I'm 59 and based in New England. I worry about this all the time. But so far, the worry has been a bigger problem than the reality: I've left stable employment situations to start up my own things, thinking that was my best insurance against hypothetical age discrimination.
Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
51–60 of 137 posts
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#52I'm in my early 40's, but I've recruited software engineers for almost 20 years and I until recently I ran a large Java Users Group over 15 years, which gave me quite a bit of exposure to an older range of engineers. I know many 50+ programmers who are doing quite well (monetarily, respect, responsibility, balance). Some independent consultants, some at startups, some with big firms, etc. A fairly wide variety. Not a…
The problem with ten years in one company is that you're likely to stay in your comfort zone and not learn enough new things. In an industry that reinvents itself every 5-8 years, the comfort zone is very dangerous indeed.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#53I'm 40 and feel like my career is almost over. It's a big shock to go on interviews where I'm the oldest person there by 10+ years.
The best engineers I've worked with have kids that are my age.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#54Just, a ridiculous question.
Why?
This is actually a really interesting question - especially given the HackerNews readership - so much of today's code production is for vapor ware I.e. Here today, forgotten tomorrow. There is some value in understanding what leads to career longevity in this business.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#55I'm 44 this year -- my last job change was two years ago, and it was to a Top 10 tech company. Now I'm responsible for heavily influencing the hiring decisions in my group. Here's the thing: most programmers are awful.
They can write code but they don't understand half of the libraries or technologies used. They learn the abstraction layers but have no interest in knowing how things work. And these symptoms get worse with age.
There's a point where most people get tired of relearning their skills; they no longer peruse new information in spare time, or even at work. If you aren't always learning, and examining things on a deep level, yes you'll be sunk by your forties. But I believe this is a choice on your part.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've heard many non-technical people say that if you're still coding after ~35, you must be lacking important people skills. I don't agree with that kind of generalization, but it seems to be a common viewpoint. I've never understood that viewpoint either - nobody ever says "if you're still a doctor or lawyer after age X you must be lacking Y"
This would come down to IT changing at a much faster pace than medicine as practiced by people. If you get older as a doctor, people still come in with common problems that you can fix and you're very knowledgable by then. If you work in IT, you would have had to constantly keep learning. If you stagnate, you would be unable to use technology that is relevant any more. In the analogy of the doctor, you would stop bei…
And that is why you fail.
See even in IT an older person's understanding of the depth of new technologies (seen that) is the hidden value that you missed. Doctors have to keep learning as well but the older doctor has seen the ups and downs of every condition just like an older programmer has already seen the pieces that make up the glorified new technology.
As for working longer hours...that is a total sign of failure. If you have to always work extra hours your just not as good.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#57http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/04/
>> Lesson: Unless you are confident that your skills are very far above average, don’t take a career path that subjects you to the employment market once you’re over 50 (and/or make sure that by age 50 you’ve saved enough for a retirement that begins at age 50 or 55 and during which you won’t have employer-provided health insurance for up to a 15-year gap between age 50 and Medicare age).
This pretty much sums it up.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#58The only advice I can pass on to the "younger" crew is to simply be prepared. You can do so in two ways, both of which are necessary: - Stay relatively current but continually grow your knowledge depth. Imagine a full-stack developer who has little awareness of anything new in the past ten years...don't be that person. Complacency for your career will kill your prospects fast. An advantage that you develop over time…
Do not assume that 50 is the threshold that you cross when you have to start dealing with ageism. It will be different for many (it's often much earlier), and you won't see it coming. One day, you'll be relatively dismissed by someone younger than you due to your "age", and you'll think "what the $#@% just happened?"
One of the things that galls me about this industry is its belief that experience (which is not the same thing as age) is a negative.
If you come from Microsoft or Google, you'll be assumed to be "political". If you come from a no-name company, people will think you're a loser who wasn't good enough for the tech giants or elite startups. If you have failed startups on your CV, people assume that you'll be bitter about the ones that got away. If you were at one job for too long, that counts against you; but if you had too many jobs and were a "job hopper", that ruins you as well.
It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. How are people not able to get past the idea that people are more than their experiences, and that most people improve with experience (even of the negative kind) and age rather than becoming "damaged goods" because they weren't millionaires by age 27?
End rant.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've heard many non-technical people say that if you're still coding after ~35, you must be lacking important people skills. I don't agree with that kind of generalization, but it seems to be a common viewpoint. I've never understood that viewpoint either - nobody ever says "if you're still a doctor or lawyer after age X you must be lacking Y"
Note: I'm not close to 50 like this topic asks, but I think this perception is a weird one I haven't personally witnessed. I think this stereotype/assumption (east coast, FWIW) - is probably due to the radical uptake on the field. There are a lot of young people, and that's starting to die off a bit more as computers are "a given" and those people themselves get older. Simply put - there will be a LOT of people in th…
>I think this stereotype/assumption (east coast, FWIW) - is probably due to the radical uptake on the field"
Hmm, I like this, and I think you may be right.
Unless you worked in a pretty scientific field, just 25 years ago "computers" were associated with games, and were something that "kids used". Now they're ubiquitous. And this just happened in a generation or two. Over the next couple of decades, the workforce will be chock full of people who grew up programming, or at least tinkering.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers Above 50, Is It Possible to Have a Career Past Your 50s?
#60Wouldn't be interesting people with certain age have more meetings with people like them, to improve network, know each other, make projects together, etc?
What do you think?