Tech Ageism Debate

I'll bite. I'm 37, a tech startup founder. I'm wary of ageism and I've long believed that not being ageist would allow us to hire smarter than competitors.However:- The amount of programmers grows exponentially. I've seen stats claiming it doubles every 5 years.- This means that at any time, 50% of the available workforce has - It also means there are simply way more programmers under 40 tha

I don't think it's age. I think it's energy level and attitude.I'm in my 50s and had no problems getting hired 3+ years ago at a FAANG as well as a handful of other companies. Granted it was a good hiring environment, but I also took 3 years off and I had to work hard to Leetcode back into shape.I still have a lot of energy and it comes across in my interviews. I don't have an ego, I know that just because I have >30 years experience doesn't mean that I kno

Related:Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hiredhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696419

"I'm in my late 30s btw, so already at the point in my life where I need to do whatever I can to keep a competitive edge against 20-somethings in the industry"I am interested to explore this recurring theme, in that how does 10 years difference at that age make such a big difference?When you think a world class sprinter is not regarded to coming into their own until their 30's at best, it can't be physical condition.Then you think, is it mental condition, the ab

Ageism is a real factor in tech companies but as the demand grows and tech companies have been around for decades this might go down a bit. May be not for startups but FAANGs definitely will have more aged developers. It’s also important to realize the other factors play in this. Where you are born, your race matters a lot more than many people think. Two people of same age and equal talent but different race aren’t treated the same way in almost any country in the world (Not trying to generaliz

One major con, as far as I'm concerned, is the increasing ageism that exists in the industry in general, but especially at startups. My father-in-law is 68 and can barely get an interview, much less an offer. He is very technically competent. Any company of any size would be lucky to have him. Now, you might argue that he's too expensive, especially for a startup, but the fact is he just wants to work and is willing to take less money to do what he loves to do.You could a

I think it can be location and company specific too. In some cities hiring is hard to do, so they take what they can get. And some company cultures value experience and stability, others like younger devs.My experience has been that most devs in their 40s and 50s can run circles around those in their 20s and early 30s. If someone is already good in their 20s they're likely a savant. TL;DR the biggest thing is managing your career intelligently. I think there's more risk when you app

I think ageism is more prevalent in certain tech scenes than others (particularly startups founded by people in their 20s and 30s). That's not to say that ageism doesn't exist elsewhere - but it's silly to assume that you become immediately unhireable once you hit 40. I know many talented software engineers who still code well into their 40s and 50s - many gravitate to larger companies because of the stability it provides them once they start a family.

I'm 36+ so I consider myself old. I am a tech lead in a "startup that gone enterprise" and write Java, Scala, and web.Most of my friends are between 35-45, all fully employed with good salaries (mostly Java / Enterprise shops though, but also some cool startups / Googlers / Twitter / Amazon)My take on this, both as an older guy, and also as a hiring manager is that for me merit and skill matter more than anything else, I'm completely age, race, color

Yeah ageism is a huge issue, even in early 30s, working as a regular programmer is met with suspicion and looked down upon.Not only that, young engineers will be build whatever without questioning the value, business people prefer this. They dont want an engineer raising product questionsalso, it is true that technology moves quickly, startups dont need experts in tech thats no longer bleeding edge. large old school companies still do, so the number of companies that are viable employers d