I'm 45 and I know a bunch of people far older than me who are highly-valued on their teams. Even in Silicon Valley I found younger engineers enjoy working with super-experienced people _IF_ those years actually translated to expertise. What you can't do is sit on your ass for decades then expect to be rewarded for treading water when the cozy job at BigCo finally dries up. All of the computing industry gets more competitive each year. Age gives you a head start if you are _actually_ using the time to keep growing, IMO. Often, people get older and get comfy and stop learning, or they lose the ability to related to younger talent on the team, which is just an essential business skill, like it was when you were young and had to relate to older people. And, if you actually have real skills, but a company won't hire you because the leaders think superficially, you should filter them from the list of companies you stake your future on.