Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 411 posts

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#211

Post by shadowtree »

No, not in enterprise.

All my architects are over 40, every single one of them.

Working on a 10 year old code base, multiple stacks (mobile apps, Java backend), on AWS.

You need clear headed people that know how to spot bad stuff about to happen and then clean it up, keeping the big ship stable. Constantly removing technical debt.

SaaS is the best thing that ever happened for job stability for engineers. Constant updates, upgrades, etc. The guys at Salesforce.com, Workday, ServiceNow, etc have a long road ahead of them.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#212

Post by zerr »

herf wrote: post #26

I think this bias needs to evolve, and maybe birth year is more descriptive than age. In 2000, a 40 year old was born in 1960, when the home PC was nearly 20 years off. A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers. These are very different experiences, and the bar will move over time.

> A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers.

oh, those 1st world countries...

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#213

Post by ChuckMcM »

zoul wrote: post #54
ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

The answer is pretty reasonable in the Quora post (Answer: no). In my experience, people who get something more out writing software than a salary tend to stay in software development, at some level, for their entire career. That said, if you're a software developer and you're also good at communicating and managing people, seriously consider moving into management. While I think the stories of the '10x' developer ar…

Isn’t it a big loss to move into management when one loves to code?

In my experience it depends on what you love about coding. I happen to really like systems, and building a good team is much like building a resilient system in code. Each piece supports the others.

But it is not a good idea if you really are passionate about the writing. For example, my daughter majored in English because she wants to write novels, not because she wants to teach English. So in her case I certainly wouldn't tell her to go get a job as an English teacher.

In my opinion, the second worst kind of manager is one that doesn't want to be a manager and would rather stay an individual contributor. Their inner conflict is harmful to the group.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#214

Post by pdpi »

jordanb wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to convince me that computer vision is a bad domain to specialize in for journeyman programmers because it takes post-grad education to get a job, that'll be a quick and easy argument. As a counterexample, though, most serious work in cryptography (for instance) is done by grad students, but the best jobs in crypto are not automatically going to grad students. Either way: if your goal is to maximize lifet…

I'll have to defer to your knowledge of the market for self-taught cryptologists. My understanding is that most journeyman programmers working in security are in Burb Suite Operator positions. My point isn't that becoming a subject matter expert isn't a good way to supercharge your earnings for a few years. I agree with you there. Clearly, a guy with lots of experience with and deep knowledge of the Oracle database c…

> Clearly, a guy with lots of experience with and deep knowledge of the Oracle database could do pretty well for himself 10 years ago

A guy with lots of experience and deep knowledge of databases in general, though, would do pretty well for himself both 10 years ago, and today. Even better if he worked on some database himself. Really, that's what owning a domain means: you don't want 10 years of experience as a _user_ of some technology, you want that experience as a _builder_ of said technology.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#215

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #71

I was going to add this as a reply to a comment downthread but I think it's too important to bury. The fundamental rule of career progression in the technology industry is to position yourself as a domain expert in something more specific than "programming" . It's very difficult to "own" "programming" in a way where you can use scarcity to drive integer multiple increases of the median salary. It is not as difficult…

[deleted]

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#216

Post by cgh »

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #199
cgh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Also, I suspect a lot of this "there's no life after 40" stuff mainly relates to startups and certain small companies. It certainly doesn't apply to BigCorps.

Actually, we all need to grapple with the fact that big corporations are behaving more and more like startups because they can. If Google has a higher standard (as has been reported by Google SWEs who perform interviews at Google right here on HN) for entering SWEs based on their age, then we need to take a hard look at that. Yeah, it's illegal and unfair, but no one over 40 and really over 35 is allowed to be a grea…

Yes, you make good points. A distinction should be made between junior 35+ people and 35+ people with at least a decade of experience.

But I don't think that's exclusively a software engineering issue. If I tried to become an electrician at 40, my guess is I'd encounter some bias, though probably less than in software.

One other thing: by "BigCorps", I'm referring to things like banks, Wal-Mart and so forth, not technology companies like eg Google.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#217

Post by spacecowboy »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #28

No. I'm the happiest I've been in my career and I'm almost 50. I'm a programmer, not a manager, not a tech lead, not an architect. I still love programming and I love solving problems. I just recently made a huge change that decreased load on our systems by 90% and I'm still stoked 3 days later.

Those moments are always awesome and a great feeling :)

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#218

Post by ScottBurson »

jordanb wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to convince me that computer vision is a bad domain to specialize in for journeyman programmers because it takes post-grad education to get a job, that'll be a quick and easy argument. As a counterexample, though, most serious work in cryptography (for instance) is done by grad students, but the best jobs in crypto are not automatically going to grad students. Either way: if your goal is to maximize lifet…

I'll have to defer to your knowledge of the market for self-taught cryptologists. My understanding is that most journeyman programmers working in security are in Burb Suite Operator positions. My point isn't that becoming a subject matter expert isn't a good way to supercharge your earnings for a few years. I agree with you there. Clearly, a guy with lots of experience with and deep knowledge of the Oracle database c…

There's a difference between being an Oracle expert and being a database expert. If all you know is Oracle, yes you have a problem. If you understand database theory and implementation and can apply it to RDBMSs and NoSQL databases of various kinds, you are set for life.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#219

Post by halfknot »

mattmurdog wrote: post #195

When you claim to be a senior engineer with 20 years of experience and you don't know what ES6 is then you don't deserve a job.

Says someone that insinuates javascript is applicable to all forms of software engineering...

This is what's really wrong with software engineering: we have young, cocky and mostly ignorant people doing the hiring. From CEO's riding daddy's coat-tails while trying to pretend to run a company, all the way to college grads that think their training as a flaming-hoop jumper is the pinnacle of engineering.

You do this to yourselves.

Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?

#220

Post by QuercusMax »

everyone wrote: post #43

I'm frankly flabbergasted why silicon valley (apparently, from reading articles here) has this youth fixation. In my software dev experience the least useful people on the team have invariably been the youngest. My pet theory answer for my own question goes thusly: Young people are more easily indoctrinated / brainwashed and dominated and thats what Google and whoever really want in their employees.

I think this is one of the things where it very much depends on what team you're on.

My experience at Google has been completely the opposite of what you describe. I work with lots of people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s and a fair number of people in their 50s; I'm 35 and I don't feel out of place here at all. I can count on one hand the number of times I've stayed at work past 6 PM; as a parent of multiple school-age kids, there's been lots of flexibility. My team actually has a dedicated video-conference unit specifically to make it possible for those working from home / working remotely to take part in ad-hoc conversations.

The main thing is that you have to be good at what you do. You can't expect to just skate by. I've spent a lot of time mentoring new-grads and those in earlier stages of their career, and this has been recognized and rewarded. I've also written a ton of code and shipped things that worked the first time.

Post reply on HN