old employee further increases with time due
to that (over 10 years, from 45 to 55, an employee's health benefits cost can
easily climb by an additional $5k-$6k per year). So if the salary in question
is $90,000 (again, outside the elite tech cities), that bumps the cost of the
employee considerably as they age. Some states - such as NY - have laws that
alter this equation though. When an employee goes from eg 20 to 35 years old,
there's a far more modest healthcare benefits cost increase (30%-40% increase
would be more typical, starting from a lower base cost versus the 45 year old;
from 40 to 55 the cost can easily double, from a higher starting point).

This is another serious issue that people frequently run into with the US
healthcare system.

~~~
b212
> A 55 year old on a good insurance plan will often cost you anywhere from
> $6,000 to $10,000 more per year in healthcare benefits versus a 20-25 year
> old.

Jesus freaking christ I never realised that being European. This is a game
changer for older folks, I guess I'm out of luck if I ever want to move to the
US and I'm already over 30, ha :/

~~~
adventured
As things are now, with US healthcare being out of control on costs, it
depends heavily on your salary and employment context.

If you're making eg $150,000 or $200,000 in SF or NYC and working for a stable
company, an additional $500-$600 per month for the company isn't nearly the
concern versus if you're working in Cleveland earning $75,000.

If you're with a decent company with good benefits, it's also not an unusual
situation more generally speaking. Half the country receives its healthcare
benefits from an employer. Companies in the US are used to forking over very
high costs for healthcare benefits. It's an accepted cost of employing people
here. Being unemployed at 55 in the US, with weak savings (can't bridge
yourself to the next job) and struggling job prospects, is a very serious
problem however. That's the sort of situation you want to avoid in the US.

If you're self-employed the healthcare costs can be a real killer also,
obviously unless you earn enough to offset it properly. As a very young
entrepreneur I simply went without healthcare coverage. I was fortunate to not
have any meaningful health problems in those years, it's blatantly a serious
risk to take.

------
m0zg
Mid-40s, feel like I have been discriminated against based on age more than
once. Not being one to fruitlessly blame my misfortune on things I can't
change, I exited the rat race and started consulting. Doubled my already
staggering pay working fewer hours, and from home. I realize this is not an
easy thing to get up and running, but do at least consider finding your true
value on the open market. The results could be surprising. The companies do
need people who know what not to do, rather than just young-uns who do stupid
things faster, with more energy.

~~~
mancerayder
I did this for 4 years and went back to full-time management. Even in NYC, I
struggled as I (as a DevOps guy) never had the latest tech. If they needed
AWS, I got AWS (experience and certs) but then they wanted Docker. Now
Kubernetes. Despite years of programming experience in three languages, I
still get whiteboarded. The point is, I was being treated like a full-time
employee in consultant interviews. A few smaller clients I picked up were
miniscule hours, we're talking 8 hours a month at most of work. Here on HN,
these startup types wanted me to work for 50 pct less my rate.

I'd love to consult one day, but I haven't cracked that code. I have 18 years
of systems automation, operations, and now management experience.

Something isn't good enough.

~~~
m0zg
What "interviews" are you talking about? Your track record is supposed to
speak for itself. The interview boils down to sitting down with a client and
figuring out what they need and whether you can do it. Because you're a
contractor you can be fired effortlessly, so there's very little risk for the
client. You can also fire the client, so there's little risk for you.

I think you either don't have the right track record, or you're selling
yourself incorrectly, by which I mean you're charging too little. Whiteboard
interviews are out of the question as a contractor: I simply don't have time
for this circus. One thing that helps with such things is pricing your
services right. And that means charging more than you think is reasonable. The
more you can charge, ironically, the easier these discussions get. The effect
compounds further if you have several satisfied former clients who can give
references.

My selling point is really simple, too: you've tried and you've failed, now
let me show you what's possible.

~~~
mancerayder
Well it's partially a marketing issue, to answer your question of why
interviews. It's recruiters who find me, and they present me as a contractor
(when I signal I'm searching for this). The people I used to work with tend to
ping me for full-time roles only, unfortunately, and word-of-mouth seems to be
a common contractor route.

Finding clients outside of that requires what I expect is a social media
presence, possibly publications and talks. None of which I've undertaken.

No one trusts the "resume/CV" track record, not in contracting and not in
full-time roles. It's either word-of-mouth or some other method of trust, if
it isn't a set of interviews.

I've picked up a decent full-time role to refurnish my image, as running an
infrastructure with staff, you'd expect, should be impressive.

I'm skeptical of the contract market.

And to go back to the original thread, I found myself getting spurned due to
age for any role which wasn't technical/managerial in the world of full-time
work once I went back to it.

~~~
m0zg
Fascinating. It's as though we operate in entirely different worlds. I have
much more work available to me than I can handle.

~~~
mancerayder
Where are you operating and what exactly is your skillset that money is
raining down so readily?

------
RickSanchez2600
A friend of mine specialized in OSX USB drivers and did contract work for OEMS
who make products for the Apple Macintosh. He used to work for Apple in the
1990s and did work on Mac System 7.5.4 with the team.

He recently killed himself, because he could not find clients and work due to
ageism etc. He got sick as well and for a while was homeless. Once he got grey
hair they didn't want to hire him anymore. He was 55.

