
Ask HN: Software development after 40, how do you keep the fire? - m3mpp
Experience is a nice thing, most of the time. We can see through the BS and concentrate on important things to make up for a slower brain, less stamina and decreasing memory, to a point where I think I am as productive, maybe even more, than I was 20 years ago.<p>The negative consequence of experience though, in my case, is I&#x27;m less excited about new ideas, more skeptic in general, which makes it more difficult to find the motivation that is needed to build something really significant.<p>And I mean, it&#x27;s not very surprising, if you haven&#x27;t made it big at 40+, that means you worked on a lot of failed projects, that makes it harder to believe you can change that.<p>Maybe some older folks here on HN, but younger people comments welcome too of course, could share their point of view on that question?
======
bgribble
I'm 47 and got my first programming job at 19. I still love it and look
forward to a good number more years. I have a few guidelines/principles that
seem to have worked so far:

* Do meaningful work, whatever that means to you. Maybe it's picking a domain that helps people or society, or maybe it's some other criterion. Ask yourself what meaningful work is to you.

* Be mindful about your craftsmanship and always work to improve it. Try to write solid, expressive, readable code that works, and be critical about your own code. Read other people's code closely and see what you can learn from it. Explore new technologies, not just for "variety" but for what you can learn from what led to their development and how they were implemented.

* Engage in mentorship of younger developers. Mentorship can really do a lot to renew your love of coding. If your employer doesn't have an established mentorship program try to help set one up. If that doesn't work, there are coding bootcamps that will let you work as little as an hour a week mentoring new developers as a consultant.

* Try to be that person within your organization that others want to come to with their thorny technical problems. Listen deeply and respond compassionately.

* Work on side projects. They don't have to change the world or "go somewhere". A side project can remind you why you love programming when the daily becomes a grind.

~~~
awinder
If you don't mind me asking -- have you found trouble with staying in
programming / development into your 40s? Or do you see trouble staying in
programming into the "good number of years" ahead? I'm just curious as someone
in their early 30's who feels the "pull" towards management as a career
longevity move. But on the flip side, I love "soft/upwards management" and
being hands-on way more, and without the massive doses of stress of actually
being in management to boot.

~~~
rootusrootus
As someone who went from development to management and then recently back, I
strongly recommend that you avoid seeing management as a pull, or as a natural
progression for your career. Management is 100% a different skill set, and
going there from an engineering position is a career _change_ , not evolution.
It's not a promotion, either.

If you do decide to go into management, jump with both feet and give it 100%.
And don't weep for your technical chops, because you just can't keep them up
at the same level if you are committed to being a leader.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
It depends on the company.

I am 47, very senior "management" position in a large company. I manage a
whooping team of three. By choice.

What I am not comfortable with in your comment is the manager = leader
(implied in the last sentence). I hate to manage people (to plan their work,
to do the logistics of their life at the office etc.). On the other hand I
live to be the one pushing for a solution, bringing others in, pushing my
obviously brilliant point of view, retro-pedalling when it is not the right
one finally and again bring in people with this new solution.

I put a lot of enthusiasm and energy into it and I am very happy.

I think the qualities of a manager and a leader are different, some people can
be both but also only one of them.

I managed from 1 to 350 peple, the latter was horrible.

~~~
andrei_says_
In the 1 to 350 equation where was the line where things turned south and what
were some of the qualities that differentiated the good experience as a
manager and the not so good?

------
itamarst
I'm 38, but started working young, so probably equivalent.

1\. These days I care a lot more about what the software is for, what makes it
useful. So I don't need to get excited about trendy technology, I get excited
about e.g. building a completely new kind of gene sequencing device that will
help disease research and diagnosis. (Write about this here:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/07/do-something-
useful/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/07/do-something-useful/))

2\. Teaching is great, because it means all those failures weren't for
nothing. Someone else can learn from them (I write a weekly newsletter of my
mistakes and how to avoid them -
[https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/](https://codewithoutrules.com/softwareclown/)),
and I can learn from them ([https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/10/10/lone-and-
level-sands...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/10/10/lone-and-level-sands-
of-software/)).

3\. At this point you can hopefully get better sense of _why_ project fails,
and avoid things that are likely to fail, or try to prevent them from failing.
So hopefully % of failures goes down.

~~~
m3mpp
1\. definitely a great advice, work on something greater than oneself.

