Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#201

Post by paulgrant999 » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 6:28 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #71

Yenderman wrote: post #63

It doesn't match all of your wants, but you should consider living in the inner city of a large metropolitan area and working for tech companies there. In Los Angeles, a talented dev/arch with devops can make $185,000/yr with benefits. Another possibility would be turning into a migrant fruit-picker, stick your stuff in a storage facility and follow the contracts around the country, looking for the $200/hr gigs. Do a…

"$200/hr gigs." do these really exist in sufficiently large numbers? When I was freelancer there seemed to be hard limit at $100.

LOL. I quoted 120 an hour, and the response I got was "120 an hour?! thats what we bill at!"

Yeah dumbass. 120 an hour, the bare minimum, for a small company, where I'm not gauranteed shit.

The next comment was even worse "you don't have any overhead!"

To which I replied, "Yes, but I'ld like to get some. So if I don't budget it out, I won't ever get it."

Then I correct him, by telling him 120 was my minimum. Depending on the work, it could be higher.

I dipped to 65, on a multi-month project ("discounted rate for large block of time"). But that was a one-off for that customer.

Rule of thumb is 1:6; but its more like 1:8. So that 120 an hour, is more like earning 15 bucks an hour. And that assuming a full schedule. Sometimes I get clients who try to cheap out, and give x hours per week; to which I just raise my rates.

If you can't afford to pay real wages; or more likely, treat all your employees like shit and skim their salaries to make mega bucks - fuck off.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#202

Post by forgot_old_user » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

oppositelock wrote: post #94

I'm in my mid forties and I've been working for pay in tech since '96, so this puts me in a similar demographic like yours. I think you're being too picky and greatly limiting your job choices. I miss the days of private offices, but those days are over in any moderately cutting edge companies. You'll find offices in Cisco, Juniper and Oracle, you'll find open seating at Google, Facebook, and startups. WFH friendly c…

Checking in from Cisco, its unfortunately all open space here now

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#203

Post by paulgrant999 » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 6:45 AM UTC

richrichardsson wrote: post #141

deanmoriarty wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't exactly need 350k/y to get those numbers (at least I don't). I don't know what the history will be over the next 20 years if you start now, but for the entire 8 years of my career so far (started at 24), my pre-tax compensation has been roughly 260k/y averaged (I'm at 350k now and started at ~120k), which has allowed me to comfortably save 120k+ a year. My career has been a mix of a couple startups (one wit…

Well, that's given me some insight into bay area dev pay! I've never even heard of anything near those levels in the UK except for contractors.

Most of the jobs I saw were in the 120-190 range. you don't start hitting 220+ unless you're already on the tech pump-n-dump wagon i.e. have "internet-scale" experience.

And with the rent and cost of living so high, 165 is basically the poverty line. If you want to actually enjoy some of your money before you die from the politics.

tops out at 300-400k unless your management. and thats usually phd-grade stuff (cutting edge).

minus "acquisitions" (employees that came over from acquisitions for talent).

blockbusting using h1b's and hiring fresh grads keeps the real rates low. thats why theres so much of an emphasis on constant meetings and mentoring. you train your lower paid replacement.

its even worse when you consider the level of automation being dev'd and deployed even as we speak. Call it what you will, but coding yourself out of a job, does not strike me as a very rewarding job.

Same thing with "frameworks". Count how many horror stories you hear about a company bringing on x-tech, to implement, only to realize there's serious design flaws in the stack they've chosen. I think the best company I saw, did all their development, in-house (for the money-making stuff). C/C++ coders. And they only bring in "mature" technologies (10+ years) -- where the tradeoffs and fixes, are pretty much well known. SANE.

I was not much impressed by the quality of engineers out there. Theirs way too much "compartmentalization". Even worse now with the microservices (circa 2015-2017) implementations that failed to grasp basic architectural decisions that still need to be made.

If anyone's hiring for those 300+ k jobs, drop me a line.

I only have one requirement. Get the fuck out of my way.

M.O.V.E. :)

One other note: When you're applying, don't do the end of the year (normal cycle for a normal co; they know how much they made, what their next quarter's budget is going to be, prospects are closer etc). H1'bs are all busy getting imported. Wait until they run out of their H1B's and give a month or two to clock their new wage-slaves through their "onboarding". The experienced engineers will get a good sense of what material they're working with and call out for more labor ;)

Retarded, but hey, "silicon valley".