~~~
mikelevins
This is eerily similar to my own story, except that I'm 59 and still alive, so
far.

I didn't work on drivers; I worked on mostly higher-level stuff (Newton,
HyperCard, Quicktime, AppleScript, and several projects that did not
ultimately become products). I worked at Apple from 1988 to 1998, and after
that moved on to a successful startup.

In 2004 for I developed an incurable chronic illness. It was one that is hard
to diagnose and hard to treat. I eventually found a doctor who could figure
out how to handle it, and became able to work again.

Before the illness, I was in that category where I never applied for jobs,
because there was always someone bugging me to go to work for them. In fact,
my work at Apple was in two chunks because someone bugged me to go to NeXT,
then someone bugged me to join a startup, then someone bugged me to go back to
Apple. After Apple laid me off in 1998, two startups immediately bugged me to
go to work for them and I chose the one that looked better.

After the illness, it has never been like that again. Since 2004, I have
mostly been self employed, mainly as a contractor writing code and technical
documentation. I choose to live in a place with very low cost of living, so
that when I'm working I can stack up piles of cash to live on between gigs.
I'm using one of those piles now to work on a product of my own design.

I've contemplated suicide a few times in what I think is a relatively
dispassionate way. It was always during fallow periods when my buffer was
getting threadbare, and I was in danger of becoming a financial burden to
loved ones. I always decided against it because, first, it's irreversible and
other choices aren't; and second, because the harm I would do to my loved ones
by making that choice probably outweighed the harm I would do by becoming an
expense to them.

Although I didn't make your friend's decision, I also don't judge it. I
believe I understand in general how it can seem like a reasonable choice in
some circumstances.

Since we're talking about ageism, I'll mention that I can't prove that the
drastic change in my employability is a case of ageism, nor a case of
discrimination against people with chronic illnesses. I suspect it of being
both, though, partly because age and health are (not necessarily reliable)
proxies for other qualities that employers are legitimately interested in, so
I can see what the motivation might be, and partly because the differences
between before my illness and since are just so stark and sudden.

~~~
RickSanchez2600
Keep yourself alive. Keep looking for work, and stay active and exercise as
well. Take care of your illness because it is a tough world out there.

~~~
mikelevins
Thanks. That's the plan. I don't think I'm in any danger. Well, not in any
danger that we're not all in by virtue of being alive, anyway.

Exercise is tricky. Too much or the wrong kind makes my condition worse.
Luckily, over the past few years I've discovered that I can walk several miles
a day in modest-sized chunks, and I have a dog who reminds me regularly to do
it.

------
Ancalagon
I just don't understand the bias. I'm too young to have experienced age
discrimination like this yet, but its obvious at least to me that the best
developers and hell, leaders, that I've worked with were all a part of older
generations. Is it a shortcoming in pay for all these people? I feel like
being out of work for 3 years would definitely lower whatever standard of pay
I had prior to becoming unemployed. I just do not get the disconnect

~~~
drivingmenuts
Older workers = more experience = higher pay.

Younger workers = less experience = lower pay.

Older workers also cost more in insurance premiums, have more "life events"
that pull them away from work and are potentially harder to sell on corporate
environment.

~~~
jobigoud
Older workers = more opinionated. Younger workers = more malleable.

At least that's what management often think.

~~~
WalterBright
I was equally opinionated as a younger man, though I was wrong a lot more
often :-)

~~~
EliRivers
Yes, well, you're Walter Bright, though.

The only name in this thread I recognise (although, to be fair, most people
aren't using their real names), and as an aside, a name that a seventy-
something year-old Vietnam veteran running an apartment full of automated test
machines in Greater Tokyo was surprised I dropped when he told me that the
Digital Mars compiler was testing well. That compiler was always well behaved.
I wonder if his age would have been an impediment to finding work at in the
US; in Tokyo he suffered only the problem of being a foreigner.

------
jedberg
I think part of the problem is "protected classes". I learned the other day
that if you're over 40 you're a protected class for engineering in California.

If you're a protected class and you have a job, that's great! It will help you
a lot. But the unintended consequence is that companies are more reluctant to
hire someone in a protected class, because if they are legitimately bad at
their job, they are harder to get rid of.

I still think we should have protected classes, but the protection needs to
reach into hiring too. Maybe make companies have to submit written
justification for not hiring someone in a protected class? I don't know I'm
just spitballing here.

~~~
hash872
Was completely with you until the last paragraph. As the poster above me says,
the more you regulate hiring, the more reluctant companies are to do so. You
can look at the entire continent of Europe for a 500 million person example of
this- sclerotic uber-regulated hiring markets with intense bureaucratic rules
around who can be hired or fired, who can be laid off, under what
circumstances, etc. The end result of this regulation is dramatically higher
unemployment rates and companies that are terrified to hire FTEs because it's
so hard to get rid of a bad one.

Hiring needs to be less regulated, not more so

~~~
aiisjustanif
Unemployment rates:

Ireland: 5.4% UK: 3.8% Germany: 3.1% Portugal: 6.3% Poland: 3.5% Czech: 1.9%
Sweden: 6.2% Finland: 6.7%

