Comment Re:You will have to know tech either way (Score 1) 592
While I generally agree, I read an interesting article a while back on aging and staying current. I wish I could remember the link but the gist of the argument is that IT knowledge is a diminishing asset in that specific knowledge becomes out of dare and you must work to stay up to date. As you age, the ability/effort required to maintain or increase a knowledge level increases over time for numerous reasons, including aging itself (it's harder to pull an all nighter if need be at age 40 than 25, neurons are set, so new concepts take longer to digest, etc.), other life priorities (family responsibilities), paradigm shifts (iterative to OO, OO to Functional or whatever).
Tie that in with the push from market forces when working for someone other than yourself. If you look at the example of "hip" web programming in the last 5 years with Django and Rails and in this specific area a 40 year old would have no more experience than a 25 year old who started working with those technologies when they came out. And while the 40 year old may have 15 more years of general IT experience than the 25 year old, 5 years is not nothing. It's quite a reasonable amount of time to build core competencies. Is the marginal utility of 15 years more experience worth the additional salary. Sometimes yes, but how often? A talented 25 year old will have alot to show for themselves and may be hungrier for a job, and thus willing to work more for less than their real market value. This same dynamic presents itself in sales.
These two forces make the push to management very alluring, in particular because the as opposed to being a liability, you experience, used properly, is an asset that is worth the value of the extra years (in a decently run company).
That said, faced with the same dilemma, I've chose to stay on the tech side.
