MIT alumni in their 50s • Hacker News Board

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#141

Post by sixtypoundhound » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

Regarding the lawyer, there's a more complex bait and switch going on here...

As you progress in the practice of law, you spend less time working on document review and trial / transaction prep. Due to the nature of law firms, senior lawyers tend to either be focused on client development (sales!) or various forms of cat herding (project / business management!)...

Wait... tell me again about the career prospects of engineers in their 50's who (successfully) switched into sales and management?

[um yeah, nothing to see here....]

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#142

Post by ScottBurson » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #111

plg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the most entertaining conferences I ever attended was Usenix, several years ago. The paper sessions typically went like this: a grad student would stand up and present his and his advisor's research. In the sbsequent question-and-answer period, one of a small number of grey-beards (you'd recognize their names, but I can't remember who exactly it was; I'm old, too) would come to the mic and ask some variant of,…

I'd be interested to hear some specific examples if you care to post them.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#143

Post by kvcc01 » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #97

> The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. I do think tech undervalues experience and overvalues familiarity with technological fads. That said, there are two sides to the coin. Those…

If you get some ghastly disease and need a surgeon, you may not necessarily prefer a fresh graduate operating on you. I may personally filter for an experienced physician, in their 50s, 60s all fine, who has done thousands of the same procedure with good track record.

Similarly, if I were a defendant on jury trial, I wouldn’t prefer a new law grad to represent me. I’d filter for an older, experienced attorney, with good track record in the courtroom.

I think the above is common sense. But somehow most people get it completely backwards in our field of software. Why is it that people’s mental image of a competent developer biases towards 20-something whiz-kids as opposed to older devs? Doctors and lawyers have verifiable track records; is it because that most developers, especially in big corporations, don’t build such auditable track records that attest to their competency?

I’m very curious about this. A 60-yo surgeon who continues to operate every day, is revered, has job security, doesn’t worry about ageism, outsourcing, obsolescence, etc. A 60-yo dev who hasn’t moved onto management bears stigma of failure. (Not my thinking, just the common attitude I see in society.) Something is broken somewhere.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#144

Post by victorhn » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #76

jmorrison wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You still have time to polish those social skills and up your "game".

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#145

Post by pasbesoin » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

For reference, this is the URL of the actual post (as opposed to the current URL to the year/month entries):

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/04/30/mit-alumni-in-...

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#146

Post by ScottBurson » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #132

jmorrison wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> As an MIT alum in my 50s Well since we have a specimen handy, can we hear your take on the article? Does it match your observations?

Of the MIT/Stanford software engineers I have known a long time and know what's become of them: one (60-ish now) had a fairly lucrative late career segment doing web search at Yahoo and is now retired; one (same age) is still working, doing Big Data consulting; one (late 50s) was in a two-career couple with two or three kids and is now retired; another (mid 50s) made enough in the stock market and miscellaneous other ventures to semi-retire, though he still does a little consulting; another (56) is happily in business for himself selling iOS apps; and I (57) am still working as a tech lead for HP Fortify.

I think the lesson is, if you're careful with your money in your 30s and 40s, you won't necessarily have to work into your 50s if you don't want to. Alternatively, take good care of yourself and keep learning new stuff, and you can be productive well into your 50s and beyond. But if you don't do either of those things, you may have a problem.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#147

Post by discardorama » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #140

sixtypoundhound wrote: post #98

If we reverse the clock back to their 30's, the underlying math of these career choices isn't so kind... - The academic is completing their PHD program, with it's associated vow of poverty and about to start a multi-year tenure cagefight, in low-wage contract instructor roles. Only a small fraction will make it to full tenure; the rest will drop out to pursue industry jobs, 10+ years behind the engineers who went dir…

[deleted]

> Is the goal of a PhD really to get to tenure? Just a minor annoyance over calling people who chose to get a PhD knowing they would leave academia upon receiving it, drop outs.

Times change. 30 years ago (the period in question here), if you got a CS PhD, your only options were to join an academic department or one of the few industrial labs (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, etc.). Tenure-track positions were extremely hard to come by unless you were either (a) a rockstar; or (b) in a very practical field like OS or Databases or Networking. A friend of mine sent out 100 resumes, and got 98 rejections. :D

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#148

Post by hga » Wed, May 06, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

kvcc01 wrote: post #143

rayiner wrote: post #97

> The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. I do think tech undervalues experience and overvalues familiarity with technological fads. That said, there are two sides to the coin. Those…

If you get some ghastly disease and need a surgeon, you may not necessarily prefer a fresh graduate operating on you. I may personally filter for an experienced physician, in their 50s, 60s all fine, who has done thousands of the same procedure with good track record. Similarly, if I were a defendant on jury trial, I wouldn’t prefer a new law grad to represent me. I’d filter for an older, experienced attorney, with g…

I wonder if we have a circular problem here. Aside from the truly exceptional, the Ken Thompsons and thereabouts, and the Wallys that cling to sinecures, if we brutally purge from the field the older masters who don't quite walk on water, that would reinforce the perception that older programmers generally aren't capable, or at least worth senior salaries.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#149

Post by sjg007 » Wed, May 06, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

kvcc01 wrote: post #143

rayiner wrote: post #97

> The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. I do think tech undervalues experience and overvalues familiarity with technological fads. That said, there are two sides to the coin. Those…

If you get some ghastly disease and need a surgeon, you may not necessarily prefer a fresh graduate operating on you. I may personally filter for an experienced physician, in their 50s, 60s all fine, who has done thousands of the same procedure with good track record. Similarly, if I were a defendant on jury trial, I wouldn’t prefer a new law grad to represent me. I’d filter for an older, experienced attorney, with g…

Depends, sometimes you want a young pioneering doctor. Also sometimes you want an established software consultant.

The money per se is not in the technical individual contributor but delivering some new value that someone will pay for.

Re: MIT alumni in their 50s

#150

Post by wobbleblob » Wed, May 06, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #84

wobbleblob wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you still program, but your job title on that MIT gathering wouldn't have been 'programmer'.

Part of my point is that personally I would describe myself as a programmer first. Those titles for me has been a means to a higher salary, not something that defines me, and often not something that have defined my roles very well. Despite being "technical director" at present, I spend most of my time on architecture and devops. But if you care less about the money, then staying in a pure developer role saves you th…

But that's not what the blog post we're responding to was about - this was about anecdotal evidence that the MIT alumni who were still 'engineers' at 50 were worse off than their peers with more glamorous job titles. Maybe quite a few of the ones who answered 'not an engineer' were actually like you. Chief something, CTO, head- lead- something.

If you were interviewing an applicant for a dev position, have you never wondered "you worked there for 15 years, why were you never promoted?". I doubt the same would be asked of someone who had been working as a surgeon for 15 years.