101–110 of 159 posts
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Seconded, especially with regards to skills at working in team structures, with things like version control.
Version control? That's, like, not the hard part.
This post reeks of confirmation bias or at least the sample size is too low to draw any conclusions. What if that software engineer didn't want to progress his career and was happy at the level he was? What about those engineers that did go into management? I could be wrong but if you choose to stay in a roll a 30yo can fill why would it be strange that you would be expected to compete with those younger to get a job…
I made the mistake of continuing to read other posts down the page. The author appears to have many biases, and a myopically logical view of people. I am unconcerned.
[1] I used to be able to, but as I got older I said "fuck it, it isn't worth my time for him to purposefully misunderstand me."
This post really scares me and part of me wants to quit this industry even though I enjoy coding. Ageism is a brutal reality.
In my experience if an older engineer/programmer is more expensive than a younger one --- but the older one is better --- the older one will be hired. You get what you pay for. As long as your skill set isn't basically a "commodity" (generic web design for example) you will be ok. Put another way---if your decades of experience _don't_ give you some appreciable advantage over a 20-something new guy, then yes maybe yo…
You don't even have to buy all in. I bought in just enough to get my head out of my ass, and have improved my financial situation considerably.
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?
Unless you've been seriously programming for a number of years, with a fair amount of that in teams, including face to face ones, you're probably not nearing your peak. I'd suggest reading The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master (http://www.amazon.com/The-Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Ma...) and judge where you are in the range from journeyman to master.
If you're looking for "lock-in", i.e. be easily employable past your ability to fake looking under 35, I'd suggest getting a job with a serious security clearance, which can be a trick, or specialize in one of the fields that respects grey hairs like embedded (but only so much depending on the sub-field, e.g. Detroit car companies at least in times past recruited heavily from Course 6 because they too got rid of their older EEs and programmers).
If you goal is to really work for yourself, and you think you can eventually bill at a rate 5-6 times the income you want to receive---maybe talk to some professors who make a lot of money on their one day a week dedicated to that, albeit they do it with MIT Professor on the CV---yes, that's a very good way to go. But hard for most people. See e.g. this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9499561 which points out you have to compete on quality, not price, and a couple of HN contributors who've written a lot about that.
Medicine: in a county, or the developed "West", where people by and large don't directly pay for their own medical care, and those who do pay are looking at a rapidly graying population, well, it's a field you ought to run screaming from, unless it's your calling.
Don't know about MechE and so on, in general you need to talk to older engineers, the people who run the department, professors, etc., of course adjusting for selection bias. If you haven't already identified a calling, well, you have a lot of options, especially if you're strong at math. Especially before the 2008 crash, a lot of EE strong and therefore math strong EECS graduates would get initial jobs in finance with their proven math chops, which if they were smart got them in a good financial position to do something they really wanted to do later.
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Alternatively, these are MIT people, so perhaps the problem is that their education and career are both overly specialized. Breadth would certainly be an asset to deal with change over a longer term. It's another great argument for a broad liberal arts education.
An MIT bachelor's degree includes a decent amount of liberal arts. The HASS requirement has been around for a long time -- 1980s? http://web.mit.edu/hassreq/
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I took Phil's class (6.171 - Web Development Lab) in college. It was a ridiculous experience, regularly had to put 40hrs/week just on this class and I'm not exaggerating. Story time: As part of the class we were working with real clients to develop a web project for them. One day during class, he talked to us about the "technical sidekick", typically a friend of the client's that is somewhat technical and is behind-t…
Could you share any lessons he taught you about how to properly deal with the "technical sidekick"? I often encounter them in web consulting and I'm curious to see what Phil's advice on the topic was.
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As an MIT alumnus at age 47, here's my advice: If you love programming, keep programming. If you don't love it, do something else.
This 44-year-old alumnus concurs. At the same time, I've been doing more and more training, and less and less day-to-day development, over the last few years. Not only do I enjoy it, but I find that my long-term perspective and experience helps me to explain things to the younger and less experienced developers. That said, it's pretty amazing to see what today's kids have done before they've even finished their first…
Professor Robert Rose had some great advice for me as a freshman: as an MIT student, you can probably succeed at whatever you want, enough to enjoy life. So pick a field that gives you personal satisfaction.
Money is valuable and ego-boosting, but when you hit your 30s you will realize that enjoying your workday is much more important than maximizing your paycheck. (But there are also easy ways to increase your paycheck. If you can become better than a potted plant[1] at negotiating, you can boost your salary.)
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As an MIT alum in my 50s, let me assure you that a specific fundraiser is assigned to target you, personally and individually. "Ugh," indeed.
MIT alum in my 30s. When to babes start throwing themselves ta me because of my degree? My parents promised me this would happen.
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Seconded, especially with regards to skills at working in team structures, with things like version control.
Version control? That's, like, not the hard part.
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…
Unfortunately being hireable and getting hired are two separate things. Yes, we can do things better and more thorough, however the sad thing is, most employers (at least in Singapore where I am) don't care. They care about salary and ability to work extra hours. Things could vary in the states though
(Unless you have a big piece of equity. .1% is not big.)