Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by ownagefool » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

isomorphic wrote: post #21

bikamonki wrote: post #2

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 cat…

I'm over 40 and I've always worked as a consultant. Until recently I was the sole developer on a site doing eight figures in revenue (now I'm team lead). Without being arrogant here, if my skills match but someone doesn't want my level of experience, it's not a good sign for the someone. On the flip side, I would love to throw out all of the languages and frameworks I've been using for the past few years and learn en…

The main problem with hiring grey beards, as you put it, is that a lot of them aren't amazing, but due to years, they have an authorative attitude and expect to be paid more than your 20 something devs. If it's my money, I'd hire the 20 year old with gaping holes in their knowledge who are willing and eager to learn over the 40s something dev who thinks their way is better because they're 10 years my senior. I have a lot of anecdotal experience where I've rejected folks who were lacking a basic understanding of the pro's and con's of something. These guys aren't rejected because they don't understand the subject, but because they fail to accept there are scenarios where doing something the other way is better, or that at the very least, things at a bit give and take. This, I postulate, is generally because these guys have 10 years of 1 years experience, rather than the experience they're trying to sell themselves as having. These are the type of guys who will struggle when they're older. That said, when it comes down to it, most of the guys I try to hire are older than me. Age isn't a deciding factor, they just tend to be better.

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

#202

Post by dan00 » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

switch_bro wrote: post #194

hoboon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fantastic, and makes me hopeful. I'm almost 40 and no real career accomplishments but there's still time for me, maybe, before I just decide to hang it up and just go home.

The article focuses on the fact that as programmers age past 30 their salaries grow but they have roughly the same skills. But that is not the main dynamic here. The main dynamic is that as a person's brain ages, it improves in some ways and gets worse in others. The improvement is that you have more depth and experience. The loss is that your brain gets slower and less flexible. Unfortunately, in computer programmin…

> The big picture is that computer programming is a field with low barriers to entry and where young people have a significant advantage.

Computer programming isn't just one field, there're several completely different fields. All what you said might be true for the web development field, where the technology at hand isn't really that hard and you apply more or less the same technology and knowledge for each web project.

But there're several other fields where experience and knowledge are a lot harder to gain, and therefore also count a lot more, just look at the systems programming world or the more engineering heavy fields.

At my firm are a lot of >50 year old people, which are valued a lot for their knowledge, and our work isn't about getting shit done as fast as possible, but about getting something done right.

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

#203

Post by cookiecaper » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

shanusmagnus wrote: post #188

SiVal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you should say that. A few years ago, at a company whose name everyone here knows I, an old gray-hair, almost lost my full-time job for warning a VP that she was about to make a mistake I'd seen before. I honestly thought she was joking when she told me about the approach she was going to use to deal with a "hard deadline" of four months. I laughed along with her joke until, with a shock, we both realized…

Maybe you should consider that, as a grey hair, one of the skills you should have picked up along the way is how to behave when talking to a VP.

The interesting thing about engineers is that they have very little tolerance for these destructive social shenanigans. Courtesy and politeness are one thing, but ignoring such a flagrantly flawed plan goes beyond courtesy and into professional negligence.

When empirical thought is your bread and butter, as it is in the case of software developers, it's hard to see why you should have to acquiesce to the VP's ego. If one intentionally stays off the political tracks, there really is no reason they should have to play unreasonable political games. Workplaces would be much more efficient if we accepted, or at least heard, the advice of the people who get paid for their expertise, instead of cowering in fear that we may damage the ego of some fragile soul who ended up in management because they were not competent to do any real work directly.

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

#204

Post by switch_bro » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

archgrove wrote: post #197

switch_bro wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article focuses on the fact that as programmers age past 30 their salaries grow but they have roughly the same skills. But that is not the main dynamic here. The main dynamic is that as a person's brain ages, it improves in some ways and gets worse in others. The improvement is that you have more depth and experience. The loss is that your brain gets slower and less flexible. Unfortunately, in computer programmin…

I'm quite sure there's more to software engineering than can be learned in 8-10 years. I spent 7 years working with one tiny part of formal software verification, and still didn't get to the bottom of it. Perhaps it's true in web development, where it does really seem like the industry is recycling ideas every 18 months. But there's far more depth to the field than just "JavaScript framework n+1" and "Yet another tas…

The point is not that there is nothing to learn after 8-10 years. There is enough to learn for multiple lifetimes. The point is that after 8-10 years additional learning/experience will not give you a competitive advantage compared to younger programmers.

Also, I can see why someone would downvote my post above, since it describes an unpleasant reality. But I think it is crucial for young programmers to be aware of this dynamic!

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

#205

Post by LoSboccacc » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

flexie wrote: post #89

LoSboccacc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pay squash is why you should get out of field. engineering is the new proletariat, working at companies that rake in millions for pennies, while all managers above you get twice your pay just by organizing your time.

