Tech Workers Worry about Age Discrimination at Age 40

[Megalith]

A new study has found that nearly half of those already working in the industry fear getting the ax because of their advancing age. A whopping 43% of 1,011 U.S. tech workers surveyed by job search site Indeed said they are worried about losing their position because of how old they are — and 18% say they’re are concerned about the issue “all the time.”

More than one-third of workers surveyed (36%) report experiencing at least one instance during which they weren’t taken seriously by colleagues and managers due to age. And yet, most respondents (78%) still consider older tech workers (those aged 40+) to be highly qualified, and over 83% state that these workers have good experience and can share wisdom. There is a serious disconnect here: a contradiction, even. The older workers get, the more concerned they are about their careers. And yet most of their colleagues at tech firms believe they still have much to contribute.

 

[GotNoRice]

When people think about how they will be treated when they get older, the first thing that they usually think about are the older people that they knew in the past. In many ways we still tend to associate older people with the pre-internet generation. You know, the kind of people who are more comfortable reading newspapers than online news, those who would rather use a regular Taxi than Uber, those who only use their phones to call people, etc. But the reality is that those of us who grew up with the internet will largely keep our habits with us as we age, and we will ultimately redefine many of the stereotypes currently associated with the older folks of previous generations. Not to mention that younger people are building up a fair amount of their own bad stereotypes. Would you rather have a "younger" worker who spends 75% of their shift on facebook?

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Sounds about right. I have a team of approx 45 techs. Head manager is over 40, the 4 managers below him are 35+, the 4 leads below them are 30+, then peons are about 90% millennials. There are two peons over 60 (who are just lifers), then maybe 3 peons who are over 40. Management has straight up told recruiters that we only want young folks (like me) with more tech experience than industry experience.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

When all the mega companies pretty much say you had it by 40, can you blame them? Thanks Mr Zuckerberg.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Sounds about right. I have a team of approx 45 techs. Head manager is over 40, the 4 managers below him are 35+, the 4 leads below them are 30+, then peons are about 90% millennials. There are two peons over 60 (who are just lifers), then maybe 3 peons who are over 40. Management has straight up told recruiters that we only want young folks (like me) with more tech experience than industry experience.

Let me know your company name so I can sue for age discrimination.

 

[101998]

I'd reframe this as "43% of tech workers are not actively learning new technology and fear what they know will soon become obsolete." Shit changes fast and you have to keep up if you want to stay relevant.

 

[bucket]

Older workers have usually been in the industry longer and generally make considerably more than others. That's one of the reasons they are first to get the axe when a company is trying to save money.

 

[RogueTadhg]

My plan of attack is being well versed in the Dank Memes.

It'll keep me hip and in the know.

 

[pendragon1]

ive been passed up for at least three positions that got filled by 18-20 year olds. i have more years of experience than they have been alive...

 

[Dead Parrot]

IMO, the lack of experience in tech is one of the reasons we keep reading about data breaches, malfunctioning websites, IOT botnets, etc. Universities and Tech schools barely have time to tech the basics of programming or network management. They assume you will get a beginning job and learn how to code for real life scenarios(supporting older browsers, interfacing with legacy systems, dealing with a mix of systems, etc) as you gain experience. Companies are assuming that new graduates are fully prepared to write ready to go production code the minute they are hired. The sad thing is about the time most tech folks get the experience to know how to properly set a system up so it works properly, safely and securely, they are in their late 30s or mid 40s and considered over the hill by most "We Only Use The Latest Stuff" companies.

 

[Makaveli@BETA]

When people think about how they will be treated when they get older, the first thing that they usually think about are the older people that they knew in the past. In many ways we still tend to associate older people with the pre-internet generation. You know, the kind of people who are more comfortable reading newspapers than online news, those who would rather use a regular Taxi than Uber, those who only use their phones to call people, etc. But the reality is that those of us who grew up with the internet will largely keep our habits with us as we age, and we will ultimately redefine many of the stereotypes currently associated with the older folks of previous generations. Not to mention that younger people are building up a fair amount of their own bad stereotypes. Would you rather have a "younger" worker who spends 75% of their shift on facebook?

