151–160 of 375 posts
I stand with the OP. Maybe this is a young folks thing, but I don’t understand how anyone can pair program. It’s like going to the toilet with someone staring at you.
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Hmmm as a 53 year old programmer I've had the exact opposite experience. Because of the large diversity of my skills I have more offers for work than ever before.
You’re the odd one out, perhaps due to your own abilities and other special qualities. For the average programmer ageism applies though. And the largest majority of devs is in the average region
Here’s something I think a lot of people don’t think on: 40 years old is mid-career. If you expect to retire at 60 (likely 65 these days) and you start working at 20: 40 is smack dab in the middle of your career. I think that notion gets lost when we talk about ageism in tech and then people talk about 40-somethings.
> ageism in tech Several reasons for ageism sometimes missed. This from someone whose been discriminated against, who has hired, who now owns a company & who was also a recruiter. __I don't agree with this__ just laying the reasons out for clarity sake: - Hiring managers don't consider themselves ageist, but opt for younger employees whom they think make a better cultural fit. You can blame the 'work is my social lif…
> Hiring managers don't want to be ageist, but
I classify this into the "I'm not a racist, but..." bucket.
> Hiring managers (usually fixated on 'new tech') who fear diminished learning, adoption or performance capacity in older employees
This is the textbook definition of what ageism is.
Conclusion? They are ageists, plain as that. They may not consider themselves to be, or want to be, but they still are, because ageist is as ageist does, and it matters jack what appearances they want to keep or what they think or who they perceive in a mirror.
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Hmmm as a 53 year old programmer I've had the exact opposite experience. Because of the large diversity of my skills I have more offers for work than ever before.
I’m also in my 50s. My last job search got me 6 offers, from startups to FAANG. I’ve only accelerated my career as I’ve grown older.
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I"m not sure that the common idea is that younger programmers are more skilled, but rather that they are more in demand. Could be for a variety of reasons, for example: - cheaper - less jaded - easier to "manage" - more willing to do the boring work that the older devs don't want to do - more likely to be on call or work extra hours - less likely to retire next year
>more willing to do the boring work that the older devs don't want to do No body wants to do the boring work. I think more experienced devs realize that a boring assignment isn't personal, its just business.
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People who can manage and code (architect, etc.) are truly rare. I'm not quite at the same age and only play the guitar. Like the article author and where we differ, I am very skeptical of new technologies, if I can't find a use for it in my personal software projects without having to hold my nose, there's no way I will recommend it for work.
> People who can manage and code (architect, etc.) are truly rare. I disagree with this. I think there are a lot of people who don't like being a leader for lots of reasons... but every time I've promoted a reluctant leader it's been magical for that person and for their team. A lot of times the people that self-promote and like to be in charge should never, ever be given athority. > I am very skeptical of new techno…
> I disagree with this. I think there are a lot of people who don't like being a leader for lots of reasons...
Note that you are talking about different things from OP.
OP was talking about managing, you are talking about leading. These are two very distinct skills. Sometimes you can find both in the same person, but these people are few and far between, since each of these roles is already a full time job.
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The number I saw was something like every 5 years the number of programmers doubles. So half if all devs have less than 5 years experience. And since most new devs are more likely to be closer to college age than retirement age devs tend to skew younger than 40 (probably by a lot). https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html
I ran numbers from the BLS on occupation data a few years back. If you look at the number of programmers 25-35 in 2000 and the number of programmers in 2020 aged 45-55 you see a real and substantial decrease in absolute terms. The decrease is much larger then other professions, so its not attributable to a cohort just exiting the workforce in general. There is also a massive increase in the number of 25-35 programmer…
First, the demand for software is going up significantly, and new programmers do not come with the advantage of experience, aka knowing what not to do. These newly minted programmers need mentors. They need examples. Businesses need adult supervision for these tasks which many managers do not understand.
Second, the demand for senior technical leadership is going to make it more financially rewarding to stay in a truly senior IC role. Going into management, product, etc. will not be as appealing an avenue to take your career to the next level.
51 grey beard here. Let me complain about the younguns. So much of what's out there today is, or is based on "solutions" created to solve problems that don't really exist. Rather than try to understand something so many engineers created "frameworks" to implement what was already there. Like 90% of current web stacks are just that. But new engineers are trained on that stuff and think it's the only way. That frustrat…
I once had an experience where I asked a younger developer why they didn't use cookies for a solution they were using JWT's for. Their answer? They didn't know how to use cookies.
I was bemused, their solution worked just fine, it's just all the extra infra needed when compared to cookies, which would have solved the problem just fine.
I'm in my mid-40's and I would apply that observation to scrum (and software dev in general). What I tend to see are a lot of very earnest people who are legitimately trying and the behaviors often associated with scrum are what they've been taught works.
Truly understanding what goes into successful software dev takes years of work and is more craft than algorithm, so I can understand the challenges.