Comment by lowbloodsugar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lowbloodsugar | Hacker News Reader

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“If you have any evidence of ageism…”

Can you give me an example of such evidence? Specifically evidence that would succeed in court?

Like do you think managers write down why they didn’t hire a person, and even if they did, they would type “Too old” (“too black”, “too female”) into such a system?

I have personally witnessed promotion discussion where the most senior manager thought someone should be rated the lowest (which leads to firing) because an engineer was “missing” for a large part of the year, yet was not ignorant of the fact that it was for a legally protected reason. Only after being called out by an engineer (not another manager) did the language change and the rating begrudgingly increased by one. None of the discussion was recorded in any way. I have witnessed similar discussions that boiled down to “person is female”, “person is neurodiverse” or essentially “person is not like me and my clique”.

It staggers me that large corporations are not legally required to record all such meetings - and of course it doesn’t stagger me because the USA is full of “feel good“ laws that are utterly unenforceable by design.

There are any number of acceptable equivalents.

- overqualified based on years of experience. We don’t think they’ll be happy with the simple work we can offer.

- low growth potential. If the candidate has been a senior engineer for X years, that’s probably their plateau.

- not a “dynamic self-starter” or other euphemisms for “young and dumb enough to send on a high risk mission.”

It’d be a particularly clueless manager who can’t say what they mean without getting in trouble.

I've worked closed to people that were interviewing SWEs, including people I would consider old, age was never the problem.

It was either:

A. This guy is worth twice our maximum budget

B. He's used to technical stacks that have absolutely nothing to do with ours

C. New grads perform better at leetcode than him(not saying that's a good metric, but that's not ageism)

D. Culture fit.

> Culture fit.

This is the biggest place where all kinds of biases slip in, including ageism. Culture is tied up in all of the protected classes, and any time that you hear "culture fit" used as a justification for turning someone down alarm bells should be going off.

The legitimate uses of "culture fit" as a filter should be itemized rather than lumped together: "he doesn't deal well with ambiguity", "she doesn't like frequent interruptions", whatever. Just talking about "culture fit" in the abstract is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

> New grads perform better at leetcode than him(not saying that's a good metric, but that's not ageism)

It often can be, as:

1. Younger folks have more recently done their degree and algorithms stuff 2. There tends to be more free time to grind leetcode at a younger age (family, responsibilities, lower energy can hamstring an older person here)

Ymmv, but I wouldn't say LC is neutral in this regard.

I’m a manager. I will try to answer this question:

> Like do you think managers write down why they didn’t hire a person, and even if they did, they would type “Too old” (“too black”, “too female”) into such a system?

Managers are looking for someone within specific experience bands. If they downlevel a candidate (hire someone that is too skilled), then it’s unfair to the candidate, as they are underpaid. It’s unfair to the teammates, because typically managers have a limited number of promo slots. Quickly promoting someone after they joined may steal the opportunity for another teammate.

In the case that the skills match the job level, someone that is 20 years of experience and not principle yet, is less attractive than someone that is 2 years into their level and has a strong hunger for growing.

How old are you? ( yes relevant - because you have been down voted)

Mid 30s.

It’s so annoying when people downvote without explanation.

It's annoying to you. But think of how annoying it to people who know much more than you. It's like a kid with no experience having strong opinions. For the record I did not downvote you. And yes, your inexperience come through very obviously.

The essence of what you said is this: older people do not deserve a job because they are older. The bigger issue seems to be that you are overthinking, and over analyzing for what in my opinion is just ordinary jobs.

>Managers are looking for someone within specific experience bands.

Common, but very petty. Most work that most of us do is grunt work, over analysis will not give you an extraordinary candidate.

>If they downlevel a candidate (hire someone that is too skilled), then it’s unfair to the candidate, as they are underpaid.

No, it's not. The candidate has applied for a job because he could not get anything better. Ever been in a situation where you are laid off and where you had to pay the bills immediately, and did not have the luxury of finding a well-paid job?

I could go on, but I think some harsh experiences for you, like layoffs would be your greatest teacher.

> The essence of what you said is this: older people do not deserve a job because they are older. The bigger issue seems to be that you are overthinking, and over analyzing for what in my opinion is just ordinary jobs.

No. This has nothing to do with age. If you started your career at 45 and have 0 years of experience, then you should qualify for internship roles. If you have 40 years of experience, then you should not be selected for entry level jobs.

> No, it's not. The candidate has applied for a job because he could not get anything better. Ever been in a situation where you are laid off and where you had to pay the bills immediately, and did not have the luxury of finding a well-paid job?

No, I have not. But also, you're right that having that job would help them out, but it would do a disservice to the company. They are more likely to leave early when their responsibility doesn't match their experience level. Imagine how a principle engineer would feel if they were treated like an intern, because their role is intern? Sure they might need that job for cash flow reasons, but they will leave as soon as they can.

> I could go on, but I think some harsh experiences for you, like layoffs would be your greatest teacher.

I have had "harsh" experiences. I have 14 years of industry experience. I've been laid off multiple times. I've worked at companies that completely shutdown. I have had to lay other people off.

I think I see where you are coming from. You talk about "disservice to the company." - the company you work for generally does not care about you, why would you care about them? (given that you have been let go many times). In my world loyalty has to be bidirectional.

>They are more likely to leave early when their responsibility doesn't match their experience level.

What you are saying is that it is perfectly ok for more capable people to not earn a living? ( not saying it is right or wrong, just making an observation). I'm reminded of people who were rejected for police jobs because of higher IQs

>I have 14 years of industry experience

No, that is not a lot.

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