I have been doing this work for more than 20 years. There is absolutely a maturity window to this line of work. I am unsure if there is age discrimination but t

I have been doing this work for more than 20 years. There is absolutely a maturity window to this line of work. I am unsure if there is age discrimination but there does appear to be preferential factors targeting younger ages. By maturity window I mean a candidate is most ideal for this line of work if they fall within a certain segment of a bell curve, a Goldilocks zone of not too great and not too bad. This maturity window is dictated by hiring preferences, work culture, and product averages, but not by technology. For example the industry is approaching a point where developers are not employable without going all in on React framework even if a developer can ship superior products in a fraction of the time without the framework. A decade ago jQuery held this position. The business objective appears to allow a wider pool of applicant availability where many such applicants would be unqualified. This eases hiring for the employer and allows access to high paying work for people who would otherwise be grossly inadequate. That accounts for the maturity window on the low end. Reliance on nonstandard or supplemental external tools to define a job creates artificial averages in both product and high end labor. A developer can only be as productive as the framework allows. The product can only execute as fast as the framework allows. It also caps innovation in that a high end developer might otherwise be capable of offering innovative solutions is now limited to the artificial constraints of the framework. This scenario creates an ethical dilemma for all parties. When developers define their capabilities and employment by use of a tool or framework what happens when that tool goes away? Does the developer achieve functional obsolescence? This primes and incentivizes developers to preference their self interest above that of the consuming user as necessary to remain employable. It also primes employers to target applicants who lack the maturity to appreciate this.