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Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

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Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#71

Post by Surio »

muyuu wrote: post #40
praptak wrote: post #8

Late 30s represent, yo. The author of the article mentions high stress. My experience differs. In my case the stress sort of waned by itself. I think I moved a bit towards Wally character from the Dilbert series. I don't overcommit anymore and I certainly gained resistance to "aggressive schedules" and visions of doom and gloom tied to deadline skips. So I stress out less and less and I believe it comes naturally wit…

I think the crux of the matter is your job security and your financial stability (the economy where you live, etc). If you can afford to delay projects as needed without risking your position then of course that takes a lot of pressure off you and things are more enjoyable. In an ideal world, I'd be set financially by the time I'm 50 and I would work in my own stuff exclusively or almost exclusively.

>> I think the crux of the matter is your job security and your financial stability (the economy where you live, etc).

You nailed it. +1 :)

My own comment further down below was exactly on similar lines.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#73

Post by ryth »

jgrahamc wrote: post #4

In short, yes, and I'm in my 40s. I actually returned to programming after years managing programmers in part because I was unhappy. I realized that the further I got from the machine and _making_ the less happy I was. So, if you asked me whether I wanted to be 'managing' at 50, I'd say "Hell, no!". The enjoyment of making things work, learning and shipping it real. I hope I'm still able to feel those things at 80. I…

I'm with you, I'm rounding 40 myself, and was not happy for the brief couple years of management.

When filling out a 'secret question' for some site, it ask what your ideal job would be. I didn't even blink, it was: developer.

Do I want to be doing this when I'm 50, hells yea.

If I had trillions of dollars, I would still code. It's who I am, it's what makes me happy. If you don't think you'll like development at 50, then you may have picked the wrong career.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#74

Post by Surio »

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Hell yes! There are many different kinds of programming, some are fun and some are not. If you really want to be doing this when you're 50 make sure you get good enough that you can pick the projects that are fun. If by the time you are 50 and you've been doing this for 3 decades you are still gluing api's that's not the fault of 'programming', that's a direct result of choices made earlier. And one more thing: on th…

@Jacquesm, I agree with your FU money concept and I am actively working on that. I think this comment is a byproduct (side-effect?! (-;) of your having achieved FI.

But what you mentioned here is what I would consider "Let them eat cake instead" advice. :)

Not well thought out.

Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion, and besides historical perspectives are based on whatever set of lenses you choose to wear. Actually, our grandparents (even parents) had more time in their lives, more variety in their lives that was completely unrelated to their 9-5 routines, their professional lives were (mostly) on autopilot, so they had more free time to pursue all kinds of hobbies and tinkering, while still working on a daily job! So, yes I am looking at grandparents too, but I chose to wear different lenses.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#75

Post by Surio »

kamaal wrote: post #42

No, Because I seriously would like to see myself retired by 40. Not even 50. Would I like to code in my spare time? Yes! But I'm dead sure and certain the nature of programming is likely to have changed so drastically in so many years I might find myself a losing horse in such a race. Not that I cannot compete,but after looking at my father I can say for certain priorities in life at 50 are very different than what t…

+1 Good to see I am not alone with views like these. I agree with you. It is also about where you are doing "programming" too ;-)

See my comments elsewhere.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#76

Post by Surio »

saraid216 wrote: post #21

Some people actually seem to be missing a significant part of his point. He's not talking about "Do you want to be coding at all when you're 50?" He's talking about the dependency management that goes into building something large on the shoulders of others. That's a lot different from "hacking on your homepage" or throwing together a quick Ruby script utility to do some scraping.

Well put!

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#77

Post by michaelochurch »

I enjoy programming and would like to be doing it at 50, but with regard to the software industry itself... not in its current state.

If you want to be able to survive more than 10 years in the software industry, you need to get manager-level clout and full autonomy over your work. That's non-negotiable. This industry destroys you if you don't have those things.

The terrifying thing about the software industry is that if you don't continue to get good work, you decline pretty quickly. Also, I honestly think 90% of what makes some engineers great and most not (once filtering for natural talent has taken place) is past experience: you need a continual stream of high-quality work to become and remain decent at this job, and the good stuff is rare.

The actual work of programming can be a lot better (more interesting, more rewarding) than anything that managers do. The hard part is figuring out a way to be a full-time engineer but retain manager-level clout.

Many engineers think that actually becoming managers will give them what they need to enjoy engineering again, but the problem is that this strategy doesn't work. If you're a manager and your reports figure out that you're taking all the interesting work for yourself and throwing them the scraps, they'll get pissed off and either underperform or leave.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#79

Post by adamc »

I'm fifty, and I still enjoy programming, but my interest in incidental complexity -- the details of APIs, say -- isn't what it once was. And the likelihood that I will put in a ton of overtime to meet an arbitrary schedule isn't what it once was either. I'm less interested in the technology than I once was, and more interested in how people are using it to solve problems.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#80

Post by raganwald »

If you're young, be sure to read the responses here very carefully. There are lots of people like me who love what they do at fifty or beyond. Yay!

But of course, this sample has survivor bias. How many people who left the profession in their forties are going to post on HN? How many people who are fifty and hate their jobs are going to post on HN?

I love what I do and try to share that love. But my advice to you is this: Don't pay attention to how much we love our jobs at fifty, pay attention to how we got to be fifty without burning out.

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