Networking doesn't really work like that from my experience, you show people that you're reliable and a good person to work with in some area they will assume y

Networking doesn't really work like that from my experience, you show people that you're reliable and a good person to work with in some area they will assume you can transfer to Y even if you specialize in X, even senior positions hire people without direct experience and not only in software. I've seen things like this happen in several jobs I've worked with - not all of which were programming (eg. at my first job CTP was replacing old printing plate development with manual film montage/exposure). People good enough at their work saw this sort of thing coming a long time ahead and start moving to the next thing way before it actually happened, people who got hit by it were people who barely knew their job to begin with and had no interest in keeping up to date - so I don't think this goes against my point. And are you really surprised that people with no relevant experience get discriminated on age ? If your experience is completely irrelevant then you don't really have a lot to offer over a younger person (and younger in this context means <50 which is different from the classic software story of 20 yearolds vs 40 yearols where the differences are still debatable, there are undeniable differences in the below above 50 age groups, you're just past your prime at that point at least when it comes to adapting to new things).