I suspect that the ageism effect in tech looks more like this: Programmer A has 10 years of experience with $various_old_tech and only 1 year of experience wit

I suspect that the ageism effect in tech looks more like this: Programmer A has 10 years of experience with $various_old_tech and only 1 year of experience with $hot_new_tech. (S)he has a target salary of $150k. Programmer B has 2.5 years of experience with $hot_new_tech and has a target salary of $120k. Which will the hiring manager choose? Keyword-driven recruitment suggests that they will pick programmer B *possibly even regardless of salary expectations*. At least, it's easy to conclude this if you take the "requirements" section of most job postings literally. But the most likely person to get the job is actually whichever programmer has acquaintances at the company that is hiring … which I am starting to view as a weak form of nepotism, with all of the criticism that word implies.