Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#211

Post by kfcm » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

foohbarbaz wrote: post #165

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

Oh come on! I am in mid-forties and not just did not have any problems getting interviews, but also did not have any problems switching jobs a few months ago. Where I work we can't find enough decent devs for any money. H1-B is just a memory at that point. Mind you, this is not Silicon Valley, the market is quite a bit smaller (north Denver metro). Someone is either feeding you bad information or you are extrapolatin…

Apparently you didn't read my comment all that well. Re-read, and catch the "there are locations" where the article would be correct.

You are falling into the same trap as the author of the original article. Just because Denver metro (or the Valley, DC, Minneapolis or a couple of other tech/government centers) are doing well, you're extrapolating that the rest of the nation is the same. I know there are places where the beer flows like wine. I'm here to tell you in many--if not most--places where I roam (primarily in the midwest), that is not the case.

Ageism is a serious concern, along with companies doing what they can to lower "human capital" costs while still extracting as much work as possible. Infrastructure is somewhat immune to this, as well as smaller towns (25-50K and smaller, some distance away from larger metros) where they can't retain or recruit younger workers as easily.

As for being fed bad information, you haven't seen the look on friends' faces who've remained in tech when they talk about their concerns and experiences. 10-20% paycuts 3-4 years ago which have not bounced back. Two different companies recently resetting position titles from "Senior Position" to "Position II" for those with 15-20 years experience. Watching any open positions be filled with H-1Bs, college interns or recent grads at intern salaries. Hearing about apparent tech Nirvanas in other metros, and being unable to leave because they'd uproot their family.

The look on their faces may not be fear for their future, but it is a deep concern/worry.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#212

Post by ww520 » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

niels wrote: post #131

I'm a software developer (MS Comp. Sci.) in my late thirties. I've always had the impression that software development was really well paid. But lately many of my friends (doctors, lawyers, MBAs) has started to make way more than I can get as a regular employee. And for the doctors it's all part of their standard salaries. They don't need to demonstrate any particular high level of competence. And from here on their…

Doctors and lawyers are often small business owners when they have their own practices. Their incomes are more on par with small business owners.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#213

Post by rayiner » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #204

rayiner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ageism I saw is why I decided I didn't want to be in software development for the long term and left the field. I personally think the mentality is stupid and probably quite inefficient. In my field, law, they don't even let you into the courtroom until you're 5+ years in. Practicing law is an art and people with 20 years of experience are just better at it than people starting out. I never understood why so many…

I wouldn't argue for ageism, but I would say programming is different from law because technology changes much faster than law. There aren't giant paradigm shifts in law every 10 years. A new technology may in fact be much more productive to work with than an old one. Does someone with COBOL experience have an advantage or a disadvantage in learning Python vs someone who is just starting? Which is larger, the amount…

The volume of small, incremental, changes in law is higher. Let me put it this way. The Dodd-Frank regulations that have come out so far in the last two years is probably the same number of pages, printed 50 lines per page, as the C++ source for Oracle's Hotspot JVM. And it's only 30% done. And there is no ChangeLog.

The pace of paradigm shifts is indeed much faster in technology, but I disagree there are major paradigm shifts in technology every 10 years. There are major developments within specific scientific domains like AI, image recognition, etc, but in software engineering itself there is little new under the sun. There is nothing in Javascript that wasn't done better in Smalltalk 30 years ago. CoffeeScript, C#, Lua, Ruby, etc? Derivative stuff that any Lisp-er plucked out of 1985 could pick up in a week or two.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#214

Post by lutusp » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:37 PM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #106

lutusp wrote: post #93

Just a few comments on a well-written article that makes some good points: > No health or legal risks On the contrary -- the health risk arises primarily because of the sedentary lifestyle. It's hard to imagine anything so hard on one's health and longevity prospects as sitting and typing all day. As to legal risks, they're certainly on the upswing, as people who can't program try to steal the work of those who can,…

I think programming and exercising is healthier than, say, moving. As to legal risks - it's not the programmer who's facing them, it's his employer (which is the same thing for the self-employed programmers, but they're few). A programmer will not be personally sued for any sort of "IP infringement".

