The Diversity Issue Silicon Valley Isn't Trying To Fix: Age Discrimination (medium.com) 362
An anonymous reader writes: The tech industry has recognized it isn't as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that's been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination. He says, "One company, Payscale, does supply some estimates. Looking at its numbers in 2012, Payscale noted, 'The typical tech employee wasn't around for the original release of Star Wars. And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms. In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus. Right now, that's not happening."
Another SJW Story! (Score:5, Funny)
When for fuck's sake will the editors... oh, wait. Not women or minorities this time.
Carry on.
Money (Score:2, Interesting)
No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.
No.When you're out of work, you'll take anything at just about any pay. But what I have run across is if you're unemployed then you're no good - if you're any good, you'd have a job.
And there's this nonsense of having to match requirements 100% to even get an interview. Back when I started in the late 80s, being proficient in a programming language was enough - mainframe jobs many times also wanted CICS knowledge on top of COBOL. Knowing the OS or platform was a plus; after all, outside of the language, everything else is just API. But that changed with the advent of Java; that seems to be when the industry started getting retarded. And when web development took off with all these different languages and tools, we went into full ludicrous hiring mode - yeah, the H1-b scam added to it immensely.
Back in my IBM days, an old timer took me aside and said that when he started, there weren't any of those people - as he was pointing at the Indians. Then we were shut down and everything went to India and the rush to get what jobs there were in the area happened. It was amazing how fast the younger guys got jobs even though they had less skills than we did. So much for "if you have the skills, you can get a job" fairy tale,
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
But what I have run across is if you're unemployed then you're no good - if you're any good, you'd have a job.
I was out of work for two years (2009-2010), underemployed for six months (working 20 hours per month), and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2011. For two-and-a-half years I was told by recruiters that I was unemployable and hiring managers that I was overqualified for minimum wage jobs. Why? Because everyone looked at my resume, saw that I've done help desk support for the last three years prior to being unemployed, didn't have any help desk openings, and wouldn't consider me for any other kind of work as they ASSSUMED that I wanted to continue doing help desk. I didn't get back into the job market until I found jobs that NEEDED workers to do the work.
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I am a software engineer, and at my company software engineers don't use office all that much. We use outlook for email (and for that reason we have a dedicated windows computer). We use linux for development, and our documentation is either doxygen comments in the source code or now some departments are starting to use tex as a way to have documentation that is easy to do version control (like svn or git) on (unlike MS office).
I guess I have to do excel for travel reimbursement, but that's about it.
I thi
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Because the last three positions were all help desk jobs and lying on my resume would be unethical.
Of course, don't lie on your résumé, and especially don't lie on your job application.
But that doesn't mean you have to write your résumé with your help-desk experience on page one. If you're trying to change careers, use a functional résumé [monster.com] instead of a chronological one. Or perhaps a hybrid of the two.
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Re:Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
And there's this nonsense of having to match requirements 100% to even get an interview.
Let me fill you in on a little secret - when you see those, it's because they don't WANT you to apply. There's two scenarios:
1. They already know who they want to hire, but they have some kind of policy requiring them to post the position anyhow. This is often coupled with a policy that any Internal application gets an interview even if they don't fully match the requirements. This way they can hire their Internal Pick as the 'best candidate', because all the External applicants have been discarded already as 'not fully qualified'.
2. They want is to be able to bring in a bunch of H1-B's, and they need to be able to claim that they can't find any qualified applicants in order to do so.
It was amazing how fast the younger guys got jobs even though they had less skills than we did. So much for "if you have the skills, you can get a job" fairy tale
Yes, they had less skills. They also will usually work for less as well. They are less likely to know about their Rights, and less likely to file complaints when they get treated like shit. They are less likely to have family, which means it's easier to get them to travel, work excessive hours, and take on more work than they ought to. They are far less likely to need time off for medical or family reasons, which also means group Insurance plans are offered at a lower rate. Retirement is also a consideration- the young kids are not likely to stick around long enough to draw a Pension.
No, none of that is really fair, and much of it is probably technically illegal to consider, but that's the reality of the situation.
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When you get older you can't take anything at any pay, because the company will assume that being underpaid you will leave at the earliest opportunity. So you don't get the job in the first place.
