The Brutal Ageism of Tech

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Is this really an issue? I mean, look at the average age of the people running this industry. I don't see the "brutal ageism" this guy is talking about. Do you?

Silicon Valley has become one of the most ageist places in America. Tech luminaries who otherwise pride themselves on their dedication to meritocracy don’t think twice about deriding the not-actually-old. “Young people are just smarter,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Stanford back in 2007. And that’s just what gets said in public.
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I dont think the issue is "old" i think the issue is people resting on their laurels and not staying abreast of changes. I got a guy who still tries to orient his processes around the way he did stuff in 1998 on openVMS.
 
I am sure it is somewhat dependent on the position and the company ... I would agree that a lot of the creative types are younger but project management and people management positions can definitely favor more experienced workers (as the younger workers may not have developed the skills or experience to do those as effectively as someone who has a decade of hands on experience under their belt) ... but that said, there are too many people that want to judge people by something superficial (like how they look or talk) and not by what their true capabilities might be ...

younger workers are also less likely to have family obligations which might make them far more attractive to companies that say they value work/life balance when in fact they have no real desire for those things to be balanced at all ;)
 
Tech isn't simple work, you have to upgrade and update constantly. Your skills can get old very quickly.

It certainly isn't any place for a body who's prone to being set in his or her ways.
 
This has been going on in the tech industry for a long time, it's just worse in the bay area.

The general assumption, is that people don’t keep up with the newer technology. While that is true for some, it’s a stereotype that causes problems for older workers.

There’s also the perception that young workers don’t have the family obligations, and can work longer hours, or have the higher salary requirements that older workers expect.

Of course this also ignores the experience and good work ethic of many older workers.

If I needed to look for a job, one of the first thing I’d do is start coloring my hair. Too many people think grey=old=out of date knowledge. Even though my knowledge is up to date and I can support the latest OS’s or systems that are 15 years old.
 
I think that the focus on "young" ONLY is wrong.

IMHO, the focus on young in Silicon Valley is more about paying lower wages than anything else. They're able to make young, unmarried employees work unhealthy LONG hours. Definitely, a 20ish year old can stay "productive" after a week of 20hr days more easily than a 40ish year old.

Definitely, I've seen women who refuse to work long hours at work, so they can pick up their kids from school and spend some time with them in the evenings get passed over for promotion because "they're not committed enough to their job." IMO, this attitude would be even worse in a company like "Facebook" headed by some childless 20ish year old.

A company needs a mix of young, medium, and very experienced workers to be successful over the long term. Each class of worker adds something unique to the company. In the internet age, when online companies and be a startup, be a multi billion dollar company and then be bankrupt in a span of a decade, maybe it doesn't matter.
 
"Young people are just smarter". Well apparently not the ones I am around.

He has lots of pieces of paper, but ask him to do more than setup a workstation and he freezes up, and even that is a struggle. "Just deploy it to a cloud instance" he declares. Well then you need to deploy an internal cloud, cause you cannot put eyes only data outside of our servers.

Oh wait, you don't know how to actually build the backend that makes your ipad go zoom and your on demand cloud servers startup? There is a special place for "techies" like you: Geek Squad or Apple Genius Bar.
 
schizrade said:
"Young people are just smarter". Well apparently not the ones I am around.

He has lots of pieces of paper, but ask him to do more than setup a workstation and he freezes up, and even that is a struggle. "Just deploy it to a cloud instance" he declares. Well then you need to deploy an internal cloud, cause you cannot put eyes only data outside of our servers.

Oh wait, you don't know how to actually build the backend that makes your ipad go zoom and your on demand cloud servers startup? There is a special place for "techies" like you: Geek Squad or Apple Genius Bar.
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His thinking:
1. The "cloud" is the future.
2. iPads "just" works
 
My specialty is finance/banking.

And... i do not see the sort of age-ism implied in this topic.

I'm not necessarily critical of the mistakes younger workers make on-the-job. But, I know insurance companies do charge younger drivers higher rates for auto' liability (i.e. car wrecks).

Maybe there's a correlation between young drivers and (potentially) reckless enterprise IT-development?

