Doug Reilly's Weblog

Well written article Doug!

I could write several books on my experiences with employment abuse and age discrimination where I've lived for over 20 years, namely Silicon Valley. While I was "between jobs" 7 years ago during The Great Dot Com Boom (shortly followed by The Great Dot Com Bust...), I ran into a head-hunter that summed it up the best, after failing to be hired after over 50 interviews. She said: "You're suffering the 4 Oh's Syndrome!"

"Huh???", I said.

"You're over-weight, over 40, over paid, and over qualified!"

"So?!?!?!", I retorted.

"Well, that means in the eyes of all hiring managers under 30 that you're suffering from the 5th Oh: you're OBSELETE!"

Of course, this means that someone forgot to hand me a gun on the morning of my 40th birthday with a boo-hoo greeting card telling me "Sorry about losing your career! How about doing us all a favor, eh?"

Don't get me started on the idiotic artificial barriers that young hiring managers put up to make sure you don't get hired if you're over 40. I ran into so many of them, I nicknamed them "interview gauntlets", in honor of the Klingon pain-stick gauntlet that Worff went through in one Star Trek NG episode.

My favorite gauntlet question was this: "What's the second parameter of a CreateProcess function call?" Even though I had the correct answer (and the interviewer did not) due to my having previously written course material that was in use at several university night classes, the interviewer got totally non-plussed when I whipped out said course material to prove her wrong...

The fun part was that I then got up and walked out of that interview... No way I was going to work for a company that had 23 year olds who thought they were "all that".

I've got dozens of other stories about attempts by managers to rail-road me into project management or other "business" jobs. It seems that programming has been under attack for decades, but it's really gotten bad since the Dot Com Boom/Bust. This employement practice goes hand-in-hand with managers referring to people as "resources", treating knowledge-based workers like production workers, and thinking that knowledge workers are "plug-compatible". (At every company I've worked for in Silicon Valley, both hard and software engineers have referred to this "human resource" disease as "plug-compatible engineer syndrome").

Then, of course, there's the very odd coincidence that over my 30 year career, that each time I work for someone younger than me, I wind up losing the job within a year (in order to make way for younger workers). This has happened to me 6-7 times now, and it's getting REALLY OLD.....

But I draw solace in the fact that each and every company that refused to hire me and those that RIFed me are ALL OUT OF BUSINESS...after having produced a crappy product or service. Surely, this couldn't POSSIBLY have anything to do with getting rid of older workers, right?!?!!?

Good article and I can very much relate to it.. :-)
I had posted something quite similar recently -
http://weblogs.asp.net/sbchatterjee/archive/2005/01/14/353353.aspx

I'll post more later as I ponder more..

Hi Doug, you should read the (funny) paper by David Dossot. I have a pointer to it on my own blog here: http://www.xhovemont.be/archive/2004/09/11/274.aspx

The VP who advised me to stop coding because I was too old has since been canned from his position (something I was almost giddy about). Maybe he was too old to sell?

For me, I hope to emulate Jim Kyle (http://www.jimkyle.com) who is a bit older than me and as of the last I know still doing consulting part time.

The original article

Hi Doug,

Interesting article. I will soon be 49 -- my primary complaint over that last several years has been that I've not had opportunities to write code -- most companies want to utilize my skills for design/architecture -- but I've never understood how one could be a very good architect or designer without staying hands-on to some degree. I've also spent a good chunk of time as a senior manager and had good opportunities for advancement in that area, but never enjoyed it anywhere as much as writing code.

Fortunately, no one has yet said to me that I'm too old (nor have any of my friends in this age bracket been told that either), and I'd think who ever said it might potentially be so lacking in skill as to be the subject of scorn (as your article or a prior poster suggested, I would also assume whoever said it wasn't any good at coding when they were 38 either... :-) In any case, I doubt I'd work with someone or some company that would endorse such a statement.

In any case, I'm writing code for client now and am enjoying it immensely. What I'm curious about is if are you seeing this "too old" phenomena in large companies, small companies or across the board?

