31–40 of 137 posts
Languages, tools, and frameworks evolve (including the brand new distributed programming language I invented, 'Hello', available at http://www.amsdec.com/).
But good software architecture and engineering is an art that improves with time.
From what I'm gathering as a developer moving into 30, you have two options: 1. Market yourself so that when you hit the pay ceiling, you can move into consulting/freelancing with enough of a name for yourself that you can justify your rates to businesses. 2. Move into management. If you hate marketing, start looking for management/mentoring opportunities now so that your next promotion/job has some sort of manager t…
3. Squirrel away as much as possible while you have that high paying job and retire early. When retired, work on open source hardware and software.
I'm at year 32 of not blowing it. Although I've lost more to inflation and low returns than I've spent.
50+ here, starting https://www.trycryptomove.com . Some of the top cybersecurity advisors (and our increasingly growing list of pilot customers) seem to believe in me just fine. Age is just a number! Languages, tools, and frameworks evolve (including the brand new distributed programming language I invented, 'Hello', available at http://www.amsdec.com/ ). But good software architecture and engineering is an art that…
So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…
Yes the key is keep learning - unless you keep up you will end up on the scrap heap very quickly. I am not quite as old (45) and I still love learning new things, but it does take more effort than when I was younger.
Absolutely true, and it's also fair to say that I have to work harder now to remember things that I could recall effortlessly twenty years ago. Fortunately the development of the Internet into a global knowledge store perfectly coincided with my getting older :). I know most developers couldn't work without the Internet these days, and that's doubly true for me!
So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…
As a 34 year old I always like hearing of people who actually manage to pull off a long career, it gives me hope. If you notice, a lot of these people in that article are in hardware design: electrical engineering, probably Verilog and the like. A lot of that work has successfully been outsourced which I think is the real cause of the decline. I suspect it didn't look like it was a particularly bad field to be in unt…
So I turned 55 years old last Monday, am employed as a senior software engineer for a startup in the voter education and civic engagement space, and I guess I'm qualified to comment on this. I read this same refrain over and over, and if I peer just a little bit between the lines I think I perceive a common pattern. A lot of these people are just not up to keeping up. Learning the next thing is a wearisome burden for…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Ageism is especially easy to beat if you enter technologies early, but that is something you have to do at home: For most problems, suggesting the shiniest and newest is often a disservice to project deadlines. My latest example of this was learning Scala 5 years ago. Bet on something new, and then you get calls from all over the country to work on it, as most people are trying it, but few know what they are act…
Yup, there's a delay. After a while, you develop a knack for picking the right horse. So you pick the right horse, learn it on your spare time ... and then wait. Eventually that new kid on the block will become mature, stable, and a good solution for projects. That's when opportunities start. Rinse and repeat.
My uncle is a 65 year old COBOL programmer who has never been out of work.
"The average and median age of U.S.-born tech founders was thirty-nine when they started their companies. Twice as many were older than fifty as were younger than twenty-five."
Cites: https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/older-entrepreneurs-... ; http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2009/04/educatio...