That about ~230mil people. Mate what are you talking about.

~~~
repolfx
Worker protection isn't standardised. The countries with the lowest
unemployment rates have relatively dynamic labour markets.

Try France: 8.7%, was 10% as recently as 2015. Italy: 10.2%

Of course, unemployment is much worse for young workers in these countries. If
you can't fire anyone then hiring is risky, so jobs tend to end up taken by
older workers who then "camp" in the jobs even if they suck. Reverse ageism at
work!

------
povertyworld
This is why I gave up on ever having a "real job". This thread inspired me to
take a look at a job board and the first thing I saw was a mobile developer
job listed as "entry level". Scrolling down, the requirements are 5 years
minimum mobile development experience. This is entry level now? Five years
experience? By the time I have five years experience working at some kind of
theoretical pre-entry level job and finally qualify for "entry level", I'll be
old enough to be age discriminated against for being too old. If I could
afford it, I'd go back to school to be an accountant or something, but since
programming as all I know how to do and can afford to do, it's monetize "side
projects" or die poor. And yes I know, working for someone else would make way
more money, but that's like saying to an Uber driver "Hey bro, you'd make way
more money with an NYC cab medallion". Like they don't know that? Of course,
but that is not an option.

~~~
devonkim
There’s some cruel irony of you bringing up accounting for more stability when
another poster in these comments said his father was laid off from an
accounting job in his 40s and never found another job again. Modern work is
brutal in the developed world and our institutions both government and market
are failing at utilizing the wealth of human experience and knowledge
available primarily for the sake of institutions built upon generations of
burn-out, complacency, and cronyism as the dark sides of the virtues of
diligence, solidarity, and trust relationships.

~~~
madengr
Had lunch with a friend yesterday, who told me his daughter and her her
husband, both under 40, are now partners at their accounting firm. Household
income of $480k in flyover country.

Maybe accounting is like bimodal legal salaries, you either make it to the
top, or you are out.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Key word there is "partners". They aren't just accountants, they are also
business owners. Any field can give a good income if you own a successful
business.

------
4ntonius8lock
Odd that in an article about age based discrimination, they don't mention that
there is also age based discrimination against young people, for example,
getting into C level positions in the non-tech world.

When I used to be employed by other people, I specifically remember being told
"we can't really promote you to director, you are too young". I wasn't
inexperienced (I started working full time at 16). It wasn't that I hadn't
earned it. It was because the old farts on the board wouldn't take me
seriously.

Discrimination sucks.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I wasn 't inexperienced (I started working full time at 16). It wasn't that
> I hadn't earned it._

Above middle management, political calculus dominates meritocratic concerns
(in the short term). This is true in any organisation because we’re primates.
You won’t “earn” your way into senior management and you won’t help your case
by informally complaining.

If you want a promotion you need leverage. Relationships with (potential)
shareholders and creditors, a credible threat to decamp (and cause damage),
_et cetera_. If you can’t threaten to leave you have no leverage. If your
leaving wouldn’t cause the Board and senior management pain, you have no
leverage. (If you have no leverage, that’s fine—get it.)

Speaking as someone who spent a lot of their career being young (and
impatient).

~~~
4ntonius8lock
I was specifically told by the CEO I would be considered for the position if
not for my age. I earned my place by proving my value and reliability for
years.

Explaining why we discriminate is not helping those who want to see this
stopped.

It's like explaining why old people get discriminated upon. Yes, there is a
logic to it. No, it is not acceptable. Yes, that is how it works now. No, that
is not how it will always work, humans are constantly evolving. The way you
talk sounds defeatist. It sounds a lot like the old 'thats just the way it is'
when people talk about change.

BTW, I totally agree with you as to the fact that the logic you are talking
about is correct in that is how things work NOW. Though we have been
overcoming this. Or else there wouldn't be black or women in any boardroom.
Change is happening. I don't believe those who say it will always be the same.

P.S. this happened to me more than 10 years ago. I ended up quitting and since
spent the majority of my life working for myself.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _was specifically told by the CEO I would be considered for the position if
> not for my age_

I’ve been told this and it sucks. I made the mistake of trying grovelling and
complaining. Both failed for, with hindsight, fundamental reasons.

If you’re ambitious, you have to develop a political sense. Keeping stock of
leverage relationships is key. If you lack leverage, you can’t make demands.