There is also the assumption that older workers will want to go home at some sane time, take their holiday (and expect an extra week or two above baseline), use sick leave for their kids illnesses etc.
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What are you talking about? There is plenty of demand! At least for competent people.
Re: Nope. (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you saying people over 40 are no longer competent to work in TECH?
Ageist asshole.
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Re: Nope. (Score:4, Informative)
Really depends on why you were unemployed (Score:5, Informative)
At my last job, I ran into issues with my boss. We both agreed it'd be better if I quit. (No employment insurance that way, but I retained positive rehire status, which is more important than people realize.) So I quit, and took the summer off. I published a book on Kindle, and when that inevitably didn't make me an overnight millionaire, I started applying for jobs. I got an interview by the second application, and framed the terms of ending my previous employment as, "My boss and I both agreed the position really wasn't what I had expected it to be. So I took a break, and pursued my dream of publishing a novel. Now that I've done that, I'm ready to get back to work."
On the topic of matching requirements - match them in the cover letter with the qualifier of "I may not have (x) but I do have (yz)" - (x) will get picked up by the HR scanning software, and get it in front of a pair of human eyeballs. Which is really all you need to get an interview if NOBODY has all the qualifications.
Re:Does not work. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a hiring manager, and as someone who has looked for jobs, I feel for you.
The best way to get a job in this market is to have someone you know in a place that needs someone of your skillset. I have something like 10 people on my FB account, I have hundreds on LinkedIn. Why? Because there are recruiters camping out there to dragnet that database and offer you a job. You can also see if other people have gotten jobs in places you'd want to work, or if they are posting a job in the hopes of getting a referral bonus for you.
Some people hate LinkedIn. I'm not in love with it, but people keep asking me if I'm available to go to another job. Maybe like once every six months, I get an offer that would actually be a small step up and worth considering.
Using job boards works if you're desperate. I still regularly get pinged for shit contract jobs from people. Keep it up to date, keep it fresh, and pile on the key words. You will likely have some churn of course. The goal here is simply to get hired, work in your field for a year or so, and if you can't stand the job, get out. I never had a short contract back in the day, but if that was a possibility, it allowed me to at least be paid while I looked for another job.
One benefit of a job that the contract runs out and you're out of a job again? Not only can you simply state that your last contract ran out, but you can ask your former employers for references because you don't have to sneak around on your job hunt. They know you're leaving, they know it wasn't your fault (presumably), and so they may be happy to help out. Obviously, it helps if you make friends while you are there and do a good job.
As for getting picked up for an interview and not getting screened out, you need to write your resume to hit the hot key words in your field. Now, as a manager, and as an ethical person, I cannot advise you to lie about it. I can also tell you that if you simply lie, with nothing to back up, you'll get detected by the recruiter, you'll definitely get detected by the phone screener, and if you somehow faked it through that, you'll be torn apart in the interview.
However... don't go full retard on your ethics. Which is to say, don't disqualify yourself for a job that you probably could do, if someone gave you a shot at it. Some people hide behind "ethics" when what they really mean is that they think it is dishonest for them to attempt a job that they know they aren't perfectly suited for. It's like people playing a video game who invent all sorts of rules about how the game is to be played "honorably" or whatever, and then get beaten up by some kid who plays by the actual rules set by the game.
In other words, if you have the luxury of playing with your hand behind your back, then more power to you, but don't bitch about it when you do not have that ability and people who are actually playing the real game are dancing around you. That's your pride and ego talking. IF you are suffering from that, you need to drop it.
If you are ethical, then you need to do the following. Write the resume that needs to be written to get you a job. Which is to say, know what the keywords are put them on the resume. Then look at the resume. If you think using that resume would be a lie, then *do what it takes to make it NOT be a lie*.
Experience will be the hardest thing. You can't pretend to have a job when you didn't. Volunteering and such can help with that. Get references. Realize that you will not be paid well, and may well start at a shit position.
That said, key words are the easiest, conceptually anyhow. Look at the key words and then teach yourself everything you can about them. In this, you cannot simply open a book and skim it and consider yourself an expert. You must have memorized the book, backward and forward. Then done everything you can with it.
