But difficult, if not impossible, to prove and costly to try to attack. The age difference is often not even really a conscious thing. It is expressed in "cult

But difficult, if not impossible, to prove and costly to try to attack. The age difference is often not even really a conscious thing. It is expressed in "cultural fit" by most young interviewers. Older devs simply are detached from core pieces of younger culture. Whether that's music, integration into workplace rhythms, lanugage, etc. It's important to specialize some, get broad technically (don't only know everything COBOL), and to force yourself to at least understand the hot new things enough to be able to speak FROM EXPERIENCE about why you want said hot new thing off your lawn... but still be willing to play along. If you need to work for someone else, you need to balance your tech-righteousness with someone else's, often youthfully naive, ego.