* They tend to get stuck on old technologies that nobody uses any more. I don't really care about your Perl skills, sorry.

* They expect higher salaries.

If you keep up to date with your skills (Rust, Typescript, Nix, etc.) and aren't precious about your salary increasing forever then I don't think there's an issue. I've worked with plenty of very skilled ICs into their 60s.

It continues to boggle my mind how many resumes out there are people who have spent the last 20+ years working on the same set of problems, using the same tech. The reason a lot of these people aren't getting jobs is not that they're old. It's that they've stagnated to a degree I would not have thought possible. Meanwhile there are people out there who are staying relevant *and* bringing extra wisdom to the table. Those people get hired.

There's nothing wrong with someone turning their brain off and working in that role for 20 years. But they shouldn't be surprised if their experience is completely irrelevant in the modern job market. If one wants to develop new experiences and their job won't provide that over a long period of time (say 5-10 years of employment, not every 6 months!) then it's time to consider the tradeoffs you're making.

I've hired for Java roles in the last handful of years and this was a very bimodal group.

Someone could be working on instant messaging or a/v conferencing for the past 30 years. Or anything in sales and advertising. Etc.

I'm only referring to hireability in new roles. If someone is staying in such a role that entire time, especially if their niche hasn't evolved such that it indicates refreshing tech skills from time to time, they shouldn't be surprised if the rest of the world has moved on from where they've stayed.

Same goes for interviewing. I passed several FAANG interviews when I was 45. I just practiced Leetcode like anybody else. Leetcode has its flows, but solving leetcode problems isn't out of reach for an older candidate. Could be harder to find the time to practice, but solving problems in interview situation is a matter of practice. The problems are pretty much known in advance.

Edit: Now that I'm an interviewer, I really just ask my questions, and check boxes based on the candidate performance. We're also trained to avoid biases and so on...

That being said, I very rarely see "older" candidates despite the constant reminder we're an inclusive place.

My boss who is probably a decade older than me is very much hinting I'm making a mistake if I don't move into management at my age. I think there is probably some bias against promoting a young manager over an older one.

I'm currently a team lead and I've resisted a management role. I just don't like managing (or being a team lead), but I'm aware lots of people do jobs they don't like. So we'll see.

I would naturally assume that an IC in their 40s or 50s is much faster than someone in their 20s. But that assumes they've actually been doing IC work. I've had a lot of interviews with people that are very experienced on paper but struggle in the pairing interview; whatever they were doing before, it wasn't hands-on-keyboard work.

If you enjoy programming I don't see why there's any limit other than senility or death.

I don't believe this one second. After you've worked significant time in a multitude of platforms, languages, and frameworks, you tend to notice what they all have in common. Van Neumann architecture is pretty much the same everywhere. The principles of functional programming are pretty much the same everywhere. Very little is new under the sun.

Maybe there's a hypothetical engineer that has spent 30 years doing one thing and has "fossilized intelligence". But I don't think that's the norm, and I'm pretty sure that will show up pretty quickly in an interview.

Well, our intellectual abilities decline as we get older. I don't know at what age effects become apparent but it's unavoidable so maybe i'm a bit defeatist indeed :) In my case, I can feel my memory isn't as good as it used to be and I do feel slightly slower to pick up things. I don't think it affects my job though. Performance isn't unidimensional.

Regarding being faster than someone in their 20s, it really depends on what task (and which someone!). Lots of the things I work on are rather new. For instance, if I'm writing Rust or using some internal tools, I'm not at much of an advantage compared to my 25 years old colleague unfortunately.

In any case, I try to not worry too much age in general. I do my job the best I can, I treat older and younger colleagues alike and just hope everybody else does the same.

Experience, wisdom, there may be many benefits to employees over 50 – but we crunch data slower, let's not fool ourselves.

> I ... spend a lot of my time mentoring the "kids" and providing direction to engineers

That is exactly what I would expect, and that's great. And by the same token, you are NOT spending most of your time doing calculation- or analysis-intensive IC work, where kids have the speed advantage.

Anyone here can can easily Google: does the brain slow down with aging

But maybe yours doesn't – maybe you will live forever at 110% efficiency, like Elon, or Bryan Johnson, powered by the blood of young virgins. Good for you.

I’ve met some people that read some articles that state the brain ages, got depressed and they decayed quickly. Just sad. Not everyone is equal. Some do age well.

this is 100% NOT a thing... a company would get their pants sued for age discrimination if they even broached anything like this in conversation let alone implemented it ...

Now I do not know by what measure my brain gets slower, and I do not care. Productivity can be achieved in many ways. Let me tell you about a friend of mine: he was unable to study engineering in his 20, he was barely able to keep a job. Was doing minimal wage… then (maybe?) his brain got slower… but you know what? His testosterone went down, and was able to keep his 3 neurons working without thinking in sex; by age 45, got an engineering degree, then got to CTO at big company…

You see?! Life is soo much complex as you seem to be able to understand. So again, I know lots of people, that because of many reasons, e.g. no more kids at home, broken (bad) marriage, whatever, are far far more productive.

You keep doing the same mistake: you read some article, and think that little piece of information you just discovered ,or happen to know, is all there is to know about it.

I apologize in advance if there was some typo, from which you want to make an ad hominem argument (you should google that, because is annoying that seems is all you can do when you have no more arguments)

Does that make me a worse person or a worse employee or a candidate for euthanasia? No, I never said or even suggested it did. I'm not sure why you are moving the goalpost and talking about your friend's wonderful life, his stock options, sex life, etc. Good for him, but it's got nothing to do with AGE SLOWS DOWN OUR BRAINS.

Hu… so you are from those than only take advice from a doctor when he already had the same illness as you, and if he didn’t, he has no idea what is talking about… and AGAIN btw, ad hominem argument… it cannot be that that is all you have!

Just for the record: it does not matter if I’m in that age group, but I’m.

The only person here moving the goal, and abandoning discussions by not replying or making ad hominem arguments when shown that you are plain wrong here is you, btw, other people have repeatedly pointed that out, is not that I said that.

Now back to track, because you want to derail the discussion just for the sake of “winning”:

I was replying to your comment, where you stated: “Experience, wisdom, there may be many benefits to employees over 50 – but we crunch data slower, let's not fool ourselves.”

My interpretation of that sentence is that at some point in life, everyone will not be able to keep the pace at some intellectual tasks, and even when I do agree 100% that brain ages, and that some people may experience difficulties in very demanding environments (e.g. ATC) for the vast majority people between 40 and 60 (and even beyond, with less degree) is the point when they reach their maximum potential. The “speed at crunching” is a minimal part of everyday life and work, so minimal in fact, that even if you get bad/slow at it, you can compensate by pre optimization: that is, to first filter, then crunch.

Also btw you mention physical stamina. Which is IMHO totally irrelevant to the discussion. I know of no work, (physical or intellectual) that needs stamina… if anything life and work is about endurance, not stamina.

Now to be clear: I’m not discussing here for winning an argument, or because I enjoy it. If fact is terrible to have to discuss with someone like you, because you insult immediately. I’m trying to get a point here throw, because I have seen just how bad can it be, for the mental health of some people, to believe that they are somehow “getting old”. I have seen people go down into a deep depression, just because some random charlatan in internet said “from X years things are going to be so” doing nonsensical generalizations.

But I assume you will lose again the opportunity to discuss and learn something, by throwing some ad hominem arguments, or just insulting without any logical following from the discussion.