This ^^^

I'll put my 37 year old skills vs any millennials or centennial 90% of them know how to use facebook and instragram but show them a command prompt and you look like a wizard.

I'm the kid that grew up using Dos and building computers from an early age.

ive been passed up for at least three positions that got filled by 18-20 year olds. i have more years of experience than they have been alive...

In my experience this usually happends when the experienced person is asking for too much money.

A position that requires someone to have 5-10 years experience and is abit senior will not take some new grad from school.

 

[viper1152012]

My dad actually went back to school and works in a hospital now as an lpn because he couldn't find work programming.
He was proficient in everything from cobol to c# because he loved learning to code.
He has a photographic memory and rips through code....well he did.

The last few places he worked for went under, the last was Hollywood video, just as they were closing and he was 51 at the time. After that he had sterling letters of recommendation and references and he was passed up continually until he just gave up.

One of the old employers actually contacted him while he was re-training and asked if he would come back on a contract that had no guarantee of duration....passsssss.

Its a demanding and cut throat model that seems to be pulling harder on young coders demanding more hours and more and more it's looking to mw like the NFL model. Where a player is drafted in college ran hard for good pay and retiered out when they exceed prime years.

 

[pendragon1]

In my experience this usually happends when the experienced person is asking for too much money.

A position that requires someone to have 5-10 years experience and is abit senior will not take some new grad from school.

yeah i wasn't asking for much and they were just normal tech positions, nothing fancy. i was kinda pissed.
I'm now looking at upgrade options for myself, more certs etc, move up past normal tech stuff...

 

[marekfreak]

Right now, I am in a team, most in their early 40s, including our TL and some recent hires, one 35 year old and one lonely misunderstood millennial.

Take a wild guess who is the immature one, who continuously gossips, bad-mouths everyone behind their backs to others to the point everyone hates him with a passion, gets continuously reprimanded, has to have their worked double/triple checked, thinks his god's gift to IT and is actually one strike away from getting fired.

Anyway, from what I heard and have experienced, a lot of HR agencies and HR of those companies are not so quick to jump on the millennial band-wagon. They show a huge preference for candidates who are either married/older, have kids/family and of course have experience (IT is seen by them as an ever changing and learned-on-the-job skill). To them it has been proven time and time again that these candidates are the most stable, flexible and surprisingly loyal and reliable type of employees.

 

[Croak]

It's even worse in the game industry. I'm a designer over 50 with solid, non-assclown references, a fairly deep AAA credits list, a willingness to relocate anywhere, and I'm pretty sure the age thing is what's been keeping me from getting hired for the last few years. And damn THQ for going bankrupt and putting me in this position.

Right now? I'm selling cars.

 

[Nytegard]

It's sort of a double edged sword. On one hand, older people have experience. On the other hand, this often leads to bad habits. When I was in my early 20s, I remember myself, as well as the other people my age complaining about the archaic ways of the older programmers. Even in my current job, my boss wants things done a specific way, because they make sense to him, yet it's really a terrible design that goes against all accepted schools of thought. But then I look at code I wrote 20 years ago, and cringe at just how bad it is. Some of that code sadly lives on through the internet, and I just cannot stand to look at it.

And ageism certainly does exist and gets the blind eye. Before I turned 35, I was getting cold called for interviews at minimum two times a week. I don't get those anymore. And the few places I talk to about job interviews typically want to focus more on a managerial position over a software developer position. But I'm terrible with people and would make a horrible manager. And when I go in for real interviews, I'm often a decade older than the people interviewing me, yet still have to answer questions about stuff I haven't touched since college, and know that the company probably would never even use itself. And the previous company I was at let everyone go, where the average age was in their 50s, and many of them still have been looking for a position for over two years.

 

[Monkey God]

Ive hired people in their 20's that were amazing and some that were a waste of skin. Ive hired people as old as mid 60's that were pretty damn good. With a decent interviewing process, age doesn't matter.

 

[Aireoth]

I've long thought that this new generation will replace racism with ageism, humans need a 'they' to hate.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Sorry, not going to RTFA, but what percentage worry about losing their jobs to H1Bs?

