[berkes]

Age does matter for experience though.

And "experience" is what allows one software architect to select the right stack, and the other to select something that turned out to be abandonware half a year later. It is what allows one developer to introduce abstractions in exactly the right place, and another to either overabstract or turn stuff into a tangled mess. It's what allows one team lead to estimate the right time and resources for a project, while the other keeps missing deadlines or burning out team-members.

I'm going towards my fifties now. And I have made, or been part of, so many mistakes, failures, errors and stupid decisions. Much more than the average 20-something colleague. I've seen software projects survive 10+ years of continuous change just fine, and others to grind to a screetching halt after even 8 months already.

I'm selling this experience now. As freelancer. I still like to write code. But the experience allows me to often not write it in the first place. Or to write very little of it. Or to map out a path that allows us to write it fast today and continue to do so in the next 15 years.

[radicalbyte]

Absolutely.. that's what I mean with wisdom :-) I've been doing the same thing. When I was younger I was a little worried that I'd "age out", only until I thought about the older people I was working with. They were either the worst on the team or the best on the team. The latter group were the path I was going down so there risk was small :)