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Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#131

Post by OrderlyTiamat »

LostTrackHowM wrote: post #25
jki275 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 44 year old software engineer. I've done other things before, but I've gotten an offer every place I've interviewed. This simply isn't true. It might be true in silicon valley or some other hipster magnets, but there's definitely a market for those of us who have been around for decades and been solving problems for decades.

I am based in the North East, also over 40, and my experience both of you are correct. Agism is absolutely real, but opportunities still exist.

What can be done about it?

I'm just starting out in my career, but I find the prospect of future me being devalued because he's a couple years older terrible, and I don't understand why others seem okay with it. Aging is going a second per second for everyone, isn't it?

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#132

Post by pqw »

I'm over 10 years in and it's worse for me. When I was less experienced I had problems with technical interviews and got rejected for any mistake or slower-than-expected answer. Now I have the experience and ace the technical interviews, but get rejected because of salary or culture fit (i.e. the interviewer doesn't like me).

You can't win in this field. Hiring is so random that the main advice everyone is offering is to apply everywhere and pray. I regret choosing it.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#133

Post by peruvian »

sdevonoes wrote: post #129
throwawayc2020 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's partly market conditions, but also I think the interview process changed a lot in the past five years and I didn't change with it. There are plenty of jobs out there, but a lot of competition. One place said they received over 1,000 applications for one role.

> There are plenty of jobs out there, but a lot of competition. One place said they received over 1,000 applications for one role. I don't get it. (Tech) companies out there are paying a lot of money to hire developers right now. How is this possible if they receive over 1,000 applications? If that were true they were paying peanuts because at least 1 in those 1,000 applicants will say 'Yes'.

Because it's not 1k qualified people applying to the job. Also, retaining engineers for more than one or two years is a problem our industry has.

Software Engineering jobs get applications from people all over the place. Our industry is "open" compared to similarly paid professions.

You wouldn't apply to a finance job without a relevant degree or experience, you need to go med school or pharmacy school for medical fields, you need to go to law school or at least pass the bar exam for law jobs.

Meanwhile I work with devs who studied Comp Sci, random liberal arts, other types of engineering, and some who dropped out of college entirely.

I think it's a net good that we don't gate keep the profession but a downside is that everyone applies to every job. For example, bootcamp grads are told to blindly apply to jobs. So are college seniors.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#134

Post by peruvian »

etripe wrote: post #130
ing33k wrote: post #7

Sorry for going offtopic "How do you make sure that a celebrity's tweet reaches all of her followers in less than 3 seconds?" Looks like the interviewer has atleast read the first chapter of "Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems" If you read and understand the above book, I am reasonably sure that you can crack most of the system design interviews.

I feel ambivalent about this kind of question. You might argue that it's required general knowledge, but relying on having read any one particular book seems arbitrary and a "gotcha" question. I could be missing something about US software culture - is this considered a must-read or "celebrity" book over there?

It's well-recommended in tech forum/enthusiast circles. It actually is a good book and worth reading if you're a backend dev.

But the % of devs in the US that have read it is probably below 2-3%. Most of us (devs, not HN users) don't read or do code after work.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#135

Post by ahpearce »

codetrotter wrote: post #31
viraptor wrote: post #24

I'd like to give you a different view on the interview / question you mentioned. While it's certainly possible the interviewers are running the process badly (many are), pretend they have good intentions and answer to that. The tweet question is basically: can you think about performance. Let's say you don't know anything about queues or distributed systems. You can say you never worked at that scale. You can also sa…

> You can also say what you think would be the number of followers (millions+), what would be the time needed for a write you a database (~millisecond each) and why that won't match 3 seconds, so you know how much time you have per follower. While we are on the topic I am really curious to know how they solve it actually.

As of 2017, pretty sure Redis is a large part of it:

https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastruc...

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#136

Post by jki275 »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #131
LostTrackHowM wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am based in the North East, also over 40, and my experience both of you are correct. Agism is absolutely real, but opportunities still exist.

What can be done about it? I'm just starting out in my career, but I find the prospect of future me being devalued because he's a couple years older terrible, and I don't understand why others seem okay with it. Aging is going a second per second for everyone, isn't it?

The point is that there's really nothing to worry about. There are plenty of jobs for those of us not in our 20s.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#137

Post by LostTrackHowM »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #131
LostTrackHowM wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am based in the North East, also over 40, and my experience both of you are correct. Agism is absolutely real, but opportunities still exist.

What can be done about it? I'm just starting out in my career, but I find the prospect of future me being devalued because he's a couple years older terrible, and I don't understand why others seem okay with it. Aging is going a second per second for everyone, isn't it?

Agism is illegal already, and yet we still deal with it.

As a young developer I watched great old developers, fantastic at their job and with super deep experience let go first.

My advice is make sure you save a lot. And be prepared to either retire early, switch careers, or start your own business/consult once you have over 10 years of experience. Connect with people, keep in touch, and make sure you stay current with new technologies.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#138

Post by bri3d »

zackbloom wrote: post #55
codetrotter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can also say what you think would be the number of followers (millions+), what would be the time needed for a write you a database (~millisecond each) and why that won't match 3 seconds, so you know how much time you have per follower. While we are on the topic I am really curious to know how they solve it actually.

I can’t speak to how it’s actually solved, but I can give a sketch from my experience. The game is generally to (1) consider denormalizing data and (2) rethink when you have the computer do work. Denormalizing data refers to moving away from a model where you store one and only one copy of each ‘tweet’ in something like a relational database, to a model where you might actually store a separate copy of each tweet for…

The plot twist in this system is blocking, muting, and locked accounts, which make denormalized timelines a lot harder. You basically need a very fast side system that can be queried for visibility, especially because eventually consistent privacy features (i.e., running a "account became locked" feature on a similar queue to "fan out tweets" in your model) are not treated lightly by customers.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#139

Post by exdsq »

peruvian wrote: post #134
etripe wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel ambivalent about this kind of question. You might argue that it's required general knowledge, but relying on having read any one particular book seems arbitrary and a "gotcha" question. I could be missing something about US software culture - is this considered a must-read or "celebrity" book over there?

It's well-recommended in tech forum/enthusiast circles. It actually is a good book and worth reading if you're a backend dev. But the % of devs in the US that have read it is probably below 2-3%. Most of us (devs, not HN users) don't read or do code after work.

It’s interesting how much of a bubble we can be in, that everyone’s coding/studying in their spare time. I do wonder what it actually looks like for the broader tech community.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#140

Post by throw51319 »

eternalban wrote: post #49

Advice I give to anyone (with career options) that is considering this field is that serious work in this field requires significant professional level learning and intellectual abilities, yet the profession as a whole is effectively treated as "skilled labor". If you are serious about SE as a career, then within in 10 years, do one of the following: 1 - Start your own sofware development company. Do the startup thin…

You're saying that riding the train of being a very solid generalist doesn't work past a certain age?

It may not be exciting, but don't you think there are lots of 45-55 year old Java backend engineers that get paid pretty decently? (140k-200k)

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