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Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

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Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#51

Post by evilduck »

31reasons wrote: post #41
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people. You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

Not after a certain age. They're equally useless young too. These are the people who fail at FizzBuzz.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#52

Post by kuni-toko-tachi »

exelius wrote: post #42

That's because programming is an entry level job. No, I'm not trolling: I'm quite serious about that. Engineering has almost always been an entry level job; computers or not. You start as an engineer; and as you get better, the number of engineering management jobs is pretty limited, so there's nowhere to go for the vast majority of people. But you get pulled into enough internal projects you start to develop a bit o…

I agree with this 100%. Good engineers are problem solvers, and as you grow older, you gain the wisdom that relative to the value that you bring to a business, the compensation will never match. It's unfortunate when you see younger software engineers who are incredibly smart technically and dedicated, but don't apply those same problem solving skills to their career. They become exploitable, and wind up making other people rich off their hard work.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#53

Post by vorg »

michaelochurch wrote: post #15

To get a programming job that can actually use 10+ years of experience, you need to develop strong interpersonal skills and (to put a darker shade on it) learn some CS 666: Software Politics. At that point, the main obstacle to moving into management (needing to bring your interpersonal skills up to, at least, the 25th percentile) is gone. In other words, if you're good enough at interpersonal politics to keep improv…

> the business-driven engineering that 95% of us have to contend with is mind-rotting. Spending a week debugging someone else's VibratorVisitorFactory method, or figuring out what the fuck some ORM is doing, just causes atrophy

This is the dirty little secret of corporate IT departments, that 95% of the workload is cleaning up other people's messes. The "engineers" promote themselves into the work "designing" and "creating" new systems, then use that "experience" to get a job doing the same somewhere else. Then the "programmers" come along and actually make those new systems work, spending 3 months debugging, then 3 years on after-hours standby support.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#54

Post by [deleted] »

alistairSH wrote: post #33

37 years old, studied computer science at university, and have worked in the software industry since graduation. Currently at a mid-size/large, multinational software company. We have a large number of developers with 20+ years experience. You aren't seeing their resumes because they're here and don't have a reason to leave. I've been here 12 years now, and if you can't match the 25 days vacation, 10 sick, 12 holiday…

[deleted]

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#55

Post by matwood »

edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience.

This exactly and it happens at all ages. I interviewed someone not long ago who had 5 years experience. It turned out they learned their job in 3-6 mos. and just repeated that same job for 5 years. I was amazed how little else they knew.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#56

Post by chillingeffect »

sixQuarks wrote: post #48
31reasons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people. You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

why are you startled? Have you never heard of the 20/80 rule? It appears in almost every dataset. The top 20% of any set do 80% of the work. Example: The top 20% of a population owns 80% of the wealth. And yes, this applies to other occupations as well.

Yes and even among the 80% who are useless, they are useful 20% of the time. I work with a few people like that... They either need a challenge, an end date or other creative ways of being motivated.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#58

Post by thewarrior »

exelius wrote: post #42

That's because programming is an entry level job. No, I'm not trolling: I'm quite serious about that. Engineering has almost always been an entry level job; computers or not. You start as an engineer; and as you get better, the number of engineering management jobs is pretty limited, so there's nowhere to go for the vast majority of people. But you get pulled into enough internal projects you start to develop a bit o…

Your comment makes an interest contrast with edw519s which is the most upvoted one in this thread.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#59

Post by matwood »

31reasons wrote: post #41
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

>>75% - one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience. You don't want these people. You are basically saying 75% of the developers after certain age are useless. I don't agree or disagree with your statement . Just startled. What does it say about software development as a career ? Would you say the same thing for lawyers or doctors with 30 years experience? This is depressing.

Not useless, but perhaps useless outside of their small niche. The problem is in technology small niches can disappear in an instant.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#60

Post by alistairSH »

exelius wrote: post #49
alistairSH wrote: post #33

37 years old, studied computer science at university, and have worked in the software industry since graduation. Currently at a mid-size/large, multinational software company. We have a large number of developers with 20+ years experience. You aren't seeing their resumes because they're here and don't have a reason to leave. I've been here 12 years now, and if you can't match the 25 days vacation, 10 sick, 12 holiday…

Haha, I see this a lot. Banks who pay mediocre developers $150k a year plus crazy benefits to write entry-level reports because fuck it; the salary for the entire IT department is a rounding error on the bonus pool for the traders so who gives a shit? Good luck getting those guys out of a job like that. Not saying you're mediocre; but a job like that leads to mediocrity and complacency because the work is often uncha…

Thankfully, I'm not at a bank. My employer build software and licensing is the primary source of revenue. And I haven't written entry-level reports since, well, never.
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