Come to Google! No forced management track so you can code for as long as you want, no ageism (colleague just turned 60; I'm 40 myself), will probably let you support a family, great WLB :)
Thought this was sarcasm at first :)
Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
111–120 of 149 posts
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#112I'm 53 and, at 50, thought my coding career was over. I had failed to keep with the latest tech and was also aware of the ageism conversations. I was afraid. But I bet against my fears and focused seriously on bringing myself up-to-date. Also largely eliminated various distractions in my life while doing so. I now have the most interesting job of my long career (I've been in tech since the late '80s). If you have a history of success and you're reasonably smart (I'm no genius), I'm proof that it's possible in the current economic climate. For some people, moving out of coding and into management is a good way to extend your shelf life. For me (not a good manager), the opposite turned out to be true.
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#113I think 35 is quite young, I wouldn't worry about "aging out" for another decade or three. Make sure to keep up with technologies as part of your day job. It's amazing how fast things, even SQL change. You don't need to own it all, just build situational awareness with an occasional deep dive. Read other people's code. Look for projects that interest you and always be learning from them. Build things. Build your writ…
I'm in my 30s and think I'm close to aging out
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Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m 50 and I don’t feel like I’m aging out. I’m going to go through a dozen interviews over the next several months so we will see how that turns out though.
Nice. I've been in the industry and in the same company for 9 years. I'm a midlevel dev. They've had me switch stacks 4 times. Every time it becomes much more difficult to learn the new stack. I think part of it is lack of motivation - why try my hardest if the knowledge will be thrown away in a year or two? (And they don't follow their own policies, to my detriment)
I used to be more worried about aging out. This was about 10 years ago when I was in my 30's, but my fears haven't been realized so far.
It does take a certain amount of agility to keep up with what's popular, but sometimes you get lucky with the skills you pick. Python, for me, has lasted quite a while. I picked that up later in my career after starting out with C and Perl.
Perhaps you're just burned out? 9 years at one place could easily leave you in a rut. Or have you looked around to see if there is a company that might inspire you again?
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in my 30s and think I'm close to aging out
I’m 50 and I don’t feel like I’m aging out. I’m going to go through a dozen interviews over the next several months so we will see how that turns out though.
Good Luck!
I'm in my 40's and also going through a number of interviews. It's been a lot of hackerrank/leetcode type stuff mixed with some practical problems and behavioral questions. Also stuff about times I've demonstrated technical leadership...
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#116This is my experience, and your mileage may vary: Multiple times in my coding career I have felt stalled and/or like I was regressing. Early on, I worked on a programming language, gosu ( https://gosu-lang.github.io/ ) which ended up not really going anywhere. Once the work on it was done, I returned to more mundane web programming for a while (over half a decade.) A long while after that, and unexpectedly, I turned…
the underscore is silent -- love it
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#117Life is a long term game. Don't box yourself with status and compare yourself with others. Take a step back and assess what you want out of life and what you like to do. Go behind experience rather than money. Money will follow you when you have gained experience. There is no end to learning in this life. Think Long term always. 35 is an age where we are no junior or seniors. You have lot of options to chose from, so…
> Money will follow you when you have gained experience.
Don't rely on this; it could be spectacularly wrong. Heaps of experience can lay aside unused if some other critical ingredients of good approach aren't there.
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#118I was told by my mom that people change careers several times in their lifetime. Sometimes those career changes are within the same company (for example, IC to manager role).
10 years from now, you might not be coding; but, right now, do you want to? If you want to, if you like it more, maybe you could do that instead.
Senior and Principal software engineers at some companies manage projects (so you'll still get some managerial experience if you want to go back to it), and they still code.
And there are a lot more software engineers now than there were back when age-ism was a bigger thing. More software engineers getting older means a larger pool of old software engineers, means there's more good, older software engineers and they'll fight back or destroy some of the old age-ism stuff.
For what it's worth, I've worked at companies where there were definitely older gentlemen in engineering roles, a network engineer who was a genius and very well respected. It all depends on where you work.
Do what you like, you've only got one life :)
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#119In my experience always have a side project you can work on.
I had at least 2 side projects any time in last 10 years.very few got to where I planned but they kept me updated.
With evolving technology, Industry will require knowledgable managers who are familiar with latest tech and trends. You will fit there with your experience even after a decade.
Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?
#120This is my experience, and your mileage may vary: Multiple times in my coding career I have felt stalled and/or like I was regressing. Early on, I worked on a programming language, gosu ( https://gosu-lang.github.io/ ) which ended up not really going anywhere. Once the work on it was done, I returned to more mundane web programming for a while (over half a decade.) A long while after that, and unexpectedly, I turned…
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