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.
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?
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.
Attitude is the core of the problem. Another comment mentioned that if age discrimination happens, it happens primarily in VC culture areas like SV. I have a sneaking suspicion that high-tech workers don't really know what real unemployment looks like and are complaining about not getting to pick specifically where they want to work based on their tailor-made ideal environment that SV has spoonfed them about what a job should look like. Having the ability to even live in high profile areas and apply for high-tech jobs puts you several cuts above the rest of the non-tech working world and you will never truly be jobless. I would be grateful for that, personally.
EDIT: evidence of this in this thread said by others:
"Also, the SV is really the bastion of anti discrimination. Which is great. But they replaced it with something else, ageism."
"I have been unable to rejoin the supposedly "hot" SF Bay Area tech industry. I can get interviews if I whack 15 years off my web development career on my resume. I don't pass the in-person or video interview stage, because then the employer sees that I'm older than 35."
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.