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Sucks to be an old engineer

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Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#211

Post by mason55 »

fancyketchup wrote: post #162
mason55 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a pretty bad view of managers. There are plenty of management positions that are a) necessary, b) challenging, and c) very technical. "Moving to management" doesn't mean you suddenly just create Powerpoints all day. If you're a good technical manager you can suddenly use your skills to multiply your contributions far beyond what you'd be able to do as a single person. Let's start with the common prem…

It's not the view of managers, it's a view of the numbers. If approximately half the workforce is between 40 and 60 and half is between 20 and 40, then half your staff are managers. That would work if only two people report to each manager (branching factor of 2), but it seems very inefficient to have so many levels of management: log_2(#staff). On the other hand, with a branching factor of 10 only 1/9th of your work…

> The point of the original comment was that you can't have "move into management" as the default career track for people in their 40's. There just aren't enough management positions.

Totally agree. The thing is that that applies not only management but to senior development positions as well. Most firms have no need for a workforce that's 100%, 80% or 60% senior devs. There is a LOT of grunt development that needs to be done and the older you are the more money you're going to want.

We can call them managers, senior devs, whatever, but the truth is that there's not enough room for everyone to constantly be moving up and making more money. Engineers have created a very egalitarian workforce and in most cases it's great but this is one of those cases where it doesn't work. Industries that have been around longer have already figured this out (law, banking, etc) where you have the "up or out" mentality. There's been a lot of work and research done showing how and why this works and how to create the proper balance depending what sort of work you're doing. The more cutting edge work you're doing the more senior devs you need but the lower percentage payout the partners get.

It's not a matter of moving people to management or not but a simple fact of we can't all be at the top of a firm and if you're not moving up it's better to replace you with someone younger and cheaper who can do the same thing.

Check out the book Managing the Professional Services Firm for more, it's a great read and really applies to software.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#212

Post by garysweaver »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #132
WalterBright wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it an example of ageism if someone who is 45 can't find a job when what they know is Ada, Cobol and Forth? Um, I'm 54 and the languages of my 20's were C, C++, etc. I also fairly regularly get calls from recruiters. > So yes, you either need to find a job that doesn't change (eg a plumber or a teacher) or you need to constantly battle to maintain relevancy in a fast-changing industry or you need to become master…

Java is nearly 20 years old. Do people really think if you're 45 you worked in Cobol?

In the late 1990s, I remember people there being recruitment efforts to find people with very little coding experience, teach them COBOL, and have them search for and fix Y2K bugs in COBOL code. I actually thought about doing that at the time, but ended up getting into Java. Even now, there is a lot of more COBOL out there that you'd think.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#213

Post by timr »

ilaksh wrote: post #160
timr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors and lawyers gain skill as they get older because the problems and solutions don't change quickly, and the fields have such depth that expertise takes decades to acquire. We work in an industry where the state-of-the-art is perpetually accessible to 20-somethings who haven't done anything, because the technology gets blown up once a decade (or so). Even if you stay up to date, why would anyone pay you a salary…

I'm 35. I started learning SQL, C, C++, memory management etc. many years ago when I was a teenager. However, and I know that people will take the opportunity to disrespect me for this, but I realized, after playing around with 3d C++ graphics in college, that I wanted to build interactive desktop applications quickly. So I learned to use a very powerful tool called Visual Basic 6. Not because I didn't understand mem…

"So I'm sorry, but if you're not adopting new programming languages, tools and frameworks, then I don't think you are a good software engineer. Because good software engineers only solve the problems that they have to, and don't continue to solve the same problems over and over."

Yes, and? You're arguing a straw man. I'm not claiming that things haven't changed for the better in 30+ years of coding, or that people should be writing web apps in FORTRAN, or that you shouldn't re-use code.

But you're being...imaginative...if you believe that the latest shiny webapp tool (e.g. Node.js) is actually as new and innovative as you're claiming it to be. Anyone who has been around long enough to have written early Windows or Mac apps will have a lot of experience with single-threaded, evented programming. (Certainly enough to know that Node.js is a wonky regurgitation of a very old idea.)

Same thing goes for your MongoDB apologetics: actually, no, the industry didn't settle on relational databases because "that was how you did it". They became widely adopted because they hit a sweet spot in terms of speed, reliability and flexibility (a spot that basically none of the current NoSQL products have yet to match).

In other words, even if you like new things, experience helps you know when the new thing you're evaluating is a pile of crap. And judicious decision-making is far more important than the latest shiny when it comes to being a good engineer.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#214

Post by kamaal »

PostOnce wrote: post #190
cletus wrote: post #62

This post is touching on two issues that are somewhat related but different: 1. Finding ANY job when you're 60 is hard; 2. Engineers (who are still engineers) at 40+ will often be passed over in favour of twentysomethings. Engineering is such a young industry that I'm not sure we've really faced (1) yet (since the number of people who started engineering in the 70s is but a drop in the ocean compared to the number in…

If you don't hire someone because they know Ada instead of Ruby, the odds that you're profoundly shortsighted are extremely high. I once worked at a startup whose cofounders told me that I was the oldest person in the office (having just turned 26) because "people over 30 don't get technology", meanwhile, they couldn't understand HTML, much less programming, and therefore had to hire me. The very best programmer I kn…

>>The older you are, the more time you've had not only to gain concrete skills, but to learn to abstract your existing skills and knowledge to apply to other things.

Unfortunately the older your are, you are less flexible, less adjusting, running short of energy, you can't take risks as you have a family, you can't work too hard or push yourself too much because there are health risks associated with that. The list goes endless. Its not a very comfortable position to be in old age.

