
Age Discrimination at Work - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/business/millennials-age-discrimination.html
======
wyclif
I'm now over 50 years old, a full stack web developer, and I'm married and
have two kids, an 8 year old and a 1 year old baby.

I've been in this industry for a while. I started out as a system
administrator writing a lot of bash and Perl scripts, taking care of mail
servers and DNS, and doing a lot of corporate backups. That job is now called
"DevOps", and I've made the transition.

I now work in Python 3, Django, Ruby, JavaScript, Kubernetes, and AWS. I
haven't been standing still, and I firmly believe the key to avoiding career
stagnation is to be constantly learning and educating yourself and never being
satisfied with the status quo.

I've been fortunate, as a remote worker, that I haven't really experienced
severe negative consequences (at least not yet...knock on wood) from age
discrimination. Yet the shadow of ageism is always there, and I hear stories
from friends about incredibly insensitive and cringe-worthy age
discrimination.

I'm content with my role as a "grey beard" (I'm actually clean-shaven now, but
back in the day I had a huge red UNIX hacker beard). But I'm not happy with
the way the tech industry treats older workers. I'm supportive of legal
protections for older workers in tech. We are not all dinosaurs. Many of us
know, for instance, how to sniff out fads from real forward leaps, and we have
deep industry experience that can be leveraged by employers open-minded enough
to hire us.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
I've never worked with a significantly older person (in tech anyways), but I
would happily lean on them for sniffing out fads. Even in my 30's, it's kinda
hard to tell what's a fad and what's not.

I really don't understand why there is a bias against age. Programming, for
me, is a daily exercise in epistemic humility, and I can't fathom having the
kind of arrogance to discount the experience and wisdom that comes with age.

~~~
alxlaz
> I really don't understand why there is a bias against age.

I've observed this first-hand while doing interviews. Even in companies that
insist there's no bias against age, and even with people who insist they don't
have any bias, there _is_ nonetheless a preference for hiring:

* People who don't have a clear understanding of how much their work is worth and therefore have difficulties negotiating a high salary

* People who openly display enthusiasm -- and this is especially true among HR and higher-level managers, who can't really discern technical expertise so they look at things they can assess themselves. Enthusiasm is obviously good to have but it's no substitute for expertise, commitment and discipline, all of which are hard to evaluate if you have little or no technical experience.

* People who have no strong personal commitments and don't mind doing overtime on a short notice

* People who are enthusiastic about new technology, because they enable ambitious team leaders' and managers' experiments and pet projects instead of skeptically cautioning against them.

* People who have no trouble buying into a new company's culture, even when it's of questionable value (i.e. people who can quickly assimilate and integrate in even the most toxic working environments, as opposed to people who can recognize one, understand what kind of damage it does, and quickly go fsck it, this ain't worth it!)

Experienced programmers know their worth and aren't twenty year-olds that you
can walk all over if you have a fancy title. So there are a lot of hiring
managers who would be okay with hiring a 50-year old candidate, but have
difficulty finding a 50-year old candidate that they'd be willing to hire.

~~~
tacostakohashi
This is indeed a good breakdown of things that aren't intended as age
discrimination, but look at feel a lot like it.

Another factor is that many large companies have roles and expectations tied
to length of experience - so if you have 20 years experience, fine, you're
being compared with other candidates with 20 years of experience, and people
who have been with the company for 20 years and promoted a few times.

In this situation, it's not the case that a candidate with 5 years experience,
and a candidate with 20 years experience that are both qualified for an
opening are compared against each other and the more experienced candidate
will be preferred.

