Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is 40 the New 60?

neverworkintheory.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 381 posts

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#71

Post by secondcoming »

robin_reala wrote: post #52
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #16

I wonder how much ageism is due to the fact that basic coding skills can really atrophy in senior developers who quit writing code years ago and are full-time architects/managers. I’ve interviewed more than a handful of highly accomplished people with decades of experience as developers and then engineering managers who couldn’t answer extremely basic coding questions (I’m not talking about Leetcode-esque BS, I mean…

Charity Majors wrote a couple of blog posts on the subject that I’ve tried to bring in to my workplace with varying levels of success. But still I’ve had colleagues express surprise that as an engineering manager I still wanted to get my hands dirty with the code of the systems I own. https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum... https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pe...

Do EM's own systems? Or do they own the teams that own the systems? It's a pretty vague role. We had an EM for about a year, but when he left we didn't replace him. Nothing much changed.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#72

Post by scotty79 »

giantg2 wrote: post #3

I'm 30s and feel old. The biggest thing is that I don't have the motivation to be fast and work extra hours. I look at the new college grads and remember those days when I didn't have a family and could put in extra hours, believing I had a career.

You are not old, you are just burning out. Pace yourself and pick your battles.

It has nothing to do with age. Child prodigies can burn out at 20 because they are suffocated with work.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#73

Post by jasode »

SkipperCat wrote: post #33

40 is not the new 60. Not even close. At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has only gotten better. Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer. The onl…

>At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done [...] Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech,

The blog post isn't about self-reported cognitive ability getting stronger (or not declining). It's about the job marketplace.

Maybe it's instructive to compare/contrast different professional careers that depend on mental abilities and how age affects marketability:

- computer programming : oft-reported industry bias against age 40+ and active recruitment (especially by software companies) for 20-somethings.

- corporate executive manager (e.g. CEO, COO, CFO, etc) : age 40+ is typically the target hire age. Being a younger 20-something actually works against being hired for these roles. (To be CEO at age 20, you'd have to be the founder of a startup.)

- surgeon : age 40+ doesn't seem to bother patients. They may rather have a 55-year old do their heart bypass rather than a young 30-year old just out of residency.

Why is experience valued for outside hires of CEOs but not as much for programmers? In other words, a 55-year old programmer would have 35 more years of experience than a 20-year old but that "extra 35 years of programming" doesn't seem to be valued as much as the "extra 35 years of managing" that a 55-year CEO candidate has. Why?

I have pet theories on that but I'd rather hear what others think.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#74

Post by geoduck14 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #33

40 is not the new 60. Not even close. At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has only gotten better. Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer. The onl…

>only strong skills are a large enterprise storage system

Are you describing uploading data to and S3 bucket? Or maintaining tape decks? Depending on how to interpret this, this could be an advanced skill.

For context, I'm learning about how to build a Data Lake that supports a Feature Store for an ML platform. Feature Stores are relatively recent (4ish years?) and only make sense in Enterprises

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#75

Post by adnmcq999 »

WriterGuy2021 wrote: post #42

I've seen a few people fall off the career ladder to their doom in different fields. I once was a member of a local hackerspace and the place was like the Island of Misfit Toys. So many interesting and talented people biding there time there in between jobs and struggling to get back on the ladder. Lots of horror stories -- a homeless mechanical engineer, a couch surfing old programmer, etc. I think most of us are qu…

I’m basically one of those people. I appreciate the post because it’s good to at least acknowledge this.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#76

Post by newsclues »

thechao wrote: post #64
bacro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I keep being a jerk to junior developers that constantly comes to me with the same questions after I explained to them 10000 times and they say "Yeaah, I got it now". It is so hard to avoid being a jerk. What should I do?

I was the only English-speaking TA (&, thus backup lecturer) to "Intro to C 101" at a major mass-population state university. Class sizes were ~800 students. I had an open-doors/open-lab/open-office policy. By the 4th semester, I remember laying on the floor in front of the class, and yet another bro (blond hair; blue eyes; chiseled jawline; backwards cap) came up to ask me a, frankly, very well thought out question…

The trick to teaching the same thing over and over, is to use each time as a way to master and refine your understanding of the topic.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#77

Post by mnsc »

mooreds wrote: post #56
bacro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I keep being a jerk to junior developers that constantly comes to me with the same questions after I explained to them 10000 times and they say "Yeaah, I got it now". It is so hard to avoid being a jerk. What should I do?

Two options: * Ask why they keep coming? Maybe you aren't understanding their question, they want to build the relationship, or it's a really risky operation and they don't want to undertake it alone. This might be worth digging into. * Write the answer down to the questions (wiki, internal doc, whatever). When they ask, point them to what you've written down. Will still take some time and interrupt you, but hopefull…

About that first point, that to me seem like a genuine and emphatic thing to do but I want to flag that this has the potential to go into the "soft" areas where feelings exist. For a crash course in "feelings and needs" read non-violent communication to be appropriately humbled by how hard (but important) this skill is.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#78

Post by dr-detroit »

bacro wrote: post #54
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I've learned to be less of a jerk to people and how to communicate. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.............. But that bit is so hard ! :-)

Indeed, I keep being a jerk to junior developers that constantly comes to me with the same questions after I explained to them 10000 times and they say "Yeaah, I got it now". It is so hard to avoid being a jerk. What should I do?

When I worked with a lot of entry level college kids I would pretend I was a swami and I could divine the answer to the question only through supernatural means until they were too shamed to ask because obviously this isn't magic.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#79

Post by brandall10 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #33

40 is not the new 60. Not even close. At 40, I've done some of the best work I've ever done and my pay has been better than ever. I'm 52 now and the trend has only gotten better. Why? Its because at 40, I had a much deeper understanding of the tech, I understood of the whole business process and I had the maturity to deal with people in a productive way. You won't find all of those in a 25 year old developer. The onl…

I’m 45 and have never gotten more attention from recruiters, despite the fact I entered the job market during the height of the dot com era. My graduation date is clearly marked on all resumes in circulation, as is my experience showing my first internship all the way back in ‘96. It’s not only the number of ops that hit my plate, but the sheer aggressiveness of the recruiters. Very often am I contacted repeatedly, sometimes up to 5 times, by a recruiter for an op. Many times it’s directly by the hiring manager, the director, cto, or even ceo of the company.

In fact, only in my 40s have most of the major tech companies reached out to set up interviews (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple), and a ton of pre-IPO unicorns. During the pandemic I had the former CEO of Zelle personally interview for his new venture and Brian Acton personally reached out to schedule an interview for One Signal.

I’m just a principal dev who does React and Rails. Been a tech lead in a few startups, never held a title above that, never a de facto people manager and certainly not a director.

I remember the sheer terror I was feeling toward the top of the my 30s because of discussions like this on Hacker News. Had a taste of management in my early 30s and decided it wasn’t for me, and remember toying with ideas for a career switch because surely, I would be dead as a programmer soon. The exact opposite happened.

Re: Is 40 the New 60?

#80

Post by mech422 »

mindvirus wrote: post #10

I don't doubt this, and I'm truly sympathetic to the author's experience. However it doesn't match my experiences. At this age I find I'm getting better and better job offers. Too senior has never been a problem, these offers have been at principal or senior staff levels. I don't think I've been managing my career particularly well (15 years in and 5 jobs), and I've avoided management as best I can, but it doesn't se…

same here - over 40 years experience and have more options, better pay, and people stopped looking at me funny for saying 'WFH' :-)
Post reply on HN