If you’d represented revenue and threatened to take it elsewhere, the CEO or
Board may have overcome their biases. (If not, you’d get what you wanted by
effecting the threat.)

~~~
4ntonius8lock
Again, what you are saying can be summed up in 'get over it' and 'find a way
around it for yourself'.

That's fine. I actually did.

But it seems really inappropriate to say this here.

We are discussing the insidiousness of discrimination with the hope of
socially being more conscious and finding ways to improve this.

It's kinda like going into a place with victims of racism and saying 'get
over' and 'use your white voice/dress more white' when talking about the issue
of racism. It's out of place, even if the suggestion is coming from a good
place of wanting the best for the other person.

P.S. I had a department with large numbers and strong growth on my side for
leverage, that is why the CEO considered me in the first place. The numbers
took a big hit after I left. If the board would have had more people in their
40s and less in their 70s-80s, I would likely have been accepted. Explaining
to me that this is politics is a bit pedantic in assuming I don't understand
politics.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"Again, what you are saying can be summed up in 'get over it' and 'find a way
around it for yourself'."

That's not what I'm reading in the comment. They are telling you it's a
different game, they focus on what kinds of value you bring that they actually
care about, and you can have leverage in such situations if you are such a
person. From there, you automatically know to be the person delivering on the
metrics that matter to upper management. Maybe to see if you even can before
getting a job in a specific organization. They're telling you how to be more
effective in the event you want to win more at that level.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
This whole thread is coming from an article discussing age bias.

Not ways to avoid getting biased against. Or justifications for biases. So it
makes sense to keep the comments on topic.

Even if my case wasn't an ageist thing, which is a lot of assuming on your
end, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

It takes a certain type of person though to go out and doubt someone when they
say they have suffered from something and have nothing to gain from it.

The assumptions are very pedantic, explaining them only furthers the pedantry.
It's not that I don't understand them. It's that I understand them too well.

------
zebraflask
I'm in that age bracket myself, and have fortunately avoided most of the
abuses described here.

Like the other posters are saying, the real problem is that learning how to
develop good software (or any other technical product) takes time. This is an
experience-based subject - art? craft? - and while I have seen many very
talented younger engineers and developers, their lack of experience with a
whole list of factors that don't involve slapping some code into an IDE, or
what have you, usually means they end up being far less productive than people
like to assume.

Bay Area culture has produced a lot of great things, but this stereotype has
got to go.

------
pleasecalllater
I still require to work in a company where my manager/boss/CTO know much more
than me. I'm almost 40. It's really hard to work for a 20-something guy who
has almost no experience and is happily making all the mistakes he could read
in books about.

Still, finding a job where my boss would know more is more and more
problematic.

When I was 33 I was rejected by a recruiter with "you know, here I have dozens
of resumes of people 10 years younger than you, who have lots of experience in
managing teams. There must be something wrong with you, so I cannot pass your
papers to the client."

Still, looking for a job is a very traumatic experience. The companies are
looking for unicorns: young, cheap, without family (aka drinking in evenings,
working on weekends), with lots of experience, and academic knowledge (which
will never be used).

A couple of times I heard from guys, who would be my managers "oh, I'd love to
have your experience"... the rest of the interviews went smoothly. In all the
places I even didn't get to the step where they asked for the money
requirements. They just didn't answer.

I'm looking for a remote job now. I even made a nicely stripped resume on one
page. My normal has 3 pages. It's a very traumatic experience, especially that
most of the remote companies require knowing almost only some new stuff,
totally ignoring my 18 years of experience in everything else.

Btw... a surgeon of my age is usually not experienced enough to make surgeries
on his/her own. A programmer of my age is usually a useless resource, which is
happily replaced with someone just after the college.

All this makes me sad. The experience is not valued here. So what is? The lack
of experience?

~~~
scarface74
My resume has always been one page. I hate looking over 3 page resumes. I
don’t care what you did in the 90s.

No one cares that I wrote C for DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes in the late
90s or the systems I wrote with a combination of C++/COM and Vb6 in the early
2000s. I only go back 10 years.

In fact, I negotiated _not_ to be a team lead at my current job.

~~~
maxheadroom
> _My resume has always been one page. I hate looking over 3 page resumes. I
> don’t care what you did in the 90s._

This is _very_ culture specific.

Example: Like you, I usually keep a revolving ~10 years history on my CV. As
the years progress, I drop anything > 10 years, as it's really no longer
relevant.

Anyways, I was pointedly asked one time during an interview, recently, for a
company in a different country, " _Where 's the rest of your work history
since university?_"

That was almost 20 years ago, now. You have any idea just how long my CV would
be, now, with all of that information?

/tableflip.gif

~~~
steverb
My solution to this has generally been to add a "1997 - 2000 Various Previous
work history available upon request" at the bottom.

And then just carry a copy or two of the full CV with you to the interview. If
someone wants to see it, let them. Generally interviewers have just been
curious.

~~~
scarface74
Even though I think ageism is overblown in the software development industry
if you are buzzword compliant, I don’t take any chances. I leave everything
off before 2008, my year of graduation and I go completely clean shaven and
bald in an interview. (I’m Black it’s not abnormal). Most non-Blacks have no
idea how old I am without the obvious signs of gray hair or a receding hair
line.

~~~
fjsolwmv
White men can shave bald too, and anyone can dye their hair. There's even a
famous hair dye brand that specifically advertises its product for use in
gaming age doiscrimination! The product (Just For Men) and ads are gender-
discriminatory, of course!

~~~
scarface74
Isn’t being bald culturally more of a negative among White men?

------
Bukhmanizer
Is it just me or is there a way lower bar for evidence when it comes to age
discrimination in tech on Hackernews compared to gender or race
discrimination.

I’m not saying that it’s not a real phenomenon, but pretty much all the
evidence I’ve seen is anecdotal or fairly weak.

While it’s true that a lot of older people are great programmers, I also think
programming ability is only about 50% of what most people are looking for. The
other 50% is about how well you work with others, and I have to say, when I
read a lot of these anecdotes I can’t help but feel like some of people these
people aren’t getting hired because they come off as stubborn assholes.

~~~
rs23296008n1
You're going to get anecdotes on HN because this is a discussion website.

Also, studies on this issue tend to not be well known without effort looking
them up. The asshole factor is relevant but not as much as you would expect.

The actual perception that older workers haven't kept their edge is actually a
common bias I've seen while gathering people for hiring. This bias is probably
common amongst younger looking at older workers (eg 25 year old not hiring 35
year old) but also amongst older looking at less older. Eg a 50 year old won't
hire a 40 year old because they wonder why the 40 year old even wants the
position. Those two viewpoints seem to be recurring patterns at least in my
experience.

