Career planning: Where do old devs go to? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by nsxwolf » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:22 PM UTC

chton wrote: post #35

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…

"one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience." is a fantastic sentence and I'm stealing it. I've seen too many developers to whom it applies, and it's a great way to express that.

An HR manager said this to my mother's face once. Please consider people's feelings before using it. It's likely to be interpreted as "you've wasted your career and/or life".

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

#122

Post by mncolinlee » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:26 PM UTC

35 here with over ten years work experience.

I've actually been programming since I was six. When I graduated, I was programming in Perl. Today, I'm an Android engineer because I jumped ship to a startup and built up experience then left for a place that pays their workers.

I believe a lot of older developers struggle with redefining themselves as they get older. It's not so much "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," but rather complacency about the job market and dumb attitudes. If you've been doing well in one area for a long time, it can be difficult to make the transition to a current technology. HR doesn't usually think developers can learn new programming languages even if we do it every day. For example, I had to strip Fortran from my resume just so recruiters would stop assuming stupid things.

Then there are many who leave the profession, become consultants, or shift to management.

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

#123

Post by TacticalCoder » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

I don't remember which talk it was but there was a talk where it was explained that the reason why our trade seems to be dominated by young devs is that it actually is: the number of software developers is doubling every x years and when you have such a fast growth it is simply not possible to not have many young programmers.

I think it was a talk by Uncle Bob where he talked about how many devs there were worldwide when he started programming, how many there were in the early nineties and how many there are today.

The question "Where do old devs go to?" can still be asked (and Ed answered that question) but I think the answer doesn't matter much with regards to the average age of devs during interviews.

A company is going to be interviewing way more younger devs than older ones simply because of the age distribution of devs.

Even if every single (old) dev was still developing software, there would still be very few old devs compared to younger ones. That's why the graph in TFA is shaped like that.

I may be totally mistaken here but that's how I understood that part of the talk and I think it makes sense.

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

#124

Post by shams93 » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

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.

Down here in Los Angeles the talent pool is very shallow, now we are starting to see the first companies offering equity down here that is meaningful since 1998, seriously. If I hadn't had to go the last 14 years without equity I wouldn't still be coding pushing 43, I'd be an angel investor, basically making a living helping to fund companies. With no equity life is a kind of living hell, no ability to have the normal human experiences of say starting a family, instead its a twilight world of paycheck haircuts and forced unpaid overtime, that leaves you feeling permanently like a zombie as everywhere you turn, its the same demand, everyone here wants 100-140 hours a week, offers you 40 hours pay then tries to haircut you back to 20 hours pay, management through extortion is common down here, either work 100 hours for free or you don't see your next check.

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

#125

Post by wastedhours » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

freshflowers wrote: post #89

As an old dev (47) who's main focus is now management (the only thing I still program is devops stuff), there are some reasons why I stopped being a developer a few years back: 1) Developers are treated without much respect. Seriously, even with the scarcity, and even when we do get paid well (which is relatively rare) and have nice perks, developers still don't get the kind of respect other similarly highly skilled…

Part of it from my perspective is that a lot of organisations aren't inherently software businesses, but need developers to create and maintain tech solutions for the employees doing the "core" work of the company. I build and maintain systems that are used by several hundred core employees, but am paid less than them - I'm not bitter about that, I'm paid well in comparison to my circumstances, but it's unlikely that there'd be a business case to pay peripheral/support employees more than core ones, even if what we do impacts on the work of more people.

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

#126

Post by erikb » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:29 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #121

chton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience." is a fantastic sentence and I'm stealing it. I've seen too many developers to whom it applies, and it's a great way to express that.

An HR manager said this to my mother's face once. Please consider people's feelings before using it. It's likely to be interpreted as "you've wasted your career and/or life".

It's not necessarily a bad thing to hear something that sounds bad. Even after years on this planet people can rediscover themselves and start a kind of life they didn't even know it exists. Not telling people who are bad that they are bad is a concept I have a hard time to understand. Instead of worrying about feelings why not worry about really being this better person people can't complain (as much) about?

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

#127

Post by drivingmenuts » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

I'm 47 and in one of those weird spaces where I cannot find a job I'm happy with and I sure as hell do not want to wind up managing anything other than code. Years of contracting and not networking are starting to bite me in the ass, so I have to do the resume shuffle every time I look for more work. Keeping up with the latest tech is difficult when the paying work doesn't use it and all I have time for is toy projects that don't translate to real projects on the resume.

There's only about 18 hours in the day where I can write software and some of those are consumed by lunch and dinner.

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

#128

Post by throwaway5752 » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

Probably repeating what's been said elsewhere, but older devs are also less common because a lot move out of development and into management or other areas that are either less stress or more lucrative. A lot have kids and their priorities shift, taking large company pay and stability (such as is is) over startup lifestyles. Also, wisdom doesn't always come with age, but eventually you realize that being a developer at a startup is overrated financially - it primarily is a great professional development period. Once you've learned what you can from the experience, you tackle some bigger problems that typically cannot be solved by 3 guys working 24/7 on ramen and shoestring funding.

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

#129

Post by MCRed » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

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…

How many years of experience do you keep on your resume? I've been keeping 20, but it seems the bay area startups can smell that I'm old. (I've not met age discrimination outside of the bay area startups run by 22 year old type companies.)

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

#130

Post by forgotAgain » Mon, Oct 20, 2014, 2:32 PM UTC

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% or perhaps 85% of programming is CRUD applications. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you're advancing technically when in fact you're just becoming very knowledgeable about a cul-de-sac.

Most programmers don't take this path by choice. They just don't see it as its happening. You have to pro-actively manage your developer career if you want it to grow over the long haul.