I'm a google engineer who is cough well over 40. I haven't experienced any age discrimination. The engineering team for the product I work on, Google Play Music, is roughly 15% older engineers (rough guess, because I don't actually know how old everyone is). And across google, many of the most well regarded engineers (not talking about managers) are also older folks. Should there be more older engineers? Possibly, but the population is skewed because google is growing very fast of late and the vast majority of hires come straight out of college.
Also keep in mind that software engineering is a tough profession, and burnout is a real issue. Many of the people I've worked with over the years have moved on to other careers, in high tech or in something completely unrelated. The luckier ones cashed out on stock options or IPOs, and no longer need to work for a living - they either have their own little companies where they play around or they just retire. I'd say probably 40-50% of the engineers I worked with in my 20s and 30s are no longer doing any coding.
Bottom line: age discrimination is generally not a problem at google. One discrimination suit means nothing - those happen all the time at every successful company, and most of them are from folks angling for a quick settlement. (I don't know the merits of the particular case in question.)
The engineering team for the product I work on, Google Play Music, is roughly 15% older engineers (rough guess, because I don't actually know how old everyone is)
I'm 41, work at an investment bank as a software engineer and I think I'm probably one of the youngest people in IT here.
Having an IT work force with only 15% of people above 40 doesn't happen by accident and in my 20 year career in IT, it's not the norm of most companies.
the vast majority of hires come straight out of college.
You realize that happens because of policies that make that happen, right?
Umm, no. Competition for experienced engineers in Silicon Valley is incredibly fierce - I get probably a couple dozen cold recruitment pitches every week, from startups and big companies alike. Any decent engineer with 10+ years of experience can write their own ticket pretty much anywhere they want, and many choose do so at startups where the potential rewards are higher.
On the other hand, most new grads would kill for a job at google, which is one of the best high tech companies to work for (if not the best). And most new grads don't want to take the risk and lower pay of a startup (not with all those student loans to pay off).
More supply == more employees. No sinister policies needed.
Edit: appended clarifying sentence to first paragraph
Umm, no. Competition for experienced engineers in Silicon Valley is incredibly fierce - I get probably a couple dozen cold recruitment pitches every week, from startups and big companies alike.
Cold recruitment pitches aren't job offers. They're also typically made with no idea how old the person they're speaking to is.
More supply == more employees. No sinister policies needed.
I would say it's more a matter of when you specifically target recent graduates for hiring, you tend to hire a lot of recent graduates. Are you disputing that Google specifically targets recent graduates for hire?
Of course I'm not disputing that. Google absolutely targets new graduates, very aggressively. We also target experienced engineers, very aggressively. As @mark_l_watson said in another comment: "Google is hungry for good people, and they are casting a wide net". Experienced employees are, in fact, valued far more than new grads, since they've proven themselves in industry, and because of that google gives employees substantial referral bonuses for bringing in good people.
As for cold recruitment pitches, they typically come from recruiters on linkedin. And its very easy to tell roughly how old I am from my linkedin profile. But you make a fair point about recruitment pitches not being the same as job offers.
You say you work in IT - am I guessing correctly when I say you don't work in the Bay Area or Seattle? Because it really is a crazy job market right now, and its probably hard to believe how much so if you don't experience it yourself. Its hugely different from how things were in 2008, when I got laid off by Adobe and had to take a less than ideal job to pay the bills. Today I am very confident that I could get a new job by making a few phone calls, but I choose to stay at google because I'm working on a great product with a great team, at a company that spoils me to a point I actually find embarrassing.
There's only one person on my immediate team who is under thirty. Much of the company's engineering leadership is on the "ex-dec" mailing list. Let's just say that there are no 22-year-old engineers on ex-dec.
Engineers capable of working at Google != majoring in computer science.
Computer science degrees are handed out like cracker jack prizes these days.
Men graduate college at a lower rate than women, graduate high school at a lower rate, and have a lower literacy rate. What does that have to do with the specific pool of talent from which an uber engineering company like Google would pull from?
That's great that you feel that way and that your team may not discriminate. So why can't Google post those numbers, too? It would make them look great!
I'd like to see google post those numbers as well. I do realize that my own experiences are merely anecdotal, but hopefully of interest to enough people to be worth the post.
Also keep in mind that software engineering is a tough profession, and burnout is a real issue. Many of the people I've worked with over the years have moved on to other careers, in high tech or in something completely unrelated. The luckier ones cashed out on stock options or IPOs, and no longer need to work for a living - they either have their own little companies where they play around or they just retire. I'd say probably 40-50% of the engineers I worked with in my 20s and 30s are no longer doing any coding.
Bottom line: age discrimination is generally not a problem at google. One discrimination suit means nothing - those happen all the time at every successful company, and most of them are from folks angling for a quick settlement. (I don't know the merits of the particular case in question.)