Is there a list of grey-hair-friendly IT companies?

I think the biggest thing that I haven't seen in another comment is that companies aren't being explicitly ageist, they just want cheaper labor and younger/less experienced people are willing to work for less money. I'm sure plenty of companies would be more than happy if you said "I have decades of experience but I'll take the salary of a junior position".

Without something similar to a union or a change in laws to better incentivize pay raises, I don't see a great way out of this :/

I'd say my company is "grey-hair-friendly", but they're still hiring for way more junior roles than senior roles. I'm not sure if there are companies that explicitly don't hire junior engineers, but then you'd at least be competing against other people looking for the same salary range. Working with a recruiter might also be a good idea if they can help find companies that would be a good match

You want old finance companies.

In fact any company older that 30 probably won't care. I'm not a grey hair yet, but I actively hate startups. We aren't changing the world, we're helping cat photos load 3 milliseconds faster...

You could add just about any University to the list. At least in California, many UC IT people left due to poor pay and long hours, however the UTPE CWA 9119 union has grown in numbers and strength and the trend in pay and hours is quickly improving.

There's plenty of gray beards, the UC is starving for seasoned talent, and the HMO plans are inexpensive and cover a lot -- 5 years to vest in the pension that matches nearly 100% and you can take distributions starting at age 50.

Actually the Venn diagram of remote jobs and not being bothered by one's age pretty much overlaps.

Remote work has a way of prioritizing professionalism and solid communication over in person social signaling which is likely to help be anti-ageist.

So the list you posted:

https://github.com/remoteintech/remote-jobs

Should be a good place to start

I think there's less ageism in Europe - I'm German and in Germany and I don't hear the same stories as on HN about that. Pay is lower, though.

Consulting industry won't care. If you can bill hours at 40% more than you cost then any firm will happily employ you for as long as you want to work.

In the United States, any ageism will usually exist at an administrative/personal level. Age is an equal-opportunity attribute that cannot be legally discriminated against, so on paper all of them will technically claim to be "friendly". I don't know how you'd really compile a list like that any more than you'd make a "junior friendly" hiring list.

Gov.

Gov generally wants stability and is very slow to move to new technologies (pros and cons).

It's not huge money, but you can clear 6 figures a year, having better than normal job security, and a good work-life balance being a sysadmin at a gov agency.

I don't know if this is a startup or valley or techbro thing but in my industry there is no ageism that I can detect.

In aerospace they seem to prefer people who know where the bodies are buried, know how to bury bodies, have buried a few bodies themselves, and can instruct others on body burying.

As a proxy for this consider companies that have better benefits in areas that'd favor middle age / older populations. Example:

Better maternity / paternity benefits: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Maternity-Leave/

Sabbatical programs often kick in after a certain number of years. A more structured program could indicate being more receptive to higher tenure / older populations: https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Sabbatical/

Pretty much any defense contractor fits this description. Lots of older people in that sector. And they hire a lot of IT people.

In the US, the only ones I can think of are companies like McDonalds or Food Markets.

I know one company that does not fit that bill, IBM. In last April they had a lay-off, I heard from friends who worked there, the only people let go in their Dept were all over 50. Do a search and you will see many articles about that.

I wish you luck

In my niche, platform engineering, grey-hairs is a positive indicator of competence.

Avalara didn't seem to be overtly ageist. Plenty of kids in their 30s. Smattering of tech workers in their 50s. They seem to be off-shoring most of their tech work though.

we may have to start our own.

Anything in DOD.

IBM, Lenovo come to mind. Some family friends were hired there at age 50+