When comparing candidates with 20 years of experience _against each other_ ,
there's huge variation. Some have been developing, are well-rounded, and have
worked in a variety of interesting roles, others have been doing similar
things, piecemeal work, contracting with no overall ownership, and not so much
to show for it. It's the difference between 20 years of growth, versus the
same year 20 times over.

~~~
Hermitian909
This is a very good point imo, I've met engineers with 15 yoe I consider worse
than some engineers with 2 precisely for this reason.

Related to this is that there are social problems about not getting good
enough fast enough. I had a chat at one point with a developer who just hit 40
was struggling to find work and asked for some feedback. I asked him to
explain Depth First Search to me and he couldn't do it, he was quite confident
he could _implement_ it, but not explain it.

Now, if he were 20 with no yoe, I might chalk that up to inexperience and bank
on being able teach him, but at 15 yoe you don't know DFS well enough to
explain it the odds of you getting it now are slim.

The inability to answer problems of _at least_ this complexity leads to a
social problem in the workplace: the young guys are going to go to this older,
experienced employee and ask them to explain something along the same lines of
complexity as DFS. In my experience, one of three things will happen:

1\. They explain it poorly, the younger employees will believe them, and now I
have two employees with a shared misunderstanding 2\. They explain it poorly,
the younger employees will not believe him, and now they won't respect them
3\. They say they don't know how to solve the problem, the younger employees
won't respect them

All of these results slowly lead to a dysfunctional team.

------
fiblye
I was applying to a job with a large game studio. The interview was going
pretty well, I'd thought. We talked a bit about how we'd implement certain
gameplay elements, the content of the projects we've worked on, and overall it
just seemed good and we all seemed to get along pretty well.

Then they asked me how old I was. Their response to my age was, "Oh... maybe
it's a little late then. You're not too old, but... kind of cutting it close
by just a bit."

I was 26.

~~~
justanother
In the United States, literally nobody should be asking your age during a job
interview.

~~~
robin_reala
In the UK (and I suspect all of the EU?) it’s specifically illegal to
discriminate on age ([https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-
discrimination](https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination)), and
when I was last interviewing there HR would remove any birthdates that came in
on CVs before passing them over to the interviewers.

~~~
klingonopera
In Germany, it's customary to include a picture of yourself in your CV.

...I think you can figure out your chances, if you don't include one.

EDIT: I'm saying this to show how the German (who are European) employers will
try to circumvent such age discriminating laws. You get it taught in school,
in vocational training, at jobless centers, self-help books and the Internet,
that the picture must be of "high-quality", in a sense already arguing past
the necessity of why they'd even require one in the first place. I personally
do not agree with this practice, though it seems, that more and more employees
are becoming aware of this and employers are starting to respect that too.

~~~
tjungblut
For that exact reason I'm rejecting everybody that puts a picture on a CV in
Germany.

~~~
markdown
Well that's just silly. If it's the norm, why penalise people who're just
doing it the way they think everyone else will.

Better to specify in your job ad that you won't accept CV's with pics.

~~~
klingonopera
...I guess he's looking for people out-of-the-norm and willing/able to stand
up to their convictions?

I wouldn't put a picture, but when I had to write some CVs here, I caved in
and put a photo. I used to think it was a fault of mine to be so far off the
norm, and I tried really hard to fit in. It just didn't work out for me.
Today, I think I know that this is what can make me valuable.

EDIT: ...but it is kind of a play of statistics vs. faith, and I think that
one shouldn't fault someone, if they can't pull the faith together for it. A
comment on my parent comment tells about someone applying in the US with a
comical picture. That person was able to afford applying in such a way, but
when you really need a job, because money or family, would you really take
that risk/leap of faith? EDIT2: ...or that could also be signalling, that
someone is high-risk taker, which could also be an attribute an employer is
looking for.

------
jasoneckert
I've seen and heard of age discrimination in non-tech industries, but in the
tech industry I believe that age discrimination is often mistaken for skills
obsolescence.

As a software developer for as long as I can remember, I'm actually at the top
of my game now in my 40s - I can software engineer (plan) off the top of my
head, and my tenacity is balanced with a sense of direction I never had as a
younger developer. I spend half the time developing and produce 10 times the
results (there's still crunch time every so often though).

The trick is to keep your mind active - I have a job that allows me to do a
lot of side development projects outside of working hours, and I always take
on a new project at least once a year that is out of my comfort zone (if it
looks impossible, it's perfect).

~~~
resoluteteeth
Whenever topics like this come up on HN, there are always tons of people in
their 30s and 40s posting comments like this, which boil down to something
like: "I'm not old enough to experience age discrimination yet, and I'm scared
but I'm going to keep up with the latest languages/frameworks so I will be
special and not be discriminated against like all the other developers, who
allowed their skills to deteriorate when they got older."

