But that's the thing. I know some old people (Old, here, is half a decade or better.) who are still purely technical, but the ones I know that are fully employ

But that's the thing. I know some old people (Old, here, is half a decade or better.) who are still purely technical, but the ones I know that are fully employed are really good. I mean, not just "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive" good, but better than I would be if I had two lifetimes to practice. And they generally don't job hop like the youngsters, either, a sign of fear of joblessness. (I mean, that's all anecdotal, but eh, for most of us, that's what we use to sanity-check the statistical data) My anecdotal data lines up with the statistical data. There is this perception that you can take a young person and train them fairly easily; that this is the thing to do. I think with someone older? it's not so much that hiring managers don't think they can be trained as that it's /weird/ on a cultural level, for a 25 year old kid to tutor some 50 year old. Really, I think that's a big part of the problem. Now, I think the other side of that coin is that for most of us? we hit our 30s, those raises start slowing down, and we start looking for other giant gains. I mean, through my teens and twenties, a year without a 20% raise was a disappointment. And if anything, the raises lagged increases in my actual effectiveness. In my late 20s, and early 30s? that slows down a lot. I'm looking around for that next productivity jump, and hey, turns out all those social skills I didn't have when I was younger? I am not saying I'm smooth or anything, but hey, I'm a hell of a lot better than I was. It looks to me like there is some low-hanging fruit (productivity wise) in management. So that's the other side of the coin; Most of us? a decade or two into our careers, well, we start looking at management. That explains some of the fall-offs in Individual Contributor pay; Many of those who can, make a run for management, and many who are left behind are seen as "not making the cut" (which is kindof silly, considering the different skillsets required)