(The lines represent the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of the sample)
Posted on 09/01/2010 8:33:44 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
An interesting paradox in the technology world is that there is both a shortage and a surplus of engineers in the United States. Talk to those working at any Silicon Valley company, and they will tell you how hard it is to find qualified talent. But listen to the heart-wrenching stories of unemployed engineers, and you will realize that there are tens of thousands who can’t get jobs. What gives?
The harsh reality is that in the tech world, companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers.
And engineering is an “up or out” profession: you either move up the ladder or face unemployment. This is not something that tech executives publicly admit, because they fear being sued for age discrimination, but everyone knows that this is the way things are. Why would any company hire a computer programmer with the wrong skills for a salary of $150,000, when it can hire a fresh graduate—with no skills—for around $60,000? Even if it spends a month training the younger worker, the company is still far ahead. The young understand new technologies better than the old do, and are like a clean slate: they will rapidly learn the latest coding methods and techniques, and they don’t carry any “technology baggage”. As well, the older worker likely has a family and needs to leave by 6 pm, whereas the young can pull all-nighters.
At least, that’s how the thinking goes in the tech industry.
(The lines represent the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of the sample)
In their book Chips and Change, Professors Clair Brown and Greg Linden, of the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics and census data for the semiconductor industry and found that salaries increased dramatically for engineers during their 30s but that these increases slowed after the age of 40. At greater ages still, salaries started dropping, dependent on the level of education. After 50, the mean salary of engineers was lower—by 17% for those with bachelors degrees, and by 14% for those with masters degrees and PhDs—than the salary of those younger than 50. Curiously, Brown and Linden also found that salary increases for holders of postgraduate
degrees were always lower than increases for those with bachelor’s degrees (in other words, even PhD degrees didn’t provide long-term job protection). It’s not much different in the software/internet industry. If anything, things in these fast-moving industries are much worse for older workers.
For tech startups, it usually boils down to cost: most can’t even afford to pay $60K salaries, so they look for motivated, young software developers who will accept minimum wage in return for equity ownership and the opportunity to build their careers. Companies like Zoho can afford to pay market salaries, but can’t find the experienced workers they need. In 2006, Zoho’s CEO, Sridhar Vembu, initiated an experiment to hire 17-year-olds directly out of high school. He found that within two years, the work performance of these recruits was indistinguishable from that of their college-educated peers. Some ended up becoming superstar software developers.
Companies such as Microsoft say that they try to maintain a balance but that it isn’t easy. An old friend, David Vaskevitch, who was Senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer at Microsoft, told me in 2008 that he believes that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative. But there is a lot they don’t know and can’t know until they gain experience. So Microsoft aggressively recruits for fresh talent on university campuses and for highly experienced engineers from within the industry, one not at the expense of the other. David acknowledged that the vast majority of new Microsoft employees are young, but said that this is so because older workers tend to go into more senior jobs and there are fewer of those positions to begin with. It was all about hiring the best and brightest, he said; age and nationality are not important.
So whether we like it or not, it’s a tough industry. I know that some techies will take offense at what I have to say, but here is my advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey:
My advice to managers is to consider the value of the experience that the techies bring. With age frequently come wisdom and abilities to follow direction, mentor, and lead. Older workers also tend to be more pragmatic and loyal, and to know the importance of being team players. And ego and arrogance usually fade with age. During my tech days, I hired several programmers who were over 50. They were the steadiest performers and stayed with me through the most difficult times.
Finally, I don’t know of any university, including the ones I teach at, that tells its engineering students what to expect in the long term or how to manage their technical careers. Perhaps it is time to let students know what lies ahead.
Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa 
is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University.
LOL - I’ve seen this too. I work for SV company, contractual services work (embedded systems), sometimes I can’t believe some of our customers ever get something out the door (at least working!).
As far as very young engineers: ask him/her to write a detailed design document. Most can’t, and if they can’t do that then what the heck are they coding? Good engineers are more experienced with structure and process, they’re more thorough and produce much more efficient, maintainable code with fewer bugs. And most importantly, a bug can be easily located.
Work for a company where the managers were once/are experienced engineers - that is usually very different than a start up.
As a soon to be layed off 53-year-old, it’s stories like this that turn my stomach.
BUT, because of my experience and skill, I'm much less apt to need to pull an all-nighter.
Younger engineers have less ability to understand process interactions, they simply lack the gut experience to see how a minor change can ripple through the entire shop floor and come back to bite them.
They tend to be like little liberals in that regard, they want to "impeach Bush" but can't foresee the immediate consequence of having President Cheney. Unlike liberals, they can be trained out of it!
A smart company has a mix of enthusiasm and experience. Less healthy companies tend to have either a stable of old nags, or young stallions.
Bah! I'd take a 50% cut just to get back in a wafer fab.
No, you got it right the first time! :)
Watch carefully as all your television advertising turns to animation ~ essentially robots ~ who don't need to be paid!
Ever notice that your "quality auditors" have a touch of gray and a world of experience? They know what the "end users" do and they specialize in catching them at that.
Plus, we had abominable time constraints every now and then ~ 10 days to rewrite several hundred pages in a thousand different ways ~ our problem was you couldn't work that with a team of more than about 10 people, and that was barely enough to get things done in that time. Still, more people just slowed it down.
I know several ways to do the overnighters as needed ~ fortunately i'm retired.
>> to go for new just because it’s new is not always the right thing to do.
No, of course not.
Practicing the *best* approach (whether old or new) is what a true professional is paid to do.
My comment, of course, did not refer to “native americans” = “Indians” = Native Americans. I have no experience with Native American Indians other than a brief trip through a reservation where a few waved at me - well, they seemed friendly enough!
Yes, I understood that, but it was funnier to pretend I didn't! :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.