Let's just say, dear God, I hope not.
Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
321–330 of 411 posts
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#322I 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…
The big danger is "owning" some domain that falls out of fashion. You might "own" distributed systems and do great for a time, but then companies start transitioning from that architecture and nobody returns your calls anymore. Also I've noticed a lot of sub-fields like computer vision or self driving cars where there's a great deal of nerd interest but very little actual employment. In fact, I have a feeling that co…
I am a programmer. I am pretty good at algorithmics. I love implementing something out of a published paper. I love to navigate the math. I can't sell that though.
I just used to say I am a computer vision expert, because in the ton of things I can do, this is a relevant domain.
Recently, advances in deep learning made half of the computer vision field obsolete. I just read some cutting edge DL papers, linked that to the things I know, and now I am a deep learning integrator.
I was taught in engineering school that my craft is learning and problems solving. I sell it as knowledge and expertise but the truth is that I am constantly learning in the domain I sell as my specialty, which is what everyone who is decent at anything actually does.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. 1: Imperative - C, Fortran, Pascal, ... 2: Object-oriented - C++, Java, Python, Ruby, (maybe Delphi's Object-Pascal), ... 3: Functional - OCaml, Erlang, Haskell, F#, ... 4: Declarative - Makefiles, QML, SQL, .... To be perfectly honest, I don't know which bucket I should use for Prolog. It's supposedly logical, declarative and functional at the same time. I've never managed to understand it, despite trying…
Those are more dimensions than buckets, and not very orthogonal ones at that. In particular there is strong overlap between declarative and functional language features (you could argue functional is just a special case), and less strong overlap between imperative and OO languages, and OO and functional. OCaml fits pretty comfortably in all four of those categories, when you want it to. If I wanted to jam languages i…
I reckon imperative and OO are almost identical; if you don't have objects, you use function pointers or discriminated unions instead and end up with something very similar. OO is a design pattern that often has language support. And I could make a similar argument that functional is mostly just a style of coding, where some more restrictive rules are followed - but it also depends on a few specific language features, e.g. garbage collection and possibly tail calls. You can get by without pattern matching and first class functions, but they make life much more pleasant.
Declarative vs imperative is more interesting: what vs how, building descriptions of problems rather than chains of calculations or lists of steps. I don't think functional style is strongly related to declarative, except in the very low level sense that a functional program doesn't necessarily have a sequential evaluation semantics. But that's increasingly true of seemingly imperative languages also.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#324Ageism in programming isn’t limited to a few jobs that require special snowflakes. It’s a problem virtually across industry and area of expertise. Whether it’s due to perception, belief or prejudice, companies want young programmers.
A friend likes to say “Show me a 40yo programmer who hasn’t moved to management and I’ll show you a person who’s being passed over for promotions and new opportunities. God forbid if he looses his job, because he’s gonna have a hell of a time finding a new one - even if he’s kept his skills current.”
Given all the talk about sexism, it’s incredible that ageism isn’t being given the same attention. Frankly, it seems like a much bigger issue.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#325I think the software development field is still pretty new and evolving. Think about it, 25+ years ago very few people were hired straight as software developers.
Most came from other industries to capitalize in the market need.
It will likely change as the current generation that started as developers go to 40+ and continue in the field.
will se...
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then let me ask: how do you make it past 40 in software? Specifically, how do you position yourself so that you are actively sought after (rather than merely employable)?
I'm 50 and I've been a freelancer since 2006. I position myself either as developer (Rails and jQuery back then, still Ruby and Python and Elixir now, I'm starting to code with React) or architect and coordinator of developers. That works well with small companies. I attend to tech events in my city (Milan, Italy) and I organize an event myself. It's a good way to keep the word of mounth going on. I don't know if thi…
The problem with freelancing is you spend a lot of unpaid time lining up jobs. Does that really pay off?
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#327I 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…
TBH, I really don't care about career advancement. I don't need "half-mil-a-year offers" to fund my lifestyle, so as long as I can continue to draw a steady paycheck, I'm good. Not everyone's a climber, and being in "a dead-end job" isn't really a bad thing if you're not ambitious. I'd just like to spread the message that it is absolutely OK to plateau. You don't need to be a renowned domain expert, you don't need to…
I agree very much with this, and I will add that this can lead to a reasonably stress-free life, which is even better than it sounds.
To me, the real perk of working in tech is not that there are so many jobs that I can find one that pays incredibly well; it's that I can find one that pays nicely but aside from that has some other perks.
A lot of friends and workmates have told me that I could be working in a better paying place. After looking into quite a few job offers, my conclusion is that for now I'll stay in my 8-to-4 job that pays me twice as much as the average in my area (average in the sense of all the population, not just tech jobs, obviously). I used to have a high-paying, high-stress job; I don't want to go back to that, it's not worth the money.
I must add that I'm EU-based. I understand that in the US, with much less of a safety net, maybe optimizing for money is a more attractive idea. I can't really say for sure.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#328I 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…
The big danger is "owning" some domain that falls out of fashion. You might "own" distributed systems and do great for a time, but then companies start transitioning from that architecture and nobody returns your calls anymore. Also I've noticed a lot of sub-fields like computer vision or self driving cars where there's a great deal of nerd interest but very little actual employment. In fact, I have a feeling that co…
Computer vision has very little actual employment? That's just not true at all. I want what you're smoking lol.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tech…
> One other thing: by "BigCorps", I'm referring to things like banks, Wal-Mart and so forth, not technology companies like eg Google. Yeah, I'd much rather work at a traditional conservative BigCorp than a Silicon Valley company that never grew up from startup mentality. If you do want to stay I tech, I'd recommend looking at the B2B telecom sector. It's far, far more conservative then any other part of the tech indu…
I'm working in a B2B telecom and I haven't seen that level of conservativeness, although in general I agree that they are conservative. But it's a wonderful place to work in many aspects: it's stable, pays well, and in general less clients means less headaches and a more focused development.
They don't immediately adopt new technologies, but frankly, nowadays I see that as more as a feature than a bug (although once in a blue moon I wish the delay in finally adopting them, when they have been successfully proven themselves, wasn't so long).
The most glaringly conservative aspect of my current job is its very rigid adherence to process. Again I must say that, having worked in places where it wasn't the case, I'm so glad that process is followed strictly.
The big problem with this job is that I've acquired a ton of domain knowledge that probably won't be useful in another job. This means that I need to keep other tech skills (algorithms, programming languages...) much more finely honed. On the other hand, I've acquired top notch documentation skills.
EDIT: I also can confirm that there is plenty of >40yo people here. Definitely a good place to be when you reach that age, although I'm only in my eearly thirties. I've found also a high level of diversity in general, which is very, very good.
Re: Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this easier for someone who was a "domain expert" in an obsolete domain than for a programming generalist? i.e. could a programming generalist also "own" a domain in a couple years?
I was surprised several times, and have since stopped being surprised, that someone who was immersed in a technology for years, loved it intimately, and knew every wart on its asshole, so to speak, and loved it anyway, the person you know as the guy who's really into PHP or the guy who's really into Oracle or the guy who's really into jQuery will not flail when the company abandons that technology. I would always wor…
I'd like to think I'm becoming Tom here, right down to the techs you mentioned. I also went through git, apache httpd, bash, and Ruby phases.
My philosophy is that if PHP keeps the lights on, I better really know what it is, where it's going, what are it's limitations, because it would be pretty scary not to.
Plus once you learn a language or a database well, the next one is easier. The trick is knowing when it's time for the next one.