For 2 and 3, not so sure, it's so difficult to say, I've seen a lot of shitty
things becoming successful, and some real good things never amounting for
anything over the years, that I'm real cautious about doing any kind of
prevision nowadays... The old "the more I know, the more I realize how
ignorant I am" thing.

~~~
jwhitlark
As a 40+, the first time someone mentioned "the tyranny of the random number
generator" it had immediate resonance. It was in a gaming context, but is a
useful life metaphor.

------
dfsegoat
Not 40+ -- but darn close, and recently went through a bit of a "midlife
career crisis" \- this is what I came away with:

\- I need a physical outlet: I practice Jiu Jitsu now 2-3x per week and this
has literally re-lit the burners on many aspects of my life, career included.
Much more energy and stress tolerance when I thought I would be more exhausted
-total opposite.

\- Family time is most important at this age: Making sure things are all good
at home lets me relax and focus at work. Employer should get this or I am in
the wrong place.

\- Rest / diet: I recently switched over from eating to whatever was at hand
(literally), to eating what was healthy and worth putting in my body.

I feel all of the above have led to my having more energy / stamina to do
tough projects and get over the unexpected hiccups.

 __Also - I started listening to this podcast by a former navy seal Cmdr: If
nothing else, it checks you from saying "my life is stressful" when you hear
an Army Aviator who spent 6 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp talk about
his experience:

[http://jockopodcast.com/2017/02/22/63-through-the-valley-
my-...](http://jockopodcast.com/2017/02/22/63-through-the-valley-my-captivity-
in-vietnam-with-colonel-william-reeder-us-army-pilot-vietnam-pow/)

------
edw519
_...to make up for a slower brain, less stamina and decreasing memory..._

This is NOT normal and should not be accepted as such.

I'm 63 and have been programming professionally for 40 years. I'm currently
working on several projects that are as complex as anything I've ever done. I
honestly feel that that I get _better_ every year, build stuff I never
imagined a few years ago. I know this is subjective, but I feel like my brain
is _faster_ , I have _more_ stamina, and _better_ memory than ever. I still do
newspaper jumbles and crossword puzzles without a pencil and plan to continue
that way indefinitely.

Unless you're managing a serious medical condition, I suggest you do something
differently: eating, exercise, lifestyle, medical care, something.

To you kids out there (under 50), do not despair. The best could be yet to
come if you make it that way.

~~~
bitwize
I noticed that about "Weird Al" Yankovic. He's in his late fifties and yet --
even as he works in a field where even long-lived artists peak in their 20s or
30s, his music just gets ever more sophisticated, and funnier.

~~~
overcast
Weird Al is essentially a comedian, and they only really get good after many
years of life experience.

~~~
johnvanommen
The other day, Norm McDonald noted something about Eddie Murphy that I hadn't
considered - he was the most talented young comedian ever.

It blows my mind that Murphy was performing at such a high level when he was
just 20-21.

~~~
overcast
I think that was more a sign of the times. Like Andrew Dice Clay's filthy
routine. That type of humor was needed during the 80s to distract people from
the stress everyone was under. It wouldn't work today. A lot of Eddie's jokes
were something that people never talked about or even heard of, like pre-nups,
and wives taking half your cash today. I agree he was one of the early greats,
but look how quickly his style wore off after that time period. I wouldn't
consider him in the realm of timeless like Dangerfield or Carlin.

~~~
jcoffland
Eddie's jokes may no longer be PC but his old routines (Raw and Delirious) are
still funny as hell. My wife and I regularly quote from them. "He didn't tell
you you could take half? Well, he didn't tell you half the story....Oh hi
Eddie." If you're not too uptight, watch it again and tell me it's not still
funny.

~~~
overcast
My point was more he had his time, and it's gone. He hasn't lived on past
that. Carlin and the likes were relevant until their death.

