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Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

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Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#211

Post by egorfine »

softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

> What you really just lose is patience for BS :)

So. Much. This.

I'm an "older developer" as well and the one and only thing that gets in my way of learning new things is the amount of useless information in the documentation and code.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#212

Post by quickthrower2 »

belter wrote: post #146

The Ageism present in the Software Development industry, is a sign of its still ever present immaturity. While in any other field...Who want's their house designed by the youngest, freshly graduated Architect? Who wants to be operated by a Surgeon on it's 2nd heart operation? Who wants the Junior Partner Lawyer supporting them on their court attendance? What would the Abel prize winners think? https://abelprize.no/wi…

The thing about those profession is where the boundary lies. End user talks direct to CEO/CTO/Technican all in one.

A young software dev is hired by a young team lead hired by a young founder. They probably have biases. And code is code and code can be changed easy unlike your heart or built house. So people think! I am generalising though!

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#213

Post by JD1967 »

danesparza wrote: post #14

I'm a developer in my late 40's. Just like a LOT of other developers, I have a stackoverflow profile, a set of (active) personal Github repos, and a presence on LinkedIn. I love clear, to-the-point video instruction. I don't think it's age-specific, but I really like "Tech World with Nana" on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TechWorldwithNana Hacker News (this site) is where I follow industry trends, along with Ars…

I started running at 45, and cycling a few years later. I never ran more than the mile they made my run in gym class in HS. I'm 55 and have run 12 marathons. My 20, 30, 40 year old self would have never guessed.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#214

Post by JD1967 »

I love to code, but at 55 and still having a teenager to send to college, I can make more $$ as a project manager/architect. So I don't get to code as much professionally - just watch other people do it...

I'm not even sure I could pick up a job with 100% coding at 55+.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#215

Post by xpe »

stakhanov wrote: post #200
codr7 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This touches upon something I've noticed lately, people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence. I'm 46 and have been writing code pretty much every day since 8yo. I used to think code was the greatest thing, and would gladly write it for free. But I was also very arrogant, too impatient to negotiate, and didn't really give a damn about the team as a whole. These days I find writing code p…

> [...]negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting. That seems to assume that, with age, you also gain power. As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I d…

> As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I don't expect anyone ever will, and I also expect it will be more and more of a struggle to keep convincing others to even let me keep doing that.

Sounds rough. We're not in your situation and probably don't understand the situation very well. If you want to continue the conversation, let us know. I'm not going to offer any kind of rah-rah optimism... Low expectations might be a good way to go.

A few questions: have you asked for other kinds of work? How have you asked?

Have you asked yourself this question: Are you selling or are you buying? (What I mean is this: in terms of linguistics and positioning, are you offering something of value or are you asking others to give you value?)

Ideally, you would present your "ask" in a way where both sides benefit. (Apologies if all this is obvious or uninteresting... I'm just starting the conversation.)

What else do we need to know so that we can offer thoughts that might be useful?

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#216

Post by xpe »

stakhanov wrote: post #200
codr7 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This touches upon something I've noticed lately, people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence. I'm 46 and have been writing code pretty much every day since 8yo. I used to think code was the greatest thing, and would gladly write it for free. But I was also very arrogant, too impatient to negotiate, and didn't really give a damn about the team as a whole. These days I find writing code p…

> [...]negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting. That seems to assume that, with age, you also gain power. As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I d…

> As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now

I like to think of a numerical age as a relatively high-variance (statistically) way of summarizing a lot of attributes: experience, wisdom, flexibility, free time, passion, pain tolerance, risk tolerance, technical skills, social skills, social preferences, self-confidence, over-confidence, family priorities, geographic mobility, neuroplasticity, and lots more.

I suggest taking an inventory by reflecting.

This helps in many ways:

* People are able to compensate for lots of weaknesses by using other strengths.

* Some roles, companies, industries will naturally align better than others.

* Reflection can lead to a certain level of acceptance. Own it; be confident in who you are. If there are parts you don't quite understand, be confident that you have started to increase your awareness and process of discovery. This process for many people becomes a very meaningful way to deal with uncertainty.

* Don't let others' assumptions (which are frankly, often relatively unexamined) creep into your brain unexamined.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#217

Post by gjutras »

55 here developing since 13. Recently dropped lead from my role and just became a developer again. I gained so much joy from not having to deal with most of the company stuff and just concentrating on the things I truly enjoy: creating, designing, troubleshooting, teaching, learning. I burnt out trying to do that and being the communication window through which the company and my team worked. As long as you forever enjoy learning (oddly enough which you do through continually learning), you can stay current enough. If you keep somewhat current, have a strong work ethic and continually contribute to both your team and your company and make a good relationship with your manager (sadly, very important to happiness, stress, success & growth in your current company), you'll avoid a lot of ageism. And the older you get, the more important it becomes to stay healthy in order to keep your brain working as well as it can.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#218

Post by ResourceToOlder »

.---------------.

| Community |

'---------------'

To the people in this thread looking for a community for older developers and software engineers.

We have been setting up the groundwork to organize a cohesive community of programmers on this, for the past few weeks, and will send out invites in the later part of May.

Invites will be sent out on a FIFO basis, to grow the community at a good pace to ensure the community culture will be useful to participants.

If you want to be included for the invite, send us an email at this public address:

resourceToOlder (at) goodage (dot) 33mail (dot) com

Feel free to include any thoughts or comments you have in the email you send to us.

We will also update this YC user profile at the end of May to provide more information to everyone.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#219

Post by p5a0u9l »

People are diverse and I feel that tech, in the whole, is coming around to that reality in practice and not only in PR. I work in big tech on “cool projects”. Our particular area values experience and intelligently failing fast, which also takes experience. My early career was in the military and I didn’t start working in engineering until my early 30s. Now I’m pushing mid-40s. In a certain way, I got to skip alot of years as a Junior dev and transition right into architect and design roles.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#220

Post by jvanderbot »

softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

I'm moving into old dev land. I'd summarize my transition as moving from "need to impress" to "need to be impressed".
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