I have seen the problem in medium sized and large companies. In large companies, it is more subtle. They do not say "You are too old to code", however, they have no career path in place that will allow you to continue growing in your career and making reasonable pay increases as the years go by.

In medium and small organizations, it is highly dependent upon the attitude of the owners/managers. The company where I was explicitly tols I was "too old to code" was a medium sized company, and I do not believe that was the official policy of the company, however it hardly mattered since a senior member of the organization expressed this in front of a number of other people in the organization.

Here is an interesting article on this topic:

http://www.coolbits.nu/763.aspx

The author, Avonelle, does not buy my argument, specifically mentioning that the average age of software developers, according to this article:

http://www.softechmag.com/eSalMixShif2EBizInt.html

is 35 years old. This same article mentions that for Web development (my area of primary interest these days) the average age is 29. I expect that looking at other groupings (ISV's vs. IT developers within larger organizations) the ISV's would skew lower as well.

Douglas - it is true that the stats skew lower when you look at certain groups. The problem is that I can find alternative reasons why those stats would be different. For example, web development is newer than some other technologies, so I would speculate that this is the reason why the average age for that group is lower. Also, I assume that you aren't arguing that your premise only applies to web development, right?

Again, I thought your article was interesting, and certainly was good food for thought. I believe you may be right that this is a contributing factor in the creation of lower quality code. However, I'm unpersuaded that it is a primary reason.

No, I am not arguing that it applies to only Web development, and in fact, the VP who told me I was "too old to code" was not in the Web development area, this was an ISV in the Healthcare business. In thinking about it, the company where "Ed" works (from my article) actually does have a number of older developers (they may in that company outnumber younger developers) but they are all in the AS/400 world (or whatever IBM calls their midrange machines these days) and they are (and know they are) in dead end jobs, unlikely to advance unless a manager above them dies and they are promoted.

They would skew the average age in that company probably higher than 35, however even there I would argue that the older "developers" there are primarily folks who were not easily able to find positions elsewhere, and continue as "developers" but primarily maintain very old existing code. Again, sample size one company, but I have seen similar things in hospital systems and other clients.

At all the Web Development firms and ISV's I have worked at, I found the culture much as I said (and in non-ISV's, i found the culture as I described above, where older "developers" are dedicated to maintaining older systems rahter than among the corp of folks developing new systems).

Too old to code? Yeah right.
I bet Einstein was too old to be a scientist too then? Or how about Leonardo da Vinci? Surely he must have been too old to paint? Those people who think that are just plain sad, really! I believe they think *they* are getting old and that's where the problem really lies.

I'll be 51 in a couple weeks and have been mostly developing software since I started on an Apple II in about 1980. Since then I've worked on Unix, Windows, and other specialized software, and done mostly web work for the last 9 years or so.

Oddly enough I have not felt discriminated against due to age in any of my jobs. I'm pretty certain that I have been passed over in job interviews due to being older, but once in place I've been able to relate well to all ages of people in every level of an organization, as well as clients, contractors and vendors. People pretty much forget about my age, so far.

Some years ago I got interested in trying my hand at management, and ended up managing an engineering group of 45. It was really fun, and I find the concept and practice of good management to be complex and fascinating but my boss was insane and I had to get out. I ended up being able to essentially locate and hire my own replacement, give myself a demotion (same pay) to where I reported to the person I hired, and was able to get back to work as a developer. I've also been CTO of a small company that also let me mix management and development. That's hard mix to juggle but in the right environment it can work.

For maybe 70% of my work life I've worked in very small companies of about 8 to 14 people, including one to 4 technical people. My own mix of technical skills and communication skills, plus being totally willing to take responsibility for the big picture, has helped me a lot. I haven't been out of work for 25 years, through about 10 jobs, and only been laid off once when a company went under.

