[genepope]

Having lived in the tech software world from the late 1970s through 2012 I can say that age discrimination has always been a part of the software world but it is survivable. See other comments in this thread. I remember chats with my older co-workers about where are all the older programmers? I think part is discrimination but another part is that people burn out and go do something else. I have seen this in even the very best programmers I have worked with. By the way, this is not new to software. A common practice in the aerospace industry was to bid low for a contract and when you got it fire all the old guys and replace them with cheaper young guys.