On the other hand, when people who are already in their 50s post about this
topic, they are saying things like, "My phone interview went really great and
they were impressed by my skills, but when I went in their attitude changed
the second they saw how old I am."

~~~
bilbo0s
My take is a bit different, and it may explain the phenomenon you've noticed
on HN.

TLDR; I believe a lot of people mistake price discrimination as age
discrimination.

Long version: Let's say you need some code monkey to slap together go or rust
services. Well, sure, you get a lot of people applying with 25 years
experience, you also get a lot of people applying with 5 years experience.

Now here's the rub, it's highly unlikely that anyone's been coding go or rust
services for 20 years in any case. (To be honest, it's even unlikely that
anyone's been coding go or rust services for 5.) So any of those applicants,
as long as their references check out, will do.

Which salary do I want to pay?

If I have a low level, quasi hardware layer service that I need coded in C or
C++? Fine, yes, experience matters. It matters a lot in those instances, and
I'd be foolish to hire some kid to do that. But there is less and less of that
kind of work. (Flip side being that such work is more and more critical.) The
dirty secret of the tech industry however, is that most work is just CRUD
equivalent stuff that could be satisfactorily accomplished by any warm bodied
techie. So it just makes no sense to pay more for those warm bodies.

~~~
rfrey
Isn’t that solved by specifying “junior developer” or “intermediate
developer”? Or by including the salary range?

~~~
commandlinefan
It should be - but I’m positive that everybody with over 10 years experience
is calling themselves a “senior developer” by now. There’s no level after
that, so most everybody over 35 is a senior developer.

~~~
scarface74
There are “principal developers” and architects, but just like with products
and the “Innovator’s Dilemma” at some point, your skillset overserves the
market. After a certain level of competence, experience doesn’t add value if
you’re applying to be a developer for yet another software as a service crud
app. Either be happy with salary stagnation and cost of living raises (if
that) or move on to greener pastures.

~~~
commandlinefan
Well, I’d be way happy if I could spend the next 20 years making what I’m
making now (adjusted for inflation) doing what I’m doing now, but it seems
like there’s a certain age where your salary expectation is $0 - IF you’re in
software. I don’t get why this doesn’t happen to doctors, lawyers,
accountants, etc.

~~~
scarface74
I keep reading that. But from what I’ve seen from corporate America and
outside of the startup culture, if you keep your skills and network current,
there are still opportunities. That being said, I’m 45 and the oldest ICs that
I know are late 40s early 50s. One has started only applying for remote work.

------
bachmeier
One thing I don't like, which was present in this article, is throwing up our
hands and saying "but there's nothing we can do". Of course there is. Nobody
says that about racial discrimination. The simple truth is that age
discrimination is not generally viewed as a problem. The attitude is that
older workers aren't as productive, so let's let companies do what they want.
In some states, the same argument used to be made about non-white workers, and
the people that lived there had the same attitude.

~~~
lacampbell
_One thing I don 't like, which was present in this article, is throwing up
our hands and saying "but there's nothing we can do". Of course there is.
Nobody says that about racial discrimination._

You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!? Seems
to me they absolutely are, which is why I don't think "we can do" much about
age discrimination either.

~~~
foldr
>You think people aren't racially discriminating when they hire people!?

That isn't what the GP said. The GP pointed out that it is possible to do
something about discrimination if we make a concerted effort. Racial
discrimination has not been eliminated but has been significantly reduced.

~~~
lacampbell
All you can do is make it harder (not impossible, just harder) to openly
mention race as a factor in hiring. Three people may decide independently to
base their hiring decision on the race of a candidate without ever bringing it
up. Hell they might do it without even admitting it to themselves.

Maybe I'm wrong. But if you ever come to Auckland, NZ I could show you a lot
of suspicious coincidences.

~~~
foldr
If what you were saying was true, there'd still be just as much racism in
hiring as there was in the 50s. That's patently not the case.

And that's not "all you can do". Societal attitudes regarding race have
shifted dramatically over the past few decades.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
It's improved since the 50s because racism in hiring was legal then, until we
passed a law in the 60s banning it. Social attitudes regarding race have
shifted dramatically since 1990 (less than half of Americans approved of mixed
race marriages then!), but it's not my impression that this has translated to
less racism in hiring than 1990.

We also banned discriminating against older people in the 60s, so it's not
clear where to go from here.

