Cannot even count the number of times that my Ops teams had to write wrappers and o scripts to ameliorate issues suffered by apps rushed to production by shoddy dev teams. glad someone has written about it. Anyone in the business knows this has been going on forever.
The problem is the Ops teams get ZERO credit for enabling the shoddy work done by devs, the devs meanwhile get patted on the back, and frankly continue to be romanticized.
"move fast and break shit (and let Ops fix it silently)"
And of course the mysterious "fit" decision in the hiring process shows this. Chances are more independent thinkers that don't want to beer bash with the crowd or that has actual social boundaries won't want to participate in the reindeer games the author describes.
Clearly I carry a burning torch for the issue of age discrimination in tech as a 50-something - but seriously what 35 year old veep wants a 50 year old with more tenure than them working for them in their group? Family? We care about work-life balance? yeah sure bubba.
P.S. allowing yourself to get into this position was a mistake to begin with. One is none and two is one. Always have a backup/spare. To that end, if you cannot institute the burden of documentation for everything- at least then if you lose this person you’ll have a decent shot at picking up the pieces.
Never mind that bosses like the pieces of the puzzle to be interchangeable, no single point of failure. Sometimes bosses are threatened by a senior subordinates mindshare and will let them go in the next riff.
Great advice all around and solid article, works well at any age.
However, ageism, aka Age Discrimination(tm) is real in technology as I'm sure it is in other disciplines. I'm sure many will say, "don't suck" and you'll get hired. Remember your words/thoughts after you reach the final "culture/fit" check after jumping through every flaming hoop put in front of you during the interview process, and then suddenly, after all the glowing feedback the 30-something VP of Engineering or Paper Clips makes your candidacy flatline.
.0002% mortality is good - also of note: the data does not normalize for advanced age, or underlying conditions like obesity, diabetes, COPD, hypertensive disorders, respiratory disorders, etc, etc. etc.
Turning down a promotion to VP early in my career, now I’m in my mid 50’s and no one truly understands why I didn’t. Personally I didn’t want to ascend into mediocrity like most VP’s and above. Now I’m having trouble with age bias as a Director or Senior Director.
There are plenty of folks willing to work. The figures will be used to justify more Visas for lower paid, indentured immigration status tethered slave labor.
There are few teams that recognize you purely for what you bring to the table, you could be the baddest ass dev on the planet, but as a gray hair you may not be accepted, or a "culture fit" as is the universal excuse nowadays for "I don't like her/him". Truth be told most Millenials don't want to go have beers with someone that reminds them of their parent's whose basement that might still be living in, and we know that life in tech is immersive, your friends are your co-workers in many of these tech gulches.
The there is the idea that your new boss may be threatened by your skillet, which opens yet a whole other can o' worms. Age discrimination in the SF Bay Area is rampant, no one will ever admit it, but it's here. It's like gravity, one denies its existence at one's own peril. So get your botox, your skinny red jeans and your converse or whatever they're wearing these days - don't forget to ink up - even if they're temporaries :)
Wouldn't an easy way to eliminate bias be to remove any algorithms that use name recognition and gender? If the Ai doesn't have this data to "reason" from wouldn't it level the playing field?
It’s funny, the downvote wars going on, I’ve lost karma for a comment that’s innocuous. Just comes to show the world we live in where solipsism is pandemic.
We are witnessing very dangerous times. Groupthink is real now. If you disagree with a new story you can simply claim it’s “fake news”. Getting doxxed is a real possibility. The 4th estate is no longer to be trusted. “May you live in interesting times” is no longer just a fortune in a cookie...