Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 372 posts

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#41

Post by Qworg »

jasonkester wrote: post #17

There are three popular paths you can take as you get older: You can become obsolete and eventually find yourself laid off and unemployable. Or you can move into management. Or you can keep learning new technology, becoming better, more employable, and able to demand higher bill rates year after year. To a large extent, you get to choose which of these paths you prefer to go down. I seem to have personally gone down…

I see it as moving into path 2 and 3 combined.

It is interesting that some parts of CS have more opportunities for consulting than others. Has anyone else experienced this in their chosen specialization?

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#43

Post by ap22213 »

jhspaybar wrote: post #6

I honestly don't understand this, I'm sure there is ageism, but when I'm reading resumes and interviewing I love the more experienced developers! The few times I've seen a solid 10 years experience résumé followed up by a solid phone screen it has been a feeding frenzy. So much so that my company usually can't even move fast enough to get an offer in the ring :( On the other hand, it's really obvious when someone has…

Yes - I try to hire a lot of experienced developers. There is no hand-holding, with them. If I hire someone skilled and with a lot of experience, I can give them vague requirements and a general deadline, and I know that I'll get something high quality, that just works, and that's probably better than I original spec'd.

I don't like risk, but that's just me. I know I could hire more inexperienced (e.g. cheaper) staff. But, there's just a lot more risk that goes with that. I'd rather pay someone good, a lot, and know I can sleep at night.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#45

Post by ceautery »

herghost wrote: post #4

I was doing dev at a large utility company in my early 20s. I was only doing it a few years (~4 or 5) when the tech stack was completely overhauled and it required me to re-learn the new stack. I started to transition across (in my own time, at my own expense) and then the company decided to outsource the majority of the work and take on the outsourcer's stack. This left me with the choice to re-learn again within a…

JB?

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#47

Post by v0idness »

Have you ever seen Soylent Green ?[1]

Watch It, and you'll discover what happends to Older Developers.

By the way, I'am 36 now, nearly half way. I still looking for code only jobs, I've been managing people since I was 18 to now. I go reverse, and toward more and more coding, architecture, research ...

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#48

Post by mcv »

My dad was programming right until his retirement. He always refused any sort of management role (though he occasionally got a lead role for a high-profile project thrust upon him). I know one of the things he worked with was Java, so it definitely wasn't all old stuff. He was working on an open source project in his spare time, though strangely that seems to have stopped since his retirement. I should ask him about that.

I'm 40 and still young. I'm learning tons of new stuff, developing into new areas, and started as a freelancer two years ago (which boosted my pay quite a bit). I still have great plans to work on ideas of my own in the future. No idea where I'll be in 10 years, but I bet it's something totally different.

Re: Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

#50

Post by mbillie1 »

pekk wrote: post #23
jefffoster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 10 years of experience, and there's 10 years of having the same experience time and time again.

That is a great way to rationalize deciding that a specific person is no good even though they have the experience. Of course it will turn out that you have personally made the most of your time, and that you have some other reason for downing the other person.

Some percentage of the workforce essentially manages to not-get-fired and little else. I don't necessarily think that's a rationalization about a specific hiring circumstance, rather that it's a fairly general observation that probably applies in lots of fields.
Post reply on HN