You probably want hard data. I'm sure it is out here, Department of labor?

~~~
aiisjustanif
I'll go broad and say unemployment is below 4.0%, Fortune 500 have less age
discrimination probably, and this particular comment section on Hacker News
seems to be a lot of Bay Area/ San Fransisco perspective.

And the article isn't even about Software Devs.

------
outlace
If 70 year olds really are less productive software engineers than single Red
Bull-fueled 22 year olds (on average), and you thus end up hiring less 70 year
olds, is that really discrimination? I get the article has stories from older
people that seem to suggest they are well-qualified for the job and literally
just their age number seems to lose them the job, which of course would be
discriminatory.

But the law suits of companies based on statistical analyses of the number of
older people in the company made it seem like a company can be sued for not
having an expected distribution of ages but it’s not clear what assumptions
are baked into these analyses (ie is it assumed a priori that all ages are
equally productive). Certainly older people are more productive in certain
contexts than others (eg I’ll take an older more experienced surgeon over the
new junior attending any day, but I’ll bet on the young person in a football
match or tasks that require a lot of cognitive flexibility).

~~~
xd
"(eg I’ll take an older more experienced surgeon over the new junior attending
any day, but I’ll bet on the young person in a football match or tasks that
require a lot of cognitive flexibility)"

You seem to be contradicting yourself there, why you would you think an older
surgeon lacks cognitive flexibility?

~~~
neilv
Because "developers get dumb by 30" is an HN meme that just won't go away. So
every new batch of impressionable 20 year-olds hears it, at the same time VCs
and big corps are telling them "you're so smart, now just submit to this
series of hazing rituals."

~~~
bongobongo
This is accurate. Age discrimination is rampant in tech because young people
are essentially recruited as unwitting scabs against their older peers. Aside
from depressing wages and increasing loyalty (via fear of precarity), it’s
also a very effective way to fight unionization, which software desperately
needs (not for compensation reasons, although that will change, but for
professional and ethical reasons).

It’s easy to impress a 24 year-old with a decent salary, a stocked kitchen,
and lots of dumb little perks they can brag about (never mind that they are
being paid, sometimes literally, in peanuts). They don’t start thinking about
job security and labor power until it’s too late.

~~~
esoterica
Based on your description of your priorities one could argue that older
workers are the ones depressing wages, not younger workers. Many older workers
(including you, by your own admission) value job security and work life
balance over raw compensation and are less willing to rock the boat. Younger
workers are more likely to go “fuck you, pay me, and if you don’t I’m going to
move across the country to take up this other job offer I have”. Older
employees with a spouse and kids have much less geographic mobility.

~~~
bongobongo
I understand the point that you are trying to make, but it's off the mark.
Older workers are almost always paid more than younger workers, all else being
equal. Unless there is some seismic shift in the economy, this might as well
be axiomatic. So, it's just not possible for older people to depress the wages
of younger people, unless older people in their prime working years for
compensation (35-55+) for most sectors of the economy (including IT) started
volunteering to do the same work for less compensation. As others in this
thread have already made clear, even when they do that (e.g., out of
desperation due to age discrimination), they're still going to be considered
more "expensive" than a younger worker.

Also, let's be realistic: the vast majority of entry-level software developers
just are not good enough to pull off the kind of thing you describe. They
would be laughed off.

~~~
esoterica
People job hop and use competing offers as leverage for pay raises all the
time. It’s not as rare an occurrence as you seem to think it is.

~~~
bongobongo
I owe 100% of my salary growth to job-hopping, so your assumption is
incorrect.

Look, you made a bad argument. It's not a big deal. The fact is that the
situation you described is frankly ridiculous: the notion that, were it not
for older workers depressing wages, entry-level workers would cause
compensation to go up by being so good at what they do and geographically
flexible that they can go from metro area to metro area telling employers to
fuck off until somebody recognizes them for the genius that they are. (It's a
nice fantasy, though.)

------
forinti
Head of HR once asked me what type of people we needed. I said we desperately
needed older people. 20-year-old project managers don't have a clue. Company
went under, he sells air-conditioning now.

~~~
JudgeWapner
> 20-year-old project managers don't have a clue

maybe the company should have had policies that gave their managers more
clues?

> he sells air-conditioning now.

probably makes more (and accomplishes more) than many engineers, especially
ones at vapor-ware startups.

~~~
WilliamEdward
> maybe the company should have had policies that gave their managers more
> clues?

Nah, I think management is just a job that requires experience and
certification like any other job to be truly good at. People have this idea
that "it's management, how hard can it be"... Turns out, really hard.

Only the qualified should be managers, not some 20 year old whose only
qualification is being 'good with people'.

------
Cannibusted
Yeah, I am in my mid 40s, and it was wild to interview for a new job after 5
years. Things have really changed in that short time.

I posted a portfolio that showed, if you want this, hire me! My resume was
standard, listing out my projects and summarizing my experience.

I had good references that I rarely shared unless it was the last stages, so
they wouldn't get bombarded. I applied weekly to new opps, keeping track for
the inevitable unemployment record as well.

