Sitting in an office 9-5 is dead-end job.
Most people move into independent consulting, remote work, their own business....
Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
21–30 of 411 posts
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#22In the general sense, this is the wrong place to ask. It's a self-selecting group in that most people over 40 here will be among the group that lasted in the career. It won't give a sense of how large that group is in the wider world, nor how many didn't stick with it.
On the other hand, if you want to hear how to make it past 40 in software, this is probably an excellent place to ask!
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#23I didn't start being a developer until I was 35. Going strong 20 years later.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#24The answer is pretty reasonable in the Quora post (Answer: no). In my experience, people who get something more out writing software than a salary tend to stay in software development, at some level, for their entire career. That said, if you're a software developer and you're also good at communicating and managing people, seriously consider moving into management. While I think the stories of the '10x' developer ar…
I also think a good manager can double or quadruple the effectiveness of their entire team Another way of thinking about this: Managing people really well is really hard. Most managers are not the best managers. Average managers often end up doing things that reduce the output of their group in the interest of things not going horribly wrong. The Pareto distribution rears its ugly head, once again.
I wish I had more than one upvote. If you have no management experience, and no mentorship in managing, you have no business managing people. Managing requires empathy and a desire to help your subordinates level up, not SWE skills. Your job is to deliver value to the org and to your individual contributors in equal parts.
At least as a software developer, you're only breaking code. But you start affecting people's lives, emotional well being, and career paths when you're a manager, and I find it rare where a manager understands this.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#25not always. i'm about to retire at 65 and I've been a hands-on software engineer for 35 years.
Pro-tip : one type of work that can last is in the Defense industry. Projects in that industry can last 10-20 years or more, and experience seems to be valued much more there.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#26I think this bias needs to evolve, and maybe birth year is more descriptive than age.
In 2000, a 40 year old was born in 1960, when the home PC was nearly 20 years off.
A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers.
These are very different experiences, and the bar will move over time.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#27Depends on who you know. Ideally you should have built up a lot of contacts to tap by that age.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#28No. I'm the happiest I've been in my career and I'm almost 50. I'm a programmer, not a manager, not a tech lead, not an architect. I still love programming and I love solving problems. I just recently made a huge change that decreased load on our systems by 90% and I'm still stoked 3 days later.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#29I'm not anywhere close to 35, but from being on this site (HN) for a few years, I can guarantee you that if you read this site on a daily basis and 3 times a year complete a project based on the "trends" reflected on here you will be fine. The people on here are pretty ruthless, IMO.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#30You had better be an architect, manager or a kickass maintainer after 40. And you better keep your day job. Can be done but difficult.