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> every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable To be fair, this observation could be massively influenced by survivorship bias - more

> every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable To be fair, this observation could be massively influenced by survivorship bias - more talented devs tend to be the ones still programming in older age.

WorldMaker 7y ago
That argument applies in the other direction as well: it's a very relatively young industry full of big industry-wide disruptions at least once a decade since it has been its own industry. Companies with young median and mean ages may have been more likely to survive (or evolve out of) some of those big early disruptions, but that may not be a long term equilibrium for the industry. Keep in mind, too, how much the 80s, 90s, and 00s median/mean ages were impacted by "flash flood" millionaires that could retire early simply by how much money was thrown around in the various "software revolution" and "Dot Com" booms.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  I seriously doubt the number of instant millionaires is significant enough to impact the total numbers. 25% of programmers did not become rich enough to retire, and if so, I'm doing everything wrong.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    It was always a matter of luck. If there were ways to predict such a lottery ahead of time, I think the industry would look quite different today. As with flash floods of rivers, the coverage of such events was complex. It probably affected some companies a lot more than others. Anecdotally, it used to be an aphorism at Microsoft that if you hadn't made your first million by 30 (or was it 25?) you were doing something wrong. Certainly the demographics at Microsoft showed several clear waves of early retirements from stock booms and bonuses, and for a ~forty year old company the median age is still staggeringly young today, even accounting for industry ageism. If it wasn't clear, I don't expect those flash floods to happen again, they definitely seem to have been flukes of luck. But I think it shouldn't be ignored that it had an impact on the industry demographics.
    - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      > I don't expect those flash floods to happen again Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix... It already happened again multiple times after Microsoft.
endorphone 7y ago
At the same time though the industry has an age distribution that reflects the arc of the industry more than the selection of the workers. I entered the field in the mid-90s and saw the industry hugely explode at the end of that decade. So as all of those nascent developers look around they noticed how few older developers there were and said "boy, this really is a young person's profession!". I remember all of the "before you turn 30, get a plan B" articles then, everyone fearfully looking into management or dubious project management paths. And as that cadre aged, of course most new workers are younger, so proportionally they drop from a majority to a minority, but there are a massive number of very gainfully employed, successful older developers, and it certainly has been normalized far more than then.
Franciscouzo 7y ago
To go with the guitar playing analogy, there's plenty of people that have played the guitar for 20 years and always play the same 4 chords.
- cerberusss 7y ago
  Indeed. My previous job was very Java-focused but wanted a more senior man on the team. So management hired a developer with 20 years of experience in C and Fortran. Now in my country, when you hire someone, a probation period of two months is very common. In that period, you can be fired and/or leave without cause. Unfortunately, he was not able to pick up object-oriented programming in those two months and left before the probation period expired.

WorldMaker 7y ago

That argument applies in the other direction as well: it's a very relatively young industry full of big industry-wide disruptions at least once a decade since it has been its own industry. Companies with young median and mean ages may have been more likely to survive (or evolve out of) some of those big early disruptions, but that may not be a long term equilibrium for the industry. Keep in mind, too, how much the 80s, 90s, and 00s median/mean ages were impacted by "flash flood" millionaires that could retire early simply by how much money was thrown around in the various "software revolution" and "Dot Com" booms.

asdfman123 7y ago
I seriously doubt the number of instant millionaires is significant enough to impact the total numbers. 25% of programmers did not become rich enough to retire, and if so, I'm doing everything wrong.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  It was always a matter of luck. If there were ways to predict such a lottery ahead of time, I think the industry would look quite different today. As with flash floods of rivers, the coverage of such events was complex. It probably affected some companies a lot more than others. Anecdotally, it used to be an aphorism at Microsoft that if you hadn't made your first million by 30 (or was it 25?) you were doing something wrong. Certainly the demographics at Microsoft showed several clear waves of early retirements from stock booms and bonuses, and for a ~forty year old company the median age is still staggeringly young today, even accounting for industry ageism. If it wasn't clear, I don't expect those flash floods to happen again, they definitely seem to have been flukes of luck. But I think it shouldn't be ignored that it had an impact on the industry demographics.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    > I don't expect those flash floods to happen again Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix... It already happened again multiple times after Microsoft.

endorphone 7y ago

At the same time though the industry has an age distribution that reflects the arc of the industry more than the selection of the workers. I entered the field in the mid-90s and saw the industry hugely explode at the end of that decade. So as all of those nascent developers look around they noticed how few older developers there were and said "boy, this really is a young person's profession!". I remember all of the "before you turn 30, get a plan B" articles then, everyone fearfully looking into management or dubious project management paths. And as that cadre aged, of course most new workers are younger, so proportionally they drop from a majority to a minority, but there are a massive number of very gainfully employed, successful older developers, and it certainly has been normalized far more than then.

Franciscouzo 7y ago

To go with the guitar playing analogy, there's plenty of people that have played the guitar for 20 years and always play the same 4 chords.

cerberusss 7y ago
Indeed. My previous job was very Java-focused but wanted a more senior man on the team. So management hired a developer with 20 years of experience in C and Fortran. Now in my country, when you hire someone, a probation period of two months is very common. In that period, you can be fired and/or leave without cause. Unfortunately, he was not able to pick up object-oriented programming in those two months and left before the probation period expired.