Use of keywords in the right places *should* at least get you some phone screens, and your actual knowledge of the stock questions should get you to the interview. That's the secret of HR recruiting. Put something like "DevOps" on your resume, and enough supporting key words and you will get calls. Find whatever the equivalents are for your skill set, and put them on the resume, and make sure you train it up so that your resume doesn't make a liar out of you.
And if you do get to an interview, if they want you to write code on the board, you fucking write a masterpiece on the board. You don't tell them they you could look it up on Google. Anyone can do that. You are a fucking diamond in the rough who has no need for mere Google. Google is for losers and button-pushers. *You* just do it.
And yes, most of us use Google every day. Being told that doesn't help in an interview where we must assess your skills. We hope you will be able to at least demonstrate that you don't have to go to Google for everything you do. After all, what is the use of age and experience if the aged and experienced do the same thing that the twenty year old is doing?
I have had people who got to an interview with me who I told them on the phone interview that I was taking a risk on them and needed them to get up to speed and they came in and flushed the interview. They even did things like tell the panel that they'd only opened a book on it mere *days* ago, and the Google answer. That is not what you say to a recruiter/screener/panel when you want them to take a risk on you.
Your lack of employment is not a plus, but it isn't as bad as the panel feeling that you will be a drag on the team. If you can prove you can pick this stuff up on your own, a team will be happier to select you. If you can prove that you can teach the panel something they don't know, then they may even like you.
Last thing. If you have no luck with getting jobs in your chosen skill set. Try another skill set or even career based on where the jobs are.
I am not pretending that getting a new job is easy. That's why I've taken opportunities to move on my own when I have the chance to. However, it can be done, especially if you are willing to put the time into it or deal with working your way back into it. There will be some managers (especially in smaller companies or on contracts) who may take a risk on you, but you have to bring your A game, and your winning attitude. (Sorry to sound like a coach).
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No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.
That and older people aren't willing to be driven like cattle.
Re:Money (Score:5, Interesting)
No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.
This is completely untrue.
I'm 56. I applied for a position developing cutting edge deployment methodology with a startup using open source toolsets I have extensive experience with and have contributed to. I dropped my salary requirement 35% because (1) I don't have to make top salary, and (2) I expected that the markers on my resume would be worth more in the long run than any other job I would have held at this stage in my career.
I had several phone screenings and then interviews and feedback was extremely positive.
As soon as I walked into the building to interview in person the tone and attitude changed. I have grey hair. I've had grey hair since I was 32.
What I'm told is they are looking for "fit", or "cultural fit". The reality is they are looking for and screening against a type, and part of that type is mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I usually get hired because my qualifications are fucking outstanding. And because there is at least one outlier - someone also with grey hair.
With any luck, all of us outliers, we can band together and start looking for "cultural fit".
You are probably in support of that other bullshit spawned by the tech sector, ethical altruism...
Re:Money (Score:4, Interesting)
No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.
This is completely untrue.
I'm 56. I applied for a position developing cutting edge deployment methodology with a startup using open source toolsets I have extensive experience with and have contributed to. I dropped my salary requirement 35% because (1) I don't have to make top salary, and (2) I expected that the markers on my resume would be worth more in the long run than any other job I would have held at this stage in my career.
I had several phone screenings and then interviews and feedback was extremely positive.
As soon as I walked into the building to interview in person the tone and attitude changed. I have grey hair. I've had grey hair since I was 32.
What I'm told is they are looking for "fit", or "cultural fit". The reality is they are looking for and screening against a type, and part of that type is mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I usually get hired because my qualifications are fucking outstanding. And because there is at least one outlier - someone also with grey hair.
With any luck, all of us outliers, we can band together and start looking for "cultural fit".
You are probably in support of that other bullshit spawned by the tech sector, ethical altruism...
If grey hair is your problem, then dye it? Don't assume that cosmetic products are just for ladies. If companies are hiring partly on appearances, why wouldn't you try to look closer to their expectation?
It's unfortunate that companies can get away with these illegal hiring practices. Individuals can't really fight against them. The only move an individual has is to game the system they have set up. If that means dyeing my hair and wearing makeup to an interview to look 10 years younger, that's what I would do.