I guess the greatest value of young workers is their "no tomorrow", short-sighted mentality. This plays extremely well into today's contemporary senior leadership bent on quarterly cap' gains (stocks/equity).
 
Oh, I definitely do see the ageism in tech. I've seen guys at the top of their game, better than any others I've seen at their trade, from storage admins to hardware and software developers, get pushed out of tech positions because they were older. I now happen to be in a company that seems to be the repository of those guys, pushed out of other companies in the industry and couldn't get jobs elsewhere. Of course, the pace of this company is slower but the reliability of our hardware and software is much higher compared to other companies in the field.

I do fear for my future. I seem to have at most another 8 years in the industry until I get pushed out, and I'm only 42. I've very rarely seen systems admins above 50.
 
dgingeri said:
I do fear for my future. I seem to have at most another 8 years in the industry until I get pushed out, and I'm only 42. I've very rarely seen systems admins above 50.
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And why would you? No one in their right mind wants to monkey around being a sys admin for that long. You move on into management, or product/process development, training/teaching, consulting, etc. etc., if someone is still just a sys admin at 50 then they ought to be pushed out because they have taken zero interest in developing their career/person. No company wants to have dead weight like that around.
 
I'm tired of this nonsense, that companies like facebook and a like are representing the "tech" industry, it's just fucking ridiculous. Hire 20 year old graduate to design cars, CPUs or circuit boards, buildings etc, that's tech, not FB...replying to mails at FB support anyone can do. It's just too bad that advertising based media sites like facebook are considered to be anyhow technological or IT related.
 
Thuleman said:
And why would you? No one in their right mind wants to monkey around being a sys admin for that long. You move on into management, or product/process development, training/teaching, consulting, etc. etc., if someone is still just a sys admin at 50 then they ought to be pushed out because they have taken zero interest in developing their career/person. No company wants to have dead weight like that around.
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Soo......being a sys admin at 50 is bad? That right there is ageism in the works. Could it be they like being a sys admin?
 
Thuleman said:
And why would you? No one in their right mind wants to monkey around being a sys admin for that long. You move on into management, or product/process development, training/teaching, consulting, etc. etc., if someone is still just a sys admin at 50 then they ought to be pushed out because they have taken zero interest in developing their career/person. No company wants to have dead weight like that around.
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I never finished college, so I found few managers who wanted to take the chance on promoting me to sysadmin. When I finally made it into a position to show my talents in that area, I went from off hours support guy to sysadmin in 8 months. I'm doing very well at it now, after 3 years.

I don't want to move up to management or (shudder) teaching. I don't want that kind of responsibility. I'm good with computers of all types. I'm great at making the best of limited resources. As I've shown in my current job, I can pull a great infrastructure from a bunch of near junked old parts or low budget systems. I'm good at it, and I like doing it. I'd be happy to keep doing this, moving from company to company taking their junk and building a castle with it, and then moving on to the next place. At my current place, I've built a pair of VM hosts for HA using existing parts from their separate hosts and barely $4000 in new spending, and had enough left over to update a storage server with three times more storage. I've never known anyone as good at it as me.

My worry is that it is getting a LOT harder over the last two years to get someone who would give me the change to improve their business. While I'm quite confident in my talents, potential employers, nearly always much younger than me, seem to be reluctant to give it a go. I've lost numerous jobs recently to much younger candidates because "they just seemed to have much more energy to get things done."
 
In engineering, youth doesn't necessarily equate to experience or skill or knowledge. Instead, what I'm reading is that youth equates clique and that youth attracts youth and gives the impression that it imparts some magical abilities of skills. Either way, the reality is, is that it isn't about getting the best person for the job, but rather who can you get for the cheapest rate, that you can work to death, and when they aren't of value to you anymore, you toss them aside and dig even deeper into the bottom of the barrel. That's what I'm seeing.
 
the-one1 said:
Soo......being a sys admin at 50 is bad? That right there is ageism in the works. Could it be they like being a sys admin?
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Not ageism as much as business philosophy ... the cost of a worker does increase more as they age, but if their value is also high there is no issue ... there are many tasks that experienced workers are more capable of doing than the inexperienced younger workers are (management, team leaders, etc) ... if a worker is unwilling or unable to step up and provide these higher value services than they become less valuable (regardless of their age)

