"Hopefully with age comes some kind of niche specialization or skill that can't be obtained easily." The big issue I've seen played out multiple times is a hir

"Hopefully with age comes some kind of niche specialization or skill that can't be obtained easily." The big issue I've seen played out multiple times is a hiring manager, dev lead or anyone making a hiring decision not being able to tell the difference between what requires experience/skills/specialization and what doesn't. It leads to the all-too-common situation of people with required-experience being passed on in favor of the (generally younger) "hey, this person can definitely do it - they know all this computer stuff!" (slight exaggeration). It gets even more complicated when the person without the required skills tries to bluff their way through (deceptively or just out of sheer desperation).