Why I prefer to employ younger IT Contractors for technical jobs

Younger IT Contractors

I think there’s a problem with ageism if you try and stay in technical roles. This is where you are primarily using a single skill and are therefore competing with younger IT Contractors who also have that skill and (damnit) far more energy than we old ‘uns do.

I know that when I employ someone young they are often a lot more enthusiastic. They are happy to work longer hours.

45+ usually means that having a life means more than putting everything into a project (and rightly so).

Computer Programmer

That said, I think it’s a perception thing about “if you’re still a programmer at 40+ you can’t be very good if you haven’t progressed”. That’s even if that’s what you really enjoy doing and have no desire to push paper.

Me – I’m 50’ish and positioned myself in Design Authority, Enterprise Architecture and Strategy roles. That’s where my experience really counts for something.

Sure, I was a damn fine programmer and I miss the fact that no one lets me program anymore. But then again, nobody would pay anywhere near my rates for a programmer.

There’s always choices to be made. Mine was to echo the permie path of career progression and make coding a hobby like it was when I was 15.

Just my 2 cents on using younger IT Contractors.

DK sent this to us.

IT Contractor Comment

Although younger developers may have more energy than older ones, the older ones make up for it in terms of experience.

How many of us have been to sites where a young project manager with a team of mainly younger developers is gradually screwing the project up and won’t take the advice of older, more experienced contractors.

Most coding is done by developers with 18 months experience or less.

That’s a recipe for disaster and often is.

Would you rather have your mission critical software written mainly by people with 2 years or less experience or would you rather it was written by IT Contractors with over 10 years experience of coding?

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