Engineering is certainly not a proletariat. Engineers make more money than most professions and have more interesting jobs as well as lots of respect from other professions (I am not an engineer and I can tell you lots of people admire engineers). Also, many professions experience "pay squash". It's a myth that most managers make much more than programmers and that they "just" organize your time. Let's have a little…

not when compared to all other profession that require a degree, constant lerning and are higly specialized (each enginering branch is not interchangeable, as well as within the same branch specializing in one area reduces your employment prospects in others)

also, the majority of managers are not the one that are in charge, taking decisions, managing risks and settings directions; middle managers types are way more common. and I do respect those of them that work well, but they are so hard to find that I'll stand by the 'most' in 'just organize things'.

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

#206

Post by _pmf_ » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

Here's a plan: move outside the Silicon Valley circle jerk. You won't get a ridiculous superstar salary, but you get the chance of working on actual products instead of throwaway MVPs.

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

#207

Post by switch_bro » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

dan00 wrote: post #202

switch_bro wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article focuses on the fact that as programmers age past 30 their salaries grow but they have roughly the same skills. But that is not the main dynamic here. The main dynamic is that as a person's brain ages, it improves in some ways and gets worse in others. The improvement is that you have more depth and experience. The loss is that your brain gets slower and less flexible. Unfortunately, in computer programmin…

> The big picture is that computer programming is a field with low barriers to entry and where young people have a significant advantage. Computer programming isn't just one field, there're several completely different fields. All what you said might be true for the web development field, where the technology at hand isn't really that hard and you apply more or less the same technology and knowledge for each web proj…

A few points come to mind. Are the 50 yo people really computer programmers, or are they managers / architects / scientists / etc?

The point is not that there is nothing to learn, but that after 8 - 10 years, additional learning/experience does not give you a competitive advantage compared to younger programmers.

Finally, you can always have exceptions, niches, etc. That does not change the dynamic for the field as a whole.

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

#208

Post by michaelochurch » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #23

Don't specialize in things that depreciate as rapidly as programming languages! C++ experience is quickly getting less relevant over time, but stochastic calculus, digital signal processing, machine learning, and distributed systems aren't. Some of those specialties get more valuable; in fact, sometimes, the forces that make things like C++ less valuable actually clear the way for things like distributed systems to b…

don't specialize in programming languages

Agree and disagree. I think that learning the minutiae of a specific programming language might be an evolutionary dead end. I say "might be" because there are C++ engineers making $500k in HFT. Since we're both in the same city (Chicago) now, we both probably know some of them. C++ isn't dead yet, and it's not even close (but a mediocre C++ engineer is probably hosed).

What seems to happen as a technology fades out is that the number of jobs drops, while the pay in those jobs increases. There's a risk to it. If you continue to be qualified for those jobs in the depreciating technology, then you're solid. If you lose at the game of musical chairs, you can be screwed.

There's value in learning programming languages if you keep an eye out for the concepts that make them what they are, and if those concepts have a future, which is more likely. We may not need C++ in 25 years, but we are going to have low-level programming problems that require a C-like language (and fluency with assembly languages). Haskell itself may or may not be around in 25 years, but the problems it exists to solve and the value of static typing will still be relevant. Common Lisp is nearly dead, but Clojure is doing well. Languages die, but concepts hibernate at worst.

The people who will be screwed are the ones who specialized in minutiae of Java but forgot the computer science itself: the ones who got really good at JVM configuration and Spring and Hibernate but have completely forgotten how computers really work. The really good ones will always have jobs: there'll be Java work 50 years from now, just as there is Cobol work now and some of it pays very well, but the more average engineers who only learned The Java Way will be screwed: not good enough to get the dwindling (if well-paid) Java jobs and with too much atrophy of their general CS knowledge to handle whatever is next.

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

#209

Post by kasey_junk » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

DrJokepu wrote: post #180

fsloth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume a troll? At 25 I graduated as MSc (physics), had not worked a day in the industry, and began my PhD studies. At 26 I figured computer graphics where much more fun than running quantum physical simulations in a lonely cellar and began my software engineering career. At which point I was still pretty clueless of the complexities of software engineering in the industry. The time limit is not age but how much e…

If you graduate at 21 and start working immediately, by the time you're 25 you'll have 4 years of experience with a few shipped mid-size projects under your belt. It's not that uncommon.

Define mid size. The only reason I ask is that at 4 years experience I had no where near the skills I needed to lead a midsized product.

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

#210

Post by tptacek » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #208

tptacek wrote: post #23

Don't specialize in things that depreciate as rapidly as programming languages! C++ experience is quickly getting less relevant over time, but stochastic calculus, digital signal processing, machine learning, and distributed systems aren't. Some of those specialties get more valuable; in fact, sometimes, the forces that make things like C++ less valuable actually clear the way for things like distributed systems to b…

don't specialize in programming languages Agree and disagree. I think that learning the minutiae of a specific programming language might be an evolutionary dead end. I say "might be" because there are C++ engineers making $500k in HFT. Since we're both in the same city (Chicago) now, we both probably know some of them. C++ isn't dead yet, and it's not even close (but a mediocre C++ engineer is probably hosed). What…

Do you believe specializing in a programming language is a smart career move so long as you pick the right language?