Just keep reading the rest of the posts on that page. Wow, some true entertainment there...
MIT alumni in their 50s
21–30 of 159 posts
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#22Do 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.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to do it as a lifelong career. There's plenty of well-adjusted responsible adults that do. I just don't think it will be my decision, personally.
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#23None 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?
Were the doctor, the professor and the attorney forced to move onto management?
I can't speak about doctors or attorneys, but how to keep getting promotions without taking on management responsibility (and thus having less time for research and teaching) is constant topic of discussions among my friends with academic careers. In fact it is on of the reasons my wife is seriously considering getting out of academia.
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#24Ugh. Confirmation bias and sample size aside, these are MIT alumni. Aren't they already supposed to be above average?
That being said, he didn't exactly say what sort of engineers these folks were. Electrical? Software? Big difference..
Also, one thing that didn't jive, if they are in financially uncomfortable retirement, why exactly are they showing up at a donors gathering?
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#25None 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?
When I worked in a UK university for a Professor (a title which only the most senior academics have) his role was arguably almost entirely "management" - he was a very bright guy and did get involved in the research his team did (about 15 of us) but it was obvious that 98% of his time was effectively "management" responsibilities.
Similarly for medics and lawyers - certainly for lawyers (in the UK anyway) getting past a particular level is more about business development and managerial skills than anything else.
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#26Me I had no choice, now I essentially have no career at all because you reach the end game where the industry stops talking to you despite all the money you made people. Pivoting to education would be a logical choice in a civilized society but this is no such place so instead of buying me off the market some poor business is going to wind up losing all their customers because I have no choice but to become a sole founder and learn business kung fu lol, its either do that or wait for unemployment to run out and then die from starvation and exposure basically unless I want to drive uber to pay them essentially 9 cents per mile because 49 cents per mile is 9 cents less than the cost of running the car in california lol.
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#27Do 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?
I've been programming professionally for close to 25 years, still love it.
Reasons I (still) love it: http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/
Why I think it is a good career (even if you are older): http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-dev...
Why programming experience is valuable: http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/15/programmer-knowledge/
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#28Ugh. Confirmation bias and sample size aside, these are MIT alumni. Aren't they already supposed to be above average? That being said, he didn't exactly say what sort of engineers these folks were. Electrical? Software? Big difference.. Also, one thing that didn't jive, if they are in financially uncomfortable retirement, why exactly are they showing up at a donors gathering?
> "why exactly are they showing up at a donors gathering?"
Yes, this probably means the problem is even bigger than the sample demonstrates. Most of the people in uncomfortable retirement are not going to show up at all.
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#29I wonder how much of this 'programming is a dead-end' angst that seems to cycle through HN fairly frequently these days is US-centric?
I say that as an almost-40 Australian software developer...
Re: MIT alumni in their 50s
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Were the doctor, the professor and the attorney forced to move onto management? I can't speak about doctors or attorneys, but how to keep getting promotions without taking on management responsibility (and thus having less time for research and teaching) is constant topic of discussions among my friends with academic careers. In fact it is on of the reasons my wife is seriously considering getting out of academia.
Is your wife a tenured professor? What is she thinking of doing instead?