We are all constantly selling ourselves. Slacking off in the personal appearances department is almost equivalent to not keeping up with industry knowledge. That doesn't mean it is "right", but that's the way it is.
Re:Money (Score:5, Funny)
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There's another way of looking at it. They're doing you a favor by letting you know in advance that you wouldn't fit in there. Otherwise you could come in, work your tail off, show good results, and be laid off anyway 18 months down the road.
On the other hand, you'd have had a chance to pay your bills for 18 months in the mean time.
It's in San Diego (Score:4, Informative)
I live in San Diego.
This month is another milestone. I finally ran out of savings and dipped into my 401k. Yay 10% penalty from the government!
Re: It's in San Diego (Score:2, Insightful)
Sell your house and live like a king in the Midwest. Plenty of jobs and cheap housing.
But my guess is you don't want to give up the San Diego weather for financial security.
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I'm in my fifties and prefer embedded work myself. I find that jobs are plentiful -- but it completely depends on what part of the country you're looking in. The hot spots move over time, and only rarely are they anywhere near San Diego.
Re:It's in San Diego (Score:5, Insightful)
mostly my resume submissions are ignored
How did you get to 50 and not know other people doing embedded development? Especially if you were working on Linux, where it's a big community. Most people hiring for this kind of skill set know that it's a waste of time to go through agencies and recommendations from existing (and former) employees are the best way of hiring.
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It's really sad when this happens to people doing embedded code. That used to be the one area where experience was really valuable. Few people can really do embedded code well, of any age, but the older you are the more likely you are to have grown up with systems that resemble the embedded ones of today.
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Now that HR is back in power even in tech, a software career ends as soon as you can no longer convincingly paper over any work history gap with lies. The only time HR allows you to leave a job is to immediately take another job.
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Tell me again why it matters where you live to write system code? I hear there's this new fangled stuff called "The internet" that really kind of does away with the need to physically hand your 3. inch floppy disks to CM guys.
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Sure, tech is advanced. However, you're lucky if the kinds of people running companies are current when it comes to business end of things. Forget about tech.
Plus most American corporations any more treat everyone like shit (including customers) and distrusts everyone (likely for good reason).
American corporate culture has been going down the crapper for decades, possibly before you were even born.
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Most employers like to have "face time" with their employees. And by "face time" I don't mean video conferencing. Yes, there are many firms that will hire out of state -- or out of city. But many of those who are willing to do that just jump the ocean and go over seas where it's orders of magnitude cheaper.
So, while it SHOULDN'T matter where you live for a job like the OP, it, in fact, does matter over all.
I know of many 50+ IT guys who end up working help desks for a fraction of their last wage before t
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Ohh I don't know. Need a new rev of the Boards? Fedex! (A lot) Having problems diagnosing the signals being passed out of your GPIO? How much do I spend fo a decent frequency analyser?
There are certainly a lot of jobs one can easily do from home without access to company resources, but hardware design/driver writing isn't exactly high on that list until it reaches RTM. Its a lot more straight forward to write the Platform X version of a driver when you already have the finished hardware and working code for
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Deeply offended (Score:2, Funny)
The so-called diversity figures never specify what percentage of the workforce are ethnic Finns. Keeping in mind that Finns are one the smallest minority groups in the world, hiring them over massive "minority" groups like women (over 3.5 billion in the world) and people of color (over 6 billion in the world) should be top priority.
Numbers tell you nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms.
Maybe the older guys are wise enough not to go and work at Facebook. And why is no-one tackling the obvious discrimination against youngsters that's going on in data processing and web publishing?! ;)
Raw statistics like this are almost worse than no data at all when it comes to identifying discrimination.
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Maybe the older guys are wise enough not to go and work at Facebook.
Some, probably. Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to work at a place like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc.
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Maybe the older guys are wise enough not to go and work at Facebook.
You and every other person here knows that isn't true. I realize you're just making a point, but even if there is a downside to working at Facebook, it's a dishonest look at a major issue.
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You are starting with a conclusion and then trying to justify it.
THAT is about as dishonest as it gets. Unscientific too.
