This is a good point. I experienced something like this years ago when I was at a company where I was one of the older employees (not even 30 yet!) To my knowle

This is a good point. I experienced something like this years ago when I was at a company where I was one of the older employees (not even 30 yet!) To my knowledge, nobody complained about my productivity during the main development cycle, but I never felt like I was keeping up with the younger rock stars (who really were amazing). Then the product development cycle was near the end and testing was underway. At one point during a meeting someone actually complained that I had no bugs in the tracking system assigned to me while most developers had hundreds. My boss actually spoke up and said "I've noticed that too, but it's because nobody is finding errors in his code." I spent a few months helping other developers find and fix their bugs. I think if you invest in quality, in the long term other people will see and value it (in most environments).