Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

More options: - Go solo. At 40 you should be experienced enough to handle up to mid-sized projects, alone and on a reasonable time-frame. Try to pick projects that your clients will actually use, with new features and support contracts you will have steady income for the long-term. - Go startup. Stop thinking you need to come up with the next über-for-x. There are plenty of opportunities for small sass shops that cater locally and provide sufficient income for a micro successful business. At worst you'll be acquired. - Go sidetrack. I read someone said every business is a software business. Start a different career/business and you'll be doing the IT needs yourself. That alone is a huge competitive advantage.

These options allow you to continue programming after 40 and you should! It is an urban myth that past 35 programmers are not as good b/c they get tired faster or make more mistakes? The truth is that 20-somethings can put up with very long hours b/c they have the time (mainly due to not having a wife and kids) while 40-somethings have the experience to go right to the answer. That's productive vs efficient. I like to use a soccer analogy: a young defender is good when he's fast because he can outrun the attacker, while an old and slow defender is better because he knows where to stand and wait for the attacker. Experience is gold.

Right. The issue here is that there's a difference between a software engineer and a programmer. A programmer is measured by years of experiences with particular technologies. Programmers are unfortunately replaceable commodities as a result. Software engineers are measured by their ability to work within constraints to use ANY tools available to them to solve the problem on time and in such a way that it'll scale to load.

If you're in a workplace full of programmers, consider moving onto to a firm that hires software engineers. You may have to move out of state unfortunately since the culture doesn't exist everywhere.

I'm not a fan of this plan B stuff when you're 40.

Where is the plan B for doctors? Where is the plan B for Lawyers? Why do these other professionals have respect in the their old age and not us software engineers/programmers?

How depressing.

> The half-life of an engineer, software or hardware, is only a few years.

And I still don't get this. Move out of software and you'll find loads of over 40's and over 50's engineers. Here in Perth I know loads of older engineers, that are given dignity and respect along with their peers in Medicine and Law.

This plan B stuff is because of the culture that surrounds programmers. If there is any plan B, it is to maybe start admitting that older programmers might actually be useful and worthwhile for employment, much like every other white collar profession.

It's true that a 40 year old might not be able to work as many hours as a 20 year old, but that doesn't mean each hour is worth the same. At 40, you'd hope that the older programmers hours put in are more considered with all their experience and are most certainly worth it.

The same goes for older Lawyers and older doctors, they might not be as energetic as 20 year olds, but with all that experience to make that much more of an informed decision, it certainly means the older generation can compete.

This is a culture issue.

> Software engineering reliably undergoes a major technology shift at least every 10 years.

I doubt any shift invalidates real fundamental knowledge. Sure if your entire career has only been a couple of languages with very little algorithm theory, then true, but that's because you never studied the subject, on your own or formally, that isn't because you're 40.

For example, Doctors and Lawyers have to have the fundamentals down, it's very important. I guess it's true that not enough programmers have the fundamentals down and that is an issue.

But if you're 40 and have training in the fundamentals such as algorithms and design before even hitting the code, you should easily be able to adapt.

> The more irrelevant experience a candidate has, the more lopsided the utility/value equation becomes

Again this is a HR issue. A software engineer/programmer that starts their work from the design and algorithm level should be able to pick up a new language in a couple of weeks. This issue is mainly with the way we hire programmers not with the programmers themselves.

It's like the job ad for 10 years experience in Node.js when Node.js was 3 years old. Just because HR are clueless doesn't mean we need to all start changing our careers.

If you want my advice, it's learn that knowing people is as important (or more!) than what you know.

If you build up your career around being an expert and networking, you will be in a better position than the expert who knows no one.

Or plan C. For younger engineers start thinking about financial independence. Software Engineers enjoy a high starting salary and an even higher mid career salary so it is entirely possible to achieve financial independence in your 30s-40s with a frugal lifestyle and smart investing.

I think it depends a lot on the industry, a young SF based Rails / Django / based startup? I hardly see them hiring a 40 years old with kids that will ask for a salary higher than the CEO. A front end UI developer with knowledge of the latest Ember / Anguler / React / whatever they come up with next front-end tech? Perhaps they are more likely to find a fresh graduate (or just a self taught hacker who just rocks at HTML CSS and JavaScript) that is in their early 20's

But in big companies (Amazon, Google, Twitter) in enterprise software companies, banks, medical tech, finance, I think it's not that uncommon to find 40 year old developers. Most of the developers in my company average at way above 30. And we have a couple of engineers above 50. All of them are pretty kick ass Java developers and they all get tons of unsolicited recruiter spam. (Maybe I'm delusional or in denial, or perhaps this is just the difference between industries, but I think that if you WANT to still do it while you are 40, and you keep yourself sharp, just like doctors have to keep up every year with the latest developments in medical research to stay relevant, then I think you can do it till you retire)

I think the reason many drop out of coding is that it is very time consuming to keep up, and some may want sometimes a less mentally demanding daily routine. Managing a team of engineers can be tough, but it's somewhat less mentally and intellectually strenuous and energy hungry as coding. Coding takes a lot of focus and sharpness, and sometimes it's simply hard grunt work, people sometimes get tired of it and want to move on to management (or being a "solution architect") or even product management.

I think the problem is that the 40 year olds chose on their own to do less coding at some point, and more management / IT / architecture. (e.g. the less good developers, those who don't pass the sort from 100 to 1 but still manage to land a job, eventually understand it's not for them and move on to other, not less important roles)