~~~
okatsu
Carlin did comedy his whole life though. And I don't personally hear Carlin
references more than I do Murphy ones. Eddie quit pretty early as you know, so
I can't help but suspect his time was over voluntarily. Not long ago, he had
to give a speech for the Mark Twain award and his Bill Cosby bit still had
people laughing.

~~~
overcast
This is an unfortunate side effect of being a popular comedian, people will
literally laugh at any word you say. The podcast escapes me, and I've read
numerous articles, where big comedians often consider just quitting because
they can't tell if they are actually funny anymore. Everyone just ends up
laughing at everything that comes out of their mouth. It sounds like a good
problem to have, but you can see how it would weigh on someone.

------
jcadam
I'm 38, and started programming at 8 years old in BASIC on the Apple ][. If
ever I find myself unable to convince anyone to pay me to code, I will still
work on my side projects at night while doing something else (for money)
during the day.

As far as my "working life", I try to keep myself challenged by seeking out
interesting projects. Generally this means changing employers every couple of
years, but this gets more difficult the more 'senior' (and expensive) you
become. I really would like to settle in at a company that can keep me
challenged and growing, but most employers put zero effort into developing and
retaining their software engineers (too easy to find new ones, I guess).

For example, my current employer (less than a year) has me doing legacy
software maintenance (not the type of work I was promised when hired), which
is doing nothing for my career (probably causing active harm) and is boring as
hell (no architecture/design/SE work, no challenging CS problems, no
leadership responsibility) - it's the kind of work I'd expect to be doing in
my 60s when I'm coasting into retirement (assuming I can stand it even then).
So I'm interviewing again. I hate interviewing.

------
return_True
I think you have a lot of questionable assumptions, which leads to your
original question.

First, at 50 my brain has not 'slowed down'. Nor has my zeal for new tech,
learning or stamina.

Made it big? Not sure what you mean by that, but I've had a very rewarding
career (almost 20Y in the same place) that has provided me consistently with
challenge and success.

Last thought, I'm part of a team of devs in our early fifties. I feel like
with our experience, maturity and honed skills we could wipe the floor with a
team in their twenties if we wanted. Might just be us. Just MHO though.

------
codingdave
> If you haven't made it big at 40+, that means you worked on a lot of failed
> projects

I disagree. I have always worked for reliable steady paychecks, not equity. I
have a decent set of projects under my belt, with some small exits, so while
not quite wealthy enough to retire, I'm doing fine.

As far as the question of staying motivated, that does change. I don't care so
much about code these days. But I do get motivated when I see younger team
members with growing skills. I get motivated by helping the teams succeed. And
while I agree that I am far more critical of ideas and projects, that is all
the more motivating when I find one that I do believe in. And the
aforementioned steady checks over 20+ years let me take time off between
projects to find something I can believe in.

In short, if your only measure of success is a big exit, then I can understand
the struggle. But there are more meanings of success than that.

------
fsloth
"If you haven't made it big at 40+, that means you worked on a lot of failed
projects, that makes it harder to believe you can change that."

I find it unlikely a programmer, no matter how good, would make it big. There
are exceptions, sure, but globally programmer is not a highly paid
professional like a surgeon, for example.

I don't think there is nothing wrong with a steady paycheck and doing a job
that engages ones mental faculties.

I'm soon 40. I enjoy puzzles, delivering value to demanding end users and
getting feedback from my work. It's really nice when a feature you've
implemented gets good feedback and customers discuss about it publicly.

So, I suppose in 'boring' tasks I'm motivated by delivering end user value for
demanding professionals and the occasional math puzzler or investigating new
algorithm or technology is just sugaring on top.

~~~
rootusrootus
A lot of people on HN are in SV (or another big tech hub like Seattle), and
make 300K+ in total comp. It's a lot more lucrative [in general] to be a
developer in the US than it is in most of the rest of the world.

~~~
fsloth
Sure, but while high, that's still not "I'll buy myself a Learjet and a
tropical island" level income.

Anyway, the topic was career satisfaction.

Without any good life strategies the happiness money brings peaks at 70k or
such (basically you don't have to worry about regular life expenses). So, I
would not use the total comp as a metric in this discussion.

~~~
jokerx
Said parent commenter: "Without any good life strategies the happiness money
brings peaks at 70k or such (basically you don't have to worry about regular
life expenses)."

Please! Try having a few kids and living in a desirable metro area. I didn't
stop worrying about money until my salary was twice that, and my wife works
too.

