Too Old To Code?

August 21st, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

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The codist tells a story about being turned down for a programming job because of his age, he still believes that his talents are as sharp as they ever were but that the recruiter upon meeting him made a decision purely on age and not skill. I have certainly seen this happen enough and have every sympathy for him. I can also see that certain environments/companies seek young blood. For me the right balance between young raw talent and experience is a happy balance.

This includes my personal experience of my current coding skills, I feel that I have lost a lot of the raw brain power and energy of when I was really young (I started at age 10) yet I easily make that up with experience. I find that I can make decisions that save me time many days down the line and that overall I make less mistakes and introduce far fewer bugs.

I do believe that people can keep their minds sharp for as long as they want by keeping themselves as active as possible, it does become harder as you get older and perhaps more and more effort is required as concentration for longer periods gets harder (and the thought of a nice easy management job beckons). One of my earliest experiences of working with an older programmer was at Argonaut Software.

His name was Brian and when I first started work at Argonaut I was in complete awe of his abilities to perform hex/binary arithmetic in his head (very useful when your writing assembly code.) he was probably in his 50’s and was quickly moved into management as the company expanded to help manage us ‘young kids’. Brian soon then left the company as he quickly became irrelevant to the technologies that moved so fast, I think this was a shame as he had a genuine flair for understanding the fundamentals.

What age do you all think is Too Old To Code?

There Are 22 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Stuart Dallas on 21 August 2007:

    I completely agree with what you’ve said here and I’ve also seen a lot of excellent developers lose their edge as they get a bit older. I think the main problem is that as you get on in life other things start to become more important than keeping up with changes in technology, and suddenly you might find yourself out of touch.

    I’m trying very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen to me, but I can definitely see how it happens and how it can creep up on you.

  2. Comment by Eimantas on 22 August 2007:

    i don’t think there’s “too old to code”, ’cause programmers are those type of people that very accurately measures their ability to code.

  3. Comment by Jean-Baptiste Potonnier on 22 August 2007:

    “To old to code” seems silly to me. Coding is like other work, the longer you practice, the better you are.
    Morever, a good computer scientist knows the principles, and has no pain to learn the “new” things, since nothing is realy new, just the same principles, under another form.
    I thin the real problem is that experienced developpers are far more expensive than youg ones.
    Most of them are worth the price you have to pay to have them. Some other not. But often seeing developpers as interchangeable is also a problem, you tend to think that “old” ones are unnecessary spending.

  4. Comment by Derek Gallo on 22 August 2007:

    I am not sure about an age that is “too old” to code. I do believe age plays a factor in hiring a developer though. Not so much because of experience but due to team dynamics. I think having a team that meshes well into a good atmosphere is nearly as important as talent. Often it is easier for team members of closer age to each other to achieve this.

  5. Comment by Andrew McVeigh on 22 August 2007:

    In the UK (not sure about other countries), they have passed anti-ageist legislation. If an employer (or even an agent) does not consider an otherwise qualified applicant purely because of their age, then they can be prosecuted…

    Andrew

  6. Comment by Edwin on 22 August 2007:

    They can be prosecuted, but I never heard of someone with the guts to do that. I mean, what if you do it, it will not help you get the job.

    My sister in law recently had an issue like that about a job where they were pissed off that she didn’t tell them she had a son. That was also very bad - what the f@# does someones family situation as to do with his/her ability to do a kick-ass job? Same here - we told her it is illegal, but of course she was afraid to take serious steps. Especially because it is a “everybody-knows-everybody” type of industry.

  7. Comment by Andrew McVeigh on 22 August 2007:

    re: Edwin

    You won’t get the job if you go to court, but you usually get financial compensation. There seems to be a surprising number of people willing to take companies to the courts regarding sexual discrimination, I’d expect that it will be similar in time for age discrimination.

    It’s very common in the city (London) at the moment, for people not to be fired or truly made redundant (I work in IT for banks), but to be “made redundant” and paid enough money in order not to pursue legal avenues. It used to be the case that almost everyone I knew of who was fired (usually for doing a poor job) managed to get quite a lot of money from the firms that removed them, even if they had seemingly followed due procedure, by claiming unfair or constructive dismissal… It seems you have to very, very careful when firing truly firing someone here, particularly in the finance sector.

