Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#251

Post by rndrnd » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #242

switch_bro wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article focuses on the fact that as programmers age past 30 their salaries grow but they have roughly the same skills. But that is not the main dynamic here. The main dynamic is that as a person's brain ages, it improves in some ways and gets worse in others. The improvement is that you have more depth and experience. The loss is that your brain gets slower and less flexible. Unfortunately, in computer programmin…

> Unfortunately, in computer programming you will run out of experience and depth that you can accumulate after about 8-10 years of work (say ages 22 - 32). Every new technology is just a variant of the previous 999 technologies. But you still keep getting older every year, and incurring the downsides of getting older! I'm going to call bullshit on that. There are a lot of recycled technologies (especially in web), b…

Like the parent tried to explain, different fields (programming, law, medicine, etc) have different experience curves.

There is definitely enough in programming to learn for 200 years, if we lived that long. It's just that when programming in area E, a 47 yo who learned A, B, C, D, and E does not have an advantage over a 32 yo who learned B, D, and E. But the 32 yo has the advantage of his youth.

I also don't get all the "I'm 30 and I'm doing ok" statements. The article is about issues you'll experience when you're 45 .. 49 .. 55 .. 59 .. 63 .. etc.

Edit: let me do an easy computation for you. Time from age 22 to age 32 = 10 years. Time from age 22 to age 67 = 45 years. Big difference!

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#252

Post by phamilton » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #106

phamilton wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or buy now and sell in 15 years or so. Move to Boise Idaho. 15 years of equity (ignoring appreciation) means you can buy a house twice the size outright.

Bay Area real estate has picked up, but timing 15 years to sell? Doesn't always work out as well as it could if things have cratered. There have been about three significant real estate collapses in the Bay Area in the last 20-30 years. Some areas hold up better than others, but, say mountain view, a 20-something at his/her first/second job, unless has other means, isn't going to pick up property easily to hold for 1…

15 years isn't exact. Boom bust cycle is 5 years or so. If the market is down in 15 years, then just wait it out. I'm not even including appreciation in the calculations.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#253

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #243

dan00 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big picture is that computer programming is a field with low barriers to entry and where young people have a significant advantage. Computer programming isn't just one field, there're several completely different fields. All what you said might be true for the web development field, where the technology at hand isn't really that hard and you apply more or less the same technology and knowledge for each web proj…

>>But there're several other fields where experience and knowledge are a lot harder to gain Factor in internet that statement isn't true anymore. The amount of knowledge on the net today is mind boggling. Its scary to imagine how much information has become cheap and easy to access these days. And no one knows where this is all heading. The jobs that require knowledge and experience hard to gain are already very few…

[deleted]

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#254

Post by smarks » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #243

dan00 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big picture is that computer programming is a field with low barriers to entry and where young people have a significant advantage. Computer programming isn't just one field, there're several completely different fields. All what you said might be true for the web development field, where the technology at hand isn't really that hard and you apply more or less the same technology and knowledge for each web proj…

>>But there're several other fields where experience and knowledge are a lot harder to gain Factor in internet that statement isn't true anymore. The amount of knowledge on the net today is mind boggling. Its scary to imagine how much information has become cheap and easy to access these days. And no one knows where this is all heading. The jobs that require knowledge and experience hard to gain are already very few…

(Insert quip about queuing theory and unbounded wait times.)

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#255

Post by aswanson » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

switch_bro wrote: post #194

hoboon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fantastic, and makes me hopeful. I'm almost 40 and no real career accomplishments but there's still time for me, maybe, before I just decide to hang it up and just go home.

The article focuses on the fact that as programmers age past 30 their salaries grow but they have roughly the same skills. But that is not the main dynamic here. The main dynamic is that as a person's brain ages, it improves in some ways and gets worse in others. The improvement is that you have more depth and experience. The loss is that your brain gets slower and less flexible. Unfortunately, in computer programmin…

What advice would you give to old forty year olds like myself that waited too long to read the tea leaves?