A proper hypothesis is more than just just pulling a politically correct sounding idea out of your posterior.
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You really expect the scientific method to be utilized on slashdot message boards? Is that what we do here?
Dude was saying something that is obviously untrue, and got called on it. "Old people don't want to have high-paying jobs at Facebook" is a ludicrous statement.
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First of all, please note the first word of the statement under discussion.
You and every other person here knows that isn't true.
No I don't. How do you know a) what I know and b) that it isn't true?
It's a subtle thing (Score:5, Funny)
Pro tip: They leave you room to continue your thoughts on the back of the page, it's a trap!
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Re:It's a subtle thing (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not look as old as I am but it is catching up with me. Back when they used to do real job fairs with tech people at them, I could talk to people at the booth, see that they are excited. Sometimes even help them solve a problem they had. They take my resume and everything sounds great.
Then the HR department gets my resume and they require me to tell them when I graduated college or high school. Suddenly I am black listed and nobody will return my calls. It has happened over a dozen times. They do not call my references. I had one potential employer hand me my job app back and ask me to fix the typo in my date of birth (LOL)
Either I have a murder conviction that I can not remember, or they are trashing me due to my age.
I have been tempted to get a community college degree just to spoof the HR departments.
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Credit bureau data as a guide to employability? Yeah, right. Where paying off accounts and then closing them counts against you. Where paying off o,d accounts and leaving them open counts against you. Where shopping around for the best credit deal counts against you. Where just checking your credit counts against you.
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Credit bureau data as a guide to employability? Yeah, right. Where paying off accounts and then closing them counts against you. Where paying off o,d accounts and leaving them open counts against you. Where shopping around for the best credit deal counts against you. Where just checking your credit counts against you.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but per the T&C: "Complaining About the Credit Bureau in Public" ...also just counted against you.
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Kids? On my lawn? It's more likely than you think! [Free lawn check]
See, I'm 'meemng' like the hip kids do!
Ugh. This is so embarrassing...
Dad, for the last time, it's "meming". http://www.urbandictionary.com... [urbandictionary.com]
And don't forget to call down here when it's time to come upstairs for dinner, K? Thanks, Pops!
Maybe skip Silly Valley? (Score:5, Informative)
I say this as a 46-year-old... I'm able to find plenty of opportunities with most companies up here in Portland, and regularly get recruiters calling from Utah, Texas, Nevada, numerous East Coast locales... they actually want the experience.
Silicon Valley is chock-full of startups and Type-A corps, and they only want one thing: disposable slaves.
It's far easier to convince a a kid with a still-crisp CS degree (and way too much student loan debt) to work 90 stressful hours a week for a pittance.
It's much harder to convince someone with sufficient experience and a family to do that... life is way too short to become the personal bitch of some IPO-seeking asshole.
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The only reason they want anyone with experience is so they can pass on what they've learned to the younger guys making 50% less than you. Once they've squeezed you dry, out you go. Sorry that you moved 3000 miles to take this job, here's a flyer on how to apply for un
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It's far easier to convince a a kid with a still-crisp CS degree (and way too much student loan debt) to work 90 stressful hours a week for a pittance.
It's much harder to convince someone with sufficient experience and a family to do that... life is way too short to become the personal bitch of some IPO-seeking asshole.
The experienced worker doesn't need to work 90 hours a week. I have about 10 years experience. Almost every task that hits my desk has at least some similarities to something that I have done before. If the answer is in a book, I know which books on my shelf might have the answer. Maybe I did a similar calculation before. Perhaps I had a job that has similar elements and things went wrong- I can plan for those problems and avoid them.
The kid is going to charge into the jungle and step in a bear trap,
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I say this as a 46-year-old... I'm able to find plenty of opportunities with most companies up here in Portland, and regularly get recruiters calling from Utah, Texas, Nevada, numerous East Coast locales... they actually want the experience.
I'm not sure it's quite as bad as the article paints it, at least at Google. I can't speak for the rest of Silicon Valley.
