Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding • Hacker News Board

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#211

Post by tyingq » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 4:34 AM UTC

to_bpr wrote: post #206

tyingq wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all bias is conscious, or intentional. The hair dye may not be a bad idea, just temporarily, during the search. Get a pro though, obvious shoe polish color is, er, obvious.

Would one not have to keep up the dyeing if hired then? You don't think they'll notice a rapid change to grey?

They'll notice, yes. Anecdotal, but my experience is that age discrimination tends to mostly manifest at hire time. They think you're too expensive before even throwing numbers. Or too rigid, etc. Things that shouldn't be an issue once you're there.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#212

Post by linuxhansl » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 4:40 AM UTC

Hey... I'll soon be 50. I've been an engineer, architect, and a VP. I still write code. And why would I stop? Writing code is fun.

Does a driver stop driving at age 40? Or a Dr. stop being a Dr.?

I can identify bad patterns both in code and designs as well as teams that escape many younger engineers and managers.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#213

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 4:42 AM UTC

criddell wrote: post #66

Joeri wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still some truth to it. I'm 37 and have had to repeatedly and forcefully turn down managerial roles. The idea of horizontal growth is a hard sell to people who've chosen the vertical path. It would be very easy to drift into a management role, and in fact it happened to me once and I had to take deliberate action to get off the management track. I don't want to manage people. I want to build, and learn about…

I'm 10 years older than you but feel the same way. I would be interested in hearing from people that did make the jump to management. Why did you do it? How did it turn out? Any regrets about making the jump or for not making the jump sooner?

I went into product management (not people management) because I was tired of being a cog just implementing other people's ideas. Admired the product managers as "deciders" and wanted that creative aspect. Little did I realize it'd simply mean writing requirement documents for other people's ideas. Project management is similar: Executing the schedule for other people's ideas. Unfortunately it's pretty rare in the corporate software world to actually get to create something yourself end-to-end.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#214

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 4:50 AM UTC

ronilan wrote: post #6

peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site" . I use StackOverflow practically all the time. I always think to myself, "yep, this (Wikipedia, YouTube and... yah HN) is what the internet is for" . But maybe I'm just too young. (I'm 47 ;) )

I don't tend to use StackOverflow all that much. Once in a while I'll look up a poorly documented error code on Google and one of the results will be S.O. But, then again, I tend to stick with languages and libraries with adequate documentation.

Honestly, if one is constantly looking everything up on StackOverflow, they're either using a very poorly documented technology or they might want to hit the books a bit and work on proficiency. "Knowing the literature" is becoming more and more underrated.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#215

Post by Joeri » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:00 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #213

criddell wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 10 years older than you but feel the same way. I would be interested in hearing from people that did make the jump to management. Why did you do it? How did it turn out? Any regrets about making the jump or for not making the jump sooner?

I went into product management (not people management) because I was tired of being a cog just implementing other people's ideas. Admired the product managers as "deciders" and wanted that creative aspect. Little did I realize it'd simply mean writing requirement documents for other people's ideas. Project management is similar: Executing the schedule for other people's ideas. Unfortunately it's pretty rare in the co…

It's turtles all the way down. Even CEO's feel like they have no agency at times.

It depends on the maturity level of the business you're in. In mature industries customers have a clear picture of what the software should do, even if suboptimal, and you're just there to turn their preconceptions into running software. In new industries nobody knows exactly what it can do, so you have a lot more agency as a developer.

I spent years working on an IWMS system and always felt trapped by other people's ideas, and then moved on inside the same company to a smart building project where I can pretty much do what I want because the market hasn't decided yet what such a system should do. The tricky part is selling something people don't understand yet, but luckily smart building is in the leading edge of a hype cycle.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#216

Post by zappo2938 » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:03 AM UTC

fizixer wrote: post #15

Wait what? 39 and I consider myself just getting started.

I'm 42 and 3.5 months into my first full time coding job.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#217

Post by nudded » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:07 AM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #98

mod wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying "I don't know" when asked "How long will it take" or "When will it be done" ~5 years experience speaking: How do you do this? I have a very good boss and he knows things, objectively, like "estimates are very squishy," and "developers suck at estimating time" etc. But he still demands time estimates to give clients. Our clients are often agencies, and they get it as well. I do estimates like "10-40 hours, de…

> How do you do this? Give half-order-of-magnitude estimates as confidence intervals. Avoid using "hours" or "days" as estimates. Story points work really well here. Be extra clear on priorities and burndowns to make it clear that you're not just blowing them off. Give short but frequent demos (not just reports) of progress. If later they're concerned about progress, you can point back to all the times you reviewed t…

Could you go more into detail how these story points would work. It seems like in the end a story point would always be associated with a number of days (or hours).

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#218

Post by chrismcb » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:13 AM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #188

justin66 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone with 20 years experience refer to themselves as a "full-stack developer?"

No, no, that's just today speak for "systems developer". Really, someone who can dev/debug run-times for any languages, write C10K networking code, write good Haskell code, do wonders with average SQL RDBMSes, suffer through JS, and put together a complete solution. I actually like the term "full stack developer". I take it to mean: can handle anything from assembly to HLL and everything in between.

I would argue that "systems developer" is the opposite of "full stack" Your average full attack dev probably doesn't even know what assembler is.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#219

Post by frik » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:14 AM UTC

discreteevent wrote: post #116

Dave Cutler - 75. Lead developer on VMS, NT and Azure. Working on the core of XBox up to couple of years ago (still is?). I won't say what age I am when the article seems to think that 45 is relatively old, but Dave Cutler shows that there's no excuses. If you're good, you're good, young or old.

What will Microsoft do without him? All of Cutlers former team members that worked on WinNT series kernel retired long ago. Less and less devs understand the internals and the Win32 userland. You see new bolted on frameworks, and new apps instead of extending older one. Newer devs want to create new things instead of msintaining decade old code. No one wants to pay QA... the user is now the alpha/beta tester.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#220

Post by eksemplar » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 5:15 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #138

cryptonector wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason graybeards are valuable. It's not that they're over 50 or 60. It's experience. A full-stack developer with 20 years' worth of experience will not make certain kinds of mistakes.

I'm in the awkward position of having only gotten a CS degree and taken programming seriously after 30, so I suppose I'm the worst of both worlds. Of course, I also started going gray at 30, so...

In enterprise adults are often more useful because understanding, dilevery in schedule and the ability to do what you are told is immensely more valuable than doing things in a fiery passionate way on some new tech.

On top of that, while you might learn slower, you probably attended more classes and played less video games during them than 90% of the twenty year olds.