131–140 of 258 posts
I'm 49! I've been working since I'm 17 as a developer -- I think the KEY thing is to be valuable, and be able to change quickly BUT not as quickly as the snowflakes. Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--, that will help you learn ANYTHING computer related quickly, and continue surfing that wave with whatever tech you fancy might actually be…
I'm lucky enough to look young for my age, so I leave my early jobs off my resume, and don't put my graduation year on there. While I don't exactly hide the fact that I'm in my late 40s, I do find myself avoiding some discussions at work that would show my age, like talking about my older experiences or making pop culture references from the '80s or '90s. Yes, you can talk about making yourself so useful that age doe…
>How often have you assumed something about a person because they were older than you, and what can you do to overcome that and judge them on their merits instead? I pretty much always think they are 'smarter' than me. The only issue I've had with older folks is that they often say 'not my job'.
Which, from my experience, is not a bad thing. It's often a sign of someone who recognizes that meeting everyones else's expectations at the cost of their job expectations is short sighted and the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.
And rarely does anyone have enough time to even meet their personal job expectations.
There are those whom are just lazy and only want to contribute the least amount possible, but I think you'll find that's not limited to older folks.
Die your hair and adopt the “lingo” of the cool dudes.
Like double barrel your boss with your fingers and wink and say “I like your style” no matter what he says.
Or if you agree with a colleague you say “fo shizzle” to gain their respect.
Refuse to program in anything old. All code has to be Haskell or whatever and throw in a neural network. If you can do that in a container you’re home free.
You are removing hiring staff on:-
* Equal Opportunity
* Merit
* Qualification
* Skill
* Experience
Replacing that with hiring a person because they are
* a certain gender
* a certain ethic group
* a certain sexuality
Everyone here is talking about their skillset, and I'm going to take another direction: appearance and interpersonal skills. There is ageism, yes, but I think a deeper problem is reaction to peoples appearance. If you are late twenties concerned about age, then hide it, starting now. * Always wear sunscreen when you are outside, regardless of race. It prevents skin aging, and you'll still tan and get Vitamin D regard…
I agree with all this except the sunscreen part. I was under the impression that sunscreen can actually increase the chance of cancer. Furthermore, sunscreen does block vitamin-D. But, you don't need much (sunblock free) sun exposure to max out your vitamin-D absorption (just 12 minutes a day will do it). On a side note, I do intermittent fasting and caloric restriction to hopefully reduce my rate of aging.
I'm 49! I've been working since I'm 17 as a developer -- I think the KEY thing is to be valuable, and be able to change quickly BUT not as quickly as the snowflakes. Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--, that will help you learn ANYTHING computer related quickly, and continue surfing that wave with whatever tech you fancy might actually be…
So, any suggestion for a COBOL book ? jk what would you consider a solid, time-proof set of fundamentals ?
Every large institution has an old COBOL mainframe running some mission-critical software that they can't upgrade away from.
It’s obvious: act young. Die your hair and adopt the “lingo” of the cool dudes. Like double barrel your boss with your fingers and wink and say “I like your style” no matter what he says. Or if you agree with a colleague you say “fo shizzle” to gain their respect. Refuse to program in anything old. All code has to be Haskell or whatever and throw in a neural network. If you can do that in a container you’re home free…
I'm 49! I've been working since I'm 17 as a developer -- I think the KEY thing is to be valuable, and be able to change quickly BUT not as quickly as the snowflakes. Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--, that will help you learn ANYTHING computer related quickly, and continue surfing that wave with whatever tech you fancy might actually be…
Cool; I'm about the same age, been getting paid to do, for the most part, what is called 'devops' today since 1993, though unpaid a number of years before that. I'll confirm and reinforce everything you're saying here. Six weeks after I decided to move companies, last year, I had three excellent job offers to choose between, and even more that were less great but still doable. > you should be GOOD I like to think tha…
I don't know if my answer is good, but here it is...
If I find myself in a position where I'm actually bored and doing the same things over and over, then I move on to a new challenge, be it with my current employer or not. The most important thing for me in a job is that it's interesting to me. If it becomes boring, then it's time for a new job that is interesting -- partly for my own emotional health and partly because that's a strong sign that I've learned all I can learn from my current position.
And there's always a new job that is interesting!
I'm 49! I've been working since I'm 17 as a developer -- I think the KEY thing is to be valuable, and be able to change quickly BUT not as quickly as the snowflakes. Ignore the fad tech, get a good, serious, bulletproof base in actual computer science -- I mean, LOW LEVEL stuff--, that will help you learn ANYTHING computer related quickly, and continue surfing that wave with whatever tech you fancy might actually be…
The big money question is: How have you managed to stay passionate about your job? I just posted a comment in another thread about burnout. It's very common in our industry. I believe it's due to the Coolidge Effect. Aka, the brains inherent search for novelty. It's a struggle to not look at almost all programming tasks as just some variation of the same problem, if you've been doing this long enough. How do you keep…
His solution: he became a long-haul truck driver (he asserts that the skill overlap between software engineering and long-haul truck driving is far larger than you'd think). After a couple of years doing that, he reentered the software engineering world, completely revitalized.
I moved to management position but still do development when no one is looking :)
My Co just published a worldwide press release over system I built over last Xmas break. So it's fun from all sides.