------
nearmuse
That is not good advice at all. All it says is "it is up to you old people to
put all the effort you can muster at competing with the young". Not everyone
gets to look immaculate in their 60s, not everyone gets to occupy a
"(prominent) wise elder" position in life by that age either. Just as well,
fitting in with fleeting trends is not something people should have to
prioritize to be considered productive. What about people who were not so
lucky and have health problems or very limiting responsibilities?

I am under 30 by the way, but I am afraid of some grotesque Logan's run
scenario where I will lose control over my life just because of age.

~~~
gbacon
If you’re that far along in your career and are still in direct competition
with very junior people, then yes, you had better differentiate yourself!

An employee is a seller of labor, and an employer is a buyer. To make the
sale, the job seeker must demonstrate the strongest possible value. A lot of
outside obligations or time otherwise required to be away from work, all else
being equal, makes competitors look relatively more attractive.

Put yourself in the employer’s shoes. Say your toilet is backed up. I’ll
assume you’re a homeowner responsible for getting it fixed and not a renter.
The first thing you’d likely do is ask your friends to recommend a good
plumber. Then you’ll start making phone calls. You probably don’t want someone
still in trade school. The best plumber in town may be very expensive or
unavailable for a couple of weeks. You have an urgent problem! You talk to
another plumber with a reasonable rate but may have to pop in and out of the
job on short notice. You need your toilet unstopped _today_ , which means good
rate, good reputation, can get there today, and who will stay until the job is
done.

~~~
nearmuse
I would rather put my effort into differentiating myself with job-related
skills without having to "bite back" and "form support groups". This is what
exactly I didn't like as advice in this piece.

------
Zenst
30 years ago the discrimination was firmly against young people, today it has
flipped on its head. Yet we have larger HR departments, rules, etc etc. So
some serious questions need to be asked.

But having felt the brunt of age discrimination when I was young and now
older, I kinda angst. Kinda feel like generation discriminated sometimes
having caught it at both ends.

~~~
rco8786
Guessing you’re Gen X?

As a millennial (albeit a slightly older one) this is the reason I tend to not
worry about this. We’ll be the dominant age group in the workforce for the
next 20 years, there’s no reason for us to discriminate against ourselves.

~~~
mdorazio
Hahahaha, I see you've never been around startups. Try walking in the door of
an SV tech startup in a few years and tell me there's no age discrimination
going on. There's little evidence to suggest the trend is generation-
dependent.

~~~
rco8786
Startups represent a tiny fraction of the workforce.

~~~
scoobyyabbadoo
Oh yeah? Next you'll be telling me video game studios make up a tiny fraction
of the workforce!

------
rayraegah
We had two young engineers (who are no longer with us now) discriminate
against applicants for software development roles because of their age,
religion, or origins. One of them is a google developer expert and he quite
openly rejected people by discriminating against their age (anyone 40+) and
beliefs. I didn’t want to veto the hiring decisions even though I could have
because at the end of the day they’ll have to work with him.

Then we had a 58 year old engineer apply for an open position. Happy to say
that we hired him and it was purely on merit (even sponsored his visa). The
retirement age is 60 but his ambitions go beyond that. Needless to say he is
one of the best on our team right now.

~~~
resoluteteeth
> We had two young engineers (who are no longer with us now) discriminate
> against applicants for software development roles because of their age,
> religion, or origins. One of them is a google developer expert and he quite
> openly rejected people by discriminating against their age (anyone 40+) and
> beliefs. I didn’t want to veto the hiring decisions even though I could have
> because at the end of the day they’ll have to work with him.

I'm not sure that's a great reason to condone illegal discrimination.

------
mattbillenstein
I've effectively "fixed" a couple startups built by fresh college grads and
interns and made a pretty penny doing it.

I think some companies and some founders have thought engineering was an area
where they could cut corners by not hiring experienced people, and they have
learned this is a good way to fail.

That being said, you want a mix - more seasoned people leading the direction,
processes, and technology selection; and younger people for their energy,
enthusiasm, and willingness to learn new things.

