Two weeks ago, I wrote an article here on dev.to called "You're never too old to learn to code" that talked about how I felt there is a bias in tech/startup culture that leans towards a younger crowd. Then just today I was scrolling through my news feed and noticed that Engadget published an article about how workers claimed Intel was getting rid of older staff systematically during layoffs meant to "fuel Intel's evolution."
#1 How can we stop age discrimination in tech?
#2 Do large corporations like Intel have the right to do massive layoffs to older employees in the name of innovation?
Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Top comments (43)
I think if a company would even consider this it's because they have created a brutal corporate culture and trained their own employees to act like button-pushing zombies.
I think this whole thing starts with cultural norms that assume a lot of stereotypes to be true. In all I think we lack the willingness to train people who are willing to buy in. Companies are loath to onboard junior developers for training purposes and they are loath to train existing employees to adopt new visions for the org.
Intel terrifies me more than nukes.
1 we stop age discrimination the same way we stop gender, race, or other forms of discrimination. We have to start looking at individuals and their contributions and stop making generalizations. I think people "get" the issue, but don't apply it to all areas. The same person who would have pause making a statement like "Women are more..." or "Men are less..." (insert stereotype at the end) is fine saying "Older people are more set in their ways." Is that really true? Or is that just amplifying an existing stereotype?
Companies must look at meaningful values rather than irrelevant facts. For example, a company concerned about people working more hours probably has it wrong already. They are activity focused instead of productivity focused. As a development manager, I had teams with employees who would produce 4x the output of their peers working 1/2 the hours. I would much rather see someone work smart and increase productivity than burn out because they have to thrash long hours to get meaningful progress.
2 Companies have the right to hire, so they have the right to fire. It has to work both ways. However, what they don't have is the right to discriminate, so it would make more sense if they must have a layoff to do it based on empirical, quantifiable reasons rather than broad statements. It's one thing if the mandate was, "Let go of tenured staff" vs. "Let go of staff that is not hitting their targets."
I don't know...
I met many people who just don't want to work with old devs anymore, because they have the "we always did it that way" attitude.
"I implemented polling services my whole life, they are tested and work! Why should I use Webhooks?"
"I send them their private keys, because they're using my servers so I decide which keys they gonna use!"
"Who would build a UI with JavaScript? Qt is much faster!"
Personally, I worked with really good older devs who had mad skills and much to teach about how to handle business etc. but I can understand that people have enough after working for years with someone who basically has tenure at a company and doesn't bother to do anything new anymore.
I agree. Older devs need to be willing to try new approaches. But I also see companies swap out for junior developers who are more of a blank slate and cheaper, but make the same mistakes as their older peers had to starting out, and this costs companies real money. Most healthy orgs have a good balance of tenure.
I want to be the raddest older dev when I get older. 😄
Mostly listening to the young kids even if I wish they didn't use JavaScript for everything; gently guide them away from shiny things without being too condescending; pay attention to them for cues that maybe this new thing is more than just shiny; tell stories about back before computer chips (with OS's written in JavaScript) were inserted into the brain.
I'm with you Ben, that's what i'm trying to do now.
I'll be 45 this year. I'm the sole 'IT Guy' for a company of 50+ people. The younger folks who have skills using computers come to me all the time for assistance for various things and i enjoy it.
I try to provide information not opinion and sounds examples of why, with a small dose of wit (so they don't get too bored with me).
I've worked with older IT Pro's who were set in their ways and watched them struggle. From this I learned the value of constant learning. Skills can be developed, You can learn any language you want - no one's stopping you.
The one thing you need in my opinion is passion. When you're passionate about something, it's meaningful, you get good at it, you're competitive / compelling. When you're passionate people notice the passion not your age...
Totally with you here.
This is just what I happend to hear in the industry :)
Agreed, it's very tempting or even natural for some (or even most) older people to expect respect and quiet obedience only because of being older, which comes effectively from general day-to-day life norm, but should and can not equally affect professional relations, and that, quite understandably though, could be a hard truth to take, for some, especially if younger guys outperform.