    Was your sister in the UK?

    Andrew

  8. Comment by Edwin on 22 August 2007:

    Andrew, thanks for the response.
    She was indeed in the UK but tried to land a job at the Amsterdam branch of the normally London based company. Well, I will leave it up to her of course, but I know of some people here in Holland who also squeezed a lot of money out of companies when being fired. They are planning on making it e`sier to fire people in NL now, but of course many people object.
    Cheers, Edwin

  9. Comment by Chris on 22 August 2007:

    I don’t think there is a magic number for being too old to code. I think you are too old to code when you decide that you don’t want to learn new skills and languages and your current skill set becomes obsolete. In that sense, you become too old to code when you want to. Given that programmers that love to code are also more than likely big on learning new concepts and languages, I’d say that you get too old when you get burnt out.

  10. Comment by Andrew McVeigh on 22 August 2007:

    There is an intesting tangential topic: Do programmers lose their natural skills / edge as they get older? This is particularly interesting to me as I approach 40 next year…

    I’m certain that I’m a better developer now than when I was 25, that’s for sure. (I’ve been programming professionally since 21, for hobby since 13). I think much of this is better architectural maturity resulting in my systems having less complexity for the same functionality. One of the main issues I had when I was younger was to put up with accidental complexity — it’s sort of a macho thing. I get this tendency all the time with members of teams I architect for, and it sometimes takes a reasonable amount of “pushing” to get them to go for a simpler solution. Heaven knows we need all the risk minimisation we can get.

    Also, my ability to model / abstract the essence of a problem has improved with age… To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve actually lost anything (yet) as I’ve got older. Perhaps the energy of youth… I find myself surprised by the enthusiasm of some of my younger colleagues.

    I have sometimes noticed a tendency for myself to “give up on (re-)learning” as I feel I have been through about a number of major language switches in day-to-day professional development. I offset this by learning newer paradigms and languages (e.g. Mozart/Oz is my latest). I am also 2yrs into a comp sci phd which has stretched me.

    So, I don’t think that growing older is synonymous with lack of programming ability. Having said that, I will recheck when I am 50…

    Andrew

  11. Comment by Tri on 22 August 2007:

    I also find that I’m not as sharp as I used to be as I get older (late 30’s). This is especially true for learning new things. However, I am much quicker/better at determining what to learn and evaluating the pros/cons of different approaches. I also find that my level of concentration is much better than it used to be. I still code but I tend to be called on more for architectural decisions.

    -T

  12. Comment by Rick on 23 August 2007:

    Personally I don’t think I’ll ever be to old to code. I’m 40 years old now, and I still feel I’m getting better every year. I do however feel my experience (both as a coder and a human being) is often more useful in guiding less experienced coders and making architectural, rather then code things myself.

    But I do find that as I get older, my motivation to learn new technology just for the hell of it is dwindling.

  13. Comment by Kragh on 23 August 2007:

    “Too old to code” is completely the wrong emphasis. It’s not about age, it’s about experience, and that intangible, “wisdom”. Also, it’s not all about coding. Someone has to lead, someone has to manage, someone has to architect, someone has to see the road ahead and steer the course, and someone *should* be mentoring.

    Therefore, I suggest asking: “when are you too experienced to NOT be a leader?”

  14. Comment by John Ritchie on 23 August 2007:

    Ok, so you think you have been discriminated against for age, but how to prove it???

    I’ve just turned 46 and have been programming since I was 12. I do find at times that it is somewhat tiring to learn yet another technology but I still do it, most of the time as I’m expected to do the job by self training. Yet, I have faced that age discrimination barrier already even though my work history speaks for itself.

