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MIT alumni in their 50s

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#11

Post by dba7dba »

wimagguc wrote: post #6

The other conclusion is, always be hireable. I guess it’s hard to be 50 and pride yourself to work for senior-senior level salary when a 30 year old can easily do your job. Hierarchies worked very well in the uni prof’s favour, but engineering companies tend to apply flatter structures. If there’s nothing that keeps the young folks competing, they will. So for us, engineers it may be a good idea to move to supervisor…

Agree. Being always be hireable is one's own responsibility. Not anyone else's.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#12

Post by whiteheat752 »

As an MIT student... should I not become a programmer? I do feel like I'm nearing the peak of my programming ability, and now would be the time to switch to a field with more "lock-in".

What would that field be? Medicine? Mechanical engineering? Consultancy?

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#14

Post by IkmoIkmo »

dba7dba wrote: post #10

I can't imagine a programmer making enough $$ to be able to show up at an event where the main goal is donation. Granted some did show up. Let's list the careers that were still considered safe age 50. Doctor. Lawyer. Professor. All important, no doubt. But which one of those truly helped advance our society or nation? As in improving GDP or trade balance? Most likely not. But the other engineers (some with uncertain…

> Doctor. Lawyer. Professor. All important, no doubt. But which one of those truly helped advance our society or nation? As in improving GDP or trade balance?

Ehh... all three? Try running a country without them and see where your GDP ends up. As for 'truly helped advance' and linking that to just GDP is incredibly myopic.

I have all the respect in the world for engineers but let's not fetishise over them.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#15

Post by danielrhodes »

None of this should be particularly surprising: if you choose to be complacent in your career you can't expect stability or increased prosperity over the long term. The path from a junior engineer to a lead engineer is quite short relative to a your typical career length. If you don't wish to move into management or elsewhere, there isn't anywhere else for you to go except laterally. After a certain point the impact of a person's improved programming skills does not get significantly better over time, at least for what most companies need. Therefore a company becomes incentivized to hire younger engineers who cost less as they still get similar or even better output.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#16

Post by wobbleblob »

kristopolous wrote: post #7

Do people here anticipate programming being their lifelong career, or do they in good faith, think there will be a switch later? Personally, I've done this for 15 years and I keep doing contracting to pay the bills but really I'm pretty done with it. What about you?

Yeah, that was my thought. If you're still a programmer at age 50, either something has gone very wrong in your career development, or you're such a legend in the field that it would be a loss to the world if you had moved on.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#17

Post by dba7dba »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #14
dba7dba wrote: post #10

I can't imagine a programmer making enough $$ to be able to show up at an event where the main goal is donation. Granted some did show up. Let's list the careers that were still considered safe age 50. Doctor. Lawyer. Professor. All important, no doubt. But which one of those truly helped advance our society or nation? As in improving GDP or trade balance? Most likely not. But the other engineers (some with uncertain…

> Doctor. Lawyer. Professor. All important, no doubt. But which one of those truly helped advance our society or nation? As in improving GDP or trade balance? Ehh... all three? Try running a country without them and see where your GDP ends up. As for 'truly helped advance' and linking that to just GDP is incredibly myopic. I have all the respect in the world for engineers but let's not fetishise over them.

Eh, maybe I was a bit harsh. But still, consider this.

Doctor: Was the doctor in research?

Lawyer: No comment.

Professor: How good was his research? Or was he one of those the taught from same note year after year and just took credit for work done by grad students?

And my mistake in linking it just to GDP. How about advancing the society by building better tools, transportation, medicine, improve efficiency in this/that?

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#18

Post by vanderZwan »

danielrhodes wrote: post #15

None of this should be particularly surprising: if you choose to be complacent in your career you can't expect stability or increased prosperity over the long term. The path from a junior engineer to a lead engineer is quite short relative to a your typical career length. If you don't wish to move into management or elsewhere, there isn't anywhere else for you to go except laterally. After a certain point the impact…

> If you don't wish to move into management or elsewhere, there isn't anywhere else for you to go except laterally.

I find it almost insulting how you imply that "not desiring to be a manager" is the same as "being complacent in your career"

Were the doctor, the professor and the attorney forced to move onto management?

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#19

Post by vidarh »

wobbleblob wrote: post #16
kristopolous wrote: post #7

Do people here anticipate programming being their lifelong career, or do they in good faith, think there will be a switch later? Personally, I've done this for 15 years and I keep doing contracting to pay the bills but really I'm pretty done with it. What about you?

Yeah, that was my thought. If you're still a programmer at age 50, either something has gone very wrong in your career development, or you're such a legend in the field that it would be a loss to the world if you had moved on.

Or you enjoy what you're doing.

I've had "director" or "head of" or similar in my titles for the majority of the last 20 years, but I keep finding excuses to code because it's what I enjoy doing the most. Whenever my job responsibilities doesn't let me code, I spend more time coding at home.

I'm 40 now, and I can't see that changing. I first started programming when I was 5 years old, and it's an integral, important part of my life.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#20

Post by logicchains »

dba7dba wrote: post #10

I can't imagine a programmer making enough $$ to be able to show up at an event where the main goal is donation. Granted some did show up. Let's list the careers that were still considered safe age 50. Doctor. Lawyer. Professor. All important, no doubt. But which one of those truly helped advance our society or nation? As in improving GDP or trade balance? Most likely not. But the other engineers (some with uncertain…

Software engineers can also take pride in the fact that any career success we achieve is the result of the value we produce, and is not just due to regulatory/structural limitations reducing the number of competitors in our field.
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