21–30 of 103 posts
At about 40, it does start to get more difficult to get hired. And by 50, it is all but hopeless. And the salary offered begins to go down at 40 too. Sharply after 44 or so. Where I am now, at 51, I have had to learn to get by on what I was making as a SysAdmin 20 mumble years ago. But at least I have a job. Before getting my current job I was having to learn to get by without a place to live too.
They become architects / development managers / product managers / pre-sales engineers / professional services consultants / founders of startups / project managers / security advisors / dev ops managers / tech recruiters / biz dev managers / even sales...
They become architects / development managers / product managers / pre-sales engineers / professional services consultants / founders of startups / project managers / security advisors / dev ops managers / tech recruiters / biz dev managers / even sales...
Some of the best product managers I have worked with are former programmers...they just get it. When I hire people in these roles, I often specify "technical" in the job title to attract these former programmers.
Me, I bought a farm in Sweden. Harvest is in, manure has been spread, looking to grow my first 'beer crop' (barley and hops) within a few years. The forest needs some attention but that is what winter is for.
What comes around, goes around. Programmers (and developers and architects and others of similar ilk) turn to the land while farmers are surrounding themselves with technology. GPS-controlled tractors, milk robots, ID-based cow feeders, etc. Horticulture is being robotised. Forestry will go that route soon enough, with clear-cut harvest being replaced by individual tree harvesting.
Seriously, I love what I do and will continue programming as long as possible. I'm addicted to learning and the satisfaction of good, clean, simple code that gets the job done.
* Outside of tech companies, in other orgs with their own specific tech needs (e.g. financial or scientific).
* More infrastructure, less user-facing.
* More "old school" like embedded/OS work.
I'm 51, and I specialize in storage. Consistent with this pattern, I've had many colleagues and collaborators in their 40s and 50s (after that it really does get pretty thin). We might be less visible than people doing the mobile/VR/ML kinds of stuff that are en vogue in the Silicon Valley VC/YC ecosystem, but many of us are still in high demand. There are even headhunters who specialize in facilitating such hires. They don't focus explicitly on age, but their focus on specific domains often results in a greyer-than-average contact list. You just have to know where to look.
Data point: I just turned 50, and I am happily coding away as a developer. Couldn't be happier - I still love to code.
Glad to hear - do you take special care of your wrists? I'm 32 and with some problems already...
One of my friends that I started my first job with is now at the CTO level, while I keep turning down opportunities to "advance" into management. Another friend of mine quit after the Senior Director level because he started hating his life, and went back to programming/embedded engineering for the fun of it.
Age does make you wonder if you were turned down for an offer because of subconscious ageism, but I am not aware of rampant problems with it.
You do have to be careful to give everybody's proposals a chance, instead of just pattern-matching to something awful in your past.
Keeping an open mind is a discipline.
Having kids helps you rediscover what you once loved, helps you recover from jaded oldsterism.