    I am fortunate to have a good job right now, but what if??? I do not like the idea of having to find a new job between outsourcing and younger talent it gets very frustrating. I even had to take a job for a year at half the salary I was used to just because it was the only thing I could find at the time [Houston TX during the IT downsize of 2001 - 2003] after being “downsized” from Compaq after 10 years of service. It’s come to the point where if I do need a new job I may have to consider a new career [at my age???!] or work for WalMart - neither is a very pleasant prospect!
    JRitchie
    Senior IT Developer [Don’t know if senior is for my skill level or my age… LOL!]

  15. Comment by rlmk on 16 September 2007:

    This is an interesting topic. I just turned 44 and I am still doing coding for a tech firm in Montreal, Canada. java, c++, embedded stuffs. I have being coding for the last 20 years and it never bothered me until now, simply because I really really enjoy coding. I believe I can continue to do this kind of work until my retirement but it occurred to me that the firm that employs me does see it that way. Since I expressed my unwillingness to do something else (management), the top layers decided to make me feel that I no longer fit the firm’s younglings-oriented environment. I am now confronted with the issue of John’s “‘what if ?…”. As I look into the local job market, most of the opps are for junior and intermediate, or at best between 3-5 years of experiences. What about guys with more than 5 years exp like me? I got 1-2 interviews just to try the waters. But after I awed them with the technicals, the interviews usually cut short when it come to salary and my expressed desire to do coding (or sw develop.). Hmmm, should I sue? Should I morph? Into what?

    My teen daughter asked me the other day, what would be the best career for her. I told her to look at what in it that can motivate her, what is its potential income and the career expiration age. For the later, I gave her my list:

    Careers vs exp. age (yrs old)

    Tennis champ: 25-30
    Programmer: 40-45
    Manuf. worker: 55-layoff
    Accountant: 60-65
    Doctor: 60-65
    Univ. professor: 70-75
    Lawyer: 70-100
    Politician: 75-death

  16. Comment by Paul Lomax on 6 January 2008:

    I’ve actually had the reverse problem… Age discrimination for being too young!

    I’ve been programming since I was knee-high to a grasshopper - and more importantly getting paid for it since the age of 15. But at 29 I was turned down for a senior job due to apparent lack of experience - the guy interviewing actually said “you haven’t been out of university long enough” - ie that I simply wasn’t old enough.

    I later found they hired a guy in his mid-50’s… But looking at his LinkedIn profile he only started in the computing world professionally the same time as me, and had done something entirely different for the earlier part of his career.

    C’est la vie.

    (PS: I’ve had guys in their 40’s and 50’s working for me. The reality is you get the same mix of quality at any age - some people keep up to date, others don’t, whatever their age. The thing to remember, so much of the technology and even the techniques we’re using right now haven’t been around (or at least haven’t been mainstream) all that long! Although that hasn’t stopped me getting CVs with ‘5 years Ruby on Rails experience’ on them… )

  17. Comment by Greg Dolley on 10 January 2008:

    I think age has nothing to do with loss of cognitive abilities as long as you don’t become lazy when it comes to using your brain. However, if you _believe_ that by growing older you lose sharpness, then that is exactly what will happen to you.

    I started professionally programming at 17 years old (started learning at 14) and now I’m 28. Nothing seems different. I learn just as fast now, and sometimes faster than back then. My memory is still as clear.

    However, I’m different in one way from the average programmer and average person: I am absolutely die-hard passionate about what I do. If I instantly became a multi-millionare such that I didn’t have to work anymore, I’d still write programs. I always have some project of my own that I’m working on regardless of what I’m doing at my regular job. Even when I was on vacation recently, I couldn’t resist taking the source code of Quake 3 and porting it to managed C++ .NET VS 2008 (something you can read about on my blog soon [gregs-blog.com]). This is just who I am; I don’t know why, I’m a little strange. I’ll be writing code on my death-bed, up until the last neuron dies in my brain. And if we go anywhere after death, I’ll program there too! ;-)

    It seems to me that people who are passionate about what they do, regardless of their profession, never lose that “knack” as they grow older. But there are numerous people who will use the excuse, “I’m too old to learn …” and for them this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These people don’t challenge themselves, which is a big reason why their mental aptitude declines. I think anyone who doesn’t continually strive to better themselves and just performs their job for a paycheck will have declining mental abilities with age.

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