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#256

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

ownagefool wrote: post #245

mgkimsal wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"with gaping holes in their knowledge who are willing and eager to learn" If you don't mind the 'learning' involving data loss, security breaches and competitive disadvantages... sure. Go for it. I say this as someone who did learning 20+ years ago, and have lost data, had security issues, and had many of the issues that come with learning technology (and business). My employers and clients absorbed part of those lea…

Hi there, you seem a tad upset. You should probably note my last sentence where I point out most of the better folks who I want to work with are older. My point was that simply being older doesn't make someone better, and that I'd rather train a junior than deal with a stubborn incompetent senior team mate. Unless you think the latter applies to you, you probably shouldn't be upset, I'm not generlising, I'm pointing…

"and that I'd rather train a junior than deal with a stubborn incompetent senior team mate"

I was pointing out that the 'junior' often has more hidden costs than people realize. If you really are training someone - that's great, but I see far too little of that, and often just a hiring of the younger person either because they're perceived as cheaper, or a fear that the older person won't be a 'team player' (sometimes meaning "won't rollover and do whatever we say, work overtime, etc").

I'm not upset at you.

"I'm pointing out that if you're good, you don't need to worry."

Hrm... you still need to worry some, because you still need the other parties to be able to recognize that you're good (and to do that you need to be able to identify folks who are savvy enough to do that, ad infinitum). I've seen a lot of good folks get passed over for flashier/trendier folks who end up wasting lots of time/money.

The one other thing that comes with age more is a different perspective on time - it goes much faster than it did before, and watching people squander resources is... sometimes difficult.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#257

Post by brianwawok » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

UK-AL wrote: post #248

brianwawok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mr Money Mustache for the win!

The problem I have money Mustache is that he doesn't value time that much. He advocates doing things yourself, DIY etc. If you can pay someone less to do something than you could earn in the same amount of time. Its better to outsource those tasks.

Ya it is hard to say. From his POV - he is already "retired", so he has tons of time available and if doing things himself limits his expenses - win win.

For someone who is busy working.. it depends. If you get a salary to work 40h a week... does hiring a poolboy for $20 an hour instead of cleaning your own pool for a self-declared time worth of $50 an hour make sense? I am not sure. If you are consulting and your choices are bill 45h and have a poolboy, or bill 40h and have your own poolboy... then the logic is much more in favor of outsourcing your tasks.

The other trick is how much do some things really cost? I know to pay someone to put brakes on my car, I would pay the equivalent of $100-$200 an hour. For $100-$200 an hour, I will gladly crawl under my car and get dirty!

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#258

Post by brianwawok » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #53

Afforess wrote: post #47

I see no one else has mentioned another, even more obvious solution. Retire . With the sky-high salaries it is possible to earn as a software engineer, it should be straightforward (not easy, but still straightforward nonetheless), to save enough to retire at the age of 40. After which, you can spend your remaining time as you see fit, working on personal projects or any other hobby that suits your fancy. This is the…

It is an interesting option if you have the foresight. If you are in your twenties, someone in their 40s can teach you a thing or two. If you plan on living the life of a hermit workaholic, certainly reasonable with your life circumstances. If you have a family, want to travel, or want to buy instead of rent, assuming the Bay Area, very idealistic.

Well that is why those of us who sit down and do the math DON'T live in the bay area. The 10% salary bump is not worth the 400% housing price bump.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#259

Post by brianwawok » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

scottwhudson wrote: post #179

Working in the Austin startup scene, I definitely get a sense that this is an issue amongst younger companies. However, I look at my father who's now with a massive merchant software company and there's not a single person in his division under the age of 40 (a lot of these guys are maintaining legacy mainframes, etc.) About a year ago, the company realized that they're SOL with a n aging employee base and no one com…

I had to learn a tiny tiny bit of COBOL to help transition some mainframe code from COBOL -> Java. If you are just reading it to gut the program, not a huge deal. You can play with the inputs and outputs and verify your work.

Now having to learn COBOL to maintain it? That seems not fun. A simple change can take days...

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#260

Post by michaelochurch » Sun, Apr 12, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

wglb wrote: post #241

michaelochurch wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't specialize in programming languages Agree and disagree. I think that learning the minutiae of a specific programming language might be an evolutionary dead end. I say "might be" because there are C++ engineers making $500k in HFT. Since we're both in the same city (Chicago) now, we both probably know some of them. C++ isn't dead yet, and it's not even close (but a mediocre C++ engineer is probably hosed). What…

The C++ engineers making $500k in HFT are more due to the HFT part of their skills. As was said elsewhere, focus on solving business problems with engineering skills, not so much on the language.

Fair enough but my general sense of it is that extremely low-latency C++ is harder to learn than the finance part of the job. If that's wrong it's still what hiring managers believe.