Not a fan of the way the author has framed this. The title reads as if it’s condoning that such discrimination is acceptable or understandable if age 60+.
I read it more than ageism towards 60+ is a well documented problen
Is 40 the New 60?
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Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#22What a weird concept. I am 41 and feel I am constantly learning new stuff and better ways to do things. I am working in a fairly deep field though (CAD). I presume the ageism present in a position depends on how much deep expertise is required in said position. OTOH I've been at my current employer for a decade so have no understanding of my actual market position within relevant market.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#23I sympathize, but I'm also starting to think there's a fountain of jobs that some devs have discovered and others haven't. There seem to be two camps of devs, one them is constantly harassed by recruiters and swimming in potential jobs, the other hardly ever comes across a job they'd want.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#24We all know that good developers retire in 35 to live the life of their dreams. If you're still in the field after 35, maybe you're not so good after all.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#25"while the experience that comes with age is valued in fields like music, it counts against you in tech."
Is the experience generic (e.g. I'm a Python guru and Guido knows me on a first-name basis), or specific (e.g. I've spent 25 years writing Python and web interfaces for high speed factory sorting machines)?
The latter makes you highly employable. The former means you're just going to be an expensive pain in the ass.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#26I sympathize, but I'm also starting to think there's a fountain of jobs that some devs have discovered and others haven't. There seem to be two camps of devs, one them is constantly harassed by recruiters and swimming in potential jobs, the other hardly ever comes across a job they'd want.
>one them is constantly harassed by recruiters and swimming in potential jobs, the other hardly ever comes across a job they'd want.
Both can be true at the same time, and in my experience often are.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#27When I turned 40, ageism in software definitely became something worth worrying about. Save your money while the times are good.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#28With startups writing software that is more akin to 'whipping together code which integrates components where the API's change every 4 months' ... I can understand the need for dynamic, youthful energy.
But doing anything else more historically understood as 'normal software' requires experience.
I consider anyone with After 5 years, you have someone who can competently do something in a specific area, but may not be particularly well rounded.
Looking back at my own career, writing embedded C++ fresh out of school, I can barely believe they let me do it. I don't think I would have hired me. I'm grateful.
There's enough thinking and experience required for most kinds of software the that the intense dynamism is probably overplayed. What you want is a team that consistently moves the ball forward, day by day, i.e. it's a marathon not a sprint.
It strains me to understand how Senior Devs would be undervalued on this context. I can see 22 year old founders having no intuition for this, but beyond that it's odd. My biggest worry with older Engineers would be that they'd be too expensive.
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#29I'm in my 40s, and I build software at a scale-up.
They explicitly searched more mature developers, because of several failed projects with large over spending the past years. Management had enough of it, and now wants a more experienced dev team.
And it works quit well I must say, code quality is very high and we make our deadlines. Our product is stable and atmosphere in the office is great actually. Not much stress here, because we don't spend months building some never to be used generic-multipurpose-framework and we don't jump into every new technology which comes around..
Not hiring experienced developers is a big mistake! :)
Re: Is 40 the New 60?
#30I’m only 33 but I had 0 difficulty in finding employment, even a few months into Covid. However I’m also a ‘senior developer’ already, so there isn’t much room title wise to go in 7 years that isn’t management.
But that’s also kind of expected. As a senior developer, I can code faster and better than our junior devs but more importantly I can teach them to be better by reviewing their code. As I get older I am spending less time coding myself and more time reviewing others code.
A 40 year old developer is going to be telling stories of their first gig going through code printed out on paper reviewing it for a y2k bug… when I wouldn’t be surprised if 99% of this years college graduates never heard of y2k.