In my own case I started at Intel Corp when I was 24 ... I worked there for 14 years and progressed from a low level engineer to a team lead coordinating the development of server processors ... after leaving Intel I then worked at a contract manufacturer for 10 years where I did quality engineering and environmental engineering (ultimately being the subject matter expert for regulations, carbon reporting, and design for environment) ... I am now working for a Telecom manufacturer as a regional quality manager for North and South America ... progression is good, both financially and professionally :cool:
 
Thuleman said:
And why would you? No one in their right mind wants to monkey around being a sys admin for that long. You move on into management, or product/process development, training/teaching, consulting, etc. etc., if someone is still just a sys admin at 50 then they ought to be pushed out because they have taken zero interest in developing their career/person. No company wants to have dead weight like that around.
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That's total horseshit. Does that 50 year old admin actually provide a benefit for you at the level he is at? Do you think he would provide it moving up? Have a discussion with that person, see if they are interested, have the desire or think they can contribute right where they are. It isn't about them wanting to advance or get shoved out. It's about strategically placing the right people in the right place do maximize their talents and their efforts. This does not require much logistical thought, but does take a little bit of time to ferret out. A good manager would know this. Most managers don't.
 
kbrickley said:
Not ageism as much as business philosophy ... the cost of a worker does increase more as they age, but if their value is also high there is no issue ... there are many tasks that experienced workers are more capable of doing than the inexperienced younger workers are (management, team leaders, etc) ... if a worker is unwilling or unable to step up and provide these higher value services than they become less valuable (regardless of their age)

In my own case I started at Intel Corp when I was 24 ... I worked there for 14 years and progressed from a low level engineer to a team lead coordinating the development of server processors ... after leaving Intel I then worked at a contract manufacturer for 10 years where I did quality engineering and environmental engineering (ultimately being the subject matter expert for regulations, carbon reporting, and design for environment) ... I am now working for a Telecom manufacturer as a regional quality manager for North and South America ... progression is good, both financially and professionally :cool:
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Big kudos to you. Your is an example of targeted upward mobility and leveraging your skills and desires to become better. +1 to this.
 
Methadras said:
That's total horseshit. Does that 50 year old admin actually provide a benefit for you at the level he is at? Do you think he would provide it moving up? Have a discussion with that person, see if they are interested, have the desire or think they can contribute right where they are. It isn't about them wanting to advance or get shoved out. It's about strategically placing the right people in the right place do maximize their talents and their efforts. This does not require much logistical thought, but does take a little bit of time to ferret out. A good manager would know this. Most managers don't.
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I agree with this. Forcibly instituting The Peter Principle just because you think everyone should desire advancement higher and higher is completely idiotic.

There's something that a lot of aggressively ambitious people seem to forget; Not everyone is aggressively ambitious. In fact, some people's ambition is to do what they like and/or do well already and continue doing it. That doesn't mean that person's existence is by some implicit extension stagnant. It just means they don't give a shit about "upward mobility" if they're already happy healthy and productive where they are.

More power to those who actively pursue being the Regional Manager of Initech Operations Division. Super cool for them. But treating other people that are not seeking that like their lack of interest in that pursuit somehow makes them worth less is re-goddamn-diculous.
 
cortexodus said:
I agree with this. Forcibly instituting The Peter Principle just because you think everyone should desire advancement higher and higher is completely idiotic.

There's something that a lot of aggressively ambitious people seem to forget; Not everyone is aggressively ambitious. In fact, some people's ambition is to do what they like and/or do well already and continue doing it. That doesn't mean that person's existence is by some implicit extension stagnant. It just means they don't give a shit about "upward mobility" if they're already happy healthy and productive where they are.