 

[H2R2P2]

I can speak to this first hand. I have worked in tech my whole life, but for the last 10 years I have been in engineering roles at Microsoft. I have never gotten a bad review; I was the lead on numerous high level programs and projects and received big visibility from them; I had also gotten mid-year promotions (which is very rare) in addition to single person accomplishment recognition bonuses (Gold Stars, which were eliminated a few years back). Well, I just hit 41 in September and guess what I was greeted with (in July)? Yep! I was laid off!

There is nothing "official" you will find about any of this, but Microsoft in particular is not being seen as "cool" and its getting harder for them to attract the top talent coming straight out of school. The idea is to eliminate the higher salaried "older" people and use that money to pay for bonuses to the younger people who perform.

I also had a lot of interaction with other industry professionals at Facebook, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn, etc. for much of the work I did.. Ever wonder why Yahoo was such a train wreck when it came to security? They had practically no one over the age of 25 working there and there was huge turnover! I was asked to come in for a round of interviews there about 5 years ago, and words simply cannot describe how screwed up it was. Ironically, the tech industry is following their lead right now..

 

[DeathFromBelow]

There is nothing "official" you will find about any of this, but Microsoft in particular is not being seen as "cool" and its getting harder for them to attract the top talent coming straight out of school. The idea is to eliminate the higher salaried "older" people and use that money to pay for bonuses to the younger people who perform.

I'm pretty sure they're pocketing that money and bringing in 'talent' from overseas.

 

[nutzo]

My dad actually went back to school and works in a hospital now as an lpn because he couldn't find work programming. The last few places he worked for went under, the last was Hollywood video, just as they were closing and he was 51 at the time. After that he had sterling letters of recommendation and references and he was passed up continually until he just gave up.

I'm older than that, yet the younger techs always come to me when they can't figure something out.

However, if I ever have to look for a new job, I know the age discrimination will be a problem.
Lucky I still have a full head of hair, so I'll just need to dye out the grey to look 10 years younger.
I'll also have leave some of my earlier experience off my resume along with all the dates, so they can't tell how old I am.

 

[TrailRunner]

I’ve idlely thought from time to time of going back to school. Couple of years ago I thought it might be worthwhile to get my MBA, now I’m thinking something more practical: welding, HVAC, or the sort. My brother works for a mechanical contracting firm (HVAC and plumbing in new commercial construction), and business is booming. The IT gig has worked out for me for the past 10+ years, and I’m not going to jump ship on a good thing, but it’s good to be aware of what’s going on and to have an eye on other options.
I do QA, and work my butt off after hours to keep my skills up to date. Was at a conference last year and at one session, had some folks from King demonstrating how they were using AI to balance test new Candy Crush levels, and were developing AI to develop new levels. At some point in the near or distant future, no matter what I do and how sharply I hone my capabilities, my my job’s going to be replaced, either by some kid out of school or by software. Just have to be ready for it.

 

[Nytegard]

I can speak to this first hand. I have worked in tech my whole life, but for the last 10 years I have been in engineering roles at Microsoft. I have never gotten a bad review; I was the lead on numerous high level programs and projects and received big visibility from them; I had also gotten mid-year promotions (which is very rare) in addition to single person accomplishment recognition bonuses (Gold Stars, which were eliminated a few years back). Well, I just hit 41 in September and guess what I was greeted with (in July)? Yep! I was laid off!

There is nothing "official" you will find about any of this, but Microsoft in particular is not being seen as "cool" and its getting harder for them to attract the top talent coming straight out of school. The idea is to eliminate the higher salaried "older" people and use that money to pay for bonuses to the younger people who perform.

I also had a lot of interaction with other industry professionals at Facebook, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn, etc. for much of the work I did.. Ever wonder why Yahoo was such a train wreck when it came to security? They had practically no one over the age of 25 working there and there was huge turnover! I was asked to come in for a round of interviews there about 5 years ago, and words simply cannot describe how screwed up it was. Ironically, the tech industry is following their lead right now..

One of the companies you mentioned in your post called me for an interview, and I kid you not, but one of their comments, word for word:

"I see you've been at (my current company) for over 5 years. That's an awfully long time to work at a company. Why did you stay so long?"

