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Sucks to be an old engineer

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Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#221

Post by kamaal »

perlgeek wrote: post #51

I've witnessed the exact opposite. My father stayed an engineer when most of his peers became managers; many of them became unhappy over time, and quite a few died from heart attacks before reaching 60. OTOH my father, now in retirement, still occasionally works as a freelancer, because he still enjoys the job, and his skill is in demand.

There is a big difference between doing something because you like it and doing something because your survival depends on it.

I wouldn't want to take such a risk when I'm 60.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#222

Post by niels_olson »

kamaal wrote: post #214
PostOnce wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

I suspect this sort of thinking, which places tremendous pressure on youth, is one of the reasons young people are consistently more unhappy than older people. (1)

I don't spend as much time on work as I did when I was younger, but I get a lot more done. I have also learned a few things about how to motivate myself (eg, delayed gratification)

If you're trying to live a good life, your best bet is probably not to focus entirely on making a lot of money, but to find what makes you happy. As a physician, you get to meet old people. Now that I know some old investment bankers, I don't envy the ones who focused on making tons of money. They can't climb the stairs to their ocean view bedrooms, they can't fit into their British sports cars and they never have time to drive them. Managing the paperwork of their assets becomes their full time job.

My dad is a 68-year-old engineer, he seems happy, and making more than ever as a consultant. The fact that he likes restoring hot rods works well when the money guys find out and they can exchange pictures of Shelbys.

Best advice for growing old: buy a one-story house. You can get to your bedroom and your kitchen.

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/health/research/01happy.ht...

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#223

Post by WalterBright »

kamaal wrote: post #215
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I first decided to write a C compiler, a friend of mine thought it would be nice to introduce me to the community C guru for some advice.

The C guru looked at me and said "Who the fuck do you think you are thinking you can write a C compiler?", and not in a nice way, either.

So what's stopping you?

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#224

Post by MetaCosm »

wallflower wrote: post #161
MetaCosm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tests: Two tier, he used an tool we ended up buying for the UI testing (actual phone automation, cool stuff, trying to remember company name), and full unit test with deep (not 100% coverage). UI was presetup by a designer, so he didn't have much choice in that, but he implemented it pixel perfect. No idea on Android, he was only doing iOS for us.

Thanks, that is a helpful answer.

http://www.testplant.com/products/eggplant/mobile/ was the testing platform for mobile. (I think it had a different name a few years ago, but could just be my fuzzy recollection)

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#225

Post by Cushman »

DavidAdams wrote: post #207
Cushman wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nudist_on_the_Late_Shift (...and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley)

This was 1996, so I think my nudist predates Po Bronson's.

There are probably more than a few, huh-- it's the sort of thing that you know happens a lot more than you hear about.

(To be honest I'd be down for a nudist hackathon, if it could be handled maturely... hah!)

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#226

Post by MetaCosm »

rbanffy wrote: post #191
MetaCosm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was in the US (Arizona if I remember correctly), and had been incorporated for a number of years... but I have no idea about his health care situation... the joy of contractors, I don't have to care. I give him $180 an hour for X hours, he gives me a wonderful product, everyone goes home happy.

> the joy of contractors, I don't have to care. Not really. If the contractor gets sick, it's still your problem. I care for my contractors and always make sure they are paid enough to afford good medical care and a stable financial situation. It makes sense, even from a deeply selfish point of view - the less time they spend worrying about such things, the more they spend working.

First of all, I don't think it is my responsibility to ensure contractors are paid X, that is their responsibility, they set the rate. I decide if I think their skills match their rate. I can't decide what is "good" medical care for them, nor can I decide how much it costs (maybe he has a medical condition and needs 20k a month just for insurance). I can't decide what a stable financial situation is for someone either. The arrogance of someone who thinks they can baffles me. I might think 200k is plenty, but I have no idea about what contractor X consider "plenty" and to assume is simply projecting.

As for him being my problem. If a contractor can't work, you replace them, depending on how the contract was setup, you might collect some insurance to help get over the ugly transition.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#227

Post by MetaCosm »

timr wrote: post #49
MetaCosm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are reaching the golden age of the older developer. Companies are learning how much more great developers are worth than poor ones. Retention bonuses have gone crazy (getting a 3 year / 250k bonus package isn't even that interesting). The evergreen underpinnings, the basic knowledge of how to build systems floats through languages and technologies.

Agree with you about the value of older devs, but I wish I could say I saw "the industry" paying for experience. The examples of ridiculous grants I know about have all gone to people who are in their 20s and early 30s. Granted, there's some selection bias going on: I don't see many 40-something programmers in SOMA. That said: I don't see many 40-something programmers in SOMA.

Rampant speculation, but while drinking me and some developer friends came up with a theory on this. There was a sweet spot, a golden age if you will where a lot of things came together for kids / young adults to drive them to be developers. They are 25 to 40 now.

Computers became cheap enough to have at home. BBSs and then the Internet took off. Computers were doing stuff -- but not common place yet. It was an odd window during a technologies birth that I think got people hooked in a way that is hard to emulate. Too early, you are on punch-cards and computers are rare. Too late, and you have app stores and iphones and stuff just generally works so it can be treated as a dumb tool. Sheer luck.

Re: Sucks to be an old engineer

#228

Post by vicaya »

WalterBright wrote: post #196
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sadly, I often run across technical articles where the author omitted his own name, not even a pseudonym. I don't understand this.

Quite a few seemingly legit articles from Google results are "stolen" content created by bots and/or cheap copy writers from content SEO companies like Demand Media to generate ad revenue.

Internet branding is overrated. Personal network is a lot more important :)

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