Google recruited and hired me at age 42 (I'm also 46), and my first team had a large percentage of older guys, including many in their 50s and a few in their 60s. That team actively sought out more experienced engineers because of the nature of the work it did. In other teams, including my current team, I see no evidence of any active age bias, for or against. I'm older than most of my
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I've also read that Google is quite stingy about vacation time. I think Google would benefit from hiring people l
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Pretty much everything you know about Google's work environment is wrong :-)
I did feel a little shorted on vacation when I first started. They gave me three weeks to start. Three years in it jumped to four, which was better. When I hit my five-year anniversary in a few months I'll have five, which is pretty comfortable. You can also go up to one week in the hole on vacation time, which provides a little more flexibility. I don't think it's so bad.
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Pretty much everything you know about Google's work environment is wrong :-)
Oh, I should mention the "large, open work environment" is NOT wrong. Google thinks that facilitates communication. I'm not so sure, but they give everyone a nice set of headphones, so you can isolate when you need to. Within Google culture it's mildly unacceptable to talk to someone without messaging them first, even if they sit right next to you, which also helps with being able to reduce interruption (it's acceptable to say "no, I can't talk now").
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I say this as a 46-year-old... I'm able to find plenty of opportunities ...
In my experience (being 57), there seems to something about the number 50. In my 40es I was still able to walk from one company to another, it seems, but after I turned 50, I was 'old'. Never mind the fact that my health is excellent, that I an physically very active and get along extremely well with especially younger colleagues, never mind my long experience; I'm old.
Perhaps what us old geezers should get together and start our own companies and compete the crap out of those young idiots that start compan
Here's how it works (Score:5, Informative)
If life gives you lemons (Score:2)
you wear a hidden microphone. Surely there is a lawyer willing to work with you to squeeze this mf's for every dollar they have.
Dog Years (Score:3)
I've heard that kind of questioning back even when I was in my early 40's, in multiple interviews. IT runs in dog-years or something.
Companies often don't value experience because they cannot "see" the benefits of it. Most of the managers are short-term thinkers and the 60-hour code-monkey mentality gets you quicker short-term results in the latest IT fad.
However, if you care about 5 years out
The answer is simple (Score:2)
At an old 33, I prefer to work on either my own company or optionally if that wasn't there, companies which share my passions.
Young People are great to hire because they'll work their fingers to the bones for some abstract promise, but once you build a family and a life, working
It's blatant at some places (Score:5, Insightful)
"Look around you. Notice you don't see very much grey hair? That's on purpose. We want people on they way up, not their way out!"
I was shocked that they would be so blatant about it. Not even a hesitation in a corporate wide meeting of 500 people and recorded to boot. If I didn't care about torpedoing my own career, I would have filed a suit that day, being 44 at the time. Funny thing was their code was some of the worst I have ever seen and was having to re-write large portions of it do to the horrible architecture and coding patterns in place. Literally in just a few months I had re-written what was not working for their largest clients and had it running in a fraction of the time. The desperately needed people with experience.
Once I heard that I put my resume out to a couple of people, had a job offer within two weeks, and am making 50% more than I was there anyways with rapid promotion within a few months, and been at my current job exactly a year now. So in the long run, their loss. But I can tell you it is in fact real and blatant out there.
That said as a programmer if you keep your skills up, there are still plenty of jobs out there. It's just a bit more work than it should be to find a good one.
Age Discrimination Is Real (Score:2, Informative)
I worked a brief stint as an IT recruiter. I observed age discrimination for tech workers 50+ in almost every sector, except Government.
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CS hasn't been around that long (Score:2, Troll)
An average age of 30 would suggest a pretty robust distribution of workers up to 40 as well. Those people would have gotten degrees in the late 1990s. I did my EE degree in the early 2000s and back then CS was still considered a bit of a specialist degree with uncertain career prospects compared to engineering. Of course since then the industry has absolutely exploded.
Could the reason for the lack of above 40 workers be that there are simply far less CS people in that age group? I mean, going forward to 50
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Or we're sick of it (Score:2)
I am going to retire early in a few years at age 55. I don't plan on continuing in the tech world where you are expected to work 70 hour weeks every week. I don't mind doing it occasionally, but every week? I get dirty looks every time I leave the office before 6pm, which is most days.
