Why Companies Should Hire Older Developers

Nerval's Lobster writes: Despite legislation making it overtly illegal, ageism persists in the IT industry. If you're 40 or older, you've probably seen cases where younger developers were picked over older ones. At times we're told there's a staffing crisis, that companies need to import more developers via H-1B, but the truth is that outsourcing and downsizing eliminated a subset of viable developers from the market. Those developers, in turn, had to figure out if they wanted to land another job, freelance, or leave the technology industry entirely. But older developers still have a lot to offer, developer David Bolton writes in a new column: They have decades of experience (and specialist knowledge), they have a healthy disregard for office politics (but can still manage, when necessary), they're available, and they're (generally) stable.

Comments

Re:let's be real for a second

[cdrudge]

They just simply don't keep up and don't have modern college training in the latest security threats and program hacking methods.

I have a modern college degree, BS in CS from Purdue. I can't recall a single class that discussed security as a topic, let alone dedicated to it. Fuck. I just realized the classes I took were nearly 20 years ago. I'm an "older developer" aren't I...

Re: Around the block

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of organization is still using messengers to carry internal memos in this day and age, let alone shooting them when they fail to bring positive news? If that's the sort of thing that goes on there, then there are far deeper problems than mere inexperience.