It's this current culture. And in my opinion, it's not healthy. I'm not 25 anymore, and I still haven't found what you'd consider a career. The sad thing is, there is a mindset of a young twenty something when it comes to management, who consider long term to be a couple years, and that leads to poor long term decisions in my opinion.

 

[nutzo]

At some point in the near or distant future, no matter what I do and how sharply I hone my capabilities, my my job’s going to be replaced, either by some kid out of school or by software. Just have to be ready for it.

You need to find a position and make yourself invaluable.
I manage the IT infrastructure for a small company (100 users). Server, firewalls, phones, printers, along with purchasing everything.
They would likely have to hire 2-3 people to replace me, or contract out a lot of the IT work.

I could probably make more money elsewhere, but I'd also have to work a lot more hours being the newbe.
Just hope the company stays around long enough for me to hit retirement.

 

[///AMG]

Sorry, not going to RTFA, but what percentage worry about losing their jobs to H1Bs?

For my old company a lot. They had a huge campus in Bejing and since the downturn they started to lay people off and bring those from china to the US through H1Bs, I saw the writing on the wall for me once I finished my masters and left as soon as I could. Everyone on my old team is gone or offered early retirement, replaced by H1Bs and fresh college graduates.

 

[H2R2P2]

One of the companies you mentioned in your post called me for an interview, and I kid you not, but one of their comments, word for word:

"I see you've been at (my current company) for over 5 years. That's an awfully long time to work at a company. Why did you stay so long?"

It's this current culture. And in my opinion, it's not healthy. I'm not 25 anymore, and I still haven't found what you'd consider a career. The sad thing is, there is a mindset of a young twenty something when it comes to management, who consider long term to be a couple years, and that leads to poor long term decisions in my opinion.

Yeah, you're totally correct. The current cool thing is to hop from place to place every 2 years or so. While there is some rationale to do that when there is a massive transnational shift, it eventually implodes on itself unless you can mature. Facebook is starting to go through this process right now, and Amazon to a much much lessor state, but its got a long way to go.

 

[H2R2P2]

You need to find a position and make yourself invaluable.
I manage the IT infrastructure for a small company (100 users). Server, firewalls, phones, printers, along with purchasing everything.
They would likely have to hire 2-3 people to replace me, or contract out a lot of the IT work.

I could probably make more money elsewhere, but I'd also have to work a lot more hours being the newbe.
Just hope the company stays around long enough for me to hit retirement.

In my experience,

I'm pretty sure they're pocketing that money and bringing in 'talent' from overseas.

While that wouldn't surprise me as being the case in many companies, thats not exactly whats going on in the types of companies I mentioned. I was already one of the very few white people on many teams (depended a lot of what internal business group it was with). The "silicon valley" companies are massively profitable. For example, Microsoft has a 75%+ contribution margin. They arent looking to cut costs. They are looking for ways to become or stay relevant and they are doing that through bringing in people straight out of school. Yes, those people cost less but they are willing to pay them big bonuses (often times double whatever their yearly pay is) if they "perform".

 

[D4rkn3ss]

pfft 40? its a fossil, just dug a hole and bury it, gone. i plan to kill myself at this age so i can still leave a nice looking corpse.

 

[H2R2P2]

I just had an idea... What if we formed a tech company with the requirement that you needed to be previously laid off or fired due to age discrimination in order to apply?

 

[lostin3d]

Age related worries have and always will exist. It predates most civilizations on the planet. When I was in my teens/twenties I often wondered about those in the 40-60 bracket and now that I'm in the same demograph I of course still think about it. I occasionally meet the young brainchild but by far and wide it the ones who live by facebook and try to get ahead by networking more than doing.

 

[oROEchimaru]

need a diverse group (ages, experience, skills, certs, cultures etc) if your company can support a larger team. I have worked at places where the average age is 50 and average age is 25... both have their pros/cons. However I have also worked at places where the culture is "experienced and ultra conservative" with a wacky CIO/CSO that wants the latest buzzword implemented blindly.... and nothing ever happens.

