A story about a retired Apple engineer who was not considered for a Genius Bar job is gaining traction today. This ex-Apple engineer was involved in the migration of OS X to Intel but never got a call back after a retail Genius interview. An op-ed in the NYT has raised the issue of age discrimination in Silicon Valley as it’s believed that the engineer was not hired because of his age.
In an op-ed about workplace biases the author sheds light on age discrimination by giving the example of former Apple engineer J.K. Scheinberg who tried getting a customer support representative Genius Bar job at an Apple retail store.
Scheinberg was at Apple proper for a considerably long period of time – from 1997 until his retirement in 2008 – and was directly involved with the first builds of OS X for Intel processors. He said that three interviewers told him that they will be in touch about the Genius Bar job but he never heard back from them.
This isn’t the first time that Apple has been accused of preferring to hire younger people. 60 year old Michael Katz sued Apple back in 2010 after less senior employees at an Apple Store in Orlando were promoted above him. He held that they were less qualified individuals for the post and that he was only passed over for promotion multiple times on account of his age.
Apple has not yet commented on this op-ed.
Filed in ..