Some of what I'm seeing isn't "try harder" but "look elsewhere." Youth may be prized at start-ups and white-hot companies like Google. But most computer jobs are at companies that aren't about computers: banks, hospitals, schools, etc.

There is no shortage of gray-haired people at my job. My sysadmin just retired. This was a sad day for me, which brings me to my other point: it's dumb to prefer youth over experience among programmers.

Programming is a design job, not grunt work, as Martin Fowler said (https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html#Se...). Designers get better with age. Would you rather have Frank Lloyd Wright in his 20s or 60s?