Paying someone with 30 years experience more than someone fresh out of school isn't age discrimination.
Just because someone has worked 30 years, doesn't mean they have 30 years of experience. They may have 5 years of experience 6 times or even worse stopped learning anything new 15 years ago.
I'm in my mid 40s and I've hired developers who are older than I am and had 10+ years of C# but have never done a unit test, didn't understand the concepts of continuous integration/continuous deployment, didn't know Linq (introduced in 2008), Web API (introduced in 2011), and didn't even know WCF.
I needed developers and thought with their experience with different technologies they would be able to adapt. I was hiring based on Joel's "smart and gets stuff done".
Was I wrong. Older developers who haven't kept up with the trends for the last decade and haven't kept up with the changes in technology are worse than young developers who don't know.
As far as the pay ceiling, yes I've reached a ceiling as a developer. But not as an architect who both keeps up the latest shiney frameworks and has a deep understanding of the fundamentals.
Just because someone has worked 30 years, doesn't mean they have 30 years of experience. They may have 5 years of experience 6 times or even worse stopped learning anything new 15 years ago.
I'm in my mid 40s and I've hired developers who are older than I am and had 10+ years of C# but have never done a unit test, didn't understand the concepts of continuous integration/continuous deployment, didn't know Linq (introduced in 2008), Web API (introduced in 2011), and didn't even know WCF.
I needed developers and thought with their experience with different technologies they would be able to adapt. I was hiring based on Joel's "smart and gets stuff done".
Was I wrong. Older developers who haven't kept up with the trends for the last decade and haven't kept up with the changes in technology are worse than young developers who don't know.
As far as the pay ceiling, yes I've reached a ceiling as a developer. But not as an architect who both keeps up the latest shiney frameworks and has a deep understanding of the fundamentals.