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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?

#161

Post by bane »

enraged_camel wrote: post #141
teh_klev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 47* and I've been around a bit (dotcom era startups to banking and telecoms) and I'm familiar with the 75% mentioned. There is a type of programmer that works away in blue chips turning up to work on time, doing what's asked of them and then knocking off at half five. Sure they maybe repeat the same one year's experience year after year perhaps with some technology transitioning years from COBOL to VB to VB.NET o…

>> It's just a job I can understand this mentality, but cannot sympathize with it. Personally, I refuse to treat my job as "just a job." I want it to mean something. I want to look forward to coming to work everyday. I want to feel like the work I do makes a difference, as opposed to fizzle out and die in the massive corporate bureaucracy. I hate the idea that I'm just spinning my wheels, looking busy, collecting a p…

I think one way to do this is to get a sense for what are sometimes boring corporate missions that actually do have a huge impact in the world.

I remember when I was early in my career I talked with an older engineer who had done lots of time in the insurance business and I said something like "I don't know if I could ever work in something so boring".

He replied "making sure that claims are paid out correctly can be the different between somebody having a home or going homeless, or somebody being able to feed their family or not having transportation at all. Keeping in mind the lives of the people you're ultimately serving keeps me motivated even if the day-to-day is boring"

It's advice I've always kept at heart and it's been helpful.

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

#162

Post by Bahamut »

ryandrake wrote: post #95
alistairSH wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Come on.. Maybe you've seen developers at Google or somewhere like that make LameFailingCompanyCEO-level pay, but I highly doubt that "top-notch" developers anywhere earn salaries that approach CEO-level pay IN THE SAME COMPANY. Everywhere I've worked there has been a huge compensation cliff between the senior managers (anyone with the C?O title or their direct reports) and the rest of the peasants. I'm talking order…

Salary seems on the money, but equity is not - at least for a senior engineer, I have been offered around $60k * 4 (standard 4 year vesting - value at offer) typically in my short time around.

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

#163

Post by youngtaff »

exelius wrote: post #65
kuni-toko-tachi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this 100%. Good engineers are problem solvers, and as you grow older, you gain the wisdom that relative to the value that you bring to a business, the compensation will never match. It's unfortunate when you see younger software engineers who are incredibly smart technically and dedicated, but don't apply those same problem solving skills to their career. They become exploitable, and wind up making other…

Exactly. Once you get older, you start to realize that there are business frameworks that work just like software frameworks! An MBA and a CS degree are a powerful combination. In fact, if there were more engineers with MBAs, I doubt the MBA would have a reputation for being somewhat clueless about practical matters.

I've got an MBA and a HND in CS (slightly lower than a degree) and it makes for an interesting combination.

Some days I'll sit down and work with other devs on code even write them some examples to illustrate what I want, and then the next I might be talking to senior business people from our customers.

I didn't do my MBA until I was in my 30s and had already been a CTO, biggest thing I got from it was the ability to think differently - literally turn an argument around to see it from the other side, and a lot of friends who done various masters degrees say similar things

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

#164

Post by ryandrake »

bane wrote: post #156

This is true in any field: your employment picture looks very different at 40 than it does at 20. Lots of the reasons why are more due to real-life (TM) than the job market. At 20, you don't really mind renting a spare bedroom in the basement of somebody's house and working 100+ weeks trying to build the latest whatever non-world transforming consumer web thing. You have all the time in the world and no obligations b…

This is the best comment so far. I (~40) got out of development because the compensation/lifestyle, which was great for someone in their 20s, doesn't fit anymore. I'd go back in a heartbeat for the right package, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. The real career path is in management or the business side, so a lot of people I know have moved over to that side. I love writing software, and still keep my skills up to date on toy projects at home, but I can't imagine a company where software development is actually a long-term career option.

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

#165

Post by etrevino »

bglazer wrote: post #150
etrevino wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The programmers aren't entry level, but the work they're doing is entry level (in difficulty and maybe in quality). I've worked for a bank before and the environment (for this level of work) is stultifying. I just fell into the work, though, and I left after a couple of years. I wouldn't know where to seek it out. HOWEVER, I can give you a little bit of advice on what skills might be a little bit useful. You want to…

Oh good god I do Business Objects work right now. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not even for 150k.

Well shit. I start a new job working on it ... on Monday.

Any suggestions for books on it? They're training me, but the more I can learn on my own, the better.

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

#166

Post by logfromblammo »

shams93 wrote: post #76

You wind up taking "haircuts" and doing without equity here in Los Angeles till you are like me, 43 and forced to live in a squat with no running water because the startup you were working for decided to kick up your hours to 21 days, 7 days a week with no overtime, and then cuts your base pay by 2/3 so the founders don't take a haircut, this has been happening over and over for 14 years for me to the point where thi…

If you're living in a squat with no running water, your job is not improving your lifestyle. People can do the same thing working zero hours per week at a regular job.

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

#167

Post by hcho »

MCRed wrote: post #149
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 build cool stuff, I have kept up to date on new technologies, and languages. But I don't have a big network of people who "need a website" and I don't build websites, so I don't have people constantly calling me offering me work. That doesn't make me someone who has "done the same job for 30 years". My skill is not marketing my skills on a freelance basis. My skill is in engineering.. and a variety of others (like…

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work.

Am I missing something?

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

#168

Post by danielweber »

ska wrote: post #137
31reasons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

I've seen this stated this as another occurrence of the 80/20 rule, which close enough to 75/25. It doesn't really have anything to do with after a certain age, either. Some percentage %x of your 5 year experience programmers haven't really moved much past their first year at all. To be fair, I think of it really as a series of plateaus, not a hard and fast rule. People get stuck at a level of professional developmen…

Lots of employers want to pigeonhole you in the "same year of experience, 30 times" group. You can sometimes tell this during the interview; one warning sign is that they want someone with their exact technology stack experience they are using right now.

But I've always thought a team of generalists beats a team of specialists, which is swimming against the current tide.

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

#169

Post by MrDom »

collyw wrote: post #91
coldcode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A young man's opinion :-) Speaking as someone with 33 years experience writing code at a high level, I have lost nothing over the years except the attitude that only young people can code. What matters is desire to learn and keep ahead of the curve, and continued enjoyment of writing code. I've seen people lose that at every age group.

Young people usually write crap code in my 11 years experience. (Not all of them but probably the majority of them).

I knew one young guy in particular who prized indirection over all things. Debugging his code for something relatively simple involved jumping up and down at least 10 rungs of indirection or "abstraction" and was by and large a nightmare to extend or maintain.

But, he always, without exception exuded confidence and delivered new features quickly. He was hired as a senior architect at several startups before he turned 25.

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

#170

Post by hga »

m0nty wrote: post #153
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…

> until I got a clue and scrubbed my resume of all evidence of exactly how old I was (removed education dates; I've done that. > I'd already been trimming older jobs due to length and lack of relevance) And will probably try that as well. I agree that removing any indicators of age helped a lot with getting interviews. This would also help with clueless agents contacting me about PHP or Perl jobs when it's been a ver…

As I mentioned elsewhere in this subthread, my heading for this section is "Recent Relevant Experience". So I can leave out things like PHP or Perl if I've decided I never want to use them again. Or to indicate I'm a programmer who likes/is willing to do some system administration, but not indicate I'd take a pure sysadmin job.

Or not cluttering it with no longer particularly relevant technologies. E.g. programming Windows at the Petzold level (although some discussions on HN have given the impression that right now that might be the way to go :-( ).

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