When Do Programmers Retire? Is 40 the End?

Why don’t we see a decent number of grey-haired software developers in the industry? Where do all the programmers go when they are older? Do companies cut out older programmers? It’s certainly shocking to see 40 considered “old” sometimes.

[mirzarivai]

im 48 years old and an happy newbie programmer forever...

[philsnewaddress]

I'm 54 year software engineer. Got my first fulltime c++ job 30 years ago. Every day confirms that I'm a newbie at almost everything.

[BoCarlson]

Basing your numbers on Github is very, very flawed. People over 30 tend to have more important things to do with their time other than make a bunch of pet projects and put them on Github. I code to get paid and usually check in on a work email account so my personal github account doesn't reflect my coding activity. If you want this to be anything other that total nonsense you need to base it off of real employees working at real companies, not Github.

[RobVanHam]

I'm 45, and I was on the cutting edge of computing. Computers was not a large industry when I was growing up. Do the survey in 15 years and you will see the demographics change.

[muckademuck]

I'm 63 and have been coding since the mid-1980s. Others in the comments have made some good points about the flaws in the video. One thing that it missed entirely is that programming is an applied science. If a programmer stays mostly within one industry, as I have, they will learn so much about an industry and how software and systems are applied in the industry that that knowledge becomes more valuable than programming skills.

[Baxtexx]

Could also be because there wasn't that many programmers in the 80-90s.

[agustinbs]

Last year a 41 years old full stack web developer join the company. His mindblowing development speed, knowledge, and cool personlity is impresive. He is the equivalent of 3 times the next best dev of 34 in productivity

[RelaxAmbients]

I am 35, and every company is rejecting me because of my age.

[rufdymond]

I’m a 63 year old Software Engineer and I’m still going because I love it - been coding since I was 17. I’ve never ever struggled learning new stuff. I’m currently building my first large project using LLM’s to do some clever stuff with scanned documents…..as long as there is a challenge I’ll keep coming back for more.

[camilimac]

Me turning 40 this year and being a brand new programmer 👁👄👁 lol

[allisonb]

There are still loads of software developers in their 40s and 50s and even 60s they just don't feel the need to be all over social media.

[Big_Papoo]

54 and coding since the age of 15. I’m passionate by computing sciences and coding has been a huge part of my life. I chose to share this passion, I now teach at University. Being close to younger people also helps remaining young in your head. For those over 40, the key idea is certainly that age doesn’t matter if you have passion for what you do! Coders are digital artists, so many ways to accomplish things, and for all arts, experience matters…

[pedrogorilla]

Or maybe the reason is that computers were much less popular 40 years ago and therefore less people from that time learned programming. Sounds more likely to me.

[wmblemania]

My advice to all programmers, regardless of age: plan to become your own boss, as soon as you can.
Focus more on BUSINESS, and treating your employment as a business proposition, instead of focusing on Javascript frameworks and language esoterica. Think like a PRODUCT DEVELOPER, not a programmer. (There's a big difference.)
You do NOT want to be at the mercy of a tech giant for your employment when you hit 40 or 50. Realistically, you are not going to get a job at that age. (Look around you, how many grey hairs do you see?)
"But, I'm not interested in business, I'm interested in programming", you say. Well, my answer is: good luck to you. You're going to need it. Because your financial future and wellbeing is a business challenge, not a technical challenge. You're not going to solve those challenges by being opinionated about a Javascript framework or IDE.
Also: understand that your attitude to programming will change over the years.

[jorymil]

Being almost 41, I see a lot of younger folks around me. But something I have that they don't: a longer view. Often younger devs get upset about something, not realizing that it's temporary, and won't be like that six months from now. Or perhaps they'll want to write something on their own from scratch, unaware of the 3 libraries out there that already do what they need. Or perhaps they're great coders, but don't yet take into account the actual systems their code will be running on. There's room in the world for you if you're over 40, that's for sure.

[salimhamza]

You didnt talk about the single most important factor of all. The amount of developers double aproximatively every 5 years.

[malangope]

I've been a software developer for over 20 years and is now 41 years old. I do feel that its getting harder to keep up with the fast evolving technologies and thinking so much every day. This video holds a lot of truths.

[itwsntme]

I'm 52, currently a technical lead (or rather "the" as I'm the only one in the company, a startup). Tried for a while to move higher in the corp ladder and didn't really like it, so came back down. I really didn't want to be that manager who still thinks his programming knowledge from 10+ years ago remains relevant.

Tried consulting for a while and was also miserable. Engineering and consulting are two very different branches requiring very different skills. I'm no consultant. If I can give a piece of advice is this, be sure you understand the difference because what makes you strong in one makes you weak in the other.

Keeping up with newer technologies that are relevant to you is key. Yes my entire team is much younger than me, that doesn't bother me, I'm not there to socialize.

I could not imagine a day where I would not want to program anymore. Hopefully, I've delivered good news for those looking to have a long career in software development.

[programmingwithcybineer]

I'm 40 and just know getting into software development... I think anything is possible

[marcteufel]

46 years old, and yes, meanwhile in a leader role but still deep with programming. its a passion. always interested in new technology and willing to learn. will never, never stop programming!