~~~
alexfromapex
This is actually an example of age discrimination. Young people can be in
leadership too. I always see conversations about ageism in tech drift towards
older workers but as someone who was precocious I was often denied
opportunities I was ready for because I didn’t have “enough experience”.

~~~
hunter2_
The central theme of anti-discrimination is not judging people for things out
of their control (age, gender, race, somehow religion gets in this category
too, etc.) and instead being free to judge them for any of the things that
they do control.

Experience is a weird one in that it's what they've chosen to do (ok to use)
but wanting to see more experience will either mean they had more time to do
things (not ok to use) or didn't waste so much of the time they had (ok on the
surface, but you'd need to know the person's age to calculate whether or not
the amount of experience you desire was within the range of possibility for
them).

------
bartread
I think employers discriminate against older people to their own detriment. We
have a couple of people in their 50s in our tech team, as well as a broad
spread in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We very fortunate to have a fantastic team
across the board, which very much includes our most experienced members.

Granted they tend to be more expensive, but older people have numerous
advantages that deliver value which more than offsets the direct costs of
salary and benefits:

\- More experience (obviously!): not just in terms of work, but in terms of
life

\- This often means better social skills, and also greater resilience

\- Experience means they're often just better at what they do than less
experienced staff

\- They tend to have family commitments, which means they want to work sane
hours, which to me helps set a healthy cultural precedent

\- They tend to know themselves well, and are often more settled/content; this
can mean less political game playing and jockeying for position/trying to
prove themselves. This isn't to suggest they lack ambition, although their
priorities are often different, but they tend to be more graceful in trying to
achieve their ambitions

\- They seem less likely to burdened by an overdeveloped sense of entitlement

All of these are generalisations and there will, of course, be exceptions, but
I think it's hard to argue against these characteristics as being more
prevalent amongst older workers.

When it comes to tricky pastoral and technical situations, I often find myself
leaning quite heavily on the wisdom of my older team members. I really
wouldn't be without them[1].

 _[1] N.B., at 43 I 'm no spring chicken myself._

------
k__
The problem aren't old people, it's people who sit in their cushy employment
for ages, don't want to learn something new and try to do things the way they
know.

Those can be young too, but I guess since time is a factor here, the older
people are the higher the chances they got >5 years of business as usual in
their pockets.

I personally prefer diverse ages in my teams, but I also met some awesome devs
who learned their skills with analog computers, haha

------
Jordanpomeroy
In my experience age discrimination is real. All large companies explicitly
discriminate against young employees because US law does not prevent it (50+
becomes the protected class).

Most young corporate employees are promoted on a schedule. The inputs to that
algorithm are age and performance.

Large companies explicitly discriminate against young employees by paying them
less and refusing to promote them without considering their age.

~~~
mdorazio
This is a common young person view.

You're probably conflating age and experience level here. You also seem to be
assuming that people necessarily get promoted at regular intervals based on
age - that's flat-out demonstrably not true. If it was true, everyone at age X
would be a manager, everyone at age Y would be a director, etc. I've consulted
with a lot of big cos and it's extremely common to see people well into their
40s who haven't made it to a manager role, and certainly most people will
never make director no matter how old they get.

What happens is that there tend to be implicit experience minimums, not age
minimums. To get to manager you need X years experience in the
industry/department, director requires Y years, etc. If you start later in
life, the age at which you hit that minimum will change. Big co promotions are
also tied into politics and visibility of things you've worked on. Plenty of
young people shoot up the ranks quickly because they're either well-connected
or talked/lucked their way into working on something of high importance and
visibility to the company early on.

~~~
koreth1
> it's extremely common to see people well into their 40s who haven't made it
> to a manager role

"You aren't a manager, therefore your career is a stalled-out failure" is a
pretty outdated view. It's getting to be the norm for companies (at least in
tech) to have parallel career tracks for managers and individual contributors.
Principal/staff engineers at big tech companies have more responsibility and
higher compensation than almost any of their management-track colleagues. I'll
grant you that the very top position (CEO) is always a management role,
though.

------
chopete
Saying "there is age discrimination in the tech industry" is looking at the
symptoms. The root cause is not being able to look at it from the system's
viewpoint that causes it.

Tech industry especially the cutting/bleeding edge segment, is a crapshoot.
Its survival depends on breaking rules, boundaries, assumptions and being
starry-eyed believers

Seasoned engineers appear to "project" they are fixated on things knowingly or
unknowingly. If you are doing it unknowingly - time to review one's
communication style.

Also, this segment survives (or emerges out of) by riding the technology
shifts. For example, here is a shift in the software programming segment.
green screen -> desktop -> web -> mobile -> deep learning.

Most companies do prefer to hire senior members who have experience with prior
technology segment and are attempting a newer one.

------
xyzal
My experience: I work in one of the more conservative IT branches (healthcare
IT) and the grey beards I have met (usually old coders who did not submit to
the management lure) were most of the time really inspiring people in terms of
professional (and sometimes 'humane') insight.

This gives me hope, as I love my job and do not intend to leave my chosen
career anytime soon.

------
mcgwiz
Age is just a heuristic. It's not an age gap, it's a culture gap.

Expectations of one's job are vastly different (fulfill all of my personal
needs versus provide financial stability to support my personal life; work-
life blend versus work-life balance).

Ethics are different (Adderall will get me through crunch time versus ugh!
crunch time!; give me little projects like I had in college versus give me an
area of responsibility and a mandate).

Standards are different (this project will be dead/replaced in a year, or I'll
be at a new gig, so building quality is a waste versus always build quality,
the definition of which I've determined based on decades of experience).

There's a gap of political perspective as well (boomers and, to an extent,
Gen-Xers screwed up the world versus inheriting the established
business/social order was generally accepted).

Easiest to understand is a vast difference in language and cultural reference
points - not as different as an ESL candidate but on that same spectrum.

------
HillaryBriss
The national political season so far has surprised me because, AFAIK, none of
the presidential politicians has made a direct attack on age discrimination at
work. It seems like the perfect combination of issues: a highly motivated
voter segment and a pain point widely felt.

------
sjg007
And yet we vote in Presidents who are older and consider 35 as almost too
young.