More power to those who actively pursue being the Regional Manager of Initech Operations Division. Super cool for them. But treating other people that are not seeking that like their lack of interest in that pursuit somehow makes them worth less is re-goddamn-diculous.
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As long as people understand that they are only as valuable as the job they do ... although some jobs can be very fun to do, they may not pay very well if you do them for 40 years ... I would agree that as long as an employee is providing value they are beneficial to the company ... however, employees also have to realize that your value could diminish over time if you are not expanding your skills into new areas or expanding your responsibility

For example, if you think of a company like a military unit you need lots of people at different ranks to make things work ... Privates and Corporals are just as necessary as Colonels and Generals ... However, a General is worth far more than a Private because he is much more difficult to replace ... if you are happy being a Private for 30 years (and can still do the job as well as the new Privates) then that is great ... but if you expect to get big pay raises every year for being a Private then that can be a problem ... balancing the company interests with employee interests (including compensation) is one of the most tricky things in business (unless you have completely disposable employees ... which most businesses do not) ...

most of us get a little ambitious because we want to receive more benefits or compensation (not because we have a burning desire to move up) ... also, it is nice to be able to control your own direction more (which is only possible the higher you move) ... but different strokes for different folks (as the saying goes) :cool:
 
kbrickley said:
As long as people understand that they are only as valuable as the job they do ... although some jobs can be very fun to do, they may not pay very well if you do them for 40 years ... I would agree that as long as an employee is providing value they are beneficial to the company ... however, employees also have to realize that your value could diminish over time if you are not expanding your skills into new areas or expanding your responsibility

For example, if you think of a company like a military unit you need lots of people at different ranks to make things work ... Privates and Corporals are just as necessary as Colonels and Generals ... However, a General is worth far more than a Private because he is much more difficult to replace ... if you are happy being a Private for 30 years (and can still do the job as well as the new Privates) then that is great ... but if you expect to get big pay raises every year for being a Private then that can be a problem ... balancing the company interests with employee interests (including compensation) is one of the most tricky things in business (unless you have completely disposable employees ... which most businesses do not) ...

most of us get a little ambitious because we want to receive more benefits or compensation (not because we have a burning desire to move up) ... also, it is nice to be able to control your own direction more (which is only possible the higher you move) ... but different strokes for different folks (as the saying goes) :cool:
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I fully understand this, and I don't ask for extra just because I've been around a while. As a matter of fact, I probably make less than most admins because I don't usually stick around very long, and have to start over at entry level pay for the job when I move to a new company. I only ask that my annual pay increases at least equal the current inflation rate, which most of the time they don't.

I do this because I love assembling computers. When I put a new rack together, it's like putting together a new, bigger, computer. I'm presently putting together a new OpenCloud test rack right now. It's got 8 raid trays with 16 2TB drives each, two new Dell R720 nodes, and a new Brocade 5100 switch. (Yes, only 8Gb FC. It's assembled around the storage, which is 3 years old. Everything else is new.) I just unwrapped the rack and PDU, and I still get the same, almost giddy, feeling when opening up new stuff like this. I know I'm making something that hasn't exactly been done before. Oh, sure, two servers and a bunch of trays of drives has been done, but nothing exactly like this. It's new, and I'm building it with my own hands.

It's the same feeling I got when putting together my home server/router/poor-man's 10Gb switch. This one only has an Athlon II X3 450 processor, but with a 990FX motherboard, a quad port 1Gb NIC, a single 1Gb port NIC (for the internet connection,) and two Intel 10Gb CX4 NICs. With Win2008r2, I can make it into a software switch, allowing me to connect my other two servers to it through CX4 and get 10Gb bandwidth between them. (Not really necessary, but I like it, and it's my money.) The 990FX board was necessary to get all the networking in place, but a server doesn't need a whole lot of processor power or memory to manage software switching, DHCP, DNS, and routing. My old Dell T110 just wasn't making the grade due to air flow. The 10Gb cards kept overheating and hanging.

