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

Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 411 posts

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#61

Post by madflame991 »

timr wrote: post #48
lliamander wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let me ask: how do you make it past 40 in software? Specifically, how do you position yourself so that you are actively sought after (rather than merely employable)?

Find a niche that rewards experience in something other than code. This could be non-technical (e.g. "business"), or it could be something more deeply technical (e.g. scaling, machine learning, search, etc.) To some extent, the older you get, the more this happens, naturally. But you can and should make strategic decisions about where you choose to devote your attention. The important principle is that you should dev…

Why would JS be less long-term-valuable? It's only 4 years younger than linux, it's more common than linux and has a much larger community (especially compared to the linux kernel driver one). I don't see either going anywhere in the next 20 years.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#62

Post by pmontra »

lliamander wrote: post #40
Gargoyle wrote: post #22

In 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!

Then let me ask: how do you make it past 40 in software? Specifically, how do you position yourself so that you are actively sought after (rather than merely employable)?

I'm 50 and I've been a freelancer since 2006. I position myself either as developer (Rails and jQuery back then, still Ruby and Python and Elixir now, I'm starting to code with React) or architect and coordinator of developers. That works well with small companies. I attend to tech events in my city (Milan, Italy) and I organize an event myself. It's a good way to keep the word of mounth going on. I don't know if this is a feasible strategy for the next 10 years, but who knows what's going to happen by then anyway. I'll adapt.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#63

Post by danjoc »

Ageism is more than hiring young. It's letting people go or burning them out as they age too. These companies expect excessive overtime until people burn out. As developers and IT staff age, they self select out of it, because it isn't healthy.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-hours-a-week-does-a-typical-G...

"10am to 8pm on weekdays, no work on weekends? That's not a lot, not by a long shot."

See, they have such stockholm syndrome, they can't even accept that they are being overworked. How are you supposed to challenge such unhealthy company policy when "It's not a lot, not by a long shot."

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#64

Post by foepys »

everyone wrote: post #43

I'm frankly flabbergasted why silicon valley (apparently, from reading articles here) has this youth fixation. In my software dev experience the least useful people on the team have invariably been the youngest. My pet theory answer for my own question goes thusly: Young people are more easily indoctrinated / brainwashed and dominated and thats what Google and whoever really want in their employees.

I agree with you. Young developers also don't have a family they want to get home to. They stay late, are often willing to work on the weekend, party with their company friends, and thus never really leave work.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#66

Post by cname »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24
stcredzero wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

This perfectly articulates something I tried to get across to upper management last time we hired a manager for our team. It seems so obvious and reasonable, but they wouldn't hear it. So, we ended up hiring someone who not only had no real management experience but who also didn't particularly _want_ to be a manager, instead preferring to write code.

This created conflict exactly as you'd expect and team morale fell apart, projects slipped, etc. Of course, management takes no responsibility for this, instead diffusing blame to employees via suck-it-up type platitudes (couched in "nicer" language but with that essential meaning).

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#67

Post by api »

paul7986 wrote: post #65

..

As an older programmer I'd recommend getting into a more specialized area that isn't so faddish: systems programming, machine learning, high performance compute, networking, crypto, really advanced devops, computer vision, etc.

Take the time to massively level up in some high end niche and you can do really well. It's also a better place to leverage the experience that comes with age. Some 20 year old out of college might not have the experience to code extremely high performance bare metal algorithms that work across architectures. Those areas take skill and a deep understanding of how computers work throughout the entire stack from hardware up to UI/UX.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#68

Post by jnwatson »

herf wrote: post #26

I 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.

Confirmed. I was born in 1977 and learned to program on a pocket TRS-80 at age 4 (no joke).

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#69

Post by foepys »

nvarsj wrote: post #51
elliottcarlson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 37 and would rather not stick to a niche personally. Being able to quickly adapt and grow keeps the job interesting to me.

Yeah, niches don’t last in our field. Sure, become an expert in akka, kubernetes, or whatever tech is fashionable now - in 10 years it will be like you were an expert in CORBA. It’s a little annoying how you have to chase tech fashion to remain employable though. As if simply being a good engineer isn’t enough to pick up these techs and contribute meaningfully. You need to spend your free time learning the tech, or b…

A niche doesn't necessarily have to be a specific technology. Why not become an expert in micro services instead of Kubernetes or an expert in message processing instead of Kafka?

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#70

Post by EADGBE »

maxxxxx wrote: post #7

I am 50 and I do OK. I also see people around my age and older who do well too. It seems to me that a lot of people who get filtered out in their 30s should never have been in the profession either for lack of motivation, interest or talent. If you are not self motivated to constantly evolve you have a problem. Moreso than in a lot of other professions.

What if one evolved into another career?
Post reply on HN