ageism in silicon valley: a foreign perspective
I would like to bring a foreign perspective to the ageism discussion going on HN: there might be ageism in silicon valley, but it could be a lot worse. Looking at true ageism against programmer might lead to an insight on the situation in silicon valley. I am a 40 something Japanese programmer working in San Francisco Bay
Area. Stories below here obtained by talking to my peers in Japan over the years. A software developer in corporate Japan faces a choice in his (let's
face it; they are mostly men) early thirties; Stay with the 'elevator'
system, where a worker's title goes up automatically every couple of
years, or continue with his craft. Choosing the latter is akin to a monk
who takes the vow of poverty; he must sacrifice worldly benefits
forever. It sounds dramatic, but that is exactly the tone with which they speak of the Old Programmer: with a mix of respect and
pity. Keeping up with the promotion schedule while programming part-time is
not an option, given the schedule pressure. Some companies actually
explicitly forbid workers who crossed the title threshold from
touching the development tools. I forgot what the exact title was.
It seems like combinatorics is used to create enough titles to for
every year of tenure.. But generally, when one becomes a "S.E." he
stops coding. S.E. stands for Systems Engineer, but it is not confined
to low-level engineering. It just means a technical person who
graduated from programming. Programming in Japan is considered a
menial work. SEs produce the systems and programmers type them in.
Why should SEs touch the development tools? All they need is
PowerPoint, excell and word. So it is from vi to PowerPoint at age 33. This means that the most experienced practicing developer is 35 years
old at most companies. Put another way, 13 years of hands-on
professional experience is the upper-bound. Now most development
houses don't have the benefit of one of the giants of computing still hacking away, teaching younger developers by
examples. But it is clear that retiring programmers in their early
30's creates a technology transfer problem. Actually, it's not even a transfer problem; masters are prevented from occurring. I suspect that this culture is a major cause of corporate Japan's poor
performance in software. Compare corporate Japan's software track
records to other fields. Can you name any corporate or personal
software that is exported? Where is Honda of software? Other than
games, which is tied to the hardware, exports seems practically
non-existent. Is this not odd for such a technological powerhouse? Japan's uncompetitiveness does not apply to software as a whole; it's
just Corporate Software. Japan does produce internationally
recognized open source software. There is obviously Ruby. KAME
project brought IPV6 to BSD. It seems young Japanese hackers are
leading the effort to make Perl cool again. So outside the realm of
forced programmer retirement, Japan can produce good software. I have
to conclude that there is a systematic FAIL built into Corporate Japan when it comes to software creation. The culture of non-tolerance of older programmer must be a major factor in this. What does this mean for silicon valley or US tech scene in general?
Well, it could a lot worse than your salary maxing out at age 40. At
least we are tolerated. (I personally do not see much ageism in the valley. I feel that if I
can impress the interviewers, I could get any job that would typically
go to a 27 year-old. I am grateful that I am able to work in such a
reasonable place. On exception is YC, but PG did make clear about the chance of anybody above 35 in one of his essays..) But there is a bigger question than how old programmers feel. If my
conjecture is correct about the lack of old, wily programmers hurting
a whole industry, then what about the converse? What could happen if
the old wisdom is not merely tolerated but fully exploited? Could
this boost the valley even further? YC does an amazing job of getting
the maximum value out of young talents. Could the valley sitting on
another untapped resource?
Area. Stories below here obtained by talking to my peers in Japan over the years. A software developer in corporate Japan faces a choice in his (let's
face it; they are mostly men) early thirties; Stay with the 'elevator'
system, where a worker's title goes up automatically every couple of
years, or continue with his craft. Choosing the latter is akin to a monk
who takes the vow of poverty; he must sacrifice worldly benefits
forever. It sounds dramatic, but that is exactly the tone with which they speak of the Old Programmer: with a mix of respect and
pity. Keeping up with the promotion schedule while programming part-time is
not an option, given the schedule pressure. Some companies actually
explicitly forbid workers who crossed the title threshold from
touching the development tools. I forgot what the exact title was.
It seems like combinatorics is used to create enough titles to for
every year of tenure.. But generally, when one becomes a "S.E." he
stops coding. S.E. stands for Systems Engineer, but it is not confined
to low-level engineering. It just means a technical person who
graduated from programming. Programming in Japan is considered a
menial work. SEs produce the systems and programmers type them in.
Why should SEs touch the development tools? All they need is
PowerPoint, excell and word. So it is from vi to PowerPoint at age 33. This means that the most experienced practicing developer is 35 years
old at most companies. Put another way, 13 years of hands-on
professional experience is the upper-bound. Now most development
houses don't have the benefit of one of the giants of computing still hacking away, teaching younger developers by
examples. But it is clear that retiring programmers in their early
30's creates a technology transfer problem. Actually, it's not even a transfer problem; masters are prevented from occurring. I suspect that this culture is a major cause of corporate Japan's poor
performance in software. Compare corporate Japan's software track
records to other fields. Can you name any corporate or personal
software that is exported? Where is Honda of software? Other than
games, which is tied to the hardware, exports seems practically
non-existent. Is this not odd for such a technological powerhouse? Japan's uncompetitiveness does not apply to software as a whole; it's
just Corporate Software. Japan does produce internationally
recognized open source software. There is obviously Ruby. KAME
project brought IPV6 to BSD. It seems young Japanese hackers are
leading the effort to make Perl cool again. So outside the realm of
forced programmer retirement, Japan can produce good software. I have
to conclude that there is a systematic FAIL built into Corporate Japan when it comes to software creation. The culture of non-tolerance of older programmer must be a major factor in this. What does this mean for silicon valley or US tech scene in general?
Well, it could a lot worse than your salary maxing out at age 40. At
least we are tolerated. (I personally do not see much ageism in the valley. I feel that if I
can impress the interviewers, I could get any job that would typically
go to a 27 year-old. I am grateful that I am able to work in such a
reasonable place. On exception is YC, but PG did make clear about the chance of anybody above 35 in one of his essays..) But there is a bigger question than how old programmers feel. If my
conjecture is correct about the lack of old, wily programmers hurting
a whole industry, then what about the converse? What could happen if
the old wisdom is not merely tolerated but fully exploited? Could
this boost the valley even further? YC does an amazing job of getting
the maximum value out of young talents. Could the valley sitting on
another untapped resource?