~~~
dexterdog
Judging by the front-runners we have now, 35 is way too young.

------
dontbenebby
Some of the most talented engineers I've met were older men and women. I think
companies that don't value them won't do well in the long run.

------
astura
[http://archive.is/wCZRb](http://archive.is/wCZRb)

------
hacker_9
What profession is this article about? Surely age discrimination varies hugely
depending on profession.

~~~
warbird
Having worked in a few fields (never in development), my experience is that
while it varies in quality, it is almost omnipresent.

In my 40s, now, and for a few reasons, looking at having to self-reinvent,
again. Opportunity cost is very high and desired outcome uncertain from all
preferred choices. While I try to remain positive and productive, I'd be
dishonest if I didn't admit that I am scared that I will never again work in a
mentally-engaged, fulfilling profession.

------
czep
In traditional industries, experience built up connections, and older workers
would be hired for their "Rolodex" to bring in the money. In tech as an IC,
proving the value of experience is much more subtle.

In my day to day work, I recognize that a lot of what I do could just as
easily be done by a college intern. It's those rare occasions when I can stop
a terrible decision that my experience comes into play. I will speak up when a
PM wants to launch a stupid idea, or an Exec tries to pursue a strategy that I
know will fail. It's those rare but valuable instances that I highlight in my
performance review.

And still, I don't know how long I will be able to stay ahead of the curve and
one day I might not be able to justify my value. Age discrimination is a
symptom of a larger problem to which this hyper-rational capitalism we've
inherited is subjecting all of us, young and old. Prove yourself or die, it's
actually quite disturbing.

------
throwaway2393
My life was destroyed due to age discrimination. Even with a masters degree
and a CS degree I was pushed into homelessness and had to beg for food for
nearly a year.

In order to escape my situation, I removed 19 years of work experience and
joined a boot camp where 90% of the things that were explained were already
known to me.

Last year a fresh hire (white male graduated from a second-tier US college)
was making 50% more than all of us (mostly brown men in their 30s and 40s),
not in the same position but at a lower one. Most of my co-workers are on H1b
visas so they get underpaid that way. The other trick they use is to hire you
as a contractor. All of this is happening at an Indian/American outsourcing
firm which is where most of this stuff happens on a regular basis - at the
bottom of the industry.

After 1000 applications I gave up trying to find a managerial role (with 10
years of managerial experience abroad, plus a top 10 MBA). I was passed on by
companies who hired the younger mba candidates (I was 35 at the time). I went
back to my country, got a green card, moved back to America and spent months
trying to find a position. I settled for a position doing something that I
used in my 20s.

For a lot of people, age discrimination is just a fairy tale. But the reality
is very clear: millions of Americans are overqualified for their jobs (See
this article by USA Today
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/27/study-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/27/study-
nearly-half-are-overqualified-for-jobs/1868817/)), millions more have left the
IT industry, and millions more have lost their jobs due to outsourcing or
younger hires. A large percentage of people in hiring positions see employees
as cattle - hence they go for the younger ones. Experience is not
quantifiable, and especially not by the laughable tests that companies use
nowadays for recruitment.

My life was hard, I lived in the trains of Manhattan. I lined of for food in
soup kitchens for nearly two years. To get out of my situation, I worked four
odd jobs simultaneously. After the biggest suffering of my life only one thing
pulled me out: I took 20 years out of my resume. I deleted awards, titles,
certifications, international experience, newspaper articles, publications,
you name it.

Today, the job market is very clear to me. Companies are trying to compete and
will hire the best candidate they can find. But, as you age life gets more and
more complicated and you might fail to land a good job. Maybe you are an
immigrant and your English pronunciation is lacking, maybe you are not willing
to pull all nighters, or maybe you are not as good with newer technologies.
Maybe one of those things is at play, but what happens when you are hired, get
the highest performance review (above all your coworkers), see the young
college grad fired after only two months and reflect back on your situation?

At that point, like I did, you start to think about whether age discrimination
is real. For me, it is.

------
sabujp
Don't want to be discriminated against? Do leetcode everyday and learn new
algorithms, learn statistics, linear algebra, and everything you can about the
latest and greatest neural networks.

------
adamhoracek
It is fucking normal, stop moaning..

------
factorialboy
Allow me to provide a contrarian view. I'm not disagreeing that age-
discrimination does not exist, however I must say it's not always the case.

I'm 35, so I wouldn't qualify as young but neither old.

Businesses tend to recruit younger devs for few reasons:

\- They can be easily convinced to work longer hours

\- They are typically paid much less

However there is one trait in older devs that make them undesirable:

\- They tend to carry baggage from the past. This comes in various flavors,
such as biases one has regarding the path of their careers, their
interpersonal relationships (social and official), technology choices etc.

The thing about biases are that the mind that nurtures them can easily justify
them, thus making the very biases appear rational and logical.

Furthermore not all biases are negative.

They are a useful piece of memory that comes with experience. The question is:
Can you consciously choose when to apply the bias -or- Is your mind driven
compulsively to apply them indiscriminately?

I would argue that victimhood about agism does not help anybody. If you are in
a craft, where the barrier to entry is low, be prepared to compete with the
fresh crop of talent coming in.

There's a lot more I could write about this. But I leave it for another time.

