[austincheney]

Is this age and sex bias a silicon valley problem?

I am nearly 40 and most of the developers I have worked with in the past 10+ years have always been older than me (aside from college new hires). They have also been 20-40% female. I have spent this time working in the Westlake, Irving, Plano technology corridor of north DFW.

I would like to hear what kind of demographics people encounter by geographic location. I always hear about age and sex bias online, but I simply don't see it in my area.

[dahdum]

SV skews young due to startups with low seed outlay. The risk and reward tends to attract young men[1], and then the culture that results continues that bias.

Established companies with good work-life balance, solid benefits, and internal advancement opportunities are much closer to your experience.

1 - Edit because I've been hammered for saying this before. Many studies have shown significantly increased financial, business, and physical risk taking in men. That's the type I'm referring to.

[tezzer]

46 here, well employed and not worried. There are a lot of positions in Silicon Valley for older engineers. On the bias- most of the engineers who are my peers are men. The female engineers I've worked with in my 15 years in California have mostly been in project management, product management and test. Over 40 you may not get hired by any underfunded startups, but the 'old money' is still here and values experience over alma mater and 'dumb enough to work cheap'.

[eikenberry]

> Is this age and sex bias a silicon valley problem?

From my experiences a lot of SV's ageism is not really that they won't hire older workers on principle, it is just that most of their worker are young due to local conditions and like attracts like. By 'local conditions' I mostly mean cost of living, everyone I know who has lived in SV moved away when they got older and wanted to start a family.

[Dirlewanger]

Probably. I would say it's possibly just the market. Companies outside of the SVs/NYCs/Austins can't afford to be as picky because the talent pool isn't as large. Also probably because the SV culture isn't as pervasive in the industry as those in the HN bubble would have you believe.