I have a friend who works as an IT director in SF.... not at FANG but he’s looking for opportunities in FANG. He just turned 50 and is concerned about the reality of ageism. If he’s up to date on all relevant software, languages, systems etc (this is being written by a non-engineer, can you tell?) do you think he needs to worry? Are there companies that would be more “gentle” in their hiring processes? Thanks for your advice!
I think he should be more concerned if there is a relevant role in IT for him.
Ageism is a problem for 50yo IC, not the director. That assuming he’s a real director with people reporting to him applying to real director roles
What happens to ICs ? I am In 40’s and doing my MS in ML .I am an IC . I plan to look for new opportunities by end of this year . Now doing application programming.. basically kinda of support and boring ..
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I work with programmers in their 50s and 60s and they’re doing quite well
Ageism is a real problem despite what the law says; it is exercised unabashedly by companies like Google. No company for old men ( taking the title from the movie!)
It's not that simple... A few things to consider: the higher up u go, the longer it takes to find a role. My VP and Sr/Director friends take at least 5-6 months to find a job. Next, many if not most senior mgmt positions are filled thru referrals - so if your friend has a lot of contacts then he/she is good. Also, most VPs will look to promote someone from within the team because they have to take of their existing employees growth too other they will move on. Finally, relevant experience ... Even a G or FB SRE director would have a hard time getting a job to lead a self driving car team at Cruise for example. Managing 1000000 servers is not the same... (If they do BTW, the company is window dressing for the VCs) And no IT is not a problem there are 1000s of jobs out there. Surprise, there is life outside of Leetcode 🙂 Is it possible that some hiring manager exhibit ageism? maybe, but in the times I've been in the job market the factors above affected me more than anything else. FYI I am a Sr. Dir
Thank you so much everyone! He has lots of people reporting to him but is just wanting a change.
His background is in IT, which won't help.