> Proven engineers who occupy the most senior roles should be deployed to solve the hardest problems on the most critical projects. Their roles should emphasize

> Proven engineers who occupy the most senior roles should be deployed to solve the hardest problems on the most critical projects. Their roles should emphasize technical leadership through writing, speaking, and mentoring. Isn’t this the issue? There are only so many spots for engineers who can be paid to pontificate on the “hardest problems”. And those super-senior engineers need to be absolutely top of their game to be considered for this role, which means weeding out 99% of weaker engineers. Unlike other jobs, being older and having more years of experience does not mean you are the most qualified to solve hard problems. Ageism is a real thing in tech but imagining that we can hire all the old engineers to be elite architects is no different than the current situation. Also, the proposal for unions in tech at the end came out of nowhere. I don’t think the author should conflate the problem of ageism with unionizing all the programmers. Ageism is something most people will agree is bad whereas the subject of unionizing is completely different. Not sure how laying people off by seniority in the union will make companies more innovative and effective. But that’s why the author should make a second post about their views on that and not conflate the two issues.