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Comment by HillOBeans | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but wonder where this might leave someone such as myself, who is over 40, but relatively new to professional software development. I've programmed for years as a hobby, but was educated in a different field and have only recently decided to pursue programming work for a living. Not only am I old, but I also have little experience compared to others my age.

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As long as you get the right hiring manager it shouldn't matter. I agree that it is a valid concern of yours, and rightfully so in this hiring climate. But fair hiring managers do exist, and they build some of the best teams around.

I work at Twilio, and we put a lot of effort into providing a hiring experience that removes as many biases as possible. The end result is a solid, diverse workforce that understands that we all come from different walks of life and have different employment expectations. Other companies, such as Stripe, also seem to have similar initiatives in their hiring practices.

It's a concern, but some of us are actively fighting it.

Same boat, problem is either that people assume I have 15 years experience and must be godlike behind a keyboard or that I am an idiot (I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle, and being a front-end dev I have an inflated idea of my own skills while being self-aware enough to know I might be living in an alternative universe).

Getting my first job was hard and age was definitely an issue, no doubt about it. A guy I graduated with who was a year older than me at the time (mid 30s) was flat out told by one recruiter that he was too old for post-grad Microsoft-university (which is a 1 year paid internship focussing on MS development).

As someone who is over 40 and took a few years off, I can tell you that having recent working experience is more important than age (or at least it was for me). Nobody seemed worried about how old I was but many people wondered if I could still code after taking 5 years off (I kept coding as a hobby, though).

I'm wondering as well! Been a UK-based API-level tech author for 10 years and in product marketing (and sales, even) before that. I've programmed as a hobby for 25 years, and love technology so much I'd like to spend the next 10 doing it professionally. It doesn't even have to be a great job :-) But age goes against me, despite an enduring passion in tech and having learned several languages on my own dime.

As someone that is months away from 40, I've considered this as well. However, considering the continued lack of developer talent as well as the increasing demand for it, I'm not terribly concerned.

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