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

Aging programmer

world.hey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 375 posts

Re: Aging programmer

#171

Post by w4ffl35 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #97

I'm approaching 50. Just a scant decade away from being old enough to tap my retirement accounts and have the OPTION to retire. These next couple of years look like they might not be fun, but overall it looks like I'm actually going to make it. For most of my career, I've been told (and I believed) that I would probably get forced out of a hands-on individual contributor role as I aged. During the late-2000's, I even…

the thing that gets frustrating as i age are interviews and code challenges. i'd really prefer a certification that proves i can do xyz which i take once (per year? in my life?). then just decide if you like me based on personality and communication.

i have over 200 repositories etc. its redundant, and random code challenges that differ from employer to employer prove next to nothing.

20 years ago it was the norm for interviewers to ask brain teasers / riddles in interviews ffs.

edit: perhaps this is my own personal struggle as I did not attend University.

Re: Aging programmer

#172

Post by spfzero »

yodsanklai wrote: post #77
scarface74 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this. I’m 48 and between the time I was 34 and 46, bumping around in your standard enterprise corp dev jobs, I found jobs relatively quickly - the shortest time was 4 days from starting to look to having a job (corp dev at the time a F10 non tech company), the longest being two weeks. Every time besides the first, I was juggling multiple opportunities and had three offers. I change jobs 5 times during…

> If you’re still randomly submitting your resume to an ATS trying to prove yourself to companies by reversing binary trees on whiteboards while juggling bowling balls and riding a unicycle on a tightrope, you’re doing it wrong at 40+ years old. I did that at 45 and landed an interesting job at FAANG (and I'm not the only one). I think it's a bit contradictory to think old programmers are still as capable and sharp a…

I think the point may be that, yes still as capable etc., but also with a ton more life-cycle experience in real-world development. So for someone hiring that values that experience, maybe they ask a bit more about that, and do less whiteboard work to validate that you really did go to CS school.

With a string resume, a hiring manager might think "They probably know what a binary tree is because it they didn't, they would not have made it this far."

Re: Aging programmer

#173

Post by jeffbee »

davidrupp wrote: post #163
jeffbee wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a programmer at any age be a good manager? Manager is a totally different job with unrelated skills.

Because people are more than just the skills they have that happen to apply to their current job function. And because management requires a skill set that -- like many others -- can be attained by someone who is willing to work to attain it. I think of it in terms of leverage. If I knew for sure that my becoming a manager would let me be a force multiplier for my team, that they would all be enough better to more th…

Recent research suggests no positive correlation between individual performance and manager performance in the same line of work. If a company insists on moving ICs to managers, even though this is irrational, the best thing they can do is retrain their lowest performing ICs into people management roles.

Re: Aging programmer

#174

Post by wpietri »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #121
wpietri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Ageism, sexism, racism, etc, etc, etc, are all fucking idiotic. And yet surprisingly popular. So we have to deal with them.

> So we have to deal with them this is the one thing you said I disagree with, unless you mean dealing with it by eliminating it.

Yes. Although in practice a lot of what we have do to is mitigating it, as eliminating the roots of it is a decades-to-centuries problem.

Re: Aging programmer

#175

Post by mixmastamyk »

indymike wrote: post #134
hoosieree wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked on ASICs, FPGAs, compilers, routers, clusters, servers, websites and mobile apps. But I would not describe myself as a "full-stack developer". To me that implies a very specific thing - a RDBMS backend coupled to heavyweight javascript framework frontend.

May I steal this description of "full-stack developer": a RDBMS backend coupled to heavyweight javascript framework frontend

Fullstack never required a heavy frontend to my mind, simply reasonable js, css, and ux knowledge. Depends heavily on the product however.

Re: Aging programmer

#176

Post by scarface74 »

indymike wrote: post #116
RockingGoodNite wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but every time I've promoted a reluctant leader it's been magical for that person and for their team.

I was hired at my last job by the then new CTO to lead the “cloud application modernization” effort as they were pivoting to providing access to micro services to large health care companies.

After being somewhat successful at it, he offered to make me a team lead (been there done that). I told him in no uncertain terms that I would quit first. We had a great working relationship.

I now do basically the same thing in the consulting department at BigTech as a middle level hands on consultant.

I asked a year end could my position be considered a “terminal position” or would I need to work toward a promotion. My manager asked me why. Again I was very honest. I needed to know because I would be looking for another job before seeking a promotion. He said it could be a terminal position,

I prefer leading projects over leading people.

Re: Aging programmer

#177

Post by indymike »

hota_mazi wrote: post #157
indymike wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> > 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... 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 bet…

> OP was talking about managing, you are talking about leading. These are two very distinct skills.

Everything I've experienced in my professional life has taught me this: managers who can't lead can't manage, and leaders who can't manage cannot lead. Never once have I worked for a manager who didn't see themselves as a leader, and never once have I met someone who called themselves a leader who wasn't management.

Re: Aging programmer

#178

Post by scarface74 »

rickreynoldssf wrote: post #65

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…

The only thing I hate more than the ckusterfuck of the modern front end ecosystem is coming behind an “Architect” who doesn’t think they need them and reinventing the wheel badly.

Re: Aging programmer

#179

Post by scarface74 »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #162
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The psychological aspect of consultants and even employees trying to play a game with billable hours aside, a lot of developers of all ages genuinely feel using frameworks to do the exact same thing one can achieve with far less hubbub is a good thing, and they have trouble defending it. It's a cargo cult by all standards. Many of us are living this now. If it's not the chasing of new frameworks, it is old frameworks…

I think the issue is the batteries included approach taken nowadays. Many developers nowadays seem to expect to be able to just wire things together without actual writing much algorithmic code. And the solutions have catered to that. Those of us that are older lament the idea of using frameworks to increase our productivity, but still being more than glorified middle-men.

Why reinvent the wheel? I’ve seen “architects” who didn’t think they needed Entity Framework and went about solving the same problems (mostly around change tracking) very badly. Give me a widely supported framework any day over a badly written unsupported in house solution.

Re: Aging programmer

#180

Post by spfzero »

pluijzer wrote: post #42
arketyp wrote: post #18

I learned how to code when I was twelve. I wouldn't have if I didn't in some degree enjoy the actual act of coding, the moment to moment typing on the keyboard, composing algorithms, designing data structures and logical flows. But in the back of my mind I also always regarded coding as a means to an end. Sure I became engaged in language design battles, API design philosophy, but the magic with computers was always,…

The magic, curiosity and joy I had also faded for me once. Like you say, much of my jobs included lots of plumbing. For work the elegant solutions that gave me joy would be seen as anti-patterns. The languages I enjoy would scuffed at as being relics. The problems I enjoy seen as useless because there are already solved in bloated over complex enterprise libraries. When I would program for myself in the weekend I wan…

Same here (separate hobby from career). I needed to let myself re-discover the things that made it magical, switch from resume-building as my goal, to "what would be fun for me to do now?".
Post reply on HN