I know I'm worth more than most sysadmins in many ways, but less in other ways. I don't have intimate knowledge of Cisco command line configs, and I don't know much on Linux of Unix, but I am very good with Windows and very resourceful. I know I'll be valuable until my brain starts to degrade, which, judging from my grandparents and great grandparents, will be at about 75-80. I hope to keep working like this all the way until then. At 70, I may not be able to pick up a 16 drive tray like I can right now, but I'll still be able to plan and implement a network just as well, if not better, than today. I'm certain I'll be just as valuable, and I'll only ask for as much as I'm worth. I'm also certain it'll be as fun as it is today. :)
 
kbrickley said:
As long as people understand that they are only as valuable as the job they do

employees also have to realize that your value could diminish over time if you are not expanding your skills into new areas or expanding your responsibility

For example, if you think of a company like a military unit

it is nice to be able to control your own direction more (which is only possible the higher you move)

different strokes for different folks (as the saying goes) :cool:
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1. You are not your job. Your value has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer's perception of your value is not your measure.

2. This is true in terms of skills. Becoming obsolete is definitely a bad idea. However, "expanding your responsibility" is literally "ambition" in my mind and shouldn't automatically be a requirement for everyone in every position all the time. It just makes no sense.

3. No! This is an invalid analogy at best. No-one in a company will save your ass when you're in the line of fire, they will let you die to save their own rear in an instant. Hell, someone will probably happily crush your fingers to help you on your fall from the edge just to see you gone because that one time you didn't appropriately kiss their ass in a meeting. Companies deserve no more loyalty from their employees than they're willing to give in return and I've yet to see a company that won't chuck you on the curb in an instant without a second thought.

4. I disagree. Control over your own life is not something you should be willing to give up in the first place. Particularly for a company. Also, "higher" just means more responsibilities that you may not want (more power to you if you do, but I certainly am not interested in that stress)

5. True dat! :cool:
 
cortexodus said:
1. You are not your job. Your value has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer's perception of your value is not your measure.

2. This is true in terms of skills. Becoming obsolete is definitely a bad idea. However, "expanding your responsibility" is literally "ambition" in my mind and shouldn't automatically be a requirement for everyone in every position all the time. It just makes no sense.

3. No! This is an invalid analogy at best. No-one in a company will save your ass when you're in the line of fire, they will let you die to save their own rear in an instant. Hell, someone will probably happily crush your fingers to help you on your fall from the edge just to see you gone because that one time you didn't appropriately kiss their ass in a meeting. Companies deserve no more loyalty from their employees than they're willing to give in return and I've yet to see a company that won't chuck you on the curb in an instant without a second thought.

4. I disagree. Control over your own life is not something you should be willing to give up in the first place. Particularly for a company. Also, "higher" just means more responsibilities that you may not want (more power to you if you do, but I certainly am not interested in that stress)

5. True dat! :cool:
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1. I meant your value to your employer ... I agree that your value as a person or an individual is separate from your value as an employee (and I have known some very technical folks that were jerks and I couldn't wait to get away from them and some very non-technical folks I would have gone the extra mile for)

2. It is technically ambition but it is nice when you have technical people that are willing and able to lead technical teams (they often respond better to a leader who understands reality and you tend to get better and more realistic projects from the team)

3. I meant only in a hierarchical structure sort of way ... most large companies have layers (it is generally nicer to be closer to the top of the cake than the bottom ... but that does depend on the company and the cake :) )

4. Again I meant control of your role in the company that employs you ... YOU control your own life (within the boundaries of certain familial and cultural obligations), not your employer ... but, within a corporate employer you have more control of your professional destiny (within that employer) the higher you are in the structure ... when I was an entry level engineer I had to take the projects I was offered most of the time, when I became a senior engineer I could propose projects of my own as well as cherry pick from the available projects
 
kbrickley said:
2. It is technically ambition but it is nice when you have technical people that are willing and able to lead technical teams (they often respond better to a leader who understands reality and you tend to get better and more realistic projects from the team)

3. I meant only in a hierarchical structure sort of way ... most large companies have layers (it is generally nicer to be closer to the top of the cake than the bottom ... but that does depend on the company and the cake :) )

4. when I was an entry level engineer I had to take the projects I was offered most of the time, when I became a senior engineer I could propose projects of my own as well as cherry pick from the available projects
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2. Willing an able are the key bits here, I think. Having someone at the helm that has worked the dreg roles really helps because, as you say, they "understand reality". I've seen people (developers) that were pressed into project management roles that they neither wanted to be part of, nor were they the best choice, only to have that person end up fired because they couldn't live up to expectations that were erroneously placed on them. It's like "here's a promotion you didn't ask for and don't want, now buck up!". It's total bullshit. Makes me think it's done intentionally by managers to sabotage people's jobs.

