Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
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Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#2I am a Software Dev in my mid 20s and posts like this always make me nervous. I love my craft, and want to improve it, but recognize it will be another 5 to 7 years before I am truly proficient. Just in time to be obsolete. How do I combat this? Better networking? Starting my own business? Consulting?
I would like to believe that people who find jobs don't write posts like this to provide the opposite experience. But it seems to be weighted so heavily on the negative, it hards to believe the positive does exist.
But then I think about the jobs they are applying for. Basic coding tests for an Architect? Are they really hiring an Architect or just the second developer and CTO is already taken? Start ups seem to like to assign titles from the top down, but you cannot exactly have an Architect if its you and one other person.
Also 99% rejection rate without an interview? That sounds like you are spamming your resume to everyone, don't know how to write a resume, or are woefully under qualified and don't know it.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#3Yes, if you just want to coast. Coasting is certainly a perfectly legitimate goal, it just doesn't work in this industry.
You have to constantly grow the breadth _and_ depth of your skill set.
Depth because, from a theoretical perspective, change in computer science is exceptionally slow and incremental. The basic theories and algorithms in the latest machine learning craze, for example, are not much different from those of 30 years ago. If you understood the 30-year-old theory, grasping the modern stuff is much easier. The big enabler has principally been from new hardware.
Breadth because what passes for "skill" today (just like it did yesterday) is effectively familiarity with tooling and buzzwords. You have to pay attention to how tooling and best practices evolve. The tools may be inferior and the best practices not very effective, but the productivity of teams and companies depends on everybody being on the same page. And even if the tooling and practices are worse, it won't that bad. (See depth, above; change is slow and incremental.)
Personally, I took a mid-career break for law school. One of my varied reasons was because the law is perhaps the last professional domain where age and experience is still highly valued. Even a 21-year-old hot shot millionaire would rightly think twice before choosing as his counsel a young top-of-his-class Stanford graduate over a 70-year-old attorney with 50 years of experience in battle.
Philosopher-lawyers from Harvard and Stanford don't have particularly good track records in winning cases. Another reason for my choosing to go to law school was my confusion about Lawrence Lessig losing his case at SCOTUS challenging copyright extension. That's when I began to realize that maybe I (and others, like Lessig) was living in a bubble regarding my understanding not only of the law effecting my professional life, but the law more generally.
Plus, I did some of my best coding while going to law school. Nothing feeds your desire to hack like an extended absence from the grind of programming for a living. And being immersed in an unrelated body of knowledge seems to enhance creativity when programming. I immediately returned to San Francisco after graduating and went back to coding (pay was better, anyhow), but every penny spent was well worth it. The stress, however, probably shaved years off my life. Law school is like bootcamp for the mind, but even more harsh and unsympathetic. My first year was pretty darned close to Paper Chase, including scenes where the professor chastises students in front of the class, tells them to get out of his class, etc. If only undergraduate school were like that. To see some students flunk out their first year only to return to try again was unexpectedly humbling and inspiring, more so than the sheer terror of being one of those to flunk out.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#4"There were also a couple of companies that assigned me coding tests where they asked me to “print a ladder” and “find repeating numbers.” I rejected those tests not because of arrogance but because my skills were beyond what they thought is needed from the role. And yes, the roles were for a Software Architect. However, instead of testing my skills in architecture and logic, I had to print a ladder on the screen."
This is arrogance. In my experience, most companies throw simple tests even at people applying for higher positions for several reasons:
1. It very quickly sorts out people who lie on their resume
2. You can tell a lot about a person's skill level by how they answer even a simple coding assignment - how are functions and variables named, does it take in args, what style is the commenting, does it do error handling, input validation, which language features are used to solve it etc, etc?
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#5"There were also a couple of companies that assigned me coding tests where they asked me to “print a ladder” and “find repeating numbers.” I rejected those tests not because of arrogance but because my skills were beyond what they thought is needed from the role. And yes, the roles were for a Software Architect. However, instead of testing my skills in architecture and logic, I had to print a ladder on the screen." T…
+1 There's a huge amount of people who lie on their resume, and simple questions weed them out with very little time investment on real applicants.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#6When I look at software dev career boards most of the jobs are for senior roles. Look at Stack Overflow Careers and Glassdoor, just search "junior" then search "senior". I searched several major cities and they all had far more senior roles than junior/entry.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#7"There were also a couple of companies that assigned me coding tests where they asked me to “print a ladder” and “find repeating numbers.” I rejected those tests not because of arrogance but because my skills were beyond what they thought is needed from the role. And yes, the roles were for a Software Architect. However, instead of testing my skills in architecture and logic, I had to print a ladder on the screen." T…
Yeah, I've never really understood being _offended_ by being asked to do something relatively simple (and honestly, those are actually pretty good problems). I might consider it a little amusing if somebody asked me to write FizzBuzz or something really basic, but I would shrug my shoulders and do it.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#8"There were also a couple of companies that assigned me coding tests where they asked me to “print a ladder” and “find repeating numbers.” I rejected those tests not because of arrogance but because my skills were beyond what they thought is needed from the role. And yes, the roles were for a Software Architect. However, instead of testing my skills in architecture and logic, I had to print a ladder on the screen." T…
+1 There's a huge amount of people who lie on their resume, and simple questions weed them out with very little time investment on real applicants.
To be honest, it's also a good filter for people like, well, the author. I don't want to work with an arrogant "rockstar" who's "too good" for FizzBuzz.
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#9Hi, kids! Oldster here. Y'all really need to quit with the "oh, $DEITY, I'm looking at the wrong end of 40 and I'll never work again!" Yes, you will. Yeah, give up that dream of game development (which you should have done anyway, regardless of age). Some brah with his half-assed "Uber for..." won't hire you, sure. But there are plenty of places that would love to have someone that comes in before noon, does the work that needs to be done, and does solid work, and doesn't spend all day at the foosball table.
It depends a lot on how one defines "dead end", too. You have steady work, it pays six figures, but it's a CRUD app? Yeah, go whine to the guy in Appalachia or Detroit. Let me tell you about "dead end": one factory in town, there are only so many management positions to go around, and when that factory closes down you're screwed because your skills don't transfer so well that you'll just pick and move to Seattle where the jobs are. That's a dead end: you're going nowhere.
FoxPro dev and not finding work? That's your own fault. Software dev is a dead end only if you insist on turning down that cul-de-sac, turning off the car, and throwing the keys into a grassy field.
(As a sidenote, the author just comes across as whiny because he's not treated as the special snowflake he really is. If you're so insulted by being asked to do FizzBuzz, then you ought to be able to knock it out in Brainfuck if required. But maybe you can't, eh, Mr. Hotshot?)
Re: Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40?
#10I am a Software Dev in my mid 20s and posts like this always make me nervous. I love my craft, and want to improve it, but recognize it will be another 5 to 7 years before I am truly proficient. Just in time to be obsolete. How do I combat this? Better networking? Starting my own business? Consulting? I would like to believe that people who find jobs don't write posts like this to provide the opposite experience. But…
> [...] it will be another 5 to 7 years before I am truly proficient. Just in time to be obsolete. How do I combat this? Better networking? Starting my own business? Consulting?
Judging from how you use it, I think that under the word "obsolete" you mean something different than how I understand it. Care to clarify?