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Aging programmer

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Re: Aging programmer

#21

Post by w4ffl35 »

ThePadawan wrote: post #15
wpietri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Ageism, sexism, racism, etc, etc, etc, are all fucking idiotic. And yet surprisingly popular. So we have to deal with them.

I agree with you, but imagine being a discriminatory, but rational asshole. Of course you're not going to hire a woman if you could hire a man - they might get pregnant and be away from work for a long time. Of course you're not going hire an older employee that knows their worth over a recent graduate that isn't familiar with the salary they should earn. You can rip them off much more easily. People can be cunts but…

> not going hire an older employee that knows their worth over a recent graduate that isn't familiar with the salary they should earn

that's the real problem, self and situational-awareness.

Re: Aging programmer

#22

Post by Archelaos »

mrits wrote: post #17
amykhar wrote: post #6

Add 13 years, and I could have written this. I must admit I cringed a bit when the author said 40 was old. I still love what I do, and I have no desire to live the manager life of all day meetings.

If you can be the best NFL Quarterback at 45 I think you still have a shot at writing code at 40.

Which NFL Quarterback at 45 was coding at 40?

Re: Aging programmer

#23

Post by thunky »

krmboya wrote: post #10

I wonder where the genesis is of this idea that programming is young person's game akin to physical sports where speed, explosiveness and endurance matter. It seems to me that it's an intellectual activity where one should go on for very long honing their skills and becoming better and better at it with age. Maybe the industry sidelines the older more experienced technical folks at a cost, and that's why there seems…

I"m not sure that the common idea is that younger programmers are more skilled, but rather that they are more in demand. Could be for a variety of reasons, for example:

- cheaper

- less jaded

- easier to "manage"

- more willing to do the boring work that the older devs don't want to do

- more likely to be on call or work extra hours

- less likely to retire next year

Re: Aging programmer

#24

Post by gardenhedge »

I've moved out of coding every day at work because I've gotten 'too senior' but my goal is to move jobs to get back into it and probably spend at least the next 5 years coding. What I do now is so high level that I can't see myself doing it for the next 25 years.

That will bring me close enough to 40. I don't really see me stopping coding then.

Re: Aging programmer

#25

Post by Swizec »

sys_64738 wrote: post #14
dijit wrote: post #2

Here’s something I think a lot of people don’t think on: 40 years old is mid-career. If you expect to retire at 60 (likely 65 these days) and you start working at 20: 40 is smack dab in the middle of your career. I think that notion gets lost when we talk about ageism in tech and then people talk about 40-somethings.

A lot of programmers who are 35+ can struggle to find further opportunities as the more senior you are the less available those opportunities are and the more expensive you are. Lots of companies only want young people who are naive and have limited distractions outside of work. So, really, programming as a field is front loaded and the longer you stay in the business over 35 then the luckier you have been. But make…

Big part of why programming is front loaded is that it's an incredibly new field. The entire field hasn't existed for more than 70 years. And that was if you count "Niche academic field that a few dozen mathematicians knew about" as the start.

It didn't become like a job job until what, the mid 1960's? That's 60 years ago.

And the number of programmers is doubling every ~5 years. Of course it's front-loaded with young people! The people who have been doing this for the field's entire time of mass popularity (1980's onwards imo) haven't even had time to get proper old yet.

But also: The more experienced you are, the more your biggest value isn't in banging keys on the keyboard. A company would much rather leverage your thoughts and opinions and that may look a lot more like technical leadership than programming. Even though it's still engineering.

Re: Aging programmer

#26

Post by layer8 »

synergy20 wrote: post #3
dijit wrote: post #2

Here’s something I think a lot of people don’t think on: 40 years old is mid-career. If you expect to retire at 60 (likely 65 these days) and you start working at 20: 40 is smack dab in the middle of your career. I think that notion gets lost when we talk about ageism in tech and then people talk about 40-somethings.

40s or 50s are still prime time for programmers, assuming he/she keeps learning and coding and designing. but those are still of small group, it's like a normal distribution, I read somewhere age wise there are only about 1.5% that are above 50s.

A significant reason for that is that the field has kept growing for decades. Of course a lot less people started 20/30/40 years ago than do now.

Re: Aging programmer

#27

Post by willsmith72 »

vsareto wrote: post #11

>I never understood why some people despise the term full-stack. More for the role: full-stack has you doing multiple roles, but is not compensated as such. You're even removing the communication overhead if the role had been split in two. It seems to me as a business move to compress roles and pay you less for double the capability in exchange for varied work. I don't think people should just accept lower comp just…

I don't agree about multiple roles, backend/frontend is just one way of splitting a system. It's not like you get twice as much done in a fullstack role, you just do half as much frontend and half as much backend (in an even split role).

But why do you think fullstack is paid less? Is this a generally accepted fact?

Re: Aging programmer

#28

Post by temporallobe »

vsareto wrote: post #11

>I never understood why some people despise the term full-stack. More for the role: full-stack has you doing multiple roles, but is not compensated as such. You're even removing the communication overhead if the role had been split in two. It seems to me as a business move to compress roles and pay you less for double the capability in exchange for varied work. I don't think people should just accept lower comp just…

In my 20+ year career, I have met very few programmers who can actually justify the claim of being full-stack. Usually it means strong back-end that happens to have worked with some front-end framework fad, and less often vice versa. Specialists (UI/UX, database admins, CI/CD engineers, automation testers, just to name a few) are still very much needed and the trend to make everybody on the team “full-stack” doesn’t work well in practice unless everyone is a 10x developer.

Re: Aging programmer

#29

Post by _dhruva »

Nearing 50 and am still coding. Been doing it for last 25 years and will hopefully continue till retirement.

I had a brief stint as a manager, ended up doing more coding than my team. That was the moment I decided to step back into coding again.

For me, coding is puzzle solving or playing with Lego. It is therapeutic. If someone can continue to pay me to play, why not!

Re: Aging programmer

#30

Post by whiddershins »

ThePadawan wrote: post #15
wpietri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Ageism, sexism, racism, etc, etc, etc, are all fucking idiotic. And yet surprisingly popular. So we have to deal with them.

I agree with you, but imagine being a discriminatory, but rational asshole. Of course you're not going to hire a woman if you could hire a man - they might get pregnant and be away from work for a long time. Of course you're not going hire an older employee that knows their worth over a recent graduate that isn't familiar with the salary they should earn. You can rip them off much more easily. People can be cunts but…

Except if the more experienced engineer is actually worth more, the rational actor will pay them more.
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