3. You hit the nail on the head, but I don't about it generally being better closer to the top... All the people holding the reigns in the places I've worked look like they live in a world of shit. I'll take sprint timelines any day over whatever soul-crushing garbage they have to deal with. Obviously this is just my own experience!

4. Good point! :D
 
Older people may tend to rely mostly on past experiences which is debatably a minus in the tech sector. We need more forward thinkers to drive technology forward and usually that will be some 20-40 something year old rebel. Or not.
 
bbf said:
IMO, this attitude would be even worse in a company like "Facebook" headed by some childless 20ish year old.
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Mark Zuckerberg is actually turning 30 this year, just like I am. Interesting, I wonder if he considered 30 "old" back in 2007 when he made his famous statement. Something tells me, his views are going to "evolve" over time :rolleyes:
 
nutzo said:
Even though my knowledge is up to date and I can support the latest OS’s or systems that are 15 years old.
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Calm down gramps before you give yourself a stroke and raise our group rate medical account.
GotNoRice said:
Mark Zuckerberg is actually turning 30 this year, just like I am. Interesting, I wonder if he considered 30 "old" back in 2007 when he made his famous statement. Something tells me, his views are going to "evolve" over time
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Without a doubt... its natural to have a predisposition to ideas that are favorable to yourself. ;)

That or he will just redefine what "old" is, that's what I always do. Old is always 15 years older than I happen to be at the time. Now that I'm in my early 30s, I've defined old as in the mid 40s, so I'm safe... :D
 
I've been programming since I've been 10 years old. I didn't become a really good coder till I hit my mid 30's. I'm in my 40's now and am a principal engineer at a very large company.

Young people may pick up new tech quicker. But I guarantee you who's going to implement it the best; and it's not the wet nose just out of college.

Case in point: In 8 months, I wrote 40,000+ lines of code for a project. Other product lines wanted to do something similar, so I provided them an interface for which they could copy 95% of my code as a plugin. A year later they still aren't done, and their product does less
 
Coming from finance to something more "tech" I see a lot of it has to do with the culture. It's a very closed ecosystem; many are just out of college, all hang out together, work late together, drink beers at the office, etc. I'm not that old, but I'm just not wired that way. I work to live, not live to work.

The young guys doing the dev work are great, but it's interesting that as the company grows the actual infrastructure people, the people who make sure what they're doing is legal, the people to, you know, figure out how to actually make money, are much older.
 
I've seen it both ways.

About 10 years ago I was hired to do service calls. A couple weeks later the company decided to hire another guy. They interviewed several people and really liked on guy but decided not to hire him because he was too old and did not fit the companies image. (I was 5 years older than the guy but I was in good shape and younger looking).

Fast forward: I'm Director of IT for a southeastern corporation. Too many of the younger guys have this group-think thing. If the young hive mind decides upon something than most younger guys are going to adhere to the group. Older guys are more likely to think for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions independently. Obviously there are exceptions to the rules...
 
Methadras said:
That's total horseshit. Does that 50 year old admin actually provide a benefit for you at the level he is at? [...] This does not require much logistical thought, but does take a little bit of time to ferret out. A good manager would know this. Most managers don't.
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Please ..., I know posting the stuff you did sounds really good, and makes people feel good when they think about how only the best and brightest are in the jobs, meanwhile, back in reality, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 50 yo sys admin costs too much for the value they provide. Why would I pay someone six figures for "30 years of experience" (much of which is completely irrelevant in today's environment) if I can pay someone mid 5 figures for 5 years of experience.

