But that has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with poor skills-fit. Because someone fresh out of a CS program won't be all that much better. You adm

But that has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with poor skills-fit. Because someone fresh out of a CS program won't be all that much better. You admitted that there are cases where experience helps, but some team members don't have that experience. Isolate for variables, don't compare apples to oranges. You are comparing older engineers without relevant experience to "younger people who were more experienced within that subject area." What about younger engineers who aren't experienced? I suspect their performance will be equally poor, if not worse.