I have been lucky enough to have been the youngest person on every team until my mid 30s. I worked with some truly gifted engineers, who had almost no ego, ove

I have been lucky enough to have been the youngest person on every team until my mid 30s. I worked with some truly gifted engineers, who had almost no ego, over the course of my career they just were much older than me. When I reflect I do cringe a bit at what I was zealous about and things I took way too far. But, I do think the discussion, sometimes debate, around the fancy/new vs tried/true resulted in much better results. Now that I am old, but not that old, the younger engineers who are passionately discovering new tools and “new” design patterns keep me interested in software development. Being able to share where things come from then we can compare/contrast together. It is rarely a straight copy and it’s fun to see how things get better/worse with reinvention. So, I think trying to get a mix of ages on a team is really beneficial. Passionate young engineers help prevent the old engineers from getting too jaded.