Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#401

Post by rapind » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 12:59 AM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #183

asdfman123 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you hear all these horror stories about how developers have a "shelf life." In the meantime, though, every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable and frankly much better at the craft than myself. Look at any hobby -- say, guitar playing. The difference between someone who's been doing it for 4 years and someone who's been doing it 20 years is ridiculous. They're so much better. I feel…

One thing I've noticed is that there seem to be a lot more older developers and engineers at hardware-oriented companies. I currently work at Wing Aviation, the Alphabet drone delivery company. We were originally located in the Google X building, which is the old Mayfield Mall in Mountain View. I used to shop at that mall in the 1970s! X is full of hardware startups, and when I started there I noticed one thing right…

I've noticed that most dev work is "full-stack developer". This usually means that you'll be bouncing between back-end (python, rails, node, go, w/e), front-end (react, css), and possible devops.

I'm not sure how satisfying this is. You probably don't get much chance to dig deep and solve tough problems, or craft as you would in a hardware-oriented job.

I've never worked in hardware though, so I'm quite possibly complete wrong about their day-in-the-life. Just rampant speculation.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#402

Post by jmartrican » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

Plan A was to get good at programming. Plan B was to get even better.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#403

Post by pmiller2 » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 1:08 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #356

godelski wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guitar playing is a good analogy here. Say you've played classical for years and dabbled in rock and some jazz. Like any musician you've played around a little but probably focus on one style. You're best friend asks you to play flemanco for them at their wedding. Sure, you won't be as good as someone that's played flemanco all their life. But if flemanco was invented 5 years ago you're sure going to pick it up f…

>No matter the language you use, there are common patterns. Someone who has been programming for years generally picks up a new language quickly (because of this). So should a programmer with 30 years of experience in C and 1 year in rust be paid more than the programmer with 5 years of rust experience? Absolutely. Those 30 years they were learning to program, to debug, to solve problems. The skills translate. Tell t…

You would definitely pass a resume screen at my (large-ish) company. We don't screen people out for lacking specific experience in our tech stack. Don't get me wrong, we like experience in our tech stack, but with 30 years of C, we wouldn't care what else is on your resume.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#404

Post by adossi » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #82

jknoepfler wrote: post #48

I don't know. I feel like there's a pretty clear power law governing the skill-ceiling below which additional experience adds actual value to dev work. ~80% of programming labor (testing, basic REST services, static web content, managing a small-to-medium-size SQL database, etc.) has a very low skill-ceiling. I've been in the industry for 7 years, I now run my own show doing all of these things. It's just simple grun…

> ~80% of programming labor (testing, basic REST services, static web content, managing a small-to-medium-size SQL database, etc.) has a very low skill-ceiling. You’re specifically talking about web development and have listed 0 of the things I, am embedded developer, do in an average day. All programming !== web development. There are more difficult problems out there than throwing up a web page. Especially in perfo…

The fact that you've summarized web development as just throwing up a web page, and that you've assumed web development is never performance sensitive, leads me to believe that although you're an embedded developer - you're likely an inexperienced one.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#405

Post by tempsy » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:16 AM UTC

madengr wrote: post #385

tempsy wrote: post #60

The strangeness of Silicon Valley right now is that if you're lucky you can "retire" long before 40. I'm 31 and have through a bit of luck accrued a small 7-figure net worth. I don't plan on being a "rank and file" employee by 33, let alone 40.

You need 8 figures to retire. $30k/year (poverty level) over 30 years is only $1M.

Nah. Need to factor in investment income.

Plus modern retirement isn’t necessarily “never work a job again.” It’s more a freedom to do what you want (income generating or not) without having to take a job simply to cover your cost of living and retirement savings.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#406

Post by ericd » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

PedroBatista wrote: post #334

ericd wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not try working on your own thing? Sounds like you're burned out on corporate work.

I did but got lost in my own mind and the solo business is obviously a lot harder ( if you're just a grunt programmer). Without maturity, a strong social network and discipline every solo venture will end up in isolation and depression. But I still try the usual side projects that get started and not finished like everybody else. :) Right now, I just wish I would find something 80% business and 20% tech with a feedba…

Doesn’t have to be solo :-) But yeah, I hear you, I did a solo thing for 5 years, probably wouldn’t do it solo for that long again.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#407

Post by cutler » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #337

mattmanser wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met a COBOL contract programmer 15 years ago. At the time he made a lot of money from it because there were few left, no new work, but maintaing old code bases. Java today, OTOH, is nowhere near that point yet. People still build plenty of new things in Java and it's easy to search a job site and see tons of Java jobs. The JVM is widely used and no-one will blink twice if you want to build something on it. I don't…

I think it's a mistake to confuse JVM languages with Java. But that aside, By "Java is the new COBOL", I'm not saying that Java today is COBOL today. I'm saying it's a dominant language for legacy apps and a lot of "enterprise" coding in shops that already have a heavy Java investment. But relatively few new companies are doing new work in pure Java, so it's definitely headed down the same road. And there are definit…

According to angel.co there are 88 startups in London alone using Java. Whenever I attend London's Silicon Milk Roundabout bi-annual jobs fair the dominant languages are Python and Java. Java's status in the top 3 programming languages worldwide cannot be explained away by its dominant position in legacy enterprise software. What about Android, for example?

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#408

Post by pmiller2 » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:31 AM UTC

spraak wrote: post #384

pmiller2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has demonstrated its ability to show a profit. Uber and Lyft have not.

If the acronym is only about profit then it is both misused and excludes other obvious companies like Microsoft.

It’s not entirely about profit, but I would argue you have to show a profit, or, demonstrate you could show a profit like Amazon has, to be considered a “top company” in any sense.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#409

Post by WheelsAtLarge » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

This type of article keeps on being posted in HW and immediately someone posts something about how it can't be true since he/she sees elder techs all over the place.

They don't realize that they are seeing the Survivorship bias in full force. To all those that doubt the validity of the article, keep in mind that eventually, statistics will prove you wrong. Good Luck!

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#410

Post by bob7834 » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 2:56 AM UTC

jm__87 wrote: post #374

sbov wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, most languages are not sinking ships. Certain uses of them are of course. But even languages this site hates, such as C, C++, C#, and Java have very long lives ahead of them for certain uses. Obviously C++ vs Rails... well, you're going to be out of a job. But if you were using C++ for the sorts of things you would have used Rails in 2009 you were already a decade or so behind the curve.

> But even languages this site hates, such as C, C++, C#, and Java What makes you think this? I have been on here for years and have never really got this impression.

See:

- Any thread about rust

- Any thread about an exploit in a c variant