221–229 of 229 posts
If someone is interested, I just created a discord server for older devs, no agenda other than a place to chat. https://discord.gg/evhUwmYd
I'm early 40s. I can't think of any specific communities for 50+, or even 40+. There's the subreddit /r/ExperiencedDevs, but that's less social and more Q and A. It might be worth checking into Discord servers to see if there are any that cater to more experienced devs. If you find one, let me know.
If one exists, I'd love to be part of it. Many of these comments really resonate with me (in my 40s as well). I find that I'm more effective as a developer now than I was years ago – partly because I know myself better. I understand that I love building things hands-on while collaborating with other engineers, designers or stakeholders. I understand that, in the end, people are using these products we build and that…
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This touches upon something I've noticed lately, people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence. I'm 46 and have been writing code pretty much every day since 8yo. I used to think code was the greatest thing, and would gladly write it for free. But I was also very arrogant, too impatient to negotiate, and didn't really give a damn about the team as a whole. These days I find writing code p…
> [...]negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting. That seems to assume that, with age, you also gain power. As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I d…
People don't offer you opportunities because you're bored with what you have.
You offer them a different capability they need.
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This touches upon something I've noticed lately, people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence. I'm 46 and have been writing code pretty much every day since 8yo. I used to think code was the greatest thing, and would gladly write it for free. But I was also very arrogant, too impatient to negotiate, and didn't really give a damn about the team as a whole. These days I find writing code p…
> [...]negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting. That seems to assume that, with age, you also gain power. As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I d…
Don't wait for someone to come to you. Go out and look for the sort of work you want.
I'm an older (than you!) developer, but I have no special resources related to that. But for what it's worth, here's my experience. I've found that nothing is really much different being an older developer compared to being a younger one, aside from two things: I have a lower tolerance for bullshit, and I have a much better handle on what my time is actually worth to employers. While ageism is certainly a thing that…
I'm in my mid-30s and facing the reality that I do not want to be a manager, but have a hard time picturing myself coding into my 60s. I'd be curious to hear more about what in your eyes separates "certain parts of our industry" that aren't suitable for older devs from those that offer good jobs which pay what you're worth. What kind of attributes would you look for in a company or product if you were searching for a…
In the corporate developer world I am tired of being a developer. I love coding, but I generally don’t like the people I work with. I feel many of my peers are either looking for shortcuts to avoid learning and organizing or they are deeply entrenched in something super narrow and highly defensive about it. All I see is insecurity. Now I wonder if it’s better to move into management where I can better steer through some of the insanity.
What I would look for in my next job is how well a given team measures things. Everybody thinks they are great and it’s generally a bunch of bullshit. Example of potential measures: execution time, test coverage, test automation time, operations per second. Measuring is a primary indicator of product quality, but more importantly it’s an indication of team maturity.
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As far as maintaining focus goes, I had a lot of trouble doing so after 40. I wrote a small program[1] to help me maintain context between different projects, and I'm now more productive than I was in my 30s. [1] I tried all the personal task management and task tracker tools, even wrote a few of my own. It turned out that my brain works differently to how the tools want you to work. My new tool which works well to k…
Can you give some details on your tool? I've played the "productivity app whack-a-mole" game, too, and always walk away empty. I just stick with a pen and paper, but I'd love a digital solution.
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> Can you give some details on your tool? I'm conflicted; on the one hand I would like to let the world know about it, but on the other I can see how it would be easily dismissed as useless when there's literally no docs about it. I think I shall make a small example usage (terminal only) to demonstrate how it helps me, then post a show HN tomorrow or Saturday (depending). I'll reply to your post again once I post th…
Fwiw I'm also interested in seeing it.
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Can you give some details on your tool? I've played the "productivity app whack-a-mole" game, too, and always walk away empty. I just stick with a pen and paper, but I'd love a digital solution.
it sounds like it's gotta be catered to your workflow. i wonder what this is like, i work out of sketch books and paper+pen a lot. project context seems like a good thing to be able to preserve and replicate between the various frames. elon mentioned that context switching was one of the more costly plays