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Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

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Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#41

Post by 31reasons »

edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people.

You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#42

Post by exelius »

That's because programming is an entry level job. No, I'm not trolling: I'm quite serious about that.

Engineering has almost always been an entry level job; computers or not. You start as an engineer; and as you get better, the number of engineering management jobs is pretty limited, so there's nowhere to go for the vast majority of people. But you get pulled into enough internal projects you start to develop a bit of business sense, so many people will often go from engineering up into the business (it doesn't hurt that many engineers are smart with a solid foundation in applied mathematics).

This isn't just the case with development. My father in law started out as a structural engineer. By the time he was 10-15 years into his career, he was managing large construction projects. 30 years in he was running a big portion of the company.

I saw the game for what it was early and got out of engineering before I hit 30. It's a treadmill of skill development where having over 10 years of experience doesn't benefit you, since the technology du jour changes every decade anyway. I still enjoy hacking and coding - but I do it as a hobby.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#43

Post by deanmen »

hga wrote: post #32

Falsification: around and after age 35 I found it increasingly difficult to find work, until I got a clue and scrubbed my resume of all evidence of exactly how old I was (removed education dates; I'd already been trimming older jobs due to length and lack of relevance). Did that in the midst of one job search and the difference was like night and day. BIG caveat: my family and I look a lot younger than we are, with n…

MIT's operating systems class used to (in the early 2000s) be based on Lion's book on UNIX Version 6 for the PDP-11:

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2014/xv6.html

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#44

Post by throwaway876876 »

CmonDev wrote: post #28
ArtDev wrote: post #26

Focus on your niche, become highly specialized. Do higher level architectural stuff and apply your many years of experience.

E.g. picking WPF several years ago :)? And now it's dead.

I'm sure he menat "niche" as in web dev or machine learning, not as in "COBOL" or "WPF"

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#45

Post by zeratul »

edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

I think no one is like Ed. There maybe be 25% of programmers that have a long standing experience, even with the new tools, but they don't share wisdom like Ed does.

Ed why can't you have your own company? Why can't you be the one who is hiring or at least teach others how to hire. I bet you can smell a talent from 1000 miles away - even if someone did not finish a good school; the world of software engineering would make so much more sense.

[EDIT:] I imagine a job interview; an interviewee says: "I didn't program this but I did program something more difficult"; interviewer makes a frowny face; Ed comes round the corner, puts his hand on the interviewer shoulder and says: "He did not call you stupid; he just said he is ready for the challenge - he has the experience".

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#47

Post by alistairSH »

chii wrote: post #25
vacri wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have succeeded, why not stay where you are? Why do you have to move up? "Thanks, but I prefer coding, I'd rather stay where I am".

> "Thanks, but I prefer coding, I'd rather stay where I am". "...but i want more pay - how about CEO level pay?" "nope."

I'm not sure that's a totally valid sentiment. For starters, top-notch developers in the US earn salaries that approach CEO-level pay (ok, maybe not quite, but certainly top-5% salaries nationally).

Even as a mid-level developer, my salary matched that of experienced project managers in my wife's previous line of work (large insurance company).

And CEOs generally lead a very different lifestyle than a good developer. On call 24/7, lots of travel, etc. And it's a different set of skills that many developers lack (schmoozing, sales, dealing with other giant egos). Compare that to my 40-45/hour work week, true vacation (with no work interruptions), and limited exposure to clients/sales/etc (which I find the most stressful part of my job - minimizing that is a good thing for me).

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#48

Post by sixQuarks »

31reasons wrote: post #41
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people. You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

why are you startled? Have you never heard of the 20/80 rule? It appears in almost every dataset. The top 20% of any set do 80% of the work.

Example: The top 20% of a population owns 80% of the wealth.

And yes, this applies to other occupations as well.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#49

Post by exelius »

alistairSH wrote: post #33

37 years old, studied computer science at university, and have worked in the software industry since graduation. Currently at a mid-size/large, multinational software company. We have a large number of developers with 20+ years experience. You aren't seeing their resumes because they're here and don't have a reason to leave. I've been here 12 years now, and if you can't match the 25 days vacation, 10 sick, 12 holiday…

Haha, I see this a lot. Banks who pay mediocre developers $150k a year plus crazy benefits to write entry-level reports because fuck it; the salary for the entire IT department is a rounding error on the bonus pool for the traders so who gives a shit? Good luck getting those guys out of a job like that.

Not saying you're mediocre; but a job like that leads to mediocrity and complacency because the work is often unchallenging. Again, nothing wrong with that since your life priorities shift at some point -- taking care of your family with a stable, high-paying job is often far more important in your late 30s than having a kickass fun job. But developers in their late 30s tend to have jobs that aren't so glamorous to us on HN.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#50

Post by hcho »

31reasons wrote: post #41
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people. You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

Lawyers and doctors are not too different.The premise is true for most of white collar jobs, if not all.
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