Usually that's about the time that people start wanting to have a life, so yes.
If you can't have a life and the current programming job at the same time, you should probably look for a better job. It shouldn't be an issue to have both in real life.
When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#22Thirty-freaking-five? Is this a bad joke?
I haven’t been 35 in a while and I love what I’m doing. I have the greatest job in the world. Furthermore, people keep paying me to do it. I have no intention of stopping for a long time.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#23And we are listening to the wild speculations of a random content marketer with nothing to back up their assertions because.. why?
Yeah the assertion that older developers don't have time to learn new things is especially stupid. I'm 35 and I just wrote an entire playbook on how to move my employer off of some obsolete VM-based infrastructure and into the Azure equivalents. A month ago I didn't know shit about any of this stuff. But I know enough about networking to be able to read the Azure docs on all their platform components so I was the only person on my team of 7 who could formulate this plan. I learned it all on the job by reading the documents.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#24I am 39. Been programming my entire life.
My career took me from programming, to architecture roles, to managing projects then managing engineers where I found myself in a position where I never interacted with code. But a couple of years ago I decided to do more programming again and it was no problem at all to get back into it.
I have been programming every day since then and will never regret that move.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#25> Is 35 the End? I'm well over 60, and doing my best work.
Same, Walter. I’m 61 and been enjoying the Seattle Eastside scene since ‘83.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#26I don’t know where the idea that programmers are unemployable past a certain age comes from. It’s some kind of fix idea that seem to have gotten into to people and it’s not good for anyone.
If anything, programmers with 10+ years of experience is the most employable there is. There is a certain maturity and wisdom that comes with experience.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#27I hypothesise that the majority of active SO users are beginner or intermediate programmers. I was using SO quite frequently when I started learning how to program. Now, I don’t have a need neither do I participate in their surveys. My senior colleague does not use it as well, moreover he doesn’t even have time for that. You can occasionally look up a few things but that’s that. In comparison, just three four years a…
Also, I suspect that younger people are more likely to have time to fill survey as requested by some company/website/organization.
With older people having less time and seeing less point in doing it.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#28I definitely think that early retirement and lack of cutting-edge experience are two big reasons you might not see as many older devs. That and if the older dev doesn't show career growth in their experience, it makes you question what they're going to bring to your company.
But I definitely always have, and currently do, work with older devs. Hell, I'm "older", but have coworkers 10 and 20 years older than me. Surprise: we don't work for a start-up.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#29The bar to entry is too low. If you're a programmer, you should have a plan B for yourself after 35. Otherwise, you're being financially irresponsible to yourself and taking a gamble that companies will not discriminate you based on your age.
Totally agreed. Especially if the market gets tighter, you know they're gonna take younger folk who will work harder for less pay. Always have a plan B.
Re: When Do Programmers Retire? Is 35 the End?
#30The industry has a huge age discrimination problem not enough people are talking about (I'm 49).