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

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

#101

Post by tptacek »

jordanb wrote: post #98
tptacek wrote: post #71

I was going to add this as a reply to a comment downthread but I think it's too important to bury. The fundamental rule of career progression in the technology industry is to position yourself as a domain expert in something more specific than "programming" . It's very difficult to "own" "programming" in a way where you can use scarcity to drive integer multiple increases of the median salary. It is not as difficult…

The big danger is "owning" some domain that falls out of fashion. You might "own" distributed systems and do great for a time, but then companies start transitioning from that architecture and nobody returns your calls anymore. Also I've noticed a lot of sub-fields like computer vision or self driving cars where there's a great deal of nerd interest but very little actual employment. In fact, I have a feeling that co…

You can switch domains.

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

#102

Post by dandr01d »

tptacek wrote: post #71

I was going to add this as a reply to a comment downthread but I think it's too important to bury. The fundamental rule of career progression in the technology industry is to position yourself as a domain expert in something more specific than "programming" . It's very difficult to "own" "programming" in a way where you can use scarcity to drive integer multiple increases of the median salary. It is not as difficult…

I second this. I'm currently on a team that has a couple senior engineers, but neither of them are true experts of what our team does (iOS). One has decades of web dev experience while the other has decades of Java service experience. Our team badly needs an iOS expert to make the tough decisions and lead architecture.

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

#103

Post by dominotw »

tptacek wrote: post #101
jordanb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big danger is "owning" some domain that falls out of fashion. You might "own" distributed systems and do great for a time, but then companies start transitioning from that architecture and nobody returns your calls anymore. Also I've noticed a lot of sub-fields like computer vision or self driving cars where there's a great deal of nerd interest but very little actual employment. In fact, I have a feeling that co…

You can switch domains.

easy to switch , not easy to own.

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

#104

Post by weeksie »

I'm 40. I work 6-9 months out of the year. When I'm consulting I get great contracts, just wrapping up an idyllic green field Elixir and React product development. Zero to product in six months. Happy customers, happy colleagues. Now the weather here (NYC) is getting a bit cool so last night my girlfriend and I booked tickets to Thailand for the months of January and February.

Being an old software developer is pretty nice. Fuck, man—being old is pretty nice.

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

#105

Post by Danihan »

jonnycoder wrote: post #57
pavlov wrote: post #18

Definitely not, but you should steer clear of the baseline jobs at large corporations. They usually have generic titles like "Software Developer" or "[Technology] Engineer" (iOS Engineer, Android Engineer, Front-End Engineer, Node.js Engineer, whatever). Those jobs are designed to be filled with recent graduates who will be doing rote implementation work using a specific technology. They'll give you a pointless white…

How does one get into consulting work? Do you have any blog or book recommendations?

You need to have lots of contacts, generally.

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

#106

Post by HN15718653 »

danjoc wrote: post #63

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 stock…

That answer is quite bullshitty. I was there for many years and a few teams, and 8pm was NOT the norm. In fact, it's ludicrous to even imagine a busy Google office at 8pm.

6pm it starts to slow down, by 6:30 half the office is heading out.

Some people would get there super early and leave early-ish.

Look, at the end of the day it's about getting shit done and COMMITTING CODE. That latter part is something a lot of people refuse to accept. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how much experience you have or whatever... if you're an IC, then deliver high-quality code (and a lot of it), and you'll have a great career.

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

#107

Post by tptacek »

dominotw wrote: post #103
tptacek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can switch domains.

easy to switch , not easy to own.

If by "not easy" you mean "a couple of years", sure.

Don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm using the word "own" rhetorically. Obviously there will be no point in your career where you are likely to be the world's leading expert on computer vision. What you're aiming for is to be the leading expert that is available to employers within a reasonable amount of time at the level of compensation you're hoping for.

It's a spectrum.

Obviously, if you invest heavily in a discipline and it is decisively obsoleted, that's a setback. I'm just saying it's not an insurmountable setback, and I'll add here that it's still unlikely to leave you behind the pure generalists; in the process of building expertise and accomplishment in cryptography or OS kernels or whatever, you're likely to become a pretty far above-average software developer as well.

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

#108

Post by draw_down »

dandr01d wrote: post #102
tptacek wrote: post #71

I was going to add this as a reply to a comment downthread but I think it's too important to bury. The fundamental rule of career progression in the technology industry is to position yourself as a domain expert in something more specific than "programming" . It's very difficult to "own" "programming" in a way where you can use scarcity to drive integer multiple increases of the median salary. It is not as difficult…

I second this. I'm currently on a team that has a couple senior engineers, but neither of them are true experts of what our team does (iOS). One has decades of web dev experience while the other has decades of Java service experience. Our team badly needs an iOS expert to make the tough decisions and lead architecture.

That would still be programming specialization, as opposed to domain specialization where programming can be applied.

I used to know this guy who knew the ins and outs of the health club industry, and he could program a little. He made a lot of money. I think this is more in line with what tptacek is describing.

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

#110

Post by artmageddon »

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!

> if you want to hear how to make it past 40 in software, this is probably an excellent place to ask!

So far in this thread:

- continue to learn / evolve

- go into management(well, someone will mention it)

- Go into: consulting / start your own business / remote work

I'm not too far from 40 myself. Any advice?

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