Results: My huge project list showed my age. Some companies clearly weren't
interested... they wanted new programmers, younger, not stuck in the past,
etc. I couldn't understand some companies purpose, so new agey with today's
internet and reddit culture.

Still, I got 20–30 emails a day! Constant phone calls, messages, occasional
scams. Did 2 in-person interviews. I found a great new job, remote
programming, in 3-4 months! It was a blur!

The secret is respect, communication, wisdom and quick reflexes, in my case.

~~~
cableshaft
Where did you post these things for other people to discover?

------
throwayscid3
I'm 47 and have run my own companies, exited some of them with handsome
returns, enjoyed many cool start-up projects, worked for some fortune-50
companies, have an IQ that is through the roof, but despite everything, since
around 7 years am unable to get a job. Mostly I'm "overqualified" or "just too
old" ... never mind I am still hands-on and happy to just get paid whatever
the Junior gets, but nobody is interested. Since I've hit the end of 30ies
I've become invisible.

This has costed me my marriage, the relationship with my kids who don't talk
to me. That lead to a decline in my mental health and physical health. Lack of
connections costed me a lot of friends too. I quit all social media because
that too radicalized me a lot (nothing else to do when you're sitting on your
arse).

For some parts of 2018 and most of 2019 I was homeless. In the past 6 months
tried to kill myself twice. Once with heroin (never took it before), second
time with Fentanyl. Making sure nobody would find me I went into the woods on
a several day hike and shot enough to kill a horse, but both times I woke up
with a massive hangover 2 days later. I can assure you it wasn't a cry for
fucking help. Everything was done right and I am not supposed to be here, yet
for some reason I still fucking am.

When I still had the energy to open up to people after they asked why I'm
falling apart nobody listened. Everyone focused on me losing my family so they
told me I should get "help", others told me I should just lower my expectation
when it comes to jobs. How much lower can you go? Junior jobs are pointless
because they don't want to talk to people my age but people who they can
"shape" to their ideology.

But seriously fuck them, and fuck their ignorance. They dare to ask "what is
the problem" yet when they hear they are so incapable of helping that their
best and only suggestion is to "seek professional help". Yes why not outsource
the problem to a professional because sure as fuck I have no time to bother
with your problems (which compared to my non-problems sound pretty fucking
real).

Nobody even considers that my problem isn't drugs, or being suicidal, or
becoming estranged, and that my problem is simply that I don't get a job. I
never thought I would end up at this point because everything went well for
me. Well at least until I got "old". Guess we all gotta go at some stage. I
had a great time so maybe I shouldn't complain. It's probably better to leave
when you're still ahead (I made the mistake of still being here).

throwaway for obvious reasons.

~~~
WilliamEdward
Forgive me for going against the hackernews age discrimination rhetoric,
but...

> have an IQ that is through the roof

Who talks like this? I would never unironically mention my own IQ. I can't
help but feel something's missing in this suspiciously heartfelt story.

Still, I'm sorry this happened, if it happened.

~~~
mixmastamyk
It’s a throwaway account, meaning one can be honest.

------
chiph
At a previous job an older coworker dyed his hair dark to get the job. He let
it go back to gray afterwards.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I wonder what they thought of that.

------
numon
I suspect it is a deep seated human tendency to look up to and defer to the
experience of those who are older than you (parents, community elders), so
people are naturally uncomfortable with "senior underlings". Junior bosses
will inevitably feel their decisions and position threatened by people older
than them, especially in more general settings.

Throw in the conflation of skill with seniority, leading to an expectation of
adjusting wage to age (not skill), our culture's infatuation with youth and
the reliance on heuristics to save time and you have a situation highly
unsuited to our present job-hopping lifestyles. Finding a job is more about
"who you know, not what you know", which just makes things worse since age
groups tend to cluster. This then gets explained as "cultural fit".

IME HR is all about risk avoidance. HR is not about finding the best
candidate, it is concerned about finding the safest. The older folk may be the
best, but they are not the safest, because they tend to have empty patches in
their resume and the soft skills like wisdom, communication skills, tend not
to be expressible in resume form.

It's never easy going against ingrained norms, especially when they are held
by other people. Until the current millenial tech companies hit middle age, I
don't see things changing much. Business opportunity?

------
rdiddly
The ironic thing of course is that it's hard to imagine what actual advantage
a practice of age discrimination might provide. All real and true criteria for
a job can be tested for directly; there's no need to make age a dubiously-
accurate proxy for any of those. It literally makes no sense. From the
COMPANY'S point of view.

~~~
tyingq
The perceived benefit is avoiding someone with reasonable salary and work hour
expectations.

~~~
rdiddly
Yeah but you can do that by means of "salary and work hour discrimination,"
see what I'm saying? Those are things you can state outright, legally. Just
make it clear that those are parameters of the job, and if they accept the
job, they accept the job. I dunno maybe I've gone completely batshit crazy up
in here.

~~~
tyingq
No, you're right, they are just doing it the quick/lazy way. Older workers are
also less liable to drink all the other corporate koolaid that might be harder
to test for.

------
rs23296008n1
Age is just one of the filters that companies use to cull the list of
candidates.

Buzzword compliance is another set of filters.

Even being unemployed is used against you. Gaps between periods of employment
are seen by some interviewers as evidence of possible prison time.

These same organizations then complain about not being able to find candidates
for various positions.

