Originally Posted by Headengineer

I have been a software engineer for 12 years and I can tell you that there is clear ageism in the industry. Why 10 years is the peak is because technology changes about once every 5-6 years. So any experience beyond that is not worth paying the extra.

This is unlike say a doctor, whose value increases through the years. You can go online to look at salary surveys done by companies. Look at how age correlates with salary and you can see it affects a lot for software engineers.

Yes there are people earning 300k in silicon valley, but I'm just referring to SG scene. People are less ageist over there.


Last thing to think about, would you pay top dollar for a 40 plus year old software engineer? How about paying top dollar for a 40 year old doctor?

You know the answer.

Software engineering has always been seen as a young man thing. Even Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview "Young people are smarter". This gives an idea of the thinking of executives in the industry.

Plan for the long term.