Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age

As of 2025, it's no longer the case that older developers (like me at 57) are at a disadvantage just due to potentially lessened sheer brain power, as we had in our 20s. The reason is simple: We know what all the terminologies are, how to ask for things with proper and sufficient levels of detail and context, we know what the pitfalls and common error patterns are, and on and on, from decades of experience. Working with AI has similarities to management positions. You need to be a generalist. You need to know a little about everything, more so than a lot about one thing. All this can ONLY come with age, just like wisdom can only come thru experience.

I just hope that most hiring managers now realize this. With AI the productivity of younger developers has gone up by a factor of 10x, but the productivity of us "Seasoned" developers has gone up 100x. This now evens the playing field, I hope, where us experienced guys will be given a fair shake in the hiring process rather than what's been happening for decades where the 20-somethings pretend to be interviewing the older guys, because some boss told them to, but they never had any actual intentions of hiring anyone over 40, just on the bases of age alone, even if some older guy aces the interview.

This is a great observation and a beautiful perspective.

Would it be okay for you if I quote this on a revised version of the article (with proper attribution, of course)?

I think with AI my productivity had increased 1% at most. If I measure time saved per week.

Sure, you have my permission. However, in my own case, I'm not currently looking for a job, and never in my life did it take more than 2 weeks to FIND a job, when looking. Been coding 24x7x365 since 1981. :)

...however I'm absolutely certain there are many interviews I've aced and not gotten the job, primarily for being in an several undesirable categories that Silicon Valley progressive wokesters despise with a passion: 1) Over 40. 2) White 3) Male 4) Straight 5) Handsome 6) Rich 7) American, speaking perfect English.

All 7 of those demographic stats about me are absolutely despicable to Silicon Valley hiring managers, and any one alone is enough for them to pass by a candidate over a different one lacking the trait.

You can also quote, this post about Silicon Valley too, and there was even a time when such rants like this would've been CENSORED immediately by HackerNews. Thankfully they've lightened up a bit.

If your productivity is up 1% due to AI, that only means one of two things 1) You're not a developer, or 2) Your prompts are 99% poorly written, so that's a you problem not an AI problem.