I'd say if management routinely burns out programmers and prevents them from having long careers, that in itself is a form of age discrimination.
> If the industry now is 10x the size it was in 2000 (arbitrary number), then 40 year old developers should be 10% of the workforce, even discounting any other factors.
IMO this seems to be an ageist assumption. If an industry is growing, why should the newcomers to the industry be overwhelmingly young? Why shouldn't "older" people join in large numbers too, especially if there's a lot of money to be made? I personally switched careers and didn't get my first tech job until I was over 35.
> I have never had so much clout during job hunting than I do now, with 20 years of on the job experience.
What do you make of the pervasive "quiz show" style job interviews that favor recent CS grads and discount job experience?
In any case, I'd say there's more empirical support for my position than the claim I was arguing against, that people work 80 hours per week and then retire early because they "value their time". Just not their current time, only their time later in life (if they live that long), I guess.
> I'd say if management routinely burns out programmers and prevents them from having long careers, that in itself is a form of age discrimination.
It's not management though that may be a part. Building complex systems with cutting (i.e., bleeding) edge technology is hard. A lot of projects fail, often with career consequences for the people in them. If you experience 2-3 of these you start to look around to see if there's an easier way to make a living.
I'd say if management routinely burns out programmers and prevents them from having long careers, that in itself is a form of age discrimination.
> If the industry now is 10x the size it was in 2000 (arbitrary number), then 40 year old developers should be 10% of the workforce, even discounting any other factors.
IMO this seems to be an ageist assumption. If an industry is growing, why should the newcomers to the industry be overwhelmingly young? Why shouldn't "older" people join in large numbers too, especially if there's a lot of money to be made? I personally switched careers and didn't get my first tech job until I was over 35.
> I have never had so much clout during job hunting than I do now, with 20 years of on the job experience.
What do you make of the pervasive "quiz show" style job interviews that favor recent CS grads and discount job experience?
In any case, I'd say there's more empirical support for my position than the claim I was arguing against, that people work 80 hours per week and then retire early because they "value their time". Just not their current time, only their time later in life (if they live that long), I guess.