[uptownJimmy]

I went to tech school at age 41, after owning/managing in the restaurant business my entire adult life. I worked full time and studied full time and helped raise my little 2-year-old boy. I got my degree this spring.

Now I'm 44 and working my first job as a .NET developer, and I've never been happier. I have encountered no resistance to my age, quite the contrary: I've never felt more welcomed and encouraged than I do now in the coding community.

IT is changing rapidly, and you hear that all the time. But it's not just changing technically, it's also changing socially. That's very important to remember. If you are smart, and if you have the "knack", and if you work your butt off, and if you have a modicum of charm and social polish and confidence, you will have no trouble getting a job.

The world of coding is not monolithic. It is not homogeneous. To put it tritely, it is amazing how diverse a room full of coders can be....

[marktangotango]

I got my BS in CS (US) from mid tier state school at the age of 38. I think getting a degree later in life is an advantage, people see my graduation date on my resume and assume I'm younger than I am. Some people say I look younger as well.

I'm a team lead now, and if anything, I see younger devs as a liability. IMO you gain a certain level of pragmatism and persistance from working on large (crappy) code bases for a few years. When faced with challenging bugs, I see some younger devs giving up too quickly.

It takes time to develop the 'large code base skill', and I'd rather not solve you're bugs while you do. Especially if you're telling me how great language X is, and we should move to it.

[clubhi]

Maybe you actually should move to language X.