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Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

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Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#21

Post by nbm »

ThJ wrote: post #20

The tendency to promote people out of engineering and into management is probably down to the bottom line. At some point, an engineer's economic worth plateaus, and the only way to justify a bigger paycheck is to have him offload the upper management. Managing people is extremely time consuming. Time spent on managing people is time not spent on closing deals, maintaining business relationships, securing investments,…

Why not just hire a (hopefully) good people manager? It's hard to find good managers, but it's also not entirely likely that your best IC engineer is going to be a good manager naturally either. Whereas you know they're good at what they're doing now.

If they're not going to find a way to be more worthwhile, just don't pay them more. If they find a way to be more worthwhile (teaching, coaching, setting standards, whatever), then pay them more.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#22

Post by [deleted] »

ThJ wrote: post #20

The tendency to promote people out of engineering and into management is probably down to the bottom line. At some point, an engineer's economic worth plateaus, and the only way to justify a bigger paycheck is to have him offload the upper management. Managing people is extremely time consuming. Time spent on managing people is time not spent on closing deals, maintaining business relationships, securing investments,…

[deleted]

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#23

Post by gascan »

ggg9990 wrote: post #12
Cacti wrote: post #9

It's not complicated: the costs of software development are almost entirely in labor. As long as that remains true, older people will be at a severe disadvantage simply because they cost 2-5 times as much as a new hire. Once Moore's Law slows down (or whatever we want to call the current golden age we're seemingly still in), this will change, but until then you're just fighting against exponential growth.

Why does an older person cost more? Either they produce more, or they’re overpaid. The first type is definitely worth finding and paying... I’ve seen companies built solely by 22-year old script kiddies and usually the stack can’t scale. At that point, you’re in a trickier spot because a 40-year-old who can inject some good sense at the beginning of a project is a lot more abundant than a 40-year-old who can lead a t…

The catch is it's hard to measure & value the experience the older engineer brings to the table.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#25

Post by 3rdAccount »

nbm wrote: post #21
ThJ wrote: post #20

The tendency to promote people out of engineering and into management is probably down to the bottom line. At some point, an engineer's economic worth plateaus, and the only way to justify a bigger paycheck is to have him offload the upper management. Managing people is extremely time consuming. Time spent on managing people is time not spent on closing deals, maintaining business relationships, securing investments,…

Why not just hire a (hopefully) good people manager? It's hard to find good managers, but it's also not entirely likely that your best IC engineer is going to be a good manager naturally either. Whereas you know they're good at what they're doing now. If they're not going to find a way to be more worthwhile, just don't pay them more. If they find a way to be more worthwhile (teaching, coaching, setting standards, wha…

You need to know the domain in complex fields. In my area, the non engineers have no clue what is going on and are almost dead weight. The high output engineers now in management aren't always the best at managing people, but at least they make good decisions and don't slow the rest of us down.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#26

Post by notacoward »

SQL2219 wrote: post #2

"young people are just smarter" Mark Zuckerberg

And what brilliant things were you saying in 2007? Yeah, that was an asinine thing for him to say, and insulting to . . . well, to people like me. I'm 53, and I happen to work at Facebook on the strength of things I've learned in the last 11 years or so. I dare say many of the people around me, including those who hired me, might have learned a thing or two as well. Maybe those who want to champion the idea of life-long growth and learning could make their point some way other than bringing up a quote from 2007 as though it represents current belief.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#27

Post by incompatible »

qubax wrote: post #17
butterfi wrote: post #3

wow, I'm not sure how good the article is, but my browser threw a hairball trying to load that page. Rarely do I see a page fail as hard as this one did. Has Wired just collapsed under the weight of ad trafic nonsense?

Not just wired. Almost every news site. Ad block, update your host file, etc. Ever since forbes had viruses/malware for ads a few years ago, I don't visit a news site without protection.

I'm using an adblocker, all I get is a brief flash of something and then a blank page. Maybe I'm too old for Wired now.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#28

Post by kaspm »

3rdAccount wrote: post #25
nbm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just hire a (hopefully) good people manager? It's hard to find good managers, but it's also not entirely likely that your best IC engineer is going to be a good manager naturally either. Whereas you know they're good at what they're doing now. If they're not going to find a way to be more worthwhile, just don't pay them more. If they find a way to be more worthwhile (teaching, coaching, setting standards, wha…

You need to know the domain in complex fields. In my area, the non engineers have no clue what is going on and are almost dead weight. The high output engineers now in management aren't always the best at managing people, but at least they make good decisions and don't slow the rest of us down.

I think this is a good general point. Looking at management as "just hire a good people manager" is too myopic. It takes many things to just be a good "people" manager - empathy, high bar setting, ability to negotiate compromises. And that doesn't include the _other_ skillsets a good engineering manager has: understanding the time tradeoffs of the team, delivery management, ability to resolve technical stalemates, ability to communicate effectively up, down and across to ensure people are coordinated, work is non-duplicative and efficient. Being an engineering manager is not a "black hole" for old people who don't program, it's a completely different technical skillset. A good one produces quite a bit more value to the company than _most_ single engineers can. Not because they are bad, but because writing good software requires lots of good engineers working together.

Re: Surviving as an ‘Old’ in the Tech World

#30

Post by NeedMoreTea »

incompatible wrote: post #27
qubax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just wired. Almost every news site. Ad block, update your host file, etc. Ever since forbes had viruses/malware for ads a few years ago, I don't visit a news site without protection.

I'm using an adblocker, all I get is a brief flash of something and then a blank page. Maybe I'm too old for Wired now.

Ah, not just me then. I assumed it was some GDPR block as wired UK works fine.

Via outline: https://outline.com/mGVbG6

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