Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40 • Hacker News Board

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#91

Post by kylel » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 12:22 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #70

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…

Don't confuse the current shitshow that is VC flippable social software garbage with actual competence. I worked with people at IBM and DEC at the point probably just at the peak of their heyday when the average experience was about 15 years. Oh ... my ... God. I have never had that kind of interaction again. Being able to just call up and talk to the folks who designed FPU algorithms, x86 emulators that smoked (I th…

Do you know of any companies that nowadays with that type of culture?

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#92

Post by notacoward » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 12:26 AM UTC

bongobongo wrote: post #88

notacoward wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're papering over all of the policy arguments Calling them "policy arguments" is way too charitable, and I'm not papering over anything. The excuses are irrelevant. The fact is that student loans exist. Mortgages often get paid off way before 30 years (less than 10 in my case). Not everyone even gets a mortgage. Children grow up. Some don't even rely on their parents to support grandchildren, and we'll be coming…

It's honestly hard to cut through the randomness of your data points and the bitchiness of your tone and judgments in order to discover an underlying argument.

I think it's a bit hypocritical for you to accuse others of randomness or lack of clarity under the circumstances, doubly so for you to sling "bitchy" at others as you go into a sulk instead of trying to support your claims. Might I suggest a course or two in logic or persuasive writing? It might do you a world of good.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#93

Post by Nursie » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #65

Nursie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A developer with 10 years of varied experience can usually do just as well as someone with 20 years of experience As a developer with 20 years experience ... I'm a lot better at what I do than I was ten years ago. Better at seeing how it relates to the business I'm working with, more productive in ways that are not just LoC. I'd be OK if I can sustain my current income... but I'd still like to take the step to bein…

How much better? What are you doing now that you weren't doing 10 years ago that is a real game changer in terms of value? As an architect/tech lead I'm much better than I was 5 years ago. I know how to manage engineering practices and when/how to apply them, better how to design a systems, and how to better manage relationships/politics so that I can leverage my experience into actual implementation and design. But…

> How much better?

That's very hard to say.

> What are you doing now that you weren't doing 10 years ago that is a real game changer in terms of value?

Technical leadership on teams of developers. Mentoring and enabling younger team members. Having more cogent ideas about tooling and delivery, having more well formed ideas about delivering the product my client needs, not prioritising doing things in technically interesting ways. Managing upwards/sideways when I encounter problems in product ownership and similar posts. Teasing out requirements where these are incomplete. A lot of things.

I'm also more confident in tackling larger problems, and understand more about the big picture, from kernel to front end.

Much of this is incremental, of course.

> But as an individual contributor I don't think I'm a whole lot more valuable unless it's in a domain I have deep experience in like real-time.

Are those things you mentioned not part of your individual contribution? They don't translate directly to LoC, but they likely to contribute directly to faster, simpler delivery of what the client needs.

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#94

Post by Nursie » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #24

Nursie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A developer with 10 years of varied experience can usually do just as well as someone with 20 years of experience As a developer with 20 years experience ... I'm a lot better at what I do than I was ten years ago. Better at seeing how it relates to the business I'm working with, more productive in ways that are not just LoC. I'd be OK if I can sustain my current income... but I'd still like to take the step to bein…

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…

> 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?

You probably don't understand the specific business domain better. That's not the claim. But you may better/faster understand the clients you have and how to meet their needs, how to interpret their requirements, spot the gaps in what they're asking for, etc

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#95

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #94

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…

> 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? You probably don't understand the specific business domain better. That's not the claim. But you may better/faster understand the clients you have and how to meet their needs, how to interpret their requirements, spot the gap…

My next resume

Summary

- Expert at solving XYProblems

Re: Earnings Ceiling for Tech Professionals over 40

#96

Post by JamesBarney » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #93

JamesBarney wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much better? What are you doing now that you weren't doing 10 years ago that is a real game changer in terms of value? As an architect/tech lead I'm much better than I was 5 years ago. I know how to manage engineering practices and when/how to apply them, better how to design a systems, and how to better manage relationships/politics so that I can leverage my experience into actual implementation and design. But…

> How much better? That's very hard to say. > What are you doing now that you weren't doing 10 years ago that is a real game changer in terms of value? Technical leadership on teams of developers. Mentoring and enabling younger team members. Having more cogent ideas about tooling and delivery, having more well formed ideas about delivering the product my client needs, not prioritising doing things in technically inte…

Yeah most of the things you've mentioned you've gotten better are the things I've noticed too. On smaller team that I run or am in a sr. position it seems to make a big difference. But on larger teams(100+) where I'm just plugged in as staff augmentation it makes a smaller difference.

Sometimes your job is just transforming fairly well articulated requirements into code and on these I notice I haven't gotten a lot better than I was 4-5 years ago.