111–120 of 381 posts
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…
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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, s…
Are the recruiters targeting YOU specifically or are they just taking the spray-and-pray approach reaching out to everyone who fits certain keywords?
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> The only way that age becomes a detriment is if you do not grow. There has been research about this as well under the term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity . Might be interesting to look at. My understanding is that you are exactly right. It seems to be common that we tend to stop learning and pushing ourselves, get comfortable or maybe even afraid. To each his own, but I think it is more fun and fruit…
I call it the "grumpy old fart" syndrome. I've (M50+) felt it - the urge to stop learning and complain at everything that changes. It is a struggle to continue learning at this age. But it is worth it. Being a grumpy old fart sucks all the joy out of life.
Hell, I’m only 33 and when asked today what I currently want to learn, had to seriously consider that I didn’t want to learn anything new in particular.
This is a very American centrist point of view. In Europe everywhere I worked there were a bunch of 40+ year olds writing code, it's just yet another profession. No big deal. I've found even a good amount of people at that age that were career switching(to development) and haven't had big issues entering the job market. But of course, you have to be flexible. Move elsewhere, or where the jobs are. Your white hair doe…
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…
This has really helped ground me and keep my focus in tumultuous times.
I feel like my tech and ability to see the bigger picture is only getting better. And I still maintain the same child like joy of tech that I had when I opened my Vic 20 not too far away from 40 years ago.
Never stop learning, indeed!
My anecdotal experience: I'm ~40 with ~15 years of dev experience and 4 of management experience. I last year I decided to return to IC dev work and started applying for full-stack dev roles. After two months and not getting few responses to applications, I put my resume in front of my tech recruiter friend: "You sound ancient. Delete the first 10 years of your work history and take the date off your CS degree." Whaa…
Of course, taking the date of the CS degree is now a signal you're "old".
Don't even get me started (just take a shufti through my posting history on this very site. You'll see this is a subject that has my attention) . > while the experience that comes with age is valued in fields like music, it counts against you in tech. Yup. The Jurassic-scale disasters that are becoming increasingly common, these days, are evidence of unsteady hands at the wheel. I'm not saying that older folks are be…
I read your posts whenever I see them, it's obvious you're quite bright. I really don't understand how you don't see this.
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 :…
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During my last job hunt a little over three years ago, I encountered what I think was some subtle ageism or at least discrimination based on family status (lots of questions about my family life when interviewed by the CTO and CEO, ultimately turned down because they didn't think I had the energy/disposition to be devoted enough to the company to put in extra effort when needed). I ultimately got a job at a better co…
Isn’t that technically illegal?
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…