[zenbowman]

"In companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, more experienced developers (in their 40s and 50s) are pretty well represented"

For sure, that's one of the prime reasons I moved to a tech megacorp from the startup world, I wanted to be at a place where I wasn't the "senior developer" at the age of 30. Smart companies value experienced engineers.

I think a lot of the people who got the short end of the stick are the ones who followed the traditional path of staying in a single company forever and developing their skills in a single area - specialization is a blessing and a curse.