So many sayings about financial happiness seem written for single people with
no dependents.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I think this particular saying should be changed to 70k per individual
(including children), a family of 4 would then be at 280k - I would be more
inclined to agree with the 'happiness' factor then, some people are miserable
and they won't be happy with millions either.

~~~
whatsstolat
You don't need that much money for the kids themselves but I find spending
quite a bit on conveniences to compensate for being short on time. Cleaners,
gardener, dry cleaners, extended childcare facilities etc.

------
hotsauceror
"If you haven't made it big at 40+..." What, exactly, do you mean by "made it
big"? Rock star giving TED talks? Keynote speaker at major industry
conferences? Cashed out your fully-vested options for a startup that did well?

I'm 45, I manage a small team of bright, motivated people at a Fortune 500
retailer. Team ranges from late 20s to one of our Oracle DBAs who's in his
60s; most of our colleagues are late 20s-late 30s. It's a good team, at a
chill place to work, and we put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over the
last few years to deal with a lot of the technical debt that was making things
like on-call such a miserable experience. Making that experience better has
been a huge motivator for me. It helps our team, and it helps our business
partners help themselves. One thing about being older is that a lot of younger
developers have a different set of skills they consider "table stakes", and
they may be overlooking older skillsets that could really help them out, like
tuning SQL queries.

The other thing that helps me keep the fire is learning new stuff. For an old-
school Enterprise guy like me, things like AWS, DevOps, Docker / K8s, seemed
scary. But technologically, they are fascinating, awesome things that are
allowing people to do things we couldn't have imagined before. I want to learn
about them because maybe we, too, can do awesome tech things, if we got
experienced people who at least understand the value proposition of these
newer technologies and can make the case for them. It is a very cool time to
be in IT. I'm learning C# by writing a crappy 4X Civilization knock-off, I'm
going to try setting up a kubernetes lab on my linux box, and I've got
O'Reilly and Pluralsight on speed-dial.

------
collyw
Getting sick of it again.

I enjoy writing software, but the interview process is crap. Its either waste
a whole weekend building some mini app, or some random algorithmic questions
which are hit or miss whether I get them right or not. Hardly anyone is
interested in looking at code that I have already written. So I am maintaining
other peoples balls of mud as its what pays moderately well.

------
dmitripopov
I'm 39, still as excited about new ideas as 20 years ago. Or even more. It's
so simple to implement new ideas nowadays, just pick a matching tool/framework
and you are good. Back in 1998 you were forced to write a lot of things from
scratch long before you get to your idea implementation and it was actually
demotivating, at least for me.

~~~
collyw
Don't you find that most "new" ideas in tech are actually a rehash of
something from 20 years ago at your age?

~~~
tinktank
Yes, but so what of it? Technology changes, society changes, tradeoffs change
and the idea becomes new again, and has legs and that is interesting.

------
JeanMarcS
I relate with you. And my opinion is that it’s harder (or seems harder) to
take risks when you have your family to provide to. I’m near 47, and to be
sure we won’t end all struggling, I’m mainly working for the same clients,
doing mostly the same things over and over.

Of course there are some new project here and there, but in the end it’s
mostly CRUD and not that interesting.

So to answer your question, I don’t keep the fire, I do my job.

(Sorry if I sounded a bit dramatic. I love my actual life, we all just moved
to Ireland after 3.5 years in the Caribbean. I guess my « fire » is more
oriented on the personal life that professional one)

------
jason_slack
I'm 41. I started programming on a C64 when I was about 10 and then started
with c++ when I was 14 on an 8088 but quickly convinced my neighbor to give me
her 286 she wasn't using in exchange for mowing her lawn for a Summer.

Most of my life has been financial apps for banks and finance companies.
Business "process" apps too. I am currently switching from game development
(last 5 years) to quant finance. I am doing this by getting EPAT and also
returning to school part-time for Economics.

I maintain my focus by thinking about what got me into writing code in the
first place. I loved it. When I was about 8 I remember my Saturday mornings
being spent typing in BASIC code from "The Gazette" magazine while drinking
chocolate milk and eating powdered doughnuts (Spaulding Kruellers!). I would
type in, debug my mistakes and eagerly wait for the final result. Then I would
try and change the code to my own liking. Save it to a cassette and move on.
When we got a floppy drive I was in heaven, side note :-)

So, my advice. If you love what you are doing then that is all that matters.
If you can't find a way to pay the bills with it then do it on the side,
continue to love it and things will fall into place in the future. Even if I
am writing code for a company, I don't write the code for them, I write it for
myself, I do my best work for myself. Then I do it again on the next project
(Yes, I know it is really their code and not mine...but....)

------
m3mpp
Just a couple of precisions here, to clarify (even for myself) and maybe bring
some more fuel to the discussion.

>make up for a slower brain, less stamina and decreasing memory

It's a fact, physiologically, that our cognitive skills decrease after the
late 20s, there's abundance of literature on the subject. Now, getting older,
and with experience, I believe we process information more efficiently (less
cycle spent on bs), which can bring a net gain and make us more productive in
our daily jobs, it's what I tried to explain in the first 2 sentences.

Concerning the "made it big", here's what I mean:

First, a computer + a brain capable of programming it is probably one of the
most powerful combination that ever existed in nature. The potential for
creation/disruption is immense, and we can see examples every day. Second, as
software devs, one of the driving forces, probably the most important one, is
creativity, imagining new things or new ways of doing them. So, when you
combine those 2 things, the power and imagination, and then you spend most of
your life working on some boring business app, from paycheck to paycheck, one
can feel a little bit unaccomplished. The "make it big" here means feeling
accomplished, having been able to move your art to its full potential. I know
it's highly subjective of course, but I also know a lot of us are feeling that
way, so it may not be as subjective as it seems.

I hope it clears up a bit.