------
allenu
I'm 41 and still have recruiters contacting me and generally do well in
interviews. I'm lucky in that the skills I have are harder to find (8 or so
years doing iOS development). I also have to admit that one thing that helps
me tremendously is that I look young. Just about everyone I work with assumes
I am still in my 20s based on my appearance. They all act shocked once they do
find out that I'm older. Looking young helps a lot with rapport in interviews
since the interviewers feel more at ease that I'm "one of them" rather than
some old guy.

~~~
rootusrootus
In my experience attitude and connections count for the most. I'm 45 and I
don't have any problems finding new opportunities. But I never go through the
front door, it's always a referral. I can't imagine having a real problem
until I'm in my 60s. At least around here, there just aren't so many
programmers that we can afford to turn away qualified people just because they
are in their 40s or 50s. If they know their shit, they're welcome to work for
us. We've got developers ranging from 20-65, pretty evenly distributed.

~~~
paulkon
What geographical area do you work in? Any skill in particular that you find
helps you stand out?

------
dba7dba
You know what I find really ironic?

The successes of startups in Silicon Valley really drove up the compensation
of programmers. But these same startups have founders/managers who openly
state they prefer younger programmers, and direct their HR/recruiters to act
accordingly. And now, we have whole classes of programmers who can't get a job
at all.

It's pretty obvious no recruiter lost his/her job for passing on resumes of
younger programmers.

Also, the SV is really the bastion of anti discrimination. Which is great. But
they replaced it with something else, ageism.

Just my 2 cents.

------
thih9
> You’re in private mode. Log in or create a free New York Times account to
> continue reading in private mode.

This is the first time I'm seeing this message and I hope this doesn't become
a trend.

~~~
manfredo
Do browsers announce that they're incognito? Would it be difficult to disable
this flag?

~~~
jaredsohn
Incognito can be detected by via javascript looking at how the browser behaves
differently in incognito.

It looks like some of these detection mechanisms go away as Chrome gets
updated but like seo, spam, viruses, and other such problems etc. there is a
war aspect between trying to exploit and avoid exploiting.

Some details can be found here:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-
determin...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-determine-if-
chrome-is-in-incognito-mode-via-a-script/27805491#27805491)

~~~
manfredo
I don't see how it'd be difficult to just obfuscate this. If it tries to write
a cookie then let it write a cookie, just clear it on the next page reload. I
don't see how it should be able to distinguish between an incognito browser
and a non-incognito browser that has no history and is navigating to the page
in question for the first time.

I guess some things around local storage can be used to infer incognito mode,
but I think it'd be straightforward to just write all local storage usage to
memory instead of disk.

~~~
jaredsohn
The stackoverflow link I included says that the FileSystem API is disabled in
incognito mode so its absence suggests the user is connecting via an incognito
tab.

------
soneca
What about older _junior_ developers?

I am 39yo, but I do not relate with these stories from people with 20+ years
of experience in tech. I am a frontend developer for two years only, moving to
Los Angeles just now and looking for a job.

Anyone would like to comment if my age and my lack of experience programming
will compound and make extra hard for me to get a job?

------
vinceguidry
The way I look at it, when you work in tech, it doesn't take long for fields
to become stratified. I've gotten turned down for a senior job for not having
enough "agile experience." Really? Am you looking for an engineer or a project
manager?

I think every single programmer needs to be looking forward to the day where
every single job move is at best a lateral one, so it's going to make more
sense to move towards business rather than staying in IC if you want upward
mobility as a 'regular' coder.

I suspect IC technical jobs are going to be the next professional class,
you're either going to be in when that happens or you're going to be out. You
won't realize it's happened and you're not in until you get laid off and
replaced by a contractor at a fraction of your salary, and you won't be able
to find a job except as one of those contractors.

The reckoning is coming guys. Get ready for it.

~~~
pmiller2
I was recently rejected for a job for not having enough “API experience.” I
have been a backend engineer for 5 years. Regardless of whatever the hell “API
experience” is supposed to be, my entire career has been designing,
implementing, and calling APIs.

~~~
vinceguidry
A recruiter gave me a great piece of advice, to ask the question towards the
end of the interview, "is there anything that would cause you to think I'm not
quite qualified for the position," this way you can get such concerns out in
front and be able to address them while it's still convenient and before they
reject you for it.

~~~
pmiller2
I did ask those things. Don’t underestimate people’s unwillingness to look you
in the eye and tell you the truth when they think you might not like it.

------
invalidOrTaken
Seen on Mastodon (not me):

>Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested
in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I always get the urge to
ask "What did you do with the old ones you had?"

>Where are all those programmers you hired 5-20 years ago? Why is no
programmer at your company older than 40? Why do you have _senior_ software
engineers that are 25 years old? What did you do to all those people?

>If you can't take care of your employees, no wonder you never have enough.

~~~
rolltiide
there are obvious answers, likely interrelated

older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no
matter whether they liked coding or management more. the ones that failed in
some way - meaning a disruption in their spending and earning capability - are
the only ones on the market trying to get programming jobs, and complaining
about it.

fixing the earning trajectory in a programming track helps fix this outcome
too. FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already
hired.

~~~
jobigoud
> older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no
> matter whether they liked coding or management more.

This just implies they like keeping their career trajectory more than coding.