> As to legal risks - it's not the programmer who's facing them, it's his employer

I didn't consider this angle, because I've always been my own boss. I've never written programs for anyone else, which means I took home the money, not the grief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lutus

But as time passes, I see more and more cases where someone tries to patent something that should never be patented, which might eventually prevent people from writing programs at all.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#215

Post by lutusp » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:39 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #200

lutusp wrote: post #93

Just a few comments on a well-written article that makes some good points: > No health or legal risks On the contrary -- the health risk arises primarily because of the sedentary lifestyle. It's hard to imagine anything so hard on one's health and longevity prospects as sitting and typing all day. As to legal risks, they're certainly on the upswing, as people who can't program try to steal the work of those who can,…

> On the contrary -- the health risk arises primarily because of the sedentary lifestyle. It's hard to imagine anything so hard on one's health and longevity prospects as sitting and typing all day. Who says you have to do that? At the very least you can demand a standing desk.

I don't know about you, but when I solve programming problems, I'm not exercising. And when I'm exercising, I'm not thinking abut programming except perhaps in the most general sense.

I'm just saying that it's pretty much accepted that sitting around a lot is bad for you.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#216

Post by lutusp » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #150

lutusp wrote: post #93

Just a few comments on a well-written article that makes some good points: > No health or legal risks On the contrary -- the health risk arises primarily because of the sedentary lifestyle. It's hard to imagine anything so hard on one's health and longevity prospects as sitting and typing all day. As to legal risks, they're certainly on the upswing, as people who can't program try to steal the work of those who can,…

Quite a few professionsnow require you tositall day looking at the screen, but they differ in compensation while sharing health risks. And I don't see many occupations where the risk is much milder.

> And I don't see many occupations where the risk is much milder.

Yes, I agree completely. To me the problem is that programming is so lucrative and fun that it might make us too sedentary to be healthy.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#217

Post by cunac » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 10:59 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #88

guard-of-terra wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this would do is a short-term depression of SF programmer wages coupled to short-term surge in worldwide programmer wages. Because guess what, smart guy in Ukraine was already employed there and when he moves the next guy coming to fill the gap will either cost more or be less smart. Programmer talent is sparse worldwide, not just in the Valley.

Programmer talent is sparse worldwide And yet, when I look around at the job postings in Canada, a job with requirements that go on endlessly tops out at about $80,000/year. Expect less if you are an average programmer. Such a low income, relative to what US-based companies are offering, doesn't really speak to a shortage in my mind. I admit, there could be some kind of survivorship bias here: I'm only seeing the low…

in Toronto area you can get senior dev position fairly easy in range 95k - 110k and I can tell you from personal experience it is very hard to find decent developer (just decent would make us happy) , usually is 1 of 20 interviews if we are lucky

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#218

Post by ixacto » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 11:35 PM UTC

Either the system is broken, or some people are just gasp not motivated as much by money. There are quite a few internships in programming (just check out glassdoor) that pay about as much as a tenure-track professor, and these days with all the shenanigans in academia I would be hesitant to make a judgement on which will provide better job security...

So the economy rewards someone building facebook or groupon more than someone with a PHD and multiple post-docs doing basic research, and while the developers for said companies do add a tremendous amount of value, which is reflected in their sallary -- IMO it is more likely that DARPA or a similar government body is more likely to develop the next step in innovation. Siri was originally a government project, that was then commercialized from CALO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO Same goes for the internet.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#219

Post by fatbird » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 12:02 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #184

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

The ageism I saw is why I decided I didn't want to be in software development for the long term and left the field. I personally think the mentality is stupid and probably quite inefficient. In my field, law, they don't even let you into the courtroom until you're 5+ years in. Practicing law is an art and people with 20 years of experience are just better at it than people starting out. I never understood why so many…

It's all about the money. New graduates are cheaper. It's that simple. Technology and business are both over-populated with Randian/Libertarian douchebags for whom the quarterly bottom line is more important than good engineering or business as a sustainable entity in the larger social setting. Everything else is handwaving to hide this fact.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#220

Post by kfcm » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 12:28 AM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #179

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

I think ageism is "the" problem that you point out, because this is why people can't even get an interview after age 40, right? There are employers biased against older candidates, I guess - though not near me, not to the point where I'm able to get all the good candidates aged 40 and up for peanuts, and it's not like I'm not searching, goodness knows. But I think this is going to get better over time, as the masses…

I'm the only employee of my business, but I do contract 1099s when needed. When I do, I try to get older professionals, simply because I get a more efficient bang for my buck. Far too many younger techs within a few years of entering the workforce, are too prone to the "not-invented-here" syndrome and re-invent too many wheels. Like we all were, right?

Maybe I shouldn't have been an absolutist about not being able to get an interview after 40, but the difficulty of getting one is an order of magnitude or two higher. 45-50? Even more difficult in many locations.

But my original comment's point still stands: things are not a bed of roses everywhere. Ageism exists in the field, and is probably more the norm than not. Will things get better in time? Maybe.