I myself turn 40 in a couple of months and started my professional web dev career only 2 years ago and of course almost all my coworkers are in their middle/late twenties, few in early thirties, but I definitely am the oldest one, even the founder and owner of the company is younger, but it's ok. A few things that do help me not to stand out:
I look younger, but it's the least significant thing, thought it certainly helps.
I never display in any way any expectations or intentions to be treated or looked upon at differently.
I feel that whatever respect or some special attitude I want should come naturally and well deserved, and therefore I must always be a bit better and do a bit more to avoid any auckward situations of being not only the oldest, but also least (or even just like anybody else) useful.
So, plan is to move as fast as I can to grow as fast as I can and get promoted as far as I can to naturally deserve respect and become valuable asset in terms of knowledge and experience.
Frankly, it seems that everything is working out in exactly that way, and I have already obtained a reputation of the one who can reliably solve the most complex tasks be it frontend or backend, and my opinion is always needed, but of course I have to work hard for that, but, luckily, I love my job and do hope to eventually become at least an architect or something like that.
Well, I'm sorry, in the end I haven't said much about the actual topic of the post, just boasted about myself, but the bottom line is that I can easily see how older people themselves can cause some attitudes that make managers make such decisions.
I started working as a dev with 21 and everyone was older than me. The devs around me were 27-50.
And while my boss valued me, I always felt like a boy.
It was until I was in the end of my 20s, with over 5 years of experience, when I worked with people at my age and felt like some "regular" developer in the crowd.
This was when I finally understood what I'm capable of and started to go my own way.
Something I've been pondering lately is this could be down to company's managing vs leading culture.
If someone, as manager or director, does not want to let other people have some control and responsibility, they might find it much easier to go with younger devs who are happy to put up with it?
Younger devs might be cheaper, possibly have fewer hangups around being worked into the ground or taking vacations or working late, etc.
Some of this definitely comes from a culture of "who can we work into the ground the longest before they do anything about it"?
This is absolutely the case at some companies. I still have hope that the industry will eventually shift more towards a focus on creative collaboration to produce better products and away from classical WWII management culture. I think this will help more companies treat programmers as individuals with valuable ideas and not just code monkeys.
First the negatives.
I really don't see many companies jump on this shift.
Firstly, it means culture shift needs to happen on every level of the company and that means people in charge need to change.
Secondly, some business-oriented people might be ok for keep doing X and not change, instead of potentially make 2X, but go through the stress and growing pains.
However, and here's where I'd like to give massive kudos to your videos, Jayme - there clearly is this movement where development, company culture and management around it is seen as long term collaborative creative process, empowering the creative people too in return of better product or service.
So, while we still might have negative side to our industry for foreseeable future, I hope we will see new breed of companies where they can start fresh with this crazy new ideology in mind.
1 In short: Take your age out of your CV.
As this matter affects me personally I've decided to experiment a bit.
Your birthday is a part of your personal details and as such it should be treated accordingly, so why make it available in a public document like your CV?
Besides being a security liability (among your name and permanent residency, your birthday is one of three personal details needed by a criminal to commit forgery against you), birthdays are maybe the single most irrelevant piece of information related to your experience, field of expertise, studies and cover letter for any particular application.
So my experiment would be exactly that, after a long and unfruitful job search with DoB info in paper, I'd remove that piece of information off my CV and Cover Letters and see what happens.
The results? In person interview from my first application.
Said interview is set and I feel confident.
2 Yes its their right and they should practice it.
The real question should be: Do such practices pay of in the long run or not and do you personally like to be a part of such companies.
Relevant research has been made and papers have been published for a tl;dr I'll just mention this name: Simon Sinek
Your age can usually be inferred from your job history, which is commonly listed on your CV (or résumé if you're from that particular outlier), or from your LinkedIn profile if you have one.
