I’ve seen a trend I don’t love:

✅ A solid resume

✅ 20+ years of experience

✅ Deep infrastructure and system knowledge

❌ Passed over—because of a birthdate.

Here’s the truth: age doesn’t make you irrelevant in the IT industry. It makes you danger-tested. The professionals who’ve been in the field for 20 or 30 years have lived through outages, migrations, security incidents, and leadership changes. They’ve seen what breaks, what lasts, and what actually matters. They don’t panic when something goes down at 2 a.m., and they don’t chase every shiny new tool without understanding the long-term cost. Their experience is hard-won, and it brings a kind of judgment and steadiness that can’t be rushed.

Older IT professionals:

▪️ Have seen five kinds of outages

▪️ Don’t panic under pressure

▪️ Understand trade-offs in ways textbooks never teach

▪️ Mentor others by default

If you’re hiring for a tech role and skipping over someone because they’re 50 or older, you’re not reducing risk; you’re passing on a strategic advantage. Experience doesn’t slow a team down; it anchors it. Seasoned professionals bring steady hands, clear judgment, and the ability to mentor others through complexity. They’ve seen enough to know what matters and how to keep systems running when it counts. Hiring experience isn’t a compromise. It’s an investment in resilience and long-term success.