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> Additionally, someone over 40 is supposed to be in or near their peak earning years, which lasts ten to twenty more years (or did historically anyway) so their expenditure is going to be significantly more than someone with a few years of experience.

We pay 25-30 year olds $100-140+k and call then "senior" in this industry. Unless 40 year olds are asking for $200k+ in non-specialised roles, I doubt companies can't afford them.

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My hunch as to why they are getting filtered out is that people think 40+ year olds are out of touch with whatever the 20-30 year old programmers are doing and thus less skilled/able to contribute ASAP. Also there's a weird stigma for people in their 40s+ still programming (as opposed to managing/some high level position) unless they're in some world expert role at Google/Facebook/etc.

BTW, in many other upper middle class jobs, you speak in your early 50s or late 40s. Very different from tech indeed!



> weird stigma

I'm late 50's and write code 7 days a week. I guess I'm in deep doo-doo :-)


I think the above post made it cleared by:

> unless they're in some world expert role at Google/Facebook/etc.

People who hire for A-players or who hold top level position in big companies, politics etc understand there is no paradox in being old people holding top ranks saying we need young blood all across organization.


A healthy organization needs a mix of old and young, a mix of rogues and steady hands, etc.


Me too, I'm obviously over the hill and should abandon the new project I'm just starting.




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