[southphillyman]

Older devs exist but they tend to be very senior with a lot of responsibility in my experience. Where does that leave the competent but non architect level dev who doesn't want to be responsible for that level of pressure? Maybe a 40 yr old wants to just take a mid level CRUD job for the purposes of keeping up with his mortgage and has no other ambitions beyond that? It seems like being "just a guy" is looked down upon the older you get which is not fair when there are plenty of those types of roles out there (mostly given to younger people)

[icelancer]

Most HR and managers don't think someone who is 40 wants to work for entry-level / mid-level salaries intended for junior and early developers.

[sshumaker]

Is the 40 year old comfortable taking the same salary as an early/mid career dev? Therein lies the rub.

[indemnity]

Yep, that’s it entirely. In your 20s it’s super easy to take a lot of risks, what do you have to lose?

When I was 20 I decided over coffee to move to the other side of the world. Had some savings, not a lot but just did it.

Now, at 37, there’s a mortgage to pay and a family to support.

I don’t have the runway to do two or three years of low pay again to switch to another field.

I am aggressive paying that down though, so that I have this option in my 40s.