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My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

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Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#161

Post by CalRobert »

austincheney wrote: post #159

The mid-career sentiment that I commonly see on HN is that many developers have almost entirely stopped developing despite remaining in a developer role. That’s really damn depressing. These people, myself included, want out but must sacrifice greater than half their income to move into something of greater interest or less depressing and that is a very tough choice to make. The most common reason why these mid caree…

"The most common reason why these mid career people have stopped developing at work appears to be that they are well experienced while their peers are not"

Everyone's different, but I used to spend a lot of my free time in the evenings and weekends hacking on side projects, learning the odd new tool or language, etc.

Now I spend them wiping vomit off my back, cleaning crap off of underwear, reading bedtime stories, singing songs, and making crafts. The side project time has gone down a lot.

However, it means I might be less competitive than others as time goes on.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#162

Post by [deleted] »

virgilp wrote: post #157
bradleyjg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A baseball player might well do something after the majors—coaching, announcing, hawking life insurance—but it’s still reasonable to talk about a “mid-career shortstop” six years in.

In baseball the average retirement age is 32, maybe slightly more recently - so yeah, 26-27 is "mid-career". For your analogy to work, there would have to be no programmers that are 60years old, and very few that are above 40.

[deleted]

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#163

Post by bob33212 »

b3kart wrote: post #136
nikanj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ageism in tech is well-established and widely reported. If you're too old for the game by the time you reach 40, your mid-career does indeed fall somewhere in your late 20s/early 30s.

“Well-established and widely reported”: is it actually? Yes, I’ve also seen the anecdotes on HN, but I am conscious of the survivorship bias, never mind HNs overall bias towards the US/Bay Area. You might never hear from developers in their 40s and 50s who have found a job easily and don’t bother participating in such discussions. Any statistics available on age and time in current role for SDEs, preferably spread ge…

It depends a lot on the company culture. You can find startups where they intentionally look for you people who are excited about joining their first startup. Generally they can pay these people less and give them equity.

You can also find older established companies that prefer someone with 10+ years experience in their specific industry.

There is also the issue of company hierarchy. After 10 years of experience do you want to be the lowest person within the company hierarchy. Does a company want someone with 15 years experience being told what to do by a manager with 7 years experience?

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#164

Post by rubidium »

eru wrote: post #150
rubidium wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It’s how the economy tells you what is valuable. Economy != society. In fact (in the US) we have a terrible economic system right now for our society, but it seems to be better than anything else that’s been tried for large modern nation states.

Oh, far from it. There are much more successful economic systems around than the US one. America oddities like government mortgage guarantees, or federal deposit insurance, or licensing for interior designers are not necessary, and in fact not good for the economy. Neither are pervasive price controls. The US would do better, if they moved to a more market based economy.

FYI I’m not talking about the narrow spectrum of more socialist to more free market republic/democratic capitalism. There’s plenty of details to debate there of course.

I mean general range of human experiments in how to structure society: monarchy, feudalism, religious state, empire, full socialism/communism, fascism, etc...

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#165

Post by yxhuvud »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #41
aswanson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter. Build up cash and invest in a career path that values experience.

Depends. In Europe, dev salaries and taxes don't allow you to build enough cash for an exit path unless you plan on staying childless.

On the other hand I haven't really seen the oft-mentioned ageism in Europe (or well, Stockholm, which is where I have experience from). If anything the opposite - experienced devs are always much harder to find for recruiting than juniors. Which is problematic as the juniors need mentoring to properly function.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#166

Post by stale2002 »

troughway wrote: post #20

Should "mid-career" software developers still be focused on low-balling themselves with having to do "career growth" things like this fellow, or should they plan their exit strategy to get out of that career trajectory entirely? Assuming mid-career is actually mid-career and not the ageist SV type of mid-career.

I mean even if we are talking about L4s and L5s at a place like Google, these careers still pay an absolute ton of money.

If I am in my 40s and I am still making ~300-400k a year, then I would consider that a good deal.

Being permanently "stuck" making the insanely high salaries of engineers at top tech companies is still a really good gig.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#167

Post by wastedhours »

Thorentis wrote: post #25

Is it true you still need an "open source coding resume" by mid-career stage? I can understand using that to give you an advantage for entry-level roles, but by "mid-career" shouldn't your experience and achievements in past roles speak for itself? Or do companies still want to see engineers spending their spare time doing unpaid coding? By mid-career, many people have families to support, that they also would like t…

Isn't most of it about having something public you can talk about and show your contributions for?

It's not a filter in and of itself, but almost all of your other experience will be proprietary and closed, and you can at best talk in generalities about problems you've solved. You can't evidence half of it.

Open source projects allow someone who's umming and ahhing to have something concrete to see whether or not you're selling them donuts. Certainly isn't a requirement though.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#169

Post by yxhuvud »

t_1589165433 wrote: post #19

How on earth do people have these experiences? I have to submit multiple hundreds of applications to get one interview. Throwaway because it could turn into multiple thousands if that fact is linked to my identity.

People are different. I had the exactly opposite take - I reacted because he sent so many applications and got so many rejections. The 20 or so applications he wrote is probably about equal to the amount I have written in my entire career (10+ years at 5+ different places. Not a frequent job-hopper though, two of those positions have 8+ years put together).

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#170

Post by sails »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #147

It's alarming that there's an idea among a people -- possibly bay area -- that mid-career is six years of experience. You are your own worst enemy with that kind of belief. People reinvent themselves and their careers many times over a lifetime. It's hard to return to certain types of technical work but never impossible, especially for those who are sufficiently motivated. You will reach the limit of a pay scale, but…

I like the framing of a career into thirds of 15 years.

20-35: Find and build your skills/industries/networks and start to align that into a career. Don't be afraid to make mistakes to enhance learning.

35-50: Double down on the skills you have in the industry you know, build your personal brand, achieve your career goals.

50-65++: Give back to those earlier in their career, pay it forward, pass the torch etc.

With that framing in mind, mid career would be at least 15 years. I think what is interesting is most people underestimate how long their career is.

ps - I think the above notion is loosely based on a book I probably didn't read completely []

[] https://www.slideshare.net/BrianFetherstonhaugh/the-long-vie...

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