It could be slighly more complex than just be discriminated on based on age. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather work with people who are better than me and who

It could be slighly more complex than just be discriminated on based on age. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather work with people who are better than me and who know things that I don't. Sadly, I work in a location and an industry where those people are thin on the ground, and thus I'm usually deciding between people who have less knowledge than I think they really should for the roles we're advertising. I'm not going to lie, when someone has 20 years experience on paper but has a shallow understanding of their trade, I'd rather hire the grad with similar knowledge if all else is equal. With that said, I have hired people who are older than me as junior members of a team before, but that's because they show an interest in learning and improving. Usually this means they've been transitioning into the role from another area. Interviewing is a crap shoot though. I have no idea if I'm good at it or not because I'll never experience the world where I've made different choices. All I know is I expect senior people who know their shit and when they disagree with me, I expect them to be able to argue their point in a friendly and somwhat clear manner. P.S. We're hiring "devops" contractors paying above market rate. It's not a thing about being cheap, it's simply having a quota of allowed hires and trying to get people who can do the job.