I'll tell you why I may want to do that; for the business acumen the 50 yo has, for his/her leadership ability, for the ability to develop new business based on industry contacts, but definitely not for sitting on a console doing rm -rf all day.
 
the-one1 said:
Soo......being a sys admin at 50 is bad? That right there is ageism in the works. Could it be they like being a sys admin?
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People without ambition will get pushed out, this has nothing to do with age, it's just that for some employees the realization that they lack ambition become apparent with age when they stop to develop themselves and progress in their career. Age is just an indicator by proxy, not the root cause.

dgingeri said:
My worry is that it is getting a LOT harder over the last two years to get someone who would give me the change to improve their business. While I'm quite confident in my talents, potential employers, nearly always much younger than me, seem to be reluctant to give it a go. I've lost numerous jobs recently to much younger candidates because "they just seemed to have much more energy to get things done."
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But it's not actually energy as in physical energy. It's expressed and visible enthusiasm which makes them appear more energetic. They are still highly excited whereas for the older crowd it's just another system. Older folks know what they need to do and can efficiently do it, but they just (as a sweeping generalization) don't have it in them to be over the moon about a new deployment. Been there, done that, know how it works, can do it really quick, no big deal.

Such a "calm" attitude often doesn't inspire confidence in the SMB market. Calm works well in large corporations because there the "let's think about this first" approach actually matters and saves money. In SMB it's all just "let's get this done adhoc and on the cheap really quick".
 
Ok different segment of the tech field. I work in the games industry - 25 years - and ageism is a huge problem in it. Whenever there are large layoffs it is primarily older vets. Why? They are expensive. Higher pay, more health costs after they spend decades of beating themselves up for the company. The execs want young, "dumb"(not realizing that they are going to get heavily abused) and straight out of school killing themselves for a lot less money than the experienced guys. And of course they make a lot of mistakes that could of been avoided if some folks with serious chunk of experience.

Good luck getting a job afterwards. Other companies assume you aren't flexible on pay without talking to you. Even worse you are interviewed by someone much younger that gets intimidated by the interviewee. Can't hire someone that would potentially take their job or bypass them on the chain. I know this one personally because I had friends in the company who dug around a bit to find out what happened. They didn't let out how good friends we were but the quote was "Why the F*** would I hire someone that will take my job".

I have kept up on my skills through out my career and it is irrelevant. My games include the Descent franchise, the Star Trek original series games, flOw, Flower, Everyday shooter and more for my bona fides,

Just ranting but it has been a problem in the games industry for the last 18 years or so.
 
Croaker said:
I have kept up on my skills through out my career and it is irrelevant. My games include the Descent franchise, the Star Trek original series games, flOw, Flower, Everyday shooter and more for my bona fides.
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You, Sir, are my hero. Flower was one of the best games I have ever played and it got my wife who absolutely hated anything video game related into playing games on the PS3. Thank you!
 
Thuleman said:
People without ambition will get pushed out, this has nothing to do with age, it's just that for some employees the realization that they lack ambition become apparent with age when they stop to develop themselves and progress in their career. Age is just an indicator by proxy, not the root cause.
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I understand how some would think this, but they're wrong. I keep my skills up to date, I just stick with the same thing. I haven't bypassed getting skills with Windows 2008 and 2012 just because my first certs were for NT 4.0. I'm just as good with 2012r2 as I am with DOS. (As a matter of fact, after experimentation, I highly recommend sticking with Win 2008r2 if you're doing any network services. 2012 and 2012r2 have significant problems serving out DHCP and DNS. They take about an extra 10 seconds to serve out a DHCP address, and DNS forwarding and caching is troublesome.) I have also expanded my skills with three different types of virtualization: VMWare, Hyper-V, and VirtualBox. I've gained some experience with AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and RHEL, as well as HP and Cisco switches. I know I'm not alone in this attitude. Just because someone doesn't want to leave their current responsibilities doesn't mean they're slacking off. It may mean they like doing it. There are many managers (who generally don't deserve to be managers because of this very thing) who do not understand this. It's their loss.
 
As a manager, I've always found that teams work best with a mix of the super-ambitious and the role-players. The sys-admins who are amazing at what they do, but don't want to screw around with anything else. Those role players give the ambitious ones the opportunity to move up, because if everyone was constantly in flux it becomes madness.
 
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