Ask HN: Have you ever faced ageism?
On your workplace? When job hunting?
And I feel for them, but inside my head, based on the interview, I'm thinking "well, it's probably not strictly due to age, but rather that your experience has left you with strong opinions about things and as a natural response makes you less flexible to new ideas."
Based on this insight, I regularly catch myself making my own assumptions and yeah, I'm often correct, but I still want to maintain a healthy dose of self-skepticism.
Sometimes, I'm wrong. And sometimes the paradigm has shifted to a new model I am unfamiliar with.
How long have you been in your job? How many times have you changed since you hit 40? Do you look your age, or younger?
Personally, as someone well over 40, I've found it not worth my while to even apply to a company whose leadership is in their 20s. I've very rarely gotten a job offer from such a team. On the other hand, I've had pretty good success getting offers from companies with older leadership.
Not sure what you'd call it, but whatever it is, most of the devs I know who are my age have had a similar experience.
(and it's not new technology or a rusty mindset: I'm familiar with far more new technology than the average 25-year-old software developer. I'm constantly adopting new approaches and paradigms.).
That said, as advice to anyone in my position, it's probably a bad idea to bring up specific instances of alleged ageism in a job interview. Try to avoid any negativity in job interviews.
A long time: decades at my same org.
> How many times have you changed since you hit 40?
Zero.
> Do you look your age, or younger?
I look my age, but I am fit and normal weight.
Totally good points you made.
I guess I still preach that people our age fight their own internal "ageism":
- Try your best to maintain a curious, learning mind.
- Try to keep an open mind that the way you've been doing things for decades may not still be the right way. There may be a new right way and it might take a little time for you to grasp why. That's all ok.
- Provide great mentorship: Let the younger people make their own mistakes and stumble into their own findings. But be there for them when they want to bounce things off of you or talk about their experiences.
And I totally agree with and live by the 3 points you made (except the 3rd, in some circumstances). But that's the problem with ageism. If you look like you're over 40, then it doesn't matter if you follow that advice or not, younger companies will often still hold your age against you.
I have found that as I get older it takes longer to find a job, but I don't think it's ageism. It's just that I have over 30 years of experience, and I want to be paid accordingly. But you see job postings for "senior software engineer", and they want 5 to 7 years of experience. If that's what you need, then I'm not your guy.
There are employers who understand why I'm worth more than the younger people, and who will pay for the experience. But there aren't as many.
I have been overlooked or talked over in some scenarios because I am younger. I have even been told I can take a hit for the sake of office politics because my career has plenty of runway.