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Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

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Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#31

Post by noirbot »

whatshisface wrote: post #9
axlee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would believe it if that would apply to other positions. Why is it the case for us but not regular businessmen, lawyers, etc?

Professional athletes?

It's a bit different, since there actually is a fall-off with age in sports. A 45 year old basketball player is almost definitely more injured and less capable than a 20-year old. In most sports, you get better for the first 5-10 years being a pro and then it's all downhill from there.

Though, like tech, your trajectory at that point is usually management, analysis, or teaching.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#32

Post by scarface74 »

rpedela wrote: post #28
scarface74 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s another line of reasoning I don’t believe. I have a coworker who is probably 10 years younger than I am but has been working for the company for 7 years to my one, how could I better understand the business of the company than he does? I worked for one company when I was 35 dealing with the complicated rules of the railroad industry. My manager was 28, but he was the founder of the company before it got ac…

You can always find examples that counter the generalization but don't necessarily make the generalization false. In general, a 40 year old is going to be better than a 25 year old in understanding how software is applicable to business simply because they have more experience. They have been in more business meetings and seen how their software applies. Does that mean a 25 year old can't be better than a 40 year old…

It's not just one random counterexample. Knowing how code relates to a business has a lot more to do with how long you have been in that particular business or vertical than your general experience.

That 25 year old who was at the company since they started 3 years ago is going to know a lot more than that 40 year old who just came in yesterday.

Besides that, I did say 10+ years. The whole point is diminishing returns from experience.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#33

Post by scarface74 »

jerf wrote: post #30
scarface74 wrote: post #10

No this is not ageism. After a certain point, if you are an individual contributor, your value is not worth more than someone with less experience. A developer with 10 years of varied experience can usually do just as well as someone with 20 years of experience. I also believe that the idea of the 10x developer while not a myth, is so rare it’s not worth trying to find for most companies. I speak as someone in my mid…

"I also believe that the idea of the 10x developer while not a myth, is so rare it’s not worth trying to find for most companies" The problem with the 10x myth is that it assumes a single dimension of productivity, and that no-one is ever negative so there's some sort of sensible, positive "minimum" to talk about. Senior developer leads a team of three other medium-experience developer, and completes the project in s…

My statement was referring specifically to an "individual contributor" and I said as much in the original post. If you are a team lead, by definition you aren't just an "individual contributor" and you're also not the "10x developer". Your increased effectiveness is because you have a team under you and you are a "force multiplier".

but "careful, paranoid engineering" does too. Almost by definition, your really junior employees don't really know how to do the latter. (They'll often be able to cargo cult it, which can be a start, but they won't really understand it.)

I also specifically said the difference between someone with 10 years of experience and someone with 20 years experience. If you have 10 years of experience -- you hopefully aren't a "really junior employee".

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#34

Post by jerf »

scarface74 wrote: post #33
jerf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I also believe that the idea of the 10x developer while not a myth, is so rare it’s not worth trying to find for most companies" The problem with the 10x myth is that it assumes a single dimension of productivity, and that no-one is ever negative so there's some sort of sensible, positive "minimum" to talk about. Senior developer leads a team of three other medium-experience developer, and completes the project in s…

My statement was referring specifically to an "individual contributor" and I said as much in the original post. If you are a team lead, by definition you aren't just an "individual contributor" and you're also not the "10x developer". Your increased effectiveness is because you have a team under you and you are a "force multiplier". but "careful, paranoid engineering" does too. Almost by definition, your really junio…

My apologies, that's a fair defense.

I suppose I so deeply agreed with you I went total mental blindspot on the idea that someone could be a 20 years skilled software engineer and not be (technically, if not necessarily managerially) leading at least a small technical team. I'm not going to delete my post because I think it still has interesting stuff in it, but I do apologize for my tone of disagreement.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#35

Post by xfitm3 »

notacoward wrote: post #25
scarface74 wrote: post #10

No this is not ageism. After a certain point, if you are an individual contributor, your value is not worth more than someone with less experience. A developer with 10 years of varied experience can usually do just as well as someone with 20 years of experience. I also believe that the idea of the 10x developer while not a myth, is so rare it’s not worth trying to find for most companies. I speak as someone in my mid…

> your value is not worth more than someone with less experience. I don't think such a general statement (even its direct inverse) can be true or even particularly useful. At a certain point you're playing the odds. We're dealing with X, what's the chance that someone has seen X before or can see a connection to something else? In those situations, 20 years of varied experience can be a lot more valuable than 10 year…

Let's not forget the essence of why we get paid: you are paid because someone likes you. They like your work output, your social skills, or your status.

I'm not as hungry as a intern but I present well, and at the end of the day, thats why I get paid.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#36

Post by rpmcmurphy »

The bigger issue for us Olds is that we have serious financial and family responsibilities that make us highly undesirable employees in today's modern "I've got mine! Fuck you!" society.

Imagine that you have a close family member with Stage 4 cancer. Who wants to have you on their team? Nobody, that's who. And you better be living in a jurisdiction with solid legal protections, or they will fire you in a hot second.

That is a far greater concern than salary stagnation.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#37

Post by chipotle_coyote »

malvosenior wrote: post #4

> In Hired’s findings, tech pros were never offered more than $149,000 annually. I don't know where they are getting their data but that's a lot lower than good developers of all ages make. You can see on https://levels.fyi that large tech companies will pay senior developers 200-400k routinely. I don't necessarily doubt the analysis but the data is very incomplete if they didn't see a single offer over $150k.

Alternative reading: folks in Silicon Valley who've gotten used to FANG-level compensation have inadvertently developed a very skewed view of what average salaries in their industry are, because FANG compensation has climbed dramatically in the last decade. Anecdotally, $120–130K was a reasonable mid-level engineering salary in the valley in 2009 (I had more than a few friends at that level, which I admittedly hadn't reached myself); if that wage had increased more in line with inflation, we'd expect it to be $145-160K in 2019 -- and that $120K would have been hard to match for tech talent in most other parts of the country a decade ago. (Not impossible, just not easy.) The soaring valuations of tech companies, especially in the Bay Area, led to a loop of equally soaring costs of living and frenzied talent competition which just hasn't been reflected in most other places in the country.

It does seem strange that they wouldn't see a single offer over $150K, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if the median level was considerably lower.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#39

Post by 40acres »

I work with a lot of folks over 40, the two things I've seen that make me doubt ageism studies -- especially in tech, is that older engineers on average seem less likely to consider new technologies, and older engineers are more concerned about day to day stability and are less risk averse to consider another job which may pay higher because they have kids in school, mortgage, etc.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#40

Post by bcheung »

Based on the findings I think it is premature to say this is ageism.

There are multiple other factors going on here:

1) As senior developers become more skilled there is a diminishing return in terms of compensation. This happens regardless of age. A developer with 40 years of experience is not really worth that much more than a developer with 30 years of experience.

2) As developers get nearer towards retirement there is less incentive for them to stay at the top of their field.

3) As developers get older they tend to want to find a place they enjoy working at rather than playing the salary game every 2 years.

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