News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Thousands. Parent comment

Re:IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Tho... by nitrogen on Monday September 17, 2018 @10:02PM (#18011808)
Technology changes fast, but technology concepts do not. More experienced engineers can recognize when a new technology is repeating an old pattern, and (if they'll listen) keep their team from repeating old mistakes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Tho... by mirimir on Monday September 17, 2018 @10:25PM (#18011946)
That's an excellent point.

But the problem may be that HR just processes nominal data, without considering nuances like that. So they end up firing experienced engineers, based on superficial (and perhaps outdated) data.

I'm not a software engineer, or familiar with relevant business practices. I get that physicians, for example, are certified for various specialties. But is there a formalized system like that for software engineers?

For some stuff, I know there is, based on ads I've seen. But what about particular programming languages, toolkits, etc?

Edit: coherence

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Tho... by Fnoord on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:24AM (#18012673)
Performance data never shows the complete picture. It should not be allowed to be used for definitive decisions, but it could be used to investigate.

(IMO the same is true for mass surveillance vs targeted surveillance.)

[ Parent | on HN ]