~~~
lallysingh
They like paying their mortgage and providing for their families more than
coding.

~~~
scarface74
If you live anywhere besides the west coast in a major city and have 7-10
years of experience you can easily make $130K as a senior developer. That puts
you right at the 5th quintile of household income.

If your spouse is making even $50K that puts you in the top decile.

[https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-
calculator/](https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/)

You don’t need to move into middle management to comfortable support a family.

~~~
lallysingh
And how are the schools? The quality of life?

Vs just sucking it up and doing your own hacking on the own time. Even if you
write code all day at work, you should be doing some at home, because we need
to keep up on the latest tech in a risk-tolerant environment (like personal
projects that can fail with no loss). Companies can't afford to take on the
project risk of leading edge/research level tech.

So hack on the cool stuff at home. Treat your job as a job. There's no
principal broken by going into management.

~~~
scarface74
_And how are the schools? The quality of life?_

Like I said in another post, I just bought a 5 bedroom/3-1/2 bath house, 3000+
square foot house with a large office for $330K two years ago in the northern
burbs of Atlanta where the school systems are ranked in the top 15%
nationwide. It is the most affluent county in GA and one of the fastest
growing in the nation. Three exits down the same size house is going for about
$450K and you’re in one of the 10 most affluent cities in the nation -Johns
Creek GA. ([http://money.com/money/collection-post/4504851/richest-
towns...](http://money.com/money/collection-post/4504851/richest-towns-
america/))

 _Vs just sucking it up and doing your own hacking on the own time. Even if
you write code all day at work, you should be doing some at home, because we
need to keep up on the latest tech in a risk-tolerant environment (like
personal projects that can fail with no loss). Companies can 't afford to take
on the project risk of leading edge/research level tech._

When I’m at home, I’m exercising, spending time with my wife and son, and just
relaxing. If I can’t keep up with the latest tech at work, it’s time to change
jobs.

Yes I will do work related side projects to learn a new to me technology, or
proof of concepts with newer technology that aren’t on the critical path. I
also work at small companies where I do get my hands dirty with everything
from the front end to playing around with whatever I want to with a DEV AWS
Account.

I don’t do “leading edge technology”. They are probably not widely marketable
yet. I stay on the far end of “the slope of enlightenment” going to “Plateau
of Productivity” of the Hype Cycle.

My resume is very buzzword compliant

------
quotemstr
It's interesting that corporate diversity reports provide population
breakdowns for demographic categories involved in heated political debates but
seldom (never, in my experience) provide breakdowns according to other
categories that might be just as important for diversity of thought, e.g. age
and political affiliation.

~~~
pmiller2
Political affiliation? What would that have to do with working as a software
engineer (for instance) at most companies?

------
aiisjustanif
Sorry, but this comment section is primarily focused Bay Area, LeetCode,
California, and Software Devs.

Mean while the story doesn't focus on any of those things in particular. How
is an old gentleman getting turned away from a job at a restaurant chain,
Season 52, for, "Not looking young enough" relate to any of that and the
broader issue of Age discrimination across the board. The anecdotal stories
are cool and fine obviously.

But normally non-tech postings on Hacker-News, especially political news
stories/articles, lead to discussion about what was discussed _in_ the article
at least somewhat... And I'd like to see that. Just found it odd. Don't mind
me if this sentiment isn't shared.

------
threwawasy1228
Can anyone tell me if this is felt all over specifically in areas like the
midwest or the south? Or does this problem happen mainly in the weird zones of
silicon valley and NYC?

------
ramgorur
I am going to hit 37 this year. I am still a student doing a PhD (an
international student). These kind of story scares me.

------
sn
I would be more than happy to help find work for anyone who is unemployed due
to being "overqualified."

------
AtlasBarfed
.... why not contract?

------
m3kw9
There is also a whiteboard bias

------
alkonaut
Age is not a problem, just avoid companies younger than yourself and I think
you’ll do just fine.

------
amk069
In IT, employers find it much easier to scale with junior employees. It is not
about their age, but rather the fact that they are cheap and available. Old
people tend to be expensive and less likely to change jobs.

Job ads address people more likely to be a good fit. That's it.

------
ajcodez
Young people have more variable potential. If you hire a young person they
might be 100x or 10x or 1x in a couple years. If you hire an old person you
already know they aren’t 100x or 10x otherwise they would be above you in the
org chart or retired. There’s nothing wrong with 1x, but preference for young
people is common sense all else being equal. And it’s never equal in terms of
salary expectations and extra effort.

~~~
bojo
Advancement is typically a pyramid, which means not everyone can reach the
top. It is impossible for everyone to “be above you in the org chart or
retired.”

~~~
ajcodez
You made my point better than I did. “Not everyone can reach the top.” Young
people have had fewer opportunities to reach the top. Not being at the top is
a negative signal that gets stronger every year.

~~~
DataWorker
There’s no room for those young people, so the chance one will be 100x,
whatever you mean by that, is effectively 0. Young people are malleable and
cheap. The majority of workers are never more than commodity labor. As the
saying goes anyone can be replaced. That being the case cheaper and easier to
exploit is what’s being optimized for. But they’ll let you think you got a
shot at 100x, it’s how the scam work kiddo.

~~~
dba7dba
ONLY a kiddo would say something like

> If you hire a young person they might be 100x or 10x or 1x in a couple
> years.

100x?

