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Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. That said

Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. That said, the OP is correct. You're only as good as your last two years and even that's pushing it. If the tech changes, you have to adapt with it. I'm 53 as of yesterday (the 8th). I started with PDP-11's in the 80's, then VAX's, then PC's, BASIC at first, then C, then Visual Basic, then ASP, then C#/ASP.NET, and now I'm deep into AWS (Lambda, DynamoDB, Redshift), NodeJS, AngularJS 1.x/2, ReactJS, and I'm still learning new technology all the time. A lot of developers will transition to management and it's on my mind, but I'm also still drawn to solving problems at a code level. And there's always new toys to play with like Angular and React. Now we have .NET Core and all of its interesting avenues. If you actually care about being a good developer, you will continue to work. As long as there are jobs. Nothing will help you if the job market contracts. Then I do believe hiring becomes age-oriented with us older dev's labeled "over-qualified".

coldtea 10y ago
>Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. You'd be surprised. The original post (TFA) gives the median age in major companies for example and it doesn't work like that there.
gaius 10y ago
Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. The fact that people are still claiming there is a shortage of tech workers, demonstrates that that isn't true. The industry wants young, cheap workers who come ready made with the trendiest skills, then it wants to ditch them rather than retraining or allowing them to accrue seniority, and hire new ones, who will work 80 hours a week for free soda and "stock options"...
- linkregister 10y ago
  What companies fit this mold? Do you work at one or worked at one in the past?
- ChicagoDave 10y ago
  Devs should train themselves. If you're waiting for someone to train you, you're not going to last in software development for very long.
  - gaius 10y ago
    What other fields operate like that? Doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc all get CPD on the company's time and dime.
  - dj-wonk 10y ago
    Some rhetorical questions: How does a person know if they've trained themselves well? What if part of the training involves interacting with other people?
rpazyaquian 10y ago
I'm not convinced that there's more jobs than people in the tech market, especially now that people are starting to wise up to the fact that jobs are being automated away and want to transition into stabler markets like ours.

coldtea 10y ago

>Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. You'd be surprised. The original post (TFA) gives the median age in major companies for example and it doesn't work like that there.

gaius 10y ago

Age will matter more in a loose job market (more people than jobs). In a tight market as it is today, your skills are front and center, not your age. The fact that people are still claiming there is a shortage of tech workers, demonstrates that that isn't true. The industry wants young, cheap workers who come ready made with the trendiest skills, then it wants to ditch them rather than retraining or allowing them to accrue seniority, and hire new ones, who will work 80 hours a week for free soda and "stock options"...

linkregister 10y ago
What companies fit this mold? Do you work at one or worked at one in the past?
ChicagoDave 10y ago
Devs should train themselves. If you're waiting for someone to train you, you're not going to last in software development for very long.
- gaius 10y ago
  What other fields operate like that? Doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc all get CPD on the company's time and dime.
- dj-wonk 10y ago
  Some rhetorical questions: How does a person know if they've trained themselves well? What if part of the training involves interacting with other people?

rpazyaquian 10y ago

I'm not convinced that there's more jobs than people in the tech market, especially now that people are starting to wise up to the fact that jobs are being automated away and want to transition into stabler markets like ours.