Anyone else just hit their mid thirties and suddenly become aware of agism?
Not something that is affecting me, but something suddenly I've become more cognisant about it.
Not something that is affecting me, but something suddenly I've become more cognisant about it.
Yes I have noticed it in a disturbing number of cases. The easiest way to slide past in tech interviews is to look young and answer “stupid.”
But even more than that, there’s this uncanny valley where you’re not young enough to be young, but not old enough that people realize you have had seen things go well, and seen things go sideways. It’s uncanny because I find that I have to fight to be recognized or respected in ways that people of European descent (who’ve made it over the hump) don’t have to.
All-in-all, there’s a weird denial of age-related things going on in tech.
('Better' meaning better from the point of view of an employer).
You can up-skill for sure. But whether you can be recognized for it, versus treated as the outsider, is another thing. You can have all that skill but it confers no leverage.
As Walter Bright pointed out, skill doesn’t mean anything if there’s an industry-wide groupthink biased against age/experience.
The first time I recall hearing it, a colleague (very plugged into the dotcom startup scene) was at a big event where one of the more reputable FAANGs happened to have employees doing recruiting. Colleague saw a group of the employees hanging out and chatting, and was appalled by how they were just ripping on one of the people who had talked with them, because he was "old". I got the impression like of a clique of popular high school kids, mocking another student who was "ugly" or "poor", for having the audacity to ask out one of them. I recall being surprised, and thinking badly of them for acting that way, and I don't think I'd heard of that kind of age discrimination in software before.
I was aware of a positive "whiz kid" boost people could get, by being skilled ahead of their years, but not a negative bias towards people in 30s and 40s. (The majority of my work at that point had been at a technical software engineering company, where the developers in their 40s tended to be well-regarded.)
There's a company local to me that's been failing to deliver on their digital transformation for years because they can't hire the skills they need, but they refuse to interview me based on price, despite the fact it's costing them more to not deliver.
I think the market in the UK is a bit different though.
On extreme examples, as a consultant, I've had people reach out indicating a project is 'mission critical' and they're looking to get started 'ASAP'. At the first mention of rate (which I don't always like to do up front) it's suddenly not 'mission critical' anymore, and this 'top priority' is suddenly something that ends up being delayed 4-6 months while they go on the hunt for "the best" talent that fits their budget.
As far as I can tell it is a misguided sense of greed that paying for skill of any sort except management is a mark of failure that leaves money on the table.
I'm a contractor myself and made up rates are still a thing. The high end isn't any better than jobs I can see advertising for perms, and many of the companies advertise for perms before they'll consider contracts.
There's actually 3 companies that have been looking for my skillset for around the last 3 months, and they all refuse to even have a call with me because I don't fit in the rate bracket, but they'll keep looking regardless.
Maybe earning double is an exaggeration on my part though. For myself I earn 50% more as a contractor than as permanent (this is the net amount after taxes, holidays, accountant fees etc.)
Contractor: (Devops, high day rate)
750 x 220 = £165,000. 800 x 220 = £176,000.
Employee: (Devops, high salary) + Employers NI.
150,000 + 19,508.78 = £169,508.78
Said contractor would need to bring his own equipment, pay insurance, and deal with the risk of being let go arbitrarily, and won't get a bonus or pension contribs.
Now where the contractor can make out is, he can pay reasonable expenses, and he can act more tax efficent, especially if he doesn't pay himself more than the higher threshold.
For the record, I'm not a big fan of the politics that comes with being an employee, I like to just come in, do the work, and leave, so quite happy as a contractor.
These usually don't reflect that skilled IT is vastly different from desktop jocky, and that it's a well paid field, thus they're forced to use contractors or outsource.
Skill wise, they're probably same same.
But I definitely don't speak for "the london tech scene", just for my limited perspective on it. (And I'm not a parent so maybe that's not even what a child friendly workplace makes! :) ).