Perhaps people are less likely to hire someone in their 50's now, but they will in 10 years, people in their 40's still have what to offer, and I don't think th

Perhaps people are less likely to hire someone in their 50's now, but they will in 10 years, people in their 40's still have what to offer, and I don't think that would change much in 10 years. It's all a matter of when did they start, and if they evolved with the industry or got stuck with Fortran / Cobol / BDUF / rigid Java OOP and rigid adherence to GOF Design Patterns. Look at people like Martin Odersky (54), put aside the fact he created Scala, I'm sure anyone here would love to hire him as a coder if he was for hire :) Same for Josh Bloch (51) and many others. It's just that statistically, because the profession has grown and is growing, it's more likely to find a good young developer as there are more young developers (sample size is bigger, citation needed) Just a though. I don't think people in their 50's think any slower, have less IQ or less talent than young people only due to the age. (and I will ignore any research that proves otherwise)