I've been programming for 52 years. I'm still programming and enjoying it. For me the key was focusing on the end product, not on the programming. Programming was just something that I did to get the product I wanted. It is kind of fun, but not that important. When I was inspired to create something new and cool, I was motivated to learn the tools necessary to create that specific product. Then, I moved on. I have forgotten more languages, frameworks, and development environments, etc. than I can remember. They are not important. If you can imagine something neat to make, learning the tools to make it is engaging.
How do you handle your Aging in IT?
31–40 of 48 posts
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#32On ageism- it exists, but there are also other explanations on why we see relatively few older people in IT. One is just the rapid expansion of tech in general. In 1997 the number of people working in "Computer, Mathematical, Operations Research, and Related Occupations" was 1,832,390. In 2019 it was 4,552,880. Most people entering any given profession are young, so you'd just expect to see roughly 2.5x then number o…
On the bright side due to covid remote work has taken off and it definitely helps to fight ageism. I am merely 40 and have been rejected in the past due to not culturally fit(meaning i am old). Due to covid i have switched jobs remotely, all i had to do is die my hair and its really hard to differentiate a person who is 30 years old and 40 years old.
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#33My solution was to move away from traditional 9-5 work.
First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itself.
The second part was building a couple Software as a Service products that eventually combined to bring in the equivalent of a dev salary on their own, while not taking up a lot of time to maintain. That let me pick and choose just the most fun sounding consulting gigs, and whether to simply spend a given year traveling or working on my surfing.
The cool thing about either of these routes is that they eliminate the whole "ageism" thing. None of my customers have ever asked my age before signing up for a trial of the SaaS. And none of the startups I've worked with have held my lack of inexperience against me when they bring me in to build something for them. If anything, "25 years of javascript experience" and some scary tales from the document.all days just helps to justify a high bill rate.
I suppose if I'm honest, I can see where you're coming from with regard to slowing down and finding it harder to tolerate the non-stop-imaginary-crisis-to-ship that you find in so many shops these days. But I find that I can still burst hard for short periods of time and build things quick, so long as I have a good amount of downtime between gigs. Contracting is perfect for that.
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#34I've been programming for 52 years. I'm still programming and enjoying it. For me the key was focusing on the end product, not on the programming. Programming was just something that I did to get the product I wanted. It is kind of fun, but not that important. When I was inspired to create something new and cool, I was motivated to learn the tools necessary to create that specific product. Then, I moved on. I have fo…
Funny, I'm also relatively old - 50 - and have been programming almost 40 years (if you count typing in zx80-Basic code from magazines...) and I am exactly the same. I love to make things, and programming is often a creative activity where you can quickly build something that is entirely new to the world. I think that's why I like it so much, but I'm pretty uninterested in learning new tech/languages/frameworks just for the sake of knowing them. The only motivation for me is building new things (and getting people to use them). I pick up new tech quickly once I'm forced to, but usually not before then. It usually happens through collaboration with others - they use some tech, which forces me to pick it up in order to work with them, but my only real interest is to build a product and release it onto an unsuspecting world.
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#35"How do you handle your Aging in IT?" Not well. I'm not even that old. I'm tired of the BS and games. I guess I would say suck it up. That's what I'm doing. I can't say it's really working that well.
I think it all depends upon the choices you make. If you chose to climb the management ladder you get exposed to more political games and BS, but on the plus side you tend to get paid more. I've made an active decision to stay close to the coal face and avoid where possible the political BS. We've got a pretty small dev team, with ages ranging from 21 to 54. We tend to work pretty well together, the younger people ha…
About intuition - I've found that it can often be tricky to get young devs to listen to the "gut feelings" of an older dev. Many engineers like logic and want to act on data, not on hunches. It often happens that I feel a strong sentiment for or against some proposed action, but I can't nail down exactly why and then it's often a very long uphill battle getting others to listen. Maybe I just need to practise putting words to those intuitions.
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#36My solution was to move away from traditional 9-5 work. First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itse…
>First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itself.
I tried this for a few years and did ok, especially with crazy tax deductions (in the US you can aside a lot more for retirement than an employee, and a lot of people don't know a part of your mortgage in certain cases).
But I did 12 month contracts I found and negotiated painfully through recruiters, who kept 40-50 pct at least of what they billed me out for to clients.
I wouldn't mind so much, but I found it hard and similar to FTE job hunting when the gigs were ending. I always dreamt of being some reputation-lead consulting person who others sought out. Instead I was doing rounds and rounds of interviews like an FTE. Silly given how insecure contracting is.
But is that possible to avoid without a social media presence and marketing effort?
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#37I've been programming for 52 years. I'm still programming and enjoying it. For me the key was focusing on the end product, not on the programming. Programming was just something that I did to get the product I wanted. It is kind of fun, but not that important. When I was inspired to create something new and cool, I was motivated to learn the tools necessary to create that specific product. Then, I moved on. I have fo…
100 x this!
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#38Not relevant but at one company, they had a community manager who was into healthy food / digital nativism / positivity / youth. I'd be working and feel her staring at me. I'd look at her in case she said something and I was too focused to hear the first time (it happenend all the time. She was the kind to send you a Slack message and immediately tap on your shoulder to tell you to reply. There were many who explained to her this was not good). She'd keep staring at me and then say "Oh my god. You're sooo fucking old".
It was hilarious that she was actively having this thought and felt too burdened to keep it to herself. I also was 28.
I remember she was handling hiring and would come to the CTO to tell him : "There's this candidate who just applied, but he is like really old. He's 30 years old".
This was delicious. Her mind worked in an intriguing way. It was as if she was talking about someone who had a contagious disease and was too afraid of them giving it to her.
The whole profile was interesting.
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#39I'm old (on paper). My age group is the last range in most online forms.
I've been in IT for about 45 years, and 30 of those in Dev. I also program for fun, not profit, off-site, and the stuff I write and run keeps me alert. My role is 95% maintenance now, with the other 5% "dev" being the shit that no-one else wants to/can't handle (or it would take 3 or 4 associates rather than cheap ol' me). In my particular situation, I see a huge gap between my employer adopting the latest, maintainable software, and actually getting the job done. It won't be my problem soon, but I wouldn't want it to come crashing down...
Re: How do you handle your Aging in IT?
#40I'm 35 this year, not exactly old, but slower. At this stage, I find that my learning skills have outpaced my slower mental agility. It's similar to how people start doing their triathlons in their 40s. I can speed read and have better comprehension. I sleep, cook, and eat better (having money helps vs being a broke 23 year old). I can listen to dense, technical videos on 1.25x speed or less professional videos with…
I will be turning 36 soon, I agree that for me, my ability to learn and perform at a technical level is better than ever. I hope it sticks.