[cyberferret]

As a 49.9 year old programmer who is only just getting used to being ignored by startups and journalists, I can sympathise and support this.

But the onus of proof is going to be difficult to come by, isn't it? Unless the HR rep has specifically said "You are too old to be employed here" then they can simply cite a myriad of other excuses as to why they couldn't employ you.

Will be interesting to see what the published median age of developers at Google is. The article said 29 but I wonder if that is an official figure or done via some other form of guesstimation.

[tracker1]

I somewhat agree... There's definitely a different response you get when you say you have two decades of experience... Some strong assumptions come with that. The harder part still is when you don't even get any response at all. You just don't know, and it's hard to tell for certain. Legally age discrimination isn't allowed, but proving it is nearly impossible. Of course given the background of the people behind the suit, it's pretty easy to show given the number of times they reached out and only after face to face interviews declined to offer a position.

As someone who's not getting any younger (42), fat, and doesn't have a formal education, three things that shouldn't be a factor in my job. They really do count against you.