Leadership needs a clear vision, however techs, analysts, engineers etc need to keep learning and gaining experience. Experience isn't just "years" it is "what did you do in those years". I have worked at hospitals where my hobby experience in html is more advance than someone doing webdesign for 20 years. I have also worked at places where the lowest paid engineer was more talented than someone over six figures.

 

[shad0w4life]

The younger smooth talking guy with no experience that was previously at my company did a horrific job with about $1Million worth of IBM products and then spent 950k on migrating files off a network drive into that system. Failed miserably and was finally let go.

I was brought on for a different piece of software but they asked me to have a look at what he had setup 2 days after I started. He had the production servers running with 2 CPU cores and 8GB RAM for over 1000 Users. Bought software never enabled it even though users said it never worked, and other quick one was never used any of the newer technologies that were in the software causing massive performance and administrative nightmares.

Then there's about 30 other things I've discovered now that they gave me his job.

Difference of 2 years of experience vs 12, cost this company about 3 million in useless cost and requiring multiple BA's to be hired to fix all the random "solutions" he had designed. But hey they saved a bit of money upfront and narrowly avoided a lawsuit when they couldn't find then signed copies of records.

 

[H2R2P2]

need a diverse group (ages, experience, skills, certs, cultures etc) if your company can support a larger team. I have worked at places where the average age is 50 and average age is 25... both have their pros/cons. However I have also worked at places where the culture is "experienced and ultra conservative" with a wacky CIO/CSO that wants the latest buzzword implemented blindly.... and nothing ever happens.

Leadership needs a clear vision, however techs, analysts, engineers etc need to keep learning and gaining experience. Experience isn't just "years" it is "what did you do in those years". I have worked at hospitals where my hobby experience in html is more advance than someone doing webdesign for 20 years. I have also worked at places where the lowest paid engineer was more talented than someone over six figures.

I think you are right on all accounts... Having said this, I think the scope is being overly broadened as the discussion is proceeding in this thread though. Let me explain..

I started in the "Tech" industry when I was 16. I actually formed my own company and had a number of high profile clients (including investment and engineering firms). I should also mention I had a full ride scholarship to go to college, so I skipped high school and went straight to a University. By the time I was 24 (in the year 2000), I was making in excess of $150K per year and was by far the most talented and advanced IT person I knew.

Warp speed to 2008.. I started working at Microsoft as an engineer. I have now worked there for 10 years and again, I excelled at everything. I even went on and got my MBA in the meantime. I still am considered very forward thinking and am not someone holding on to old ideas for the sake of holding onto something. So, I just hit my 40's and guess what? I recently got laid off...

As I stated earlier, this wasn't about performance.. There is a shift going on in the Silicon Valley tech world to get more in tune with younger demographics. In a nut shell, established companies like Microsoft, Google, etc., are losing workers to startups and companies like SnapChat, Instagram, etc.. simply because they dont appear as "cool". It has all to do with perception and appeasing the younger worker who they think they need in order to connect with their age group. Who know.. Maybe they are right in a way... But in my opinion the line may have been moved too far (and I used Yahoo as an example).

In summary, I dont think what I am explaining here is happening in all parts of the country. There are levels of insanity on the West Coast that only those in these handful of companies can relate to. I just hope this trend isn't adopted to the broader country at large as I think in the long run its going to be detrimental to the services these companies provide.

 

[daglesj]

I got the impression I was too old at 37 when I was looking for a new job.

That was 10 years ago.

Been self employed for 9, go figure.

 

[OutOfPhase]

It does become an uphill battle. I'm eyeballing 50, and the perception that younger people will do something magic with "newer technologies" is palpable.

I was actually moved off one project to make room for a college hire who they decided might know the tech we were going to use a little better. I asked the (new) manager to go look up the patent relating to the tech in question, and then tell me what name they saw on it. It was one of those "Look it up, I'll wait" moments. OH GOSH the old fogie may have invented the stuff the new guy may have read about.

Ah well.