~~~
durnygbur
> \- They tend to carry baggage from the past. This comes in various flavors,
> such as biases one has regarding the path of their careers, their
> interpersonal relationships (social and official), technology choices etc.

When one begins the career, one keeps hearing in the interviews "we want more
experience". Ok then, 10 years down the road and they say "it's not experience
what you've acquired, but bias".

Just whatever it takes to lowball you, playing the nasty "you're not worthy"
interview game. The "bias" is the same bollocks as an "inexperience" (from the
perspective of the interview negotiations).

~~~
agumonkey
> Just whatever it takes to lowball you, playing the nasty "you're not worthy"
> interview game.

I find this ultra terrifying. This is an advanced technical field yet the same
old "we're the gateway we'll use it against you -- future colleague -- without
hesitating". Some things never change

------
gbacon
_I’m having difficulty finding a full-time role because I fear that, in my
50s, I’ve been thrown out with the trash in favor of “new blood.”_

How is this claim falsifiable?

London admits having won no major awards recently in a competitive industry.
New York comes across as high falutin’. Maybe they’re overpriced for what they
bring to the table. Maybe they’re woe-is-me or brash in person too.

In software, productivity is hard to measure. The pressure to keep costs down
is strong. As salary expectations rise, we’ve got to up our game. One route is
specializing in a niche of a niche, but that is a risky approach. Stack
talents to make unique combinations. Every organization needs project and
technical management. Talk to people who know, like, and trust you about the
challenges of what they’re trying to do at work and what you can do to solve
it. Learn how to grow the business. Start your own business or go out as a
freelancer.

Sure, we’d all like to sit at the same desk doing the same job watching the
raises and perks pile in. Expect to hit a ceiling with that approach. I miss
the days of having one problem to focus on for weeks at a time. These days,
I’m not just feeding my own family but making sure that lots of other families
are staying fed too. That’s a much harder job.

