Further, the "look around your office" result varies wildly from office to office. Looking around your average SV startup will skew to gullible, er, I mean risk-tolerant mid-20s engineers. My office is more than half composed of experienced engineers in their mid 30s and up who know their market rate.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2512708/it-industry/rec...

Perhaps if you move, you'll find a more respectful and receptive environment for those who are seasoned.

Yes. A couple people on my team now, most of management (including our immediate supervisor, who just recently moved up from being a normal team member), whoever's in the cubes I saw those black "40" balloons on, the people who first built some of the corporate systems (well, the ones who haven't retired yet), etc.

Tech is a growing field. How big was it in 1995, compared to today? That's a decent approximation of what ratio of over 40 / under 40 you'd expect, assuming career changes aren't common enough to mess up the numbers too badly.

But, this is a large enterprise software company on the East Coast.

I don't see many people under 40 in my office.

Of course, even though my job is tech, the industry isn't (and it's even farther from being a silicon valley startup.)

  Look around your office. Do you see anyone over 40?

Look at the "careers" or "about us" pages for the tech company of your choice -- look for the group pictures of smiling faces. How many people do you see over age 40?

It cracks me up when such companies boast about how "diverse" they are, then show a group photo that is 70+% male. 80%+ white and asian, and 90% below age 40.