~~~
whatsstolat
That is interesting definition o making it big. I believe you need to be
somewhat on the business side of things to make it big that way. There is a
surplus of programmers who can write to spec but how many can spot the thing
to build that will be disruptive? That's a different skillset.

------
johnvanommen
As I see it, things balance out:

1) Young programmers are eager to try new things

2) As you get older, you figure out what works. This is good and bad. It's
good, because you don't waste time implementing things which won't work. It's
bad because you may not be willing to try something new that may be superior.

If I managed a team, I would prefer to have both perspectives.

~~~
eksemplar
I don’t think age has anything to do with how open you are to try new things,
it’s an age old throve, but it really depends on the person. Most of our IT
staff is young, and they are extremely unwilling to try new things out. Mean
while most of our developers and project managers are aged 35-55 and they are
all open to new things.

I think you need to fit you team with the kind of people you want, in
development you want risk-willing people, in operations you want to focus on
stability.

I will say that a lot of young people often put more zeal and conviction into
it, when they do try new things, but that’s rarely an advantage.

But actually trying new things? That’s not tied to age at all in my
experience.

------
bitwize
Meh. It's all a game to me. Whether you win or lose, you smile and say "gg" to
the other players. Because it's more aboutt the fun you have than about
"winning".

I've learned to appreciate having boring stuff to do on the job, so that I can
keep food and a roof and still have stamina left over for the fun stuff I do
at home. Recently I've taken up retroprogramming for Windows 3.1. It's
fascinating to rediscover those 16-bit programming paradigms from days of old,
and learn things about the platform that I missed on my first go around.

------
mikestew
_And I mean, it 's not very surprising, if you haven't made it big at 40+,
that means you worked on a lot of failed projects, that makes it harder to
believe you can change that._

Here's a harsh fact to put in your smoking pipe: few of us are going to "make
it big". Whether it's FU money, founding and selling a successful startup,
working on a blockbuster game, speaking at PDC, or writing a book even as
remotely popular as Gang of Four or _Mythical Man Month_. Nope, the best the
vast majority of us can hope for is to claw our way to VP of Engineering at
Company You've Never Heard Of, LLC. Because a lot of making it big is sheer
luck (granted, hard work can earn you more Sheer Luck Dollars, but it's still
luck.)

So? Failed projects? Not my responsibility, I did my part; not my problem that
management can't manage a project. But I still got to do the work, which was
fun, and they still paid me. I don't need other people to use what I wrote to
validate my existence. The experience can be used for next time.

 _build something really significant_

Yeah, then you look back and realize what "significant" really means. The next
Twitter? Facebook? Really? You know what I work on these days? Stuff that
talks to programmable logic controllers on assembly lines. And having worked
at several startups that were working on something "significant", I think what
I'm working on now is more significant than any of it (obviously, because
those startups are gone, and this place has been around 30 years). Because
it's real stuff that people use everyday to make actual widgets, instead of
building something the world is not a whole lot poorer without, that we'll
figure out how to monetize later, probably with ads.

In summary, I kept the fire by changing my attitude about what is important in
a macro sense as well as to me personally.

------
emodendroket
Why is it programming alone where we have to have a burning desire to do it,
regardless of the pay check? Yeah, programming can be enjoyable, and it's the
way I prefer to earn a living. But it's a job all the same and I keep myself
happy by enjoying my time away from work doing other things, not by expecting
fulfillment from my job. Nobody would find it remarkable to hear that an
accountant got into the career because he thought it would be steady and well-
paying, rather than because of his love of accountancy.

------
beat
Not necessarily "keep the fire", but one big piece of advice I'd give anyone
here - don't stay at any given company more than five years, tops. Three to
five years is a good run for "permanent".

I work in the Twin Cities, the Land of Fortune 500 Headquarters. It's a big
enterprise town. What I've seen happen over and over is people become
"lifers", working ten years or more in a single company, then they get laid
off or fired and have _no idea_ how to function in the current job market.
Worse, their value is heavily invested in the institutional knowledge of their
former employer, sometimes specialized to the point where it's useless outside
of that company. This causes a lot of suffering.

If you move on regularly, you'll keep interest more easily, see a broader
cross-section of the industry, and not be so hosed if you find yourself laid
off.

------
alex_lod
Have you heard of the concept “beginner’s mind?” It’s an attitude that can be
developed with practice that helps you see otherwise ordinary things with awe
and curiosity. Here’s a bit more about it:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin)
if you’re curious I can share more references.

