That being said, they way he has been treated is absolutely infuriating and probably illegal in numerous countries which are not the USA.
They way SpaceX went about this as outlined in TFA is absolutely not the way to do it. This guy had no input in the process at all, even from the outset or the hiring, and they didn't even report to him!
"Aging out" has been a huge problem in the Silicon Valley for decades, for example.
This is probably only making any news because it's SpaceX.
When I was involved in a bus problem situation, management came to me and said they were concerned about my workload, the hours I was putting in, and the lack of redundancy my position.
What followed was a 6-month process where I was heavily involved in each step, from scoping out the initial additions to the org chart, writing up job descriptions and expectations, application review and interviews, down to onboarding and training of my new team members. In essence we stood up a new division of what had previously been my one-man show, and I now managed two engineers and an admin assistant to get all the work done. It was, all in all, a marvelous process and I am proud of the team I trained. I got my saturdays back, too.
Agreed - This is just getting upvoted for the anti-Musk trendiness.
It's also important to note that we're only getting one side of the story here. It's entirely possible that they directly asked him to train other people on what he's doing and that he was uncooperative. Who knows - one-sided stories are one-sided.
>> I hadn’t even been told that people were being hired, nor was I invited to sit in on interviews—though I was the most qualified to discern candidates’ qualifications and experience.
This has become one of my favorite things to do with my experience, and I've helped hire some great people. To keep him out of this process was a terrible decision.
I don't think it was age discrimination so much as politics and empire building.
There is also a tech-bro factor at play here. I saw this while working at a supplier to another Elon company. They get these 23 year-olds that think they can do anything (them getting hired by XYZ Corp is proof right?) and then they do silly things or don't understand the basics. Hey but when they eventually figure stuff out they can claim a few miles range improvement on that car as their own fabulous innovation!
I also don't think he has the right attitude for a principle engineer. Junior engineers don't "take over" your roles. They take on the easy parts of projects so that you can focus on the hard stuff. Part of being a senior engineer is training and enabling more junior engineers. A huge part of his job is to eliminate the "bus factor".
That was my take away as well - and again, not to mention the fact that we're getting a one-sided accounting of the facts.
As described, it’s probably illegal in the US too. Hence mentioning the notifications to HR.
There is a difference between increasing your bus factor (which is a thing) and age discrimination. Yes, you mentor new recruits, but you’re also part of hiring them. You’re running the team, not getting parts of your job reassigned until there is nothing left.
Yes, this could have happened ultimately been a person caught between a warring Starlink vs SpaceX — but from an employment point of view, I’m not sure it matters.