I am 44 years old. I go on an interview binge every couple of years or so, because I normally work remotely from home and I get bored with not having anyone to talk to (professionally). The last time I went on a series of interviews (in Dublin at the end of June 2015) I got about four NOs and six YESes. I think I'm a very good programmer but not an exceptional one :)
I think it's more like Uncle Bob says: the number of programmer has doubled every five years. A consequence of that is that those of us who were in it for a long time (30 years in my case) appear to be surrounded by a sea of youngsters with no clue. Personally, I realized recently that not only I don't have a fear of losing my job - I'm starting to find it strange when others tell me about it. (I'm re-reading Clarke Ching's Rolling Rocks Downhill and I find it harder to empathize with the protagonist than it was a few years ago.)
How do you handle the clueless? How do you handle the director of development who wrote the system the company is based on yet refuses to learn anything about relational dbs or why storing megabytes of data in the session makes it impossible to scale?
I leave. This is related to the "not being afraid of not finding a new job" :)
I have done it twice in the last five years - in both cases because I wasn't allowed to improve the quality of the code. In the first case, it was because "the client isn't paying for that, they're paying for features". In the second case, because "that code was written by the NY office and they're going to be upset if we change it".
I think it's more like Uncle Bob says: the number of programmer has doubled every five years. A consequence of that is that those of us who were in it for a long time (30 years in my case) appear to be surrounded by a sea of youngsters with no clue. Personally, I realized recently that not only I don't have a fear of losing my job - I'm starting to find it strange when others tell me about it. (I'm re-reading Clarke Ching's Rolling Rocks Downhill and I find it harder to empathize with the protagonist than it was a few years ago.)