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

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

#81

Post by mistahenry »

C4stor wrote: post #46

I'm not sure I'm buying that. The JVM ? Still rocking it 20 years after. Memory allocations pattern ? Still there. The network stack ? Well, doesn't seem to have changed a lot. The older guys, they seem like they had the time to correctly learn the unix network tools, the jvm debugging ones, the memory inspection ones. I've known older devs for which I have the utmost respect because I felt like they can just debug t…

I’m always mirin’ my current boss when he opens midnight commander and figures out the answer to his question by looking at the hex of the binary.

I needed to change a string in a compiled binary and as I pulled the project down to change and compile from sources, he suggested we just patch the binary and we did in 1 minute with hexedit.

I really don’t buy that skills don’t transfer. Where this is actually the case must be people getting too locked into abstractions and never really understanding the essence

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

#82

Post by AlexandrB »

jknoepfler wrote: post #48

I don't know. I feel like there's a pretty clear power law governing the skill-ceiling below which additional experience adds actual value to dev work. ~80% of programming labor (testing, basic REST services, static web content, managing a small-to-medium-size SQL database, etc.) has a very low skill-ceiling. I've been in the industry for 7 years, I now run my own show doing all of these things. It's just simple grun…

> ~80% of programming labor (testing, basic REST services, static web content, managing a small-to-medium-size SQL database, etc.) has a very low skill-ceiling.

You’re specifically talking about web development and have listed 0 of the things I, am embedded developer, do in an average day. All programming !== web development. There are more difficult problems out there than throwing up a web page. Especially in performance-sensitive applications.

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

#83

Post by pmiller2 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #54
stuff4ben wrote: post #32

Mid-40's here. I'm in management but considering getting back into development/architecture. I've kept up with my skills in Java and DevOps and Kubernetes so I have a breadth of knowledge and skills that I know people are looking for. Management was my plan B and honestly I hate it.

A couple of years ago, the company I worked for abruptly went out of business (like, I came into work on Monday and they said, “we’re closed effectively immediately, go home, we’ll e-mail you severance details”). I sent out about a dozen resumes, got two interviews, flunked the first and got an offer at the second - the whole process took about two weeks and I was no longer unemployed. I was on good terms with one of…

When you need 1 manager for every ~8-10 ICs, and one 2nd level manager for every ~8-10 first level managers, and so on, the jobs become fewer and further between the higher you go up. Management does not seem like the path of job security to me.

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

#84

Post by Maximus9000 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #54
stuff4ben wrote: post #32

Mid-40's here. I'm in management but considering getting back into development/architecture. I've kept up with my skills in Java and DevOps and Kubernetes so I have a breadth of knowledge and skills that I know people are looking for. Management was my plan B and honestly I hate it.

A couple of years ago, the company I worked for abruptly went out of business (like, I came into work on Monday and they said, “we’re closed effectively immediately, go home, we’ll e-mail you severance details”). I sent out about a dozen resumes, got two interviews, flunked the first and got an offer at the second - the whole process took about two weeks and I was no longer unemployed. I was on good terms with one of…

Yup, I know an engineering director who had a similar story. It took him about 8 months to find a new job. He did ultimately get another engineering director job though.

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

#85

Post by burlesona »

PedroBatista wrote: post #9

This is generally true. It's a combination of many things, from brain "degradation", ageism, simple economic math ( fresh meat is cheaper and more malleable ), other more important interests like having a real life and when you really mute all the marketing BS, your delusions and wishful thinking, the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life for the maj…

I’m sorry but if you think programming is not a “shitty job and a sad life.”

While individuals certainly experience really bad situations in every walk of life, programming is an exceptionally valuable and versatile way to make a living, and offers a level of freedom and economic mobility that most people in most fields could only dream of.

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

#86

Post by option_greek »

banachtarski wrote: post #66
C4stor wrote: post #46

I'm not sure I'm buying that. The JVM ? Still rocking it 20 years after. Memory allocations pattern ? Still there. The network stack ? Well, doesn't seem to have changed a lot. The older guys, they seem like they had the time to correctly learn the unix network tools, the jvm debugging ones, the memory inspection ones. I've known older devs for which I have the utmost respect because I felt like they can just debug t…

Well, TCP is a hot mess that should and will be phased out in favor of more congestion friendly protocols.

We barely could get IPV6 to get adopted. Replacing the whole TCP ? Most probably not. The successor to TCP if it ever gets adopted, will look more like TCP than a new protocol.

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

#87

Post by ErikAugust »

PedroBatista wrote: post #9

This is generally true. It's a combination of many things, from brain "degradation", ageism, simple economic math ( fresh meat is cheaper and more malleable ), other more important interests like having a real life and when you really mute all the marketing BS, your delusions and wishful thinking, the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life for the maj…

"The actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life for the majority of people on those jobs."

I'd love to give you a tour of what people do for work, and then you can personally decide how bad programming is as a profession.

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

#88

Post by nym »

projectileboy wrote: post #4

Age discrimination is absolutely a thing, but (and this is only based on anecdata) I would say it is much, much worse in the valley than just about anywhere else. The rest of the world seems to have a less damaged culture.

As someone who ran a startup and worked for several others in the valley, then moved away: I agree.

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

#89

Post by S_A_P »

I probably felt this way 10 years ago when I was in my early 30s and this article was written. Now that the time has caught up with me and Im in my 40s and still slinging code? Im doing technical consulting now and have had the best 3 fiscal years of my life, with an upward trend. Getting out now would be foolish...

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

#90

Post by azhenley »

A professor once told me that I shouldn't become a software engineer because my cognitive abilities will decline with age, thus making it difficult to keep a job :(

I'm at Microsoft now and see plenty of older engineers that have very, very valuable experience and skills. This myth is dumb.

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