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Comment by CurtHagenlocher | Hacker News Reader

I love anecdotal data, so I'll share mine: I'm at Microsoft, almost 46, and most of my managers have been younger than me. Nearly all of my reviews have been extremely good; the remainder just good.

It's true that there seems to be a sort of cliff around my age; there are very few people in product development roles over the age of 50. I would attribute that to the way the industry evolved: mine was the first generation that really had the opportunity to grow up with PCs. My first exposure was a programming class in summer school in 1981. The demand for software developers also really exploded in the 1980s. These things combined to make software both more interesting and more compelling as a career than it had been in earlier generations.

EDIT: It's probably also worth pointing out that anyone who'd joined Microsoft before ~1995 and was careful about managing their money could likely have decided to retire by now.

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To find an explanation of the process I would really just look at the number of programmers working in any given year. There are many times more new programmers starting professionally in 2015 than 1985 while mechanical engineers, lawyers and poets get produced at a roughly even rate.

That in itself creates a huge skew, there are fewer 50-something programmers because 1985 produced fewer programmers. I think a lot of the concern/focus on the youthful "fetish" in the industry is this kind of an illusion.

In the early 70s, Rockstars were by definition in their 20s. These days, if you are looking for rock mega stars who can fill arenas anywhere in the world, you will find rockstars of all ages. In fact, rockstars like Mick Jagger (70s), Steven Tyler (60s), Prince (50s) are more likely having had decades to accumulate fans.

It turns out that the 27 year old rock god cliche was a product of the fact that it takes time to make a 60 year old and no one was making rockstars in 1929.

Unrelated to your point, but undercutting your conclusion is the fact that the "27 year old rock god" cliche came about in large part due to the # of rock stars who died at 27. Check out the wiki article on "the 27 club" for more info.

Plus, when you're 27, you're probably at or near your physical peak. IE, you're good looking. And that's arguably more important than any skill.

This is a great point and one I have mentioned to friends. We are only now getting to the point where there are a lot of older (>35) programmers. I'm sure there is some ageism/easier to exploit younger workers happening, but on whole given the current demand I don't think it really saves companies much money.

For an anecdotal data point, where I work now I'm one of the younger guys at 37.

Have you read the mini-Msft blog? The big problem for msft employees is the up-or-out review system. If you don't make partner, the review process seems designed to kick you out of the company.

Given that less than 1% of employees are partner level or higher, this idea is numerically ludicrous. To the best of my knowledge, the "up or out" thing ends at the "senior" level -- well before partner -- assuming it even still exists in the new system.

The posts from "Mini" are always interesting; the comments much-less-so, and recent ones consistently seem to devolve into immigrant-bashing.

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