As some one who is in 20's and watching people in their 40's(My uncles) and my father(in his 60's) I can tell you the only chance we engineers have is to make loads of money, real estate and savings before we are 40-45. Else we are screwed. That unfortunately is the most blunt way to put it.

You may believe in whatever you may like about experience coming with old age, but your employers will take raw passion and energy over accumulated experience any day.

Your best bet is to make a lot of money and be safe or risk going through a lot of pain when you grow old.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#215

Post by kamaal »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
vowelless wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also fairly regularly get calls from recruiters. Not everyone has a wikipedia article :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright

That brings up a relevant issue. I realized a long time ago that developing an professional online persona is worthwhile. To that end, I recommend regularly to people: 1. create a website from your own name, like walterbright.com, and put your professional work there 2. create a github account under your own name, and contribute to significant projects using it 3. ditto for stackoverflow, hackernews, gamedev.net and…

I am willing to bet none of that will help. Not for a common guy.

The fact that you are the inventor of the D programming language puts you in a very different league of people.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#216

Post by aspensmonster »

gems wrote: post #16
rayiner wrote: post #6

This isn't really new, nor is it specific to software engineering. "Line engineers" have always had a very hard time with employment as they age (not that it doesn't happen). The usual ways to avoid this are (in order of risk): 1) Get your MBA and go into management; 2) Start or join a consultancy; 3) Start a company. My buddies in more traditional engineering fields (aerospace, chemical, etc) are all in the process…

What is a line engineer?

Someone in a subordinate role with little to no authority or autonomy. To me, it sounds like a subtly derogatory reference, meant to conjure up imagery of "line cooks" that spend their time cooking one thing and one thing only --eggs, bacon, patties, etc-- and sending it down the line to be finished by the actual "chefs."

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#217

Post by SiVal »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #174
SiVal wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a well-known software company (everyone here has used their software, I would guess), and they had this, "we're doing cutting edge stuff and need young, hungry engineers" notion in spades. At one point, a VP announced to me that they were going to build a certain software project and the CEO had decreed that it would be done in 90 days. I, an "older engineer", chuckled. I assumed that she was complaining…

What would have happened if you did not create your side project?

The US and EU markets would have been forced to keep using the old system, which is what they ended up doing. They assumed they were about to switch over to the new system in a few weeks, so my system would be of no use to them. Why switch to my Plan B if Plan A was just around the corner? They continued assuming the Plan A was about a month or two away for two years.

The Asian locales had no old system to fall back on, so when Plan A didn't ship and I revealed my (fully localized) Plan B, they adopted it immediately. If I hadn't done my Plan B, the Asians would have had to go back to product registration by postcard.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#218

Post by kamaal »

SiVal wrote: post #134
samfisher83 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an industry like O&G or energy experience is highly valued. When you have you have potentially billions of dollars on the line and many peoples lives with an oil platform you want someone who has done it before. In tech you are trying to make something no one has done before so you want the young hungry engineer.

I worked for a well-known software company (everyone here has used their software, I would guess), and they had this, "we're doing cutting edge stuff and need young, hungry engineers" notion in spades. At one point, a VP announced to me that they were going to build a certain software project and the CEO had decreed that it would be done in 90 days. I, an "older engineer", chuckled. I assumed that she was complaining…

Note: Never do 80/20 or even 100/20(this is a fact). I've pretty much realized this the hard way. If you are very good, you will be perceived by your bosses not as an asset but as a threat to their own positions. And what will follow next if they coming up with most ingenious way to screw you. Seems like that is exactly what has happened to you.

If your success had made a big story, it would have become a case study. It becomes intellectually insulting to them.

It directly means they are not capable of doing their jobs properly.

One fact every one need to realize, It's great to be young. But age is not static. Those who are young today have a very narrow window of 9-10 years. Beyond that we are all the same.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#219

Post by ilaksh »

timr wrote: post #213
ilaksh wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 35. I started learning SQL, C, C++, memory management etc. many years ago when I was a teenager. However, and I know that people will take the opportunity to disrespect me for this, but I realized, after playing around with 3d C++ graphics in college, that I wanted to build interactive desktop applications quickly. So I learned to use a very powerful tool called Visual Basic 6. Not because I didn't understand mem…

"So I'm sorry, but if you're not adopting new programming languages, tools and frameworks, then I don't think you are a good software engineer. Because good software engineers only solve the problems that they have to, and don't continue to solve the same problems over and over." Yes, and? You're arguing a straw man. I'm not claiming that things haven't changed for the better in 30+ years of coding, or that people sh…

Yes, evented programming isn't new. Yes, and?

So in your opinion Node.js and MongoDB are piles of crap?

Then, just curious, what system would you use to build the back end for a realtime collaborative web application, or an API that needs to hit several web APIs and do other IO to service each request?

And how do you recommend that we handle data storage for small business web applications? Really would like to know if there is something that is so much better than Mongo. You really think I should go back to building out fully normalized relational databases for small business web applications? What language/platform do you use, and how do you handle things like ORM?

I would like to know if you have ideas that are better. In my experience, Node.js and MongoDB (throw CoffeeScript in there too) are not crap, perform very well, reduce lines of code, and are better software engineering decisions in most cases. Have you actually tried building applications that way?

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#220

Post by rbanffy »

nikatwork wrote: post #206
rbanffy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never worked with COBOL, but did a lot of FORTRAN 77 in school. Some days I feel like I'll code high-persistence phosphor simulation into Compiz...

It's OSX only, but this app should float your boat: http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/

I love it! I install it on every Mac I lay my hands on.
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