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#204

Post by gawkface » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

milesvp wrote: post #79

gallerdude wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - for the better or worse, money fuels life. I'm just afraid of sticking with my first company for the rest of my life because I'm half satisfied where I'm at, when I could do much more interesting things elsewhere. Maybe I'll just be happy enough with my life that I won't feel a need to take risks. Maybe I'll be courageous enough to pursue greater net happiness.

At the end of the day life happens. Interviewing can take a tremendous amount of effort, and worse, since you generally need to hide it from your current employer, it also can feel gross emotionally. And on top of all that, the best time to interview is actually when you're generally happy with your job, and are working on projects that you like and are good for tou mentally, since you'll come across much happier and…

Thank you for the last paragraph!! I have started calling life and the unknowns as luck :)

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#205

Post by fpierfed » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #137

A - private office B - WFH C - Android D - few meetings E - good management F - mellow, friendly (probably older) colleagues G - no training of underlings H - low stress I - interesting work Independent contracting/consulting satisfies A and B; some subset satisfies C; D it likely fails; E is orthogonal or maybe slightly negatively correlated (some portion of those who hire consultants, have to do so because they're…

Working in a research org: A possible especially in a senior position; B possible; C yes, depending on the project; D possible; E tossup; F quite likely; G possible; H yes; I definitely.

Good luck

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#206

Post by quickthrower2 » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 7:31 AM UTC

deanmoriarty wrote: post #70

liftbigweights wrote: post #52

Why not retire and contribute to open source? You can set your own schedule and speak to whomever you want or no one at all. It amazes me that people in their 40s are working as software developers. Did everyone gamble their money away? 20 years in software developement is easily a few million in the bank + retirement account + home. Why not retire?

This is harsh but true. I am an average 32 years old software engineer in the Bay Area, and in my average 8 years career I amassed roughly $1.2M by diligently saving, investing in index funds and living frugally. My real hope is that by the time I’m in my mid 40s this amount, including the new savings, will have at least doubled (if not 3X), and I’ll be able to retire or take some very light job in a cheaper area, no…

Its quite rare across all software devs across all countries. I started on $30k.

Not all would have invested in the stock market during the biggest boom it has had. Many people like myself software has paid cost of living plus some modest savings to get a deposit on a house.

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#207

Post by sytelus » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

If you are inclined to stay IC at 40+, get in to teams where someone needs to write “impossible programs”[1]. Accelerated ray tracing, robotics, computer vision, firmwares, deep learning/machine learning, orchestration stacks, OS kernels, debuggers etc. These are sort of areas which I think benefits tremendously from multi-decade expertise and complexity+stacks are usually pretty high.

[1] https://www.deconstructconf.com/2018/julia-evans-build-impos...

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#208

Post by kayoone » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 8:24 AM UTC

liftbigweights wrote: post #52

Why not retire and contribute to open source? You can set your own schedule and speak to whomever you want or no one at all. It amazes me that people in their 40s are working as software developers. Did everyone gamble their money away? 20 years in software developement is easily a few million in the bank + retirement account + home. Why not retire?

Well, completely different game in Europe, even if you live frugally. Not even close. Some of you Bay Area guys are really condescending

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#209

Post by WalterSear » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 9:05 AM UTC

firebones wrote: post #173

WalterSear wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be reading the fucking source code. Redux isn't big. But they are stuck in a rut. IMHO, from the outside, senior developer rut looks like a fear/resistance to change or learning. I'm not sure if what is really going on inside, though. Probably career burnout. I am the around same age as the guys I'm referring to here, fwiw. So, it's more than just physiological aging.

Out of curiosity, what was their primary technology background before being expected to use/learn React?

Javascript :(

Re: Ask HN: 40+ Career Advice?

#210

Post by hutzlibu » Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 10:42 AM UTC

jensv wrote: post #68

Yenderman wrote: post #56

When I was 30, people just looked at me and assumed I was a competent software engineer because I looked exactly like a very senior software engineer, and I presented myself in that way. But I was very junior, having made a recent career change. Yet they paid me like a prince, and I rose so rapidly through the ranks that I became an executive. Now I'm 50, and my company folded and I went to the curb, and am looking f…

That's insanity. What is wrong with this industry????

I guess it is more a question what is wrong with humanity ... despite all progress, what matters most to most people is, how does someone looks. And it sure does tells a lot, but not at all enough.