Worse, I'm the only coder in my department that maintains a particular huge code base I've developed over the past 15 years or so. I've told the PHBs that they need to hire someone new so I can train them for the next coup
You can't discriminate against old white men (Score:3, Insightful)
They're all fabulously wealthy patriarchs who run the world.
Or maybe not... (Score:3)
It could just be that the people with experience (and wisdom to go with it) want nothing to do with Silicon Valley.
In the IT dept I'm in here in the Dallas area, I would say the average age is somewhere between 40-45.
Funny thing... our EVP came from a place that hired a lot of those cheaper people and outsourced/off-shored a lot. He was absolutely boggled that our department managed to successfully complete over 40 major "combined arms" projects in a year (with barely that many employees), where the places he'd been previously could barely manage 4 with a similar number of people. So they're paying maybe 50% more, and getting 1000% more.
Oh, and we're all generally able to keep it to between 7-9 hrs/day, too.
As a 70 year old still in the industry (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm 70 and I've been working in the computer industry for 49 years, the last 28 years in Silicon Valley. These days I work for a very large company and I manage projects and architect solutions. I enjoy my job immensely and I've never had a day of unemployment.
9 months ago I announced my intention to retire at age 70, at my wife's request. My manager's reaction was to ask if I could stay (with a salary increase) until they found someone to replace me. Two weeks ago I told him I would definitely be leaving when I hit 71.
I'm not even the oldest person I know in the company. There's a well respected QA engineer who is 74 right now.
I guess some companies in Silicon Valley actually do value the ability to get projects completed on time, and without fuss or drama.
What is "Silicon Valley"? (Score:3)
How does it correlate with management's age? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can see lots of reasonable explanations -- older people have more experience and demand higher salaries, older people have more life commitments and are less likely to work "epic hours", and maybe even older people have higher health care costs even.
I'm curious how the average age of managers relates to this. As humans, we're raised by adults -- people usually 20 or more years older than us and for the better part of the first 20-25 years of our life, ALL of our authority figures are people older than us. Historically, hiring and promotion practices have meant that managers and more senior employees were also older than the people they managed, even if this got somewhat blurred past age 40 or so.
I wonder if at a given company if you have a lot of senior managers in their early-mid 30s if there's not something intimidating, awkward or socially uncomfortable for a manager to be managing someone who psychologically somehow represents an authority figure to you. I can believe some manager in their early 30s feels like they are the authority figure when dealing with 20-somethings, but when they're dealing with someone in the mid-40s they are dealing with someone where that kind of natural authority is just lacking.
And I can believe it works the other way around -- it can be awkward working for someone who is much younger than you. Seldom are they gifted or experienced enough to avoid the mistakes someone more experienced -- not just in work, but in life -- wouldn't make. And it can create real friction to have that gap -- the manager hates being second guessed, and the employee resents extra work that's a byproduct of inexperience, especially when proffered advice is ignored because a manager is trying to flex their authority.
I wonder if maybe this isn't the real source of the problem.
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Just to tease out the obvious here (Score:2)
he government has specific age-bias laws in place which prohibit hiring/firing on the basis of age. It is against the law. And yet, SV gets away with it on a massive scale. They will do mass layoffs where virtually everyone laid off is over 30. I have seen this myself.
Just so anyone who supposes that the 1% actually have to abide by laws the 99% pass can revise their views They're completely and flagrantly lawless whenever they feel like it, and they're not afraid of the government.
Ageism was originally about unions, now "culture". (Score:3, Interesting)
Coming to Everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
Computers, Software and Robotics will increase "productivity" to the point to where less and less people, be they in the US or anywhere else, will be left without a job or an income.
You can guarantee "think tanks" are thinking about this right now.
How will First World society function when there is 20% unemployment? 50%?
Especially in a Social Darwinist society like the US?
Answer:
It Won't
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If your number of women employed is 10%, and your number of women applying compared to men is 10%, what's the problem?
If a company isn't attractive to a significant group of potential job applicants, it may well be that sooner or later the same group will be less interested in buying it's products. It's just bad business.
Re:It's not discrimination if people aren't applyi (Score:5, Informative)
"My buddy at HP (Loveland CO) said he has an opening in his group. ... However, his boss told him not to bother bringing any white males to interview".
