Carrers in Programming Short-Lived?

[Paul Villangca]

From http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html:

The July 5, 1999 issue of Information Week presented a striking illustration of the problems which older programmers face:
It seems safe to say that experience may not be the most valued commodity, according to a survey of 200 IT managers nationwide conducted by InformationWeek Research in May. Though age wasn't specified in the question, only 2% of the managers said they would most likely hire a worker with 10 or more years' experience...

Is this really true? I mean, should you get out of IT before 40?
Paul

[Sameer Jamal]

Most of the HR manger does not know what exactly they want whether they want experienced professional in any specific field or they want candidates with vast experience in most of the technologies. A good company knows that if the candidate have 5+ years of experience in C++ then he can work well on Java.

[Rufus BugleWeed]

You're likely to be forced out.
[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Rufus Bugleweed ]

[Richard Brokways]

Paul,
Yes, I have personally seen age discrimination in several cases. Dr. Matloff's web site, which I visited several years ago, is in agreement.
Rich
[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Richard Brokways ]

[Dalia Rojas]

What I've seen is that there is not really age discrimination but discrimination against a person who's been doing the same thing at the same job for 10 years because this person may not be very flexible.
Dalia

[Bear Bibeault]

There's a big difference between someone who's "been doing the same thing for years" and someone with valuable experience. The trick is, of course, finding a company that understands that.
Yeah, there are a lot of people my age (been in the business for 24 years) who have been writing COBOL on mainframes for all those years. And then there are those of us who have kept up on current technologies and have a great deal to offer.
In my recent job search I did sense reluctance on many employers parts to even considered this "seasoned veteran", but finally found a company who valued the experience that I bring to the party.
bear

[Edward Farrow]

strange, who is then getting the "senior" positions requiring 8-10 years experience?