 

[Grimlaking]

I watch these articles being published on LinkedIN talking about how great it is being a contractor... CLEARLY TARGETED TO the under 30 crowd. You know what. You want irresponsible fly by night move on to the next greatest thing as soon as they get trained and their feet wet. THAT's the crowd that you will get hiring the under 30 crowd.

You want someone who's going to know the WHY's as well as the HOW's. That's when you look for mature employees. Sure you CAN do something.. but SHOULD you. Yes You CAN run all of your systems on a Cisco UCS platform with a 40GB backbone that is shared among all of them for your I/O... but SHOULD you.

Yea it will look neat in your Data center.. or in your co-hosted facility where you are running your virtual cloud. But when they start popping and failing and you loose a back plane and 6 servers running 200 VM's.. guess who has egg on their face then? It's you MR manager who hired the millennial who new technology but not your freaking industry! They've been gone for a year, and the documentation they delivered to you on how that was all setup.. yea... it wasn't complete not really it LOOKED good but it wasn't accurate. NOW you need to bring in the big guns, the over 40 crowd or over 30 crowd who know the technology because they learned it. Yea they cost 40% more per year.. but your systems will stay up and you will have an hardened documented infrastructure.

Right until you hire the next under 30 contractor to come in and sell you on the next greatest tech that will deliver X at Y. And you will swallow it hook line and sinker because they want less money to give you a "better more current" environment. Yea you CAN do that... but your older stuff never go's down. The engineers you've relied on for decades are there to make sure it never go's down and they know the environment backwards and forwards.

In my company we have ONE team that has a solid environment. They manage everything about that environment. From soup to nuts for the entire lifetime of all systems in that environment. To the rest of the company they are the assholes who never go down. That's my team. You know how many under 40 engineers we have? MAYBE 1. I have the least seniority on the team at 4 years. I am over 40 though. We have 1 or 2 under 40 in our support level. The rest of my company is dividied up, intel team, applications teams, Database Team, security team... all having to circle around a project to get it done and up.. then support it forever more.

So yea... mellenials you can get a job being underpaid to design something that you won't have to support in 2 years because you will have another job. Congratulations. When you mature in this industry and understand that it isn't CAN you but SHOULD you that makes the difference... THEN come talk to us over 40 IT engineers.

 

[mlcarson]

The problem for older workers is that things change too much in Tech. You can't have 20 yrs of experience in something that's only been out for 5 years. Anything that you did 20 yrs ago is probably so obsolete that the experience is meaningless. You end up becoming a generalist when specialists are where the current demand/pay is but yet the older workers are typically the highest paid.

 

[Grimlaking]

The problem for older workers is that things change too much in Tech. You can't have 20 yrs of experience in something that's only been out for 5 years. Anything that you did 20 yrs ago is probably so obsolete that the experience is meaningless. You end up becoming a generalist when specialists are where the current demand/pay is but yet the older workers are typically the highest paid.

Well I have to disagree with you. My knowledge base started 20 years ago and is still applicable today. My deep understanding of unix gained over 15 years ago still allows me to be a native user today. My knoweldge started back when some of the new IT people were just being born is still applicable today in surprising ways.

You may find it easy to dismiss because you don't have it. Specialists see the narrow focus beam of their application. You NEED the generalist to make sure your application has the care and feeding it needs.

I installed X. But it's SO SLOW. It was faster in the tech demo.. what's wrong with my program!! Let me look at it.

Higher level engineer with all of that experience looks.. checks a few numbers: 1. You're CPU is slow but this app though using a small DB is making hundreds of thousands of calls a minute. You need to look at your SQL jobs on the backend and if they can't be made better you need to vastly step up your I/O subsystem. I can build you a VM that has the available CPU you need and we can put your DB on our dedicated DB server with the Xtreme I/O subsystem but only once you've optmized your Jobs on the DB backend.

But won't just putting my DB on your back end solve the problem?

No it will solve the symptom not the problem. FIRST solve them problem then we will migrate and get you off of that big piece of iron that you don't need.


You see.. having a laser focus IS handy for that application. But if you don't know the rest of your environment you are going to have a half assed application that is never all it can be.

 

[PaulP]

I'm 50+, but I do the job of two 25's. I could do the work of three, but they only pay me twice what the 25's get.