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Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

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Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#251

Post by marktangotango »

hindsightbias wrote: post #225
bane wrote: post #29

It seems that they go a few directions: The most common seems to be to try and generalize, because relearning most of your job skills every few years starts to get annoying the 20th time you've had to do it. It's different when you are younger and everything is new, you just chalk up a major tooling change as just something else to learn. But when the next hot platform or architecture or whatever comes out you get ti…

> maintaining half a million lines of code 10 young guys? Sheesh, back in my day it was just two of us, and that's how you started. Learned a lot about systems, architecture and most of all, how NOT to code. It really is a crime youts of today don't have to slog through legacy for a year or two before being given the keys to the sexy projects. I wonder what all that google legacy code looks like, and how often the n0…

+1 My Cousin Vinnie reference.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#252

Post by jf22 »

milesf wrote: post #169
bane wrote: post #29

It seems that they go a few directions: The most common seems to be to try and generalize, because relearning most of your job skills every few years starts to get annoying the 20th time you've had to do it. It's different when you are younger and everything is new, you just chalk up a major tooling change as just something else to learn. But when the next hot platform or architecture or whatever comes out you get ti…

I'm going for the fifth option. Build a software-as-a-service business that pays the bills and allows me to keep working on my own projects. No one can fire me (except my customers) and I still can code and noodle around with interesting stuff.

Thats my route too. I figure that eventually in the next 30 years I'll be able to build some kind of technology company.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#253

Post by justrudd »

a3n wrote: post #122
hkarthik wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great response. As someone who's approaching my mid-30s, I can identify with a lot of it. I'm at an inflection point these days on whether I want to push forward on the management path or go for the third path, as you mentioned above. The management path seems to be the path of least resistance, but getting into the politics of management is unappealing. Also the level of competition for management jobs is…

> The management path seems to be the path of least resistance, but getting into the politics of management is unappealing. From a non-management type, I have loved working for managers who can play the politics part, in a level headed way that keeps awareness of and effects from politics out of my individual contributor's life, and at the same time understands what I do and what can reasonably be done. I've been wor…

+1. You're lucky you've had 2. In my 20 years, I've had one. I was about to start making the transition to manager via tech lead, but after working with my most recent manager...ugh...I felt dirty after going to meetings with him. I spent more time parsing his double speak than concentrating on what really needed to be done.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#254

Post by marktangotango »

lstamour wrote: post #139
bad_user wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something to be told about learning stuff that matters . Data-structures, algorithms, statistics, machine learning, math in general doesn't change and will be as relevant 30 years from now as it was 30 years ago. POSIX doesn't change either. Learning for learning's sake is actually pointless and can do more harm than good if done tastelessly. The best kind of learning happens either when something is cool and…

> Google's Protobuf won't survive either, because simple text-based protocols always win I expect Protobuf, Thrift (fbthrift) and Avro to be around for quite some time. Once you know what they're good for, everyone likes binary formats that can be easily shared across multiple languages via code gen. You can turn every binary format into text-based for debugging purposes using standard commands. Heck, even Apple has…

>>everyone likes binary formats that can be easily shared across multiple languages via code gen

Everyone? P buffers and code gen create a static protocol that's more hard to modify OR extend than text; more moving parts: the spec file, the generated code, the code generator, and the lib for your language. Code gen adds complexity to development, build, and deployment. Binary protocols are more difficult to test than typing some json into Postman for example.

Http is the canonical example of the successful text protocol.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#255

Post by rschmitty »

JayBlanton wrote: post #228
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not anomalies like yourself Several people I know are in that range. But they all specialize in one thing or another.

Could you share some examples?

Would also be interested in some examples, just for curiosity sake. COBOL maybe? Wild guess at something specialized/scarce.

Personally, the only people I know in the 200+ club are in some form of management and rarely, if ever, code anymore. But then we are back into the anecdotal realm..

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#256

Post by astamatto »

bwanab wrote: post #106

I'm 60+. I've been coding my whole career and I'm still coding. Never hit a plateau in pay, but nonetheless, I've found the best way to ratchet up is to change jobs which has been sad, but true - I've left some pretty decent jobs because somebody else was willing to pay more. This has been true in every decade of my career. There's been a constant push towards management that I've always resisted. People I've known w…

Great answer!

Just for curiosity, detracting from the original topic, what was your favorite language to code professionally?

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#257

Post by kevrone »

bwanab wrote: post #106

I'm 60+. I've been coding my whole career and I'm still coding. Never hit a plateau in pay, but nonetheless, I've found the best way to ratchet up is to change jobs which has been sad, but true - I've left some pretty decent jobs because somebody else was willing to pay more. This has been true in every decade of my career. There's been a constant push towards management that I've always resisted. People I've known w…

This is great for me to read. I'm 37 and I didn't graduate from college until I was 30 so I'm constantly worried that I will soon lose relevancy. However, even though my experience is on par with a developer ten years my junior, I often find that my age can sometimes give me an advantage. I'm less affected by politics, more able to see the big picture, and occasionally looked up to even by those I work for. That said, I don't have a family so I am still free to work long hours if I want and spend my free time in pursuit of whatever I want.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#258

Post by bbaisley »

I'm in my late 40s and switched to full time management about a year ago. I didn't have to, it was a choice. I felt there was a management/leadership gap at my company. One I thought I could fill and do a good job. It wasn't about pay. Yes, the pay is greater. It is inline with my expanded sphere of influence. That said, how many managers have you seen doing tech talks at conferences? As a developer, that is one place you can expand your sphere of influence. Open source code is another outlet. I don't think there are limits to pay, or that it plateaus. There are less jobs paying 150K than 100K, less jobs paying 200K than 150K. There are probably more management jobs than developer jobs at the higher levels. So as a developer, the competition is greater. Good developers can get good pay, great developers can get great pay. Are you a good developer or a great developer? Google good vs great. I'm not looking for a new job because they are finding me. I keep my LinkedIn profile updated, I'm active on Stackoverflow, I open source. I actively manage my public profile. I find an online reputation is almost a requirement for the higher paying roles.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#259

Post by orionblastar »

Most of my friends that were older developers had killed themselves.

It started in 1999 during the Dotcom busts that flooded the market with cheaper labor sources.

Suddenly if you had a good job with a good salary some 20something working for $20K/year replaced you.

Unable to find work and provide for your family really wrecks the go. Most of my friends chose the suicide by shotgun route. I went to a lot of closed casket funerals and then got too depressed to go anymore.

My last job was in 2002, I thought I had a good job, but my employer only hired me to 'super debug' their main software that they hired these cheap labor sources for and they had a hackathon and prizes and none of them could get it stable or good quality and secure. So I got paid $150K/year and fixed it in two months, and then was fired even if everything worked great. I found that most job offers in my area are like that, promise you everything and as soon as you 'super debug' their problem you are fired.

Happened to most of my friends, and they ate a shotgun.

Some 20somethings on Internet forums kept telling me to eat a shotgun, shotgun mouthwash, etc. I refuse to kill myself and I will keep looking for work and bootstrapping my own side projects. I am glad Hacker News is not like Kuro5hin or IWETHEY or some other troll forums telling me to kill myself. You guys are professionals here.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#260

Post by ogreyonder »

quaffapint wrote: post #245
rschmitty wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on the pay grade! but you need to look at averages not anomalies like yourself 300k is definitely not the tract most programmers are on

Agreed - Around here @100K is higher than most. It all depends on your geography. I would live like a king with 300K!

I wouldn't... I would live like a miser for 2-3 years and retire to do whatever I wanted. Maybe 4 if I felt like travelling the world for a decade. :)
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