[cpprototypes]

Recently I got an email about a job that seemed interesting. It's a well known company that used to be a startup but is now a mature company. I went to the job description page: 8+ years experience, tech stack I'm familiar with, mostly backend work, seems ok so far.

Then I get to the last line. Open office, has video games, happy hours, other typical things designed to attract those in their 20s. It's all a hidden message screaming, if you're old, don't apply. And they want someone with 8+ years experience! It's ridiculous.

[skookum]

You're probably seeing a hidden message where there isn't one. The culture/benefits sections of most job descriptions are generic and that generic portion of the hiring message is tailored to the majority of hires the company is likely to attract via job postings. For most tech companies that is going to be candidates directly or recently our of university, and the majority of that majority does perceive/expect many of these types of office perks as hallmarks of a successful tech company. The message isn't intended to exclude you or me. The message is intended to hook the easily hookable.

[ardit33]

I am sorry, but what is wrong with having video games in the office? At both my previous companies I played games time to time, with co-workers. 15 mins of playing Fifa with a co-worker end s up both relaxing, and productive as you both bond and hash out things, and often much better than boring meeting.

I am 35 btw. Also, our CEO regularly played as well.

I have been at an office/environment (Amazon), with cubicles, or offices, people coming in, going home at 5:30pm, no social time, nothing interesting. I thought that was awful, and I would never work in a place that doesn't understand that creativity requires some play time as well.

[mwfunk]

This is all anecdotal evidence of course, but my exposure to this sort of office culture has been much more negative than what you described. Every place I've ever worked, I've played video games or done other fun stuff with my coworkers, sometimes as a part of every day. Nothing wrong with that, I wouldn't have had it any other way. This is the norm, but I don't think this is what people are talking about in this thread.

The negative variant of "come work here, we have video games in the office!" happens when there is an expectation from management (or even just the rest of the team) that everyone is going to participate in Mandatory Team Playtime whether they enjoy it or not. And the 1-2 hours of Mandatory Team Playtime always means that you have to stay at work for an additional 1-2 hours just to get your job done. Or maybe Mandatory Team Playtime is a consolation prize for making you work through the weekend.

[Bahamut]

I usually find there being too much to do to spend time playing video games or whatever at the job, unless there is a company after-hours event.

I'm not exactly on the younger side either, being 32 and having only been working professionally for almost 4 years. It's not that I don't love games either - if the game industry paid comparatively, I would certainly consider going into that industry, and have plenty of very successful friends in it.

That said, I don't view the presence of these things as discrimination - if you don't want to participate, don't. Nobody is forcing you, and if they want to falsify performance reviews/withhold promotions when you're clearly outperforming your peers/etc., then I'd get down and dirty letting them know that their behavior is crap, and then job search because I don't want to work for a company like that.

[flukus]

The problem isn't the games, it's the office space. Having video games, foosball, table tennis, etc near your work space is distracting as hell. If they are optional and silent (from my perspective) it's not a problem but me experience has been the opposite.

I had management buy everyone nerf guns once as part of a "hitting our targets" marketing campaign. It seemed like every time you got deep into concentration a nerf dart would ricochet into your screen. Needless to say, we missed our targets.

[vacri]

> Needless to say, we missed our targets.

... intentional pun?

I've had the nerf war going on around me as well. Everyone else in the office shooting at each other, me in the middle fiddling in my terminals. I learned that if you just don't respond, you don't become a target and you can get on with whatever you were doing (YMMV).

[MichaelBurge]

> ... intentional pun?

I believe his management made the pun when they bought the nerf guns for the "hit our targets" campaign.

[ryanSrich]

It's not the video games themselves. It's the culture. It's a way to keep young employees in the office longer. It's not uncommon for these places to have people roll in around 10am and stay until 10pm. That's not a place I want to work at, and I'm not even 30 yet. But you can bet your life savings on a company firing anyone for not playing this game. That's why I won't work for a place with videogames.

[mahyarm]

I've worked at a bunch of places with video games in SV. Most of the time it's barely touched.

Meals is what really determines how long people stayed. Sometimes 3 people would play video games. Sometimes a team creates a lunch time card game routine. Some teams really love foosball or whatever.

If a place didn't serve 6pm dinner, people tend to leave before dinner time since they got hungry. If they served dinner, then they consistently stayed until dinner time. If dinner was too late like 8pm, then they might as well of had no dinner for most employees.

10am-10pm places develop often because it's a small startup, and because normal commute hours are horrible. I don't know many people although who actually works anything near those 12 hour days.

[reddytowns]

Wait, they fire people for not playing videogames?

[ryanSrich]

Should have been more clear. They fire people for not playing the "12 hour work day" for no reason game.

"Sorry it's not working out. We're looking for dedicated team players". Proceeds to hire 22 year olds with no at home responsibilities.

[baby]

That's complete bullshit, I work for one of those company that happens to have video games around. Not everyone play, but after work, we sometimes get around and play for a couple of hours and we just have so much fun that we end up going home late. What's wrong with that?

[hiram112]

Nothing wrong with it at all.

But realize that companies do not give you these 'perks' like free food, games, laundry, etc. as a bonus. It is to keep you at work for more and more hours.

Honestly, I don't think it is a bad thing if you do enjoy this sort of thing and are young without kids, wife, etc.

The problem is that it creates the 'bro' culture that turns off anyone who isn't in the same demographic. When most of the team is staying late, bonding with COD, those that don't - the 40 year old who needs to pick up his kid, or the 25 year old woman who doesn't play XBox - tend to be excluded as time goes on.

