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major505HNSource author
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A few years ago I was one of the first people in my country tomigrate my company android app to …

… A few years ago I was one of the first people in my country tomigrate my company android app to Kotlin, this helped me land in the app development team of a big bank in my country and I was by far the oldest dude. Everybody called me "uncle" there, very common to young people in my country to call older people that, because most where college kids.

Original discussionAsk HN: Is ageism in tech still a problem?186 source comments · at import
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ChrisMarshallNYHN

When the CEO is 28, it is the head where the fishrot starts. In The Days of Old, the folks running the corporation were almost always in their 50s. They might have been prejudiced towards folks my age (60s), but they didn't have issues with hiring what are now considered "older" folks (40s and 50s), with the only issue being cost (they might be ageist, simply for cost reasons). The prejudice from younger folks is cultural, not cost. They don't want people around that make them feel uncomfortable. Many younger folks at tech companies, these days, make boatloads of money. It's not about cost. From where I stand, it looks like a lot of modern tech companies are establishing a "college, but being paid" culture. It seems that many modern tech companies resemble idealized college campuses, more than traditional professional production environments.

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ChrisMarshallNYHN

I worked for a Japanese corporation, for the majority of my career. They have "reverse ageism." There's some levels that you can't reach, until you are a certain age. I worked with older people that would have a lot of folks around here, drooling. That company hired some of the best in the world.

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torginusHN

That's why ageism is stupid - in my experience age is uncorrellated with technical chops and productivity, with people who actually know their stuff and care about the job they're doing coming from every possible age bracket. One of the most productive guys and all around technical wizard I know is a father of 3 in his 40s. I do know a few people straight out of college who are rather excellent devs, but the problem with a lot of them them is that they have inflated egos and don't take feedback at at all, and/or they move around a lot. Imagine building up a guy who works like crazy with a huge body of knowledge, then he's out of the company the next year, and nobody knows what any of his code does.

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