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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?

#401

Post by Const-me »

matwood wrote: post #397
dwaltrip wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be more clear, programming for the most part is easy. I vehemently disagree with this. Kludging together an unmaintainable codebase that barely meets the spec might be easy. Aiming for a notably higher level quality beyond that is NOT an easy thing at all. Obviously, the nature of this discussion depends on the complexity of the task at hand. There are many profitable ventures with low levels of complexity in th…

I'm sure there are exceptions, but IME the biggest cause of 'kludging together an unmaintainable codebase' is lack of understanding of the problem domain. Software solutions do not exist in some technical vacuum outside of the problem they were built to solve. Better understanding of the problem domain naturally leads to better software.

My experience is opposite.

On one of my previous jobs one problem domain was some area of theoretical physics. There was a guy with brilliant understanding of the problem domain. He had couple of decades of experience teaching physics in the country’s best university. He could explain very hard problems in easy to understand way. The company filed multiple patents with the amazing stuff he invented.

It didn’t help the guy to write code. It wasn’t good. Not only unmaintainable, also slow and unstable (not all algorithms work equally well when mathematically-real numbers are substituted by software-real IEEE754 floats). We ended up just throwing out whatever he coded, and instead learned enough problem domain from him to be able to understand and implement what he actually was trying to do.

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

#402

Post by TheCoelacanth »

herbst wrote: post #357
amyjess wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, I really don't care about career advancement. I don't need "half-mil-a-year offers" to fund my lifestyle, so as long as I can continue to draw a steady paycheck, I'm good. Not everyone's a climber, and being in "a dead-end job" isn't really a bad thing if you're not ambitious. I'd just like to spread the message that it is absolutely OK to plateau. You don't need to be a renowned domain expert, you don't need to…

Honestly that just sounds sad to me. I don't see how finding a plateau in life is ever a good thing.

It's a plateau in earnings, not a plateau in life.

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

#403

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kelnos wrote: post #260
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By sinking your precious time invests sure. But you won’t be able to claim you have 20 years of experience in X anymore, you will be a newbie for awhile. That, and your PhD is already in something else...your papers are already published in other conferences....it can be a problem trying to move from say PL to ML.

Sure, but those are the trade-offs. You don't get the reward without taking on a bit of risk. It's a little ironic to hear talk like this, since around here I hear a lot of "sorry your coal mining job is going away, but you need to get with the times and train for something relevant". Same thing applies here. If you pick a programming specialization that eventually falls out of favor, buck up and learn a new one. May…

Huh? Those sentiments (retaining is hard, retraining is necessary) aren’t incompatible.

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

#404

Post by niyikiza »

busterarm wrote: post #84
jnwatson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Born in 1984, learned to program on a C64. Also at age 4.

Worrying for most of us who saw the first computer at the age of 16, started coding at the age of 19, and still have to make it in the software engineering world.(26 y.o now).

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

#405

Post by rperez333 »

Iv wrote: post #322
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…

I am a programmer. I am pretty good at algorithmics. I love implementing something out of a published paper. I love to navigate the math. I can't sell that though. I just used to say I am a computer vision expert, because in the ton of things I can do, this is a relevant domain. Recently, advances in deep learning made half of the computer vision field obsolete. I just read some cutting edge DL papers, linked that to…

Hi Iv. I'm looking for help to implement a computer vision paper. Can you contact me, please? Sorry about the message here, couldn't find a way to send directly. rperez333@inboxbear.com

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

#406

Post by figgis »

mindentropy wrote: post #337
tptacek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 roa…

I don't know man. There's enough use-cases to make both boats float. Just gotta find it.

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

#407

Post by PeachPlum »

auxym wrote: post #363
PeachPlum wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Web Programming is where the interest is at, you haven't been searching "data analyst" on the job boards

Maybe in SV and other tech centers. In "flyover country" and the midsize college town I quite enjoy living in, indeed currently returns only a handful of BI-related postings for search terms like data analyst. Web developer returns tens of postings.

I'm speaking from a UK perspective. I should have mentioned that.

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

#408

Post by vorotato »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #371
herbst wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly that just sounds sad to me. I don't see how finding a plateau in life is ever a good thing.

Substitute the word balance for plateau and you'll begin to understand. Desire is suffering.

also lets be real, programming isn't worth infinity money.

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

#409

Post by vorotato »

niyikiza wrote: post #404
busterarm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in 1984, learned to program on a C64. Also at age 4.

Worrying for most of us who saw the first computer at the age of 16, started coding at the age of 19, and still have to make it in the software engineering world.(26 y.o now).

nah, 4 year olds are bad at learning.

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

#410

Post by ascended »

Your 2 examples. C and JacaScript are dying if not dead already. We have consensus on Web Assembly now and that’s allowed a lot of languages into the browser with a better developer experience and performance then JavaScript ever offered.

And Rust. What’s not to say about Rust. One thing that kept C alive so long is there wasn’t anything viable to build operating systems with until Rust. There’s a lot more to Rust too, it’s compiler LLVM is used to compile so many other languages like Apples ObjC and there’s wrappers for others like Apple’s Swift. I mention these due to the heavy usage and development upstream into LLVM for these. You can even use Rust to create better performance code for other languages like Python modules.

You’re (OP) definitely accurate in your post saying C and JavaScript are comparatively static but even they’ve gone through feature development and drastic syntax and paradigm changes (in the case of JavaScript)

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