I don't understand why anyone would list their age (or birthday? What?) on their CV, though. What possible use could it be except to say "I am over the age where I'm allowed to drive a car on my own"?
Madness!
You can get the face-to-face interview with the right CV editing and successful phone interviews and code screens. But, as soon as a "cool" tech company hiring manager sees that gray hair and wrinkles in the face-to-face, they quickly throw out the typical HR approved phrases like "You aren't a good fit for our company culture".
I've seen this same treatment happen to non-white/non-Asian applicants as well as to women who were applying to coding or network administration positions.
That may be so but don't get me wrong, I'm nothing but naive, neither in a vain attempt to "grow roots" in an environment that needs something I simply don't have, neither to "trick" or "scam" my place in the workforce. I'm simply holding back on info that given the circumstances are just plain misleading and the "age" issue will be set straight right from the interview.
The positions that I'm applying for, are nothing less than perfect matches for my skill set and experience, the companies I'm applying for are the companies you'd typically consider "part of the solution" and not "part of the problem". I wouldn't apply otherwise.
So if a company decides not to have me regardless, just for a number witch I have no means of altering or influencing, that's their prerogative. All I have to do is make them listen, it wouldn't be much of a discussion otherwise.
Witch ever the case may be, I'll always have freelancing.
I think companies should discriminate in any way that they think benefits them. However, most initiatives that judge people by their characteristics instead of their performance will be counter-productive.
I've worked with older co-workers who ran circles around me, and ones who took hand-holding just to accomplish simple tasks.
Companies trying to "culture-correct" to be "younger" or any other non-performance attribute will always hurt themselves.
Glad to say we have 50+ developer in our team. I still remember during the hiring process, I told my boss that I'm a bit worry he's a little bit too old. His first software development job was at the time I was born ! But my boss was quick to reply, we can't discriminate over age, gender, race etc, so he's a go or no go ?
1 Stop seeing Age as an indicator for quality.
A person might be 55 (what I would see as "older") and just started coding at 50. Age (as well as gender, ethnicity etc.) is no indicator for how good you are.
So..
2 Where I live, they don't. No company has the right to lay off people based on those indicators.
There will be tons of old devs in the coming decades. You betta' recognize 🙃
Yeah, some of the comments on this made me think "WTF - legally you cannot do that!" then I remembered its mostly US and their employment law is basically broken.
As I get older (I'm mid-40s) I see one problem coming up again and again: the older devs have domain knowledge that's getting scarcer because the younger devs are using hip new technologies.
That sounds like a benefit, and a great reason to keep the older devs around, and even to pay them more because of supply and demand.
Except... except those devs get pigeonholed and don't get the opportunity in work to learn new technologies themselves. They never get put on those projects, because they're needed supporting legacy software. They get disillusioned.
I've seen this with the developer who hired me for my first position in a big Enterprise company.
It was difficult for him to jockey his responsibilities for maintaining older systems and getting access to work on the newer technology.
Despite his difficulties with English as a second language, he handled it deftly and, during a re-shuffle of responsibilities, made a deal to get transferred to a new position with more innovation work. But it took him a long time, and I saw many who did not have his political skill.
Looking back on it, I might have learned a thing or two about career "navigation" in large IT companies.
I hope this stuff ends soon. I started out as a CS major in 1997 and stopped because I had a chance to pursue a music career. Though I spent alot of time on music I always kept software dev around when I needed to focus on something other than music. I hand coded the website for one of my bands a few years ago. I worked on a Django project for a friend to get some experience with it. I checked StackOverflow every now and then to see what was trending. But, now that I feel like I've accomplished the things I wanted to as a musician I want to shift to coding. I'll be 39 in a few days. Am I wasting my time?
I suspect not. If you're a competent coder and can prove it, no one who wants to move up the ranks is going to ignore that. Whatever their bias toward other characteristics you have, there's often enough a greater bias toward getting shit done.