So, HP has an illegal hiring policy and are not afraid to tell their managers, who are not afraid to tell their professional staff, who are fine telling members of the public. We've come a long way, Baby.
I will never purchase or recommend a HP product again.
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I lunch with some of my HP friends. Now they're saying v "no one who the note than two year's experience".
Another way to age discriminate.
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Back. No one with more than two year's experience.
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Grow some balls and stand up for your rights, like these guys:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2... [aol.com]
http://dailycaller.com/2014/08... [dailycaller.com]
http://blogs.lawyers.com/2013/... [lawyers.com]
Re:It's not discrimination if people aren't applyi (Score:4, Insightful)
Race and sex *are* protected classes. If there's any evidence of this policy you've got a potentially lucrative lawsuit on your hands.
Not if you are white and male. "Positive discrimination" as it is called is not only legal, it is often legally mandated in many places.
Re:It's not discrimination if people aren't applyi (Score:5, Interesting)
The older coders may only put in the 9 or 10 hours a day. But you know what, we get to work, get it done, and it works right the first time. We have tests, proper coding and documentation. I am also not looking for my company to entertain me and provide all kinds of crazy things just to keep me happy. More importantly, if the company is treating me fairly, I am not going to jump in one or two years because 'I am bored and need a new challenge' like the cheap hires.
Now I know these are generalizations, like everything else, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Hire one guy with real experience across the board earned from the hard knocks of actually having been there, and he is probably worth several (if not more) of the 'cheap' under 30's who really just haven't had the experience yet of what mistakes cost. Pair them together, and you probably have the best of both worlds.
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I don't think that's how it works.
There's a place for knowledge and experience, and there's a place for fresh talent and creativity.
Also, they have a different value for the company. Experienced guys are worth more, so they are paid more. Younger ones will maybe make it up in volume or not, so they are paid less.
I don't see that as a problem, just reality.
I don't think companies want younger guys because they are cheaper, they are aware they are less productive, esp in the long run, so it's the same deal fo
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"only"?
Why do people put up with this? Is this really what you want to be thinking about on your deathbed?
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Man up and admit you can do the job in 7.5 to 8 hours a day.
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It's called 'leading from behind', otherwise known as wisdom applied to the situation in which the older technical employees attempt to keep borderline retarded lazy-assed millennials along with non-engineering MBAs from either reinventing the wheel or just flat out fucking up the project.
Seriously, us gen x and y engineers have no tolerance for
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While we are generalising, we can also talk about how those 'experienced' always seem to know better and refuse to do what they are asked unless it's done their way.
Yes, younger people can have their issues, but then again, so do the older ones.
And if you mix the two, you can leverage the advantages of both and reduce the overall predominance of any one issue. But why do that when the only real goal is to hack out stuff fast and cheap?
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Younger people working longer hours is only true for so many years.
I think the optimal age for people willing to put in lots of hours is under 28 and over 45. In between people are raising their kids which takes a tremendous amount of time and attention (school functions, doctor's appts, etc).
Once the kids are in college, the older employee can focus more on work again.
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i am 30 and what is this
Something you will, inevitabley face very soon.
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Yep, and being in academia won't save you either. You are over the hill and close to pushing up daisies if you are not a star by age 30 and bringing in your own salary plus that of your lab's workers.
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"am 30 and what is this"
You probably already have a grey hair, Gramps, but for the next ten years you will still be able to get away with surreptitious dye rinses every few weeks. Save pension money now.
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Steve Balmer was 20-something ?
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The plural of anecdote is not data.
Intelligence may peak at 26 but wisdom peaks at 50 (Score:2)
A top programmer in his early 20's will attack a problem in all earnest, formulating an elegant solution that uses the latest technology with one of the esoteric algorithms he learned in school. He'll pull a series of all-nighters until it gets done and when delivered, he'll get the acclaim of his peers.
A top programmer in his 40's - 60's will delay writing code if possible. Instead he'll look at the problem, decompose it, try to find analogies, talk to stake holders to find out the REAL problem. Then he
Re:Intelligence may peak at 26 but wisdom peaks at (Score:5, Interesting)