[throwaway189262]

> I have more than half a decade of experience and professionally have a senior title. If you want to play that game most older programmers absolutely do not keep up with me

You sound fun to work with. I agree with you that some old programmers just want to get paid. As I've gotten older I appreciate the reasons more. It still bothers me sometimes but whatever. Work is far from the most important thing in my life these days. When I was younger I was eager to get ahead, now I've realized IC's plateau around the same salary so there's no point to showing off unless you want to be management. And I like to code so no thanks.

[Grimm1]

Sorry, I just get frustrated being told every 25 year old is a no experience green hack. I've worked with plenty of older devs who are absolutely a treasure to this industry.

[throwaway189262]

I'm quite a bit older and some programmers with fancier titles are still asses. I know a guy that honestly sucks and knows it (he's lazy and just wants $$$). He's got "Sr Staff" from demanding a title bump every time he hops jobs. At most companies titles are meaningless, pay is all that matters.

Programmers are all over the place skills wise. The only time I had a team where everybody was competent was when me and a couple good guys got to interview everyone. Just the way it is

[Frondo]

I felt this way when I was 25, like I'd been programming since I was 7 and I was hot shit.

I'm approaching 40 now and only in the last year or two does it occur to me that, even at 25, I was really only middle-grade.

I wonder what you'll think if you look back in 15 years, about your skills now.