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Aging programmer

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Re: Aging programmer

#191

Post by Arubis »

derangedHorse wrote: post #183
w4ffl35 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No the general sentiment is that the interview process for software engineers suck but almost no one wants to take a chance trying to develop a new way to interview. It’s somewhat understandable though since devising a new process can’t be to people focused less you inherit too much bias from the interviewer, nor can they be boiled down to a objective metric or else people may fall into inflexible dogmatic practices…

That’s truer and truer the more generalized the position/hiring pool. “Developer at GiantCo” will end up doing leetcode interviews by default. Cofounding as a technical founder will be pretty much all about personal fit. Between these two extremes is a wide continuum (smaller companies, tech positions at non-tech firms, freelancing, consulting…) that’ll have different processes for finding a fit between someone with a problem and someone proposing a solution.

If you truly hate the way interview processes have run for you, it’s worth considering if you feel strongly enough about it to seek a different fit in the market. You might not, and that’s fine! But alternatives do exist.

Re: Aging programmer

#192

Post by [deleted] »

somenameforme wrote: post #98
krmboya wrote: post #10

I wonder where the genesis is of this idea that programming is young person's game akin to physical sports where speed, explosiveness and endurance matter. It seems to me that it's an intellectual activity where one should go on for very long honing their skills and becoming better and better at it with age. Maybe the industry sidelines the older more experienced technical folks at a cost, and that's why there seems…

Chess is a primarily mental competition, but players at the top of the world tend to hit their peak at around 35 years old. Players can continue playing at an exceptionally high level until the end of their life, but on average there is a gradual downward slide from that peak. Magnus Carlsen, the current world champ and arguably strongest player of all time, has decided to simply stop defending his title (held since…

[deleted]

Re: Aging programmer

#193

Post by soulofmischief »

adrianmsmith wrote: post #73
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…

I share this frustration, but I think the root cause of the frustration is the difference between what I feel should be important, and what actually is important to people. Getting great reliable software delivered quickly, which is easy to maintain and change, should be the goal, I feel. But if that’s the case, why do people invent problems to find solutions to, why do people spend multiple days a week in Scrum meet…

As a consultant, I try to reduce my billable hours as much as possible, then charge an appropriate amount for the value I have created, not the time spent, and this leaves me more time for more clients or leisure.

Is this not the typical mentality?

Re: Aging programmer

#194

Post by fzeroracer »

somenameforme wrote: post #98
krmboya wrote: post #10

I wonder where the genesis is of this idea that programming is young person's game akin to physical sports where speed, explosiveness and endurance matter. It seems to me that it's an intellectual activity where one should go on for very long honing their skills and becoming better and better at it with age. Maybe the industry sidelines the older more experienced technical folks at a cost, and that's why there seems…

Chess is a primarily mental competition, but players at the top of the world tend to hit their peak at around 35 years old. Players can continue playing at an exceptionally high level until the end of their life, but on average there is a gradual downward slide from that peak. Magnus Carlsen, the current world champ and arguably strongest player of all time, has decided to simply stop defending his title (held since…

Keep in mind that we've seen an interesting phenomenon over the past few decades where the average peak age of professional players has been going up. This includes physical sports like baseball, football as well as things like chess, fighting games and various esports.

I think the peak age thing ends up being less due to actual aging and more due to the responsibilities of life taking time away from practice.

Re: Aging programmer

#195

Post by scarface74 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #155
remote_phone wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How did you get thru the endemic leetcode stuff?

Not the person you are replying to. But I did it by focusing on learning soft skills and project management skills - even though I am not a project manager.

I focused on small companies before my current job where the director/CTO was looking for people who could demonstrate a history of being “smart and get things done”.

I avoided the leetCode grind by preparing for a couple of years to target the cloud consulting department of the two of the major cloud providers or if necessary one of their partners. I knew that a combination of software development, infrastructure, cloud, and soft skills would give me a competitive advantage.

Re: Aging programmer

#196

Post by scarface74 »

spfzero wrote: post #172
yodsanklai wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Actually, three jobs ago back in 2015, I had two interviews. The first hiring manager asked me to do a merge sort on the whiteboard. The second company’s new director told me what problems he was having and that they were on an acquisition spree and what their plans were. He asked me how I would go about helping them.

Both interviews were about half a day, I got offers from both the company that asked me to do a merge sort paid slightly more. I accepted the second job.

Real business folks have real world problems to solve. They don’t care whether you can reverse a binary tree.

As an aside, one of the more junior people that I would be leading asked me how I would parse addresses while the director was in the room. I said I wouldn’t. I would license third party CASS software and explained all of the corner cases and then went into my speech about a company shouldn’t concentrate “on anything that doesn’t make the beer taste better”

Re: Aging programmer

#197

Post by dominotw »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #171
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…

I think Leetcoding is a worthy investment for career. Why not .

I understand that it feels like its waste of time with no practical use but the upsides are that they make job hopping trival because you know what to expect and feel confident.

I think its a tiny investment for big returns. unparalleled to any other activity you could invest your time in.

Re: Aging programmer

#198

Post by retrocryptid »

Um... 40 year old calls himself "an aging programmer"?? Okay. I wasn't ready for that this morning. My first professional gig was in 1981, which means I've been programming professionally longer than he's been alive. And I wrote my first Lisp program in 1974. And yet I don't really feel that old.

Re: Aging programmer

#199

Post by hota_mazi »

indymike wrote: post #177
hota_mazi wrote: post #157

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... 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.

I've met all kinds.

People who are stellar managers, have extremely high empathy and EQ, understand their engineers, prop them up, help their career, guide them toward both professional and personal growth. They also did not have a single ounce of leadership or charisma in them, very low technical chops, no vision, and not interested in providing team leadership.

I've also met stellar leaders, visionaries, who inspired, entranced teams with every single word that came out of their mouth. They provided short and long term directions, technical and product guidance, motivation. And they were absolutely terrible human managers. Could not place themselves in other people's shoes. Didn't really care about managing the career or growth of people on their teams. Were only focused on matters that did not involve any human feelings.

These kinds of people both have their places and they complement each other wonderfully.

And sometimes, you find these two very distinct, polar opposite qualities, in one single person. But like I said, this is much more the exception than the rule.

And of course, the reality is that most people lie on a spectrum between these two extremes.

Re: Aging programmer

#200

Post by pythonbase »

thread_id wrote: post #69

At 64 years I am still going strong. I consider myself blessed that I have landed a position that allows the to be the leader (I manage a small team) and still be hands on with everything: Architecture, desgin, coding, infrastructure, cloud engineering, DevOps engineer, DBA, the list goes on. It is a Goldilocks job. The technologies that we manage and master are miriad. We are a small company and my team owns the ent…

You sound fun to work with. More power to you.
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