One more thing -- I've always had a strong desire to be a "10" technically and have always been disappointed to realize that I'm really about a "7." I study a lot but have met enough "9" and "10" programmers to know I'm not one. I do feel that I have only gotten better as time goes on. I am somewhat less willing to work 6 or 7 days a week or past midnight than I was when I was younger but I think overall I do better work in a more normal work week.

(It actually kind of breaks my heart that I'm not excellent. I always think I ought to be the best at what I do and sometimes think, hey if you can't be a "9" or a "10" you should find another line of work. But I end up deciding that I bring a valuable mix of skills and my employers and clients keep wanting me to keep doing it, so I do.)

I try hard and make every effort to create quality code, be an excellent team player (or team leader if I'm in that position), am alway studying and reading and trying to improve. I think that helps a lot. I have a lot of enthusiasm for software development and still find it fascinating. I love new languages and paradigms (e.g. OO, MVC, etc).

By the way, it is my understanding that the idiot referred to above by Douglas Reilly, who indicated an age bias in front of other people, has put his company at risk for lawsuits. The Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) (and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, FEHA) are explicit for workers 40 and over. Most managers are not so stupid as to state their bias for the record.

These people like your VP are idiots and are deluding themselves. If you trained as a professional civil engineer or a doctor, your experience and ability to get your employer out of sticky situations would be valued by your employer. Not in IT.
The goons who are IT "management" delude themselves and rob their companies blind of valuable knowledge and troubleshooting ability. This is nothing other than intangible theft, little short of industrial and financial sabotage of the company. Part of the reason it happens is that in the UK and US, as a coder you have two choices if you hit a salary limit :
You go consulting and get bogged down in government bureaucracy and tax investigations ; or you get "promoted" (note the quotes) within your company to "management".
The problem is, very few experienced coders have the people skills to be effective managers - that's very often exactly why they're great coders.

So your company ends up with the worst of three worlds.
1. You loose a valuable, knowledgeable, experienced employee who knows your business'
supporting IT systems inside out.
2. You "gain" a hopeless manager who you have to pay more money to, who cannot manage people and probably doesn't want to.
3. You replace the experienced coder by some goon with what passes for a university education these days with an inexperienced person who doesn't have any knowledge of your business or systems, but costs nearly as much as the guy you replaced. Sure they work long hours, but I'd rather have someone who knows what he's doing working productively for 8 hours than a 20 year old "working" for 16 hours unproductively because he's tired, pressured and can't concentrate. YOU CANNOT CONCENTRATE PROPERLY FOR LONG HOURS DAY AFTER DAY. IT'S AN ILLUSION THAT WILL COST YOU. PEOPLE ARE NOT MACHINES.

"Management" won't get a grip on this. It's up to the CEOs / MDs at the top to sack the management people think like this and who will only promote experienced coders into positions of incompetence which jeopardise their business. Only then will business gain value from their people instead of suffering the constant churn of IT staff that is the bane of the industry.
In a sentence: Business: value your best people.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that you can always find someone who will code for less.

In the UK industry is always looking for a quick fix that will last forever. They look at a college kid with the ink still wet on his (lets face it coding is a male dominated sport) degree and think "this guy has learnt the latest technology but is still wet behind the ears, we'll offer him peanuts". This is why they get monkeys.

Once you are over 35 chances are that you have a wife (or some ex's) , kids, mortgage and commitments that require something more than college leaver salary.

Again in the UK no-one takes the long term view. They don't see an experienced, productive employee, they see a high cost centre. Truly they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

I was 30 before I first touched a computer. The school at which I was working acquired its first computer, a Research Machines 380Z and I taught myself BASIC. From then on, I only wanted to program and, nearly 30 years later, I'm still enjoying it. Undoubtedly, many younger people think people over 40 are too old to code but they would still trust their lives with a 55 year old surgeon or their car with a 60 year mechanic.

Hey, the good news for those of us in our forties is that the aging boomer population will be retiring in droves and companies will have to keep us at our jobs in order to keep things running.

Why did nobody tell me any of this when I moved from my career in accounting to IT at the age of 47 - five years ago (just before the bust)?

