| Firstly Supply and demand of Software Engineers dictate a lot right now. In my market (East Coast of Australia) people aren't being as picky. Wages are shooting up, and they are willing to accept candidates that lack more of their desired traits. These cycles though will go through ebbs and flows and you may end up with a glut of talent and people will be picky on whatever criteria they want right about the time your entering the market (like it was for me in 2001). Second is only a small percentage of roles are hired by Paul Graham and silicon valley as a whole. The young engineer thing is frequently looked as a positive because your more likely to have people that live an unhealthy work-life balance dedicated to the cause. Most people over 30 end up with a life they can't abandon to work 12 hours a day / 7 days a week. Larger companies tend to have processes where age doesn't come into play, and a better work/life balance (assuming you can tolerate the bureaucracy). Third if you can use your medical domain knowledge in an SE role, that is likely a bigger perk then any age related negative. Age is somewhat tied to role. The problem your going to have after 40 - 50 is doubts if you don't already have history with the work / technology. This is a bias against ability to learn. This can be countered with good and relevant certifications and having a broad technical knowledge. Generally when you get a role you will know some of the technologies, be familiar with a few and have to learn others. If you specialise on something in demand, people won't care about your age, they just want to knowledge. Frequently technical specialists I've worked with are 50-60 years old. Where the negativity at older developers comes from is the requirement for developers to be constantly moving forward learning about new technologies. If your not moving forward, your falling behind. Older starters in SE often have trouble keeping up with this aspect of the industry. This is why frequently university / college education isn't very useful in the real world. The industry has moved on, and you need to learn the new stuff in your junior roles. Finally development support roles are frequently not viewed with the same lens, and often favour more "mature" people. Testing, Project Management, BA, Sales / Presales Engineering, Support Engineering and Development management all surround the development process and will often involve dipping in to code (depending on organisation / role). You may find while you love Software Engineering, the actual coding is less interesting then the whole creation process. |