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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?

#331

Post by cheriot »

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #205
jcrawfordor wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is true. I hear the "middle-aged programmers aren't employable" story a lot on the internet, but in the large organization where I work I, in my mid-20s, am conspicuously very junior. Most of my coworkers are middle-aged, most of the program management are getting into their '50s, as you might expect of someone in a role seen as senior.

but how many people who are middle age try to "enter" the industry and succeed? I can answer that for you: those who have close friends in power who wish to hire them. As you age yourself, you may see this if you are sensitive to it. We need to separate the two groups, because thrre are two issues here. 1.aging programmers already working in the industry and 2.those who are accomplished in another dying field who dec…

Skepticism of bootcamps (and other non traditional paths) is not the same thing as agism. This industry is further along in figuring out the former than others, but you're right that it has further to go. It's just not the same as agism, though.

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

#332

Post by spraak »

havetocharge wrote: post #241
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…

Thanks fo sharing. Just wanted to comment that while generalists do not get outlandish compensation offers, they are more likely to qualify for a wider set of jobs. In a way, it is a different strategy in the employment game: you go for a less risky bet than specializing in something, and by that increase the chances of being employed.

Not really... because then you're just competition against a larger pool of people. I.e. a generalist is common, while a domain expert is not, so more generalists means more competition.

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

#333

Post by LoSboccacc »

agumonkey wrote: post #297
Silhouette wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you market yourself/your business as specialising in a particular domain, but you study good fundamentals and general principles, which you then apply to your current domain(s) of interest using whatever development tools are of use in that domain.

It's a bit more involved than this. Current market doesn't really follows fundamentals. I dug into advanced theory quite a bit and that won't help me peanuts when trying to unfold what people mean with their patterns and ways. Quite the opposite some times, angular 1 for instance, it was a bit insane what they assembled.. unlike anything fundamental if you ask me.

It’s good to see I am not alone it felt like everyone was taking crazy pills when angular came along heralded as the greatest thing in web development and anyone pointing at the foundamental issues was suddenly a pharia around here

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

#334

Post by svennek »

gozur88 wrote: post #326
pmontra wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

The problem with freelancing is you spend a lot of unpaid time lining up jobs. Does that really pay off?

But that is why your rates are (hopefully) so much higher than an employee...

Rule of thumb, your business should be viable at 50% billed time...

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

#336

Post by m_fayer »

dkarl wrote: post #312
Fishkins wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this easier for someone who was a "domain expert" in an obsolete domain than for a programming generalist? i.e. could a programming generalist also "own" a domain in a couple years?

I was surprised several times, and have since stopped being surprised, that someone who was immersed in a technology for years, loved it intimately, and knew every wart on its asshole, so to speak, and loved it anyway, the person you know as the guy who's really into PHP or the guy who's really into Oracle or the guy who's really into jQuery will not flail when the company abandons that technology. I would always wor…

Can't upvote this enough. In my experience, if you have the capacity for the occasional obsessive voracious burst of knowledge acquisition, there's no limit to the amount of technology cycles you'll be able to surf, and you'll always be able to sell your expertise and get good work. I feel bad for the calmer more balanced people who don't have that manic streak, who leave work at work, they'll always be at a disadvantage.

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

#337

Post by mindentropy »

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.

This is kind of unrealistic but very easy to say. I have changed domains but that was because I wanted to move into the domain of my interest i.e. embedded and also was young and wanted to feel the breadth. After investing almost 5 years of my life in it and endless reading and doing things things in my field I am considered an expert. Now the embedded field in my country is in a steep decline and I am at a cross roads. All the so called "new" tech does not seem to entice me at this age as I can go very deep into my embedded field. On the other hand I know that if I don't jump ship I would be jobless pretty soon. This makes me very bitter in choosing CSE education as my peers in medical have way more stability in their domains than me.

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

#338

Post by misja111 »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #135

There a couple of aspects to this issue. I'm 53. Management: I would argue that it's critical to garner management skills well before you turn 40. If you wait until 50, you're going to find it very difficult to move from talent-oriented jobs to management ones. Coding: I hate to generalize, but it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to d…

> .. it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done.

And then you will learn to be pragmatic and solve technical debt only when there is enough time for it or when it brings a clear benefit in terms of business value or development speed.

I can tell this from my own experience. As a developer you typically progress along a path; in the beginning you just don't know how to do things 'well' so you're introducing technical debt without knowing it. Then you'll learn about clean code, design patterns and what not, and you think you have to apply this knowledge everywhere. Until you learn that there are times to be pragmatic as well.

This pattern is not unique to programming, it's universal. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari

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

#339

Post by loup-vaillant »

barrkel wrote: post #323
andrewflnr wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are more dimensions than buckets, and not very orthogonal ones at that. In particular there is strong overlap between declarative and functional language features (you could argue functional is just a special case), and less strong overlap between imperative and OO languages, and OO and functional. OCaml fits pretty comfortably in all four of those categories, when you want it to. If I wanted to jam languages i…

I reckon imperative and OO are almost identical; if you don't have objects, you use function pointers or discriminated unions instead and end up with something very similar. OO is a design pattern that often has language support. And I could make a similar argument that functional is mostly just a style of coding, where some more restrictive rules are followed - but it also depends on a few specific language features…

I've had teachers separate languages (or styles, or paradigm) in 3 categories:

* Imperative languages describe how to perform the solution.

* Functional languages describe the solution.

* Logic languages describe the problem.

I'm not sure I actually agree with this categorisation, though.

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