Didn't stop me moving to a new job in DW development in the year of my 50th birthday!

Click the link. I posted a few comments on my blog.

I agree with everything that Doug said..however my problem is (always has been) - how do you phrase your desire to continue coding when you are confronted with "your career goals" during performance reviews...I have a pushy boss who's constantly trying to "guide" me into management in line with those who think that the only way up is to "manage"...all suggestions/advice much appreciated!

Sushila, for myself, I have been fortunate that the folks I directly reported to always supported my wish to continue coding. The problem was that the systems in place within the organizations would never let my career advance while continuing to develop software.

My solution (admittedly not an actual plan, as the .COM company I was working for died pretty suddenly) was to go and do full time consulting. Mostly, this has worked out well. I mix coding and writing about coding, and I find this to be a just about perfect mix. The coding is of course complicated by my need to intermittantly sell myself to clients, but up until now I have been very fortunate to have a group of clients that have kept me totally busy for just about 3 years. Things have been a little slow just about now, but I have a fairly major project coming up for a client shortly, so perhaps I will be busy again for another couple of months at least.

Dave,

I certainly think that the longing to find folks that can code for less is part of what drives this. Companies, by and large, do not recognize coding/software development as something that should be valued enough to pay a wage that will recognize the years an experienced coder has put in.

Reading Peopleware, a great book, they talk about differences between the best and the worst coder as far as productivity being in the range of 10:1. While there are certainly some coders fresh out of shool who are just that good, I genuinely think that experience really does help.

For instance, years ago I did a system that was an automated employment test. More recently, I have been working on a Medical insurance contract management system. Unrelated? Not really. In the first case, the answers were scored using a complex bet of coding. Interestingly enough, charges being compared to a complex contract is also very similar to "scoring." So, I have never worked in this specific area, however I actually do have similar experience from working on this other employment selection system. Lots of similar examples out there.

Michael,

Yes, for certain I think that the VP involved placed the company at risk for a lawsuit. Personally, I did not have it in me to fight this issue, and it was a moot point as shortly thereafter the company outsourced all development work to the Ukraine anyway. I take some amusment from the fact that that VP has been fired for other reasons, and the entire office I worked at was closed and perhaps 5% of the staff was relocated (to an area I would not care to have moved to).

Hi Doug,
The article and comments provided lot of insight a question which i have been having for a couple of years now. From reading all the content, does one conclude if the managment is not supportive of one's desire to continue coding/development during performance reviews, it is time for one to think about consulting. What if one's personality does not suite managing people etc...
Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

Ramdas,

Well, if the company does not wupport a coding career path, it is time to either make your own path by consulting, or find a company to employ you that does value experience.

Good luck!

Doug,
I could not agree with you more. As I read, I wondered if you had somehow tapped my mind while I slept but some specifics of your experience are different (and slightly more advanced, I think) than mine. SO, heres to experience and doing well the work that you love.
Cheers,
Bill Millett

Whew!!! I thought that I was in the minority about this subject. At 54, I have spent almost 30 years coding. I tried the management
route but it just didn't work for me. I just don't posess the people skills to manage people, however I consider myself an excellent
developer. I have been an independent consultant for about 5 years now and my clients are very happy with the work that I do for them.
After reading the above articles it reminded me of a job I started about 4 years ago. I was assigned to work with a young fresh out of
college punk who had all the answers. During the first four weeks I kept asking questions and making suggestions about things that I saw
that really didn't look like good practices to follow. I was told by the youngster that this was his project and we were going to do
things his way. I followed along but after the sixth week, he was fired. He had been working on this project for 3 years and really
wasn't very far along yet. It was fortunate that the client was understanding because it took me quite a while to straighten out the
mess and get the client something that they could use. They now have a great system which has cut many of their operating costs by 60%.
It has evolved since then and this client wouldn't change developers for anything. I am glad that there are still some companies that
recognize the difference a seasoned developer can make and that a cheap coder is rarely the most inexpensive.

^_^,Pretty Good!