To be completely honest, I've always thought the complaints of sexism in tech were completely bullshit.

But when I look at things as a mid 30's guy who is already seeing hints of ageism and really have no desire to stay 'till 10pm playing video games, I have to wonder if maybe I was somewhat wrong, and maybe the typical SV software environment is somewhat toxic for anyone not a 25 year old guy - females included.

[mahyarm]

Free food is the real perk that changes hours. Everything else isn't used that much or is very very company/team dependent and you have to evaluate them on a company basis.

10 companies might give laundry, video games, board/table games, free gyms and all 3 meals. How the company or team uses those things is very company dependent. Laundry service is not used that much most of the time, since you usually have to pay. It's usually just a purple tie pickup/dropoff closet.

I think the "staying late, bonding with COD" company is like the minority 'nightmare' thing that gets all the media attention, while most of them are pretty normal, does something at lunch sometimes and eats all the free meals.

[baby]

> But realize that companies do not give you these 'perks' like free food, games, laundry, etc. as a bonus. It is to keep you at work for more and more hours.

It's give and take, nothing is for free, and this deal is a pretty good one imo :)

> The problem is that it creates the 'bro' culture that turns off anyone who isn't in the same demographic. When most of the team is staying late, bonding with COD, those that don't - the 40 year old who needs to pick up his kid, or the 25 year old woman who doesn't play XBox - tend to be excluded as time goes on.

So we shouldn't bond and have fun because of these people :D?

[hiram112]

No I think you should do what you want; it certainly isn't the job of young male engineers to make sure everyone else is included in their environment. God knows that other groups were never especially inclusive to many of 'us' growing up.

[DougN7]

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. But people with families, kids that need help with homework, etc won't be able to do that often if ever. Being young very often also means having fewer commitments.

[baby]

If you can't play video games with your friend/coworkers from times to times, then your life suck, kids or not.

[Broken_Hippo]

Or you have different interests. Perhaps you don't expect to be friends with coworkers - so long as folks get along well at the office, that's enough. Perhaps you would rather have the compartmentalism. Perhaps you'd rather play at home while not wearing pants. Perhaps you'd rather spend time with a loved one, your children, and the couple of friends that you've had for years.

Perhaps you are an introvert and really need the downtime. Perhaps you are an artist and enjoy that instead. Maybe you play an instrument and get an hour of practice most days. Maybe you like theater or a good dinner in lue of a few hours of video games.

Not playing games after work isn't an indicator of someone's life sucking. It just means they have different interests or priorities in life that don't match up to spending a few hours at work playing games.

[Psygon1]

I'm not a gamer.

[FLUX-YOU]

No idea. In fact, having some complicated games to learn and compete at is likely a good thing if you have a team of gamers and give your brain a mental break from work while still having something interesting to chew on. Think high level play in fighting games/MOBAs, number crunching in MMOs, FPS map strategies, car simulation builds, sports strategies and teams, etc.

Even if you don't want to think about that stuff, you can then turn to doing silly things and giving yourself a break.

[mwfunk]

I would have a similarly visceral reaction to that line, but I wouldn't interpret it as a "keep out" sign for older developers. Rather, it's a gigantic red flag for wiser developers of any age. They're looking for people they can trick into working 60-80 hour weeks, every week. Those are probably going to be mostly recent grads in their 20s, but they're actually selecting for naïveté and the lack of a personal life rather than youth.

[anexprogrammer]

Let's see, most recent environment like that had me at late 40s (at the time), two guys mid 40s, the boss late 40s, and some young uns.

We all had nerf guns, regular silliness, and fairly regular beer+gaming sessions with the app company down the hall. They had a couple of full size multi game arcade machines, and a console. :)

I'll be old when they nail the lid shut :p I'd rather talk about games, motorbikes and beer than golf any day thanks. Unless you mean willingness to give up weekends for dubious reasons and pull stupid hours regularly - then on that score I've been old since my 20s.

That said I have experienced age discrimination - tech is rife with it, but never if I got past HR or recruiting types. I don't know why tech makes it more likely - it's not like every or even most companies are looking for the naive to work 10am-10pm daily.

[GauntletWizard]

You know who made the most use of the kegerator and the board game night at my last business? The sixty-year-old dude with a wife and two kids. He spent one-and-a-half nights a week at the office drinking, playing games, and socializing and was otherwise headed home by five. He made good use of that networking time, though, and partially because the tooling was there; he'd not have had a chance to interact with the office full of twentysomethings if he'd not had work provided socialization tools and had to go out out to interact.

It didn't exactly work - he eventually was fired in a really bad bit of house-training for cronies... But he was very popular. The tooling you're reading as a young people's perk is actually a pretty good neutral ground: if work didn't have a kegerator, I'd probably not go out, I'd be at home, not working and not thinking about work.

[mahyarm]

When I worked at a place with the average age was mid 30s and being mid 20s made me one of the youngest, we all played a lot of lunch time foosball and ping pong, left the video games untouched and were still an 'old' person friendly place.

[Swizec]

o/ 29 year old here, 20 years coding, 13 years of people paying me to code. We exist.

I sure hope companies don't have that as a base expectation, though.

[sp332]

That you exist isn't the problem. The problem is discrimination based on age.

[Swizec]

Naturally. All I'm saying that it IS possible to find someone in their 20's with 8+ years of experience.

[sidlls]

Depends on what you mean by experience. I'm skeptical, to say the least. No doubt there are 29 year olds who have been "coding" for 20 years and being paid for it for 13 of them. That's different from having experience.

[toomuchtodo]

8 years of experience? Or the same year of experience 8 times over?