A Consideration of Aging and "Age limit theory" of Software Engineers

Abstract

The number of software engineers has been steadily increasing in Japan. Simultaneously, the population of middle- and high-aged software engineers has been increasing, and this tendency is expected to continue. Meanwhile the size of the younger work force will decline, and the chances of employing younger software engineers naturally become lower in the future. Thus more active utilization of veteran, middle and high aged, software engineers would be necessary.

In the meantime it has long been pointed out that there exists a so-called "age-limit" for software engineers. "Age limit" means that the capability for software engineers to do the jobs would decline past a certain age. If that is the case it can be a high hurdle for the utilization of veteran software engineers.

This paper, taking into account the technological innovation in software development, discusses the problem of age limit that has to be dealt with in considering the possibility of the utilization of veteran software engineers. It will examine causes and the reality of the age limit through the interviews with software engineers and a personnel manager. The following three conclusions are reached through the research.

First, while the limits of physical capabilities and the level of technological skill were traditionally considered reasons for the age limit, few software workers left the firm for these reasons. Rather, the real reason is rather the gap between the levels of the performance and the wage increase. Especially, the gap is larger for the software engineers engaged in the jobs of lower stream of software development process (karyu koutei) and their age limit problem is more evident.

Second, with the technological innovation in software development, there the jobs of the upper stream of development process (jouryu koutei) in which fewer age limit problems are seen have increased, and the jobs in the lower stream of manufacturing process in which age limit problem is more striking have decreased. In other words, as a result of the structural changes taken place in the types of jobs, the reason for the age limit become weak and the age limit problem less arises.

Third, It does not necessarily means, however, that all software engineers engaged in the type of jobs belonging to the lower stream of the software development process can automatically be shifted to the jobs of the upper stream process. Furthermore it depends on the needs of customers which development process is more needed. In some cases jobs of the upper stream development process such as consulting and proposal making are given priority, in other cases software engineers are actually stationed at a client's office. When more weight is placed on the consulting and proposal making type of jobs, jobs of the upper stream development process are enough available. Meanwhile only jobs of lower stream development process are often available when the engineers are sent to a client company. In addition software engineers stationing at a client's office become gradually familiar with the works of the office, and, naturally, the client finds it beneficial to keep them and requests not to change accustomed software engineers for unaccustomed. As a result it creates difficulty for the rotation among software engineers and they are fixed in the same types of jobs (in majority cases, jobs of lower stream) in the same company.

In a larger company, there must exist the parts that are more likely to arise age limit problems and the ones that are less likely within a company: there must exit a gap within one company in terms of the level of the age limit problem, since it has a number of customers who vary in the types of works they put more weight.