~~~
tinktank
I would love some more references please.

~~~
alex_lod
The term is most commonly associated with Suzuki Roshi, who founded the San
Francisco Zen Center. He has a book, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind." You can
learn more about him here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunry%C5%AB_Suzuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunry%C5%AB_Suzuki)

Here are a few blog posts:

\- [https://zenhabits.net/beginner/](https://zenhabits.net/beginner/) \-
[https://jackkornfield.com/beginners-
mind/](https://jackkornfield.com/beginners-mind/)

Here are a few talks/podcasts:

\-
[http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/68/talk/17919/](http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/68/talk/17919/)
\-
[http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/23/talk/500/](http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/23/talk/500/)
\-
[http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/139/talk/893/](http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/139/talk/893/)

Finally, I have had the most special "beginner's mind" experiences while
attending multi-day, silent meditation retreats. I live in the Bay Area, so
I've attended Spirit Rock up in Marin. However, retreat centers exist all
across the world. I recommend "insight" retreats, which are sometimes referred
to as "mindfulness" or "Vipassana" retreats.

I hope this is helpful!

~~~
tinktank
Very helpful, I'm going to pick up on these immediately. Thanks again.

------
kylecordes
I'm several decades in to software development, and am just as excited about
learning things and making things as ever, which is to say, quite a lot.
Though I also echo what some other folks have written here: I'm occasionally
jaded about yet another rediscovery and reimplementation of something already
well understood.

Here's another thing that experience brings though: a sharper focus on
efficiency, the ratio of output to input. That is the thing I look for in each
shiny new object that drifts across. If it is interesting that will get my
attention for a few minutes; if there is a hint that it might somehow move the
needle in terms of getting more out of less in, it will keep my attention.

------
irchans
I am 53 and I started to learn BASIC at the age of 15. I started writing
assembly code about 2 years later to speed up the games I wrote in BASIC. I
write a small amount of code almost every day (maybe 30 or so lines of
Mathematica code), but only rarely do I write 1000 lines a week. When I do
have a busy programming week, it is rather fun. I really enjoy writing code in
Haskell. It reawakened my love for coding. I still don't understand it well,
but I know it well enough to be able to convert almost any of my C++ code to
Haskell.

------
user68858788
Conversely, I'm 30 and lost all enthusiasm for software after working for the
big three.

I suggest going to a smaller place where you'll have a bigger impact and,
hopefully, good coworkers.

~~~
tinktank
Wow, what did they do to you that you're done with software?

------
rwoodley
What a question! If you don't like what you're doing, do something else. Life
is short.

I'm 57. I've been programming since I was 14 in 1974.

Engineering is an exciting profession that applies creativity to complicated
technical domains. So it uses your whole brain: you have to master a technical
area, and then be creative and build things. What's not to like?

I am always learning. I am now learning elixir, a functional language build on
erlang. I have lost count of the number of languages I've learned over the
years. I am comfortable on Windows, OSX, and Linux.

Honestly, if you're burned out I get it. But to 'keep the fire' just requires
you to have some imagination and remind yourself how cool this profession is.

And by the way, I love being challenged by my younger colleagues. They are a
conduit for new approaches and ideas and are essential to grow an org. But
yes, I have experience about what is likely to work and what won't - based on
many failed projects where I learned what not to do the next time.

------
brent_noorda
I switched to nursing. At 55 I've now completed nursing school, have an RN,
and am looking for my first job (at about 1/5 or less of what I could earn as
a developer). Programming had become too easy. Now I'm doing something
difficult again. Difficult is what, for me, keeps the fire burning.

~~~
finnjohnsen2
> Programming had become too easy.

what do you meen?

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
Presumably that most modern programming is about hooking one API up to
another. It seems like modern programming work is AI, graph theory, or fairly
simple plumbing.

Look at the other post about hooking up the 'smart' doorbell to Slack. That's
about as