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"Logan's Run" Syndrome In Programming
Ian Lamont writes "InfoWorld has an interesting analysis of the reasons behind the relative dearth of programmers over the age of 40. While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out, in what the article describes as a 'Logan's Run'-like marketplace. A bunch of factors are listed as reasons, including management's misunderstanding of the ways in which developers work: 'Any developer can tell you that not all C or PHP or Java programmers are created equal; some are vastly more productive or creative. However, unless or until there is a way to explicitly demonstrate the productivity differential between a good programmer and a mediocre one, inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code. The very concept of viewing experience as an asset for raising productivity is a non-factor — much to the detriment of the developer workplace.'"
I have no idea if I'm an outlier, but with a blind preference for intellectual depth, rigor, and creativity, I tend to see what I figured was normal: more experienced candidates often come out ahead. Not always, but often. More experience unsurpisingly equals more age. The best are often bringing decades of experience, MA or PhD level credentials, and the ineffable things that come from having been there and done that in a lot of different trenches. They often cost more (though not all that much more), and they're worth it.
I know the corporate world at large has this patrician idea about pay related to seniority - whereas I come from the pay-for-value mindset. There is a good observation in the article about older folks making more and therefore being victims of cost cutting. I'm sure this happens as well, but in my world the observation is meaningless. A senior software engineer will get a good salary - more than enough to support an upper middle-class lifestyle (albeit not at the level of an attorney or an anesthesiologist), regardless of their age. If they ask for too much, they will be unemployed; if they tire of unemployment, they bring their compensation demands back in line with their value. I find most people have a very good grasp of the labor market, especially with the advent of widely available salary suvery data.
I have a couple of friends in their 50's who joke about becoming obsolete. I associate this with actually getting tired of keeping up with an industry that reinvintents itself so often, and therefore, not keeping up. There's a trap there, too: a kind of local maxima where, for a while, being an expert in Cobol or IBM mainframes is not only easier than learning Java, but will pay more and more, as you become more and more rare. Until one day you look for your next job and it just... isn't there.
Historically IT has suffered from a lack of technical depth at the top. Companies wanted wise old hands with management experience in charge, even if those wise old hands needed an assistant to print their emails every day (true story, multiple companies). As the next generation rises through the ranks, you will have more middle management, SVP, and ultimately COO, CEO, etc types that have real first-hand knowledge of technology. Eventually the corporate world will lose some of its notortious and costly blindness towards talent, and both hiring and strategy will become more objective and less bullshit-driven.
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We just filled a senior level programmer position with someone in their 50s. This person had a great resume, and did an awesome job in their interview - blew pretty much everyone else we looked at away. I'd say he's easily 1000X better than the last young intern we had (now a grad student in CS). I'd say most of the programmers here are in their late 30s to mid 40s. A few are older (50ish). I'm a young one here, a "senior" software engineer by title at the age of 30.
We're actually considering going after some young blood and spending the effort to mentor them because we have such a hard time recruiting older developers.
I'm not sure a career change is a future reality, unless that's what you desire. I'm 47 and still highly sought by the various teams where I work. I have a broad background as an application/system programmer *and* system administrator (Unix and Windows) which allows me to develop solutions and, possibly more importantly, debug issues that others with narrower backgrounds simply cannot do. In other words, I get the hard problems - which have to be solved.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .