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Where do all the old programmers go?

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Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#51

Post by childintime »

A related phenomenon is that programmers have no collective identity to rely on (or uphold). The struggle of the classes and the topic of the bigger social good is relatively meaningless to them. They can't put a finger on these issues, they belong to other classes. Programmers are by nature but also by nurture very much individuals, and as individuals, without nurturing collectivity, they are easily manipulated and put against each other.

So programmers don't work on socially relevant or desirable problems, but on some relatively obscure scalability issue that exists only inside a few internet behemoths. They need soldiers, not wisdom.

With these employers dominating the marketplace, socially relevant innovations take a back seat. Society doesn't help either, as open source sadly isn't tax funded (because tax-fundedness is a pivotal privilige of the disfunctional political class).

So being a programmer often is (cor)related to the strength of youth, and youth ends at 40.

However, no craftsman worth his salt loses his abilities, instead he has experience about what works and what doesn't, and becomes more effective at what he does. He doesn't run trying to catch his own tail.

For example this guy here, at https://millcomputing.com/docs/execution/. What he and his team have done is a work of beauty and is the fruit of experience and intuition.

The young and the old work together.

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#52

Post by kbd »

swah wrote: post #12
henrik_w wrote: post #9

Data point: I just turned 50, and I am happily coding away as a developer. Couldn't be happier - I still love to code.

Glad to hear - do you take special care of your wrists? I'm 32 and with some problems already...

A few recommendations:

1. use proper posture. Don't rest your wrists on the table as you type. Make sure your chair is an appropriate height (or your desk itself, if you're standing).

2. imo Dvorak is much more comfortable (it's not about typing speed).

3. Take up rock climbing. Seriously. It's the best exercise for your hands/wrists that I know of. Any time I've started to have hand/wrist pain I've made a point of going to a rock gym a few times and it helps fix the problem. I wish I kept up with it more.

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#54

Post by stray »

fecak wrote: post #38
stray wrote: post #18

At about 40, it does start to get more difficult to get hired. And by 50, it is all but hopeless. And the salary offered begins to go down at 40 too. Sharply after 44 or so. Where I am now, at 51, I have had to learn to get by on what I was making as a SysAdmin 20 mumble years ago. But at least I have a job. Before getting my current job I was having to learn to get by without a place to live too.

If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to hear more about your situation. I've seen salary plateau at certain career levels and ages (40s usually), but saying salary goes down at all (let alone sharply) is something that I expect is not a general truth about the market at large. My anecdotal data comes from ~20 years in recruiting engineers. There are several reasons you could see a salary drop (stagnating skill…

Would a significant gap in employment be that damaging?

I was severely burned in an automobile accident (60%, 3rd degree) on June 6, 2006 -- and was completely unable to work for a couple years. It took a little over 4 years total from the date of the accident till I got another job.

Every job since then has been with a startup.

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#55

Post by saiya-jin »

hashkb wrote: post #46
tgamba wrote: post #32

At 49 I am still coding and still learning. I architected and implemented node.js services this year and have done lots of interesting modern web development. I am well respected within my organization and in fact have been poached from one team for another. Ageist hiring practices are a reality, but not all companies are so biased. And you could not pay me enough to go into management. I want to make things. Perhaps…

You could definitely pay me enough. Great managers help more things get built than great engineers. They do it in a different way, but as long as they don't suck, they are critical. Good managers are much harder to find than competent engineers.

I think he meant he doesn't want to do the management job. Ie moving from abstractly creative work to endless series of meetings, conf calls, creating powerpoints excels and whatnot. Yes they are necessary, but it doesn't make it a cool job that brings fulfillment and happiness.

Most devs move there over time, and then complain how cool coding actually was, but they are already in money/debt trap

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#56

Post by inestyne »

I have yet to meet a recruiter that wasn't desperate for demonstrated talent. Every corporate shop i've seen has older programmers doing the real work and younger programmers paying the tech debt and building UI.

I think most of these articles are focused on startup culture and marque companies. (ie. 1% of the market)

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#57

Post by kafkaesq »

stray wrote: post #18

At about 40, it does start to get more difficult to get hired. And by 50, it is all but hopeless. And the salary offered begins to go down at 40 too. Sharply after 44 or so. Where I am now, at 51, I have had to learn to get by on what I was making as a SysAdmin 20 mumble years ago. But at least I have a job. Before getting my current job I was having to learn to get by without a place to live too.

It does get substantially more difficult, but (judging by data points I've gather in RL and from around here), only to a certain degree. Which is to say -- age discrimination is very real, and (other skill factors being equal) will definitely start to bite you by a certain downward multiplier (and undoubtedly far more so in extreme hiring markets like SV).

But again -- only to a certain degree. And more so: there a different ways of looking at it, and more importantly, certain things you can do about it -- such that if you groom your skills carefully, and pick the roles you apply for carefully, also -- you can turn your age into an upward multiplier, rather than a downward one.

That's my quick take. The main thing is, please don't give up hope -- there's still a lot one can get out of the very substantial skill investments one has made by that age, provided we don't fall into certain traps (perhaps the most insidious being: believing all the crap that SV and a good chunk of the industry believes about the magical advantages that very young hires have over older ones).

Am swamped for time at the moment, but perchance, may get back to this topic in a couple of hours.

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#59

Post by swah »

kpil wrote: post #39
swah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear - do you take special care of your wrists? I'm 32 and with some problems already...

Buy a Model M or at least avoid laptop keyboards that are extra small. Do some heavy lifting now and again, so that the hands are used for real stuff.

Those are some string keyswitches - I have seen a few people recommending against them if you have hand pain.

Re: Where do all the old programmers go?

#60

Post by fecak »

stray wrote: post #54
fecak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to hear more about your situation. I've seen salary plateau at certain career levels and ages (40s usually), but saying salary goes down at all (let alone sharply) is something that I expect is not a general truth about the market at large. My anecdotal data comes from ~20 years in recruiting engineers. There are several reasons you could see a salary drop (stagnating skill…

Would a significant gap in employment be that damaging? I was severely burned in an automobile accident (60%, 3rd degree) on June 6, 2006 -- and was completely unable to work for a couple years. It took a little over 4 years total from the date of the accident till I got another job. Every job since then has been with a startup.

A four year gap in employment is a much more logical conclusion to a reduction in salary than your 44th birthday. Even if it was something like an accident (I'm glad you are better now BTW), candidates are sometimes reluctant to share medical issues on resumes/cover letters (and rightfully so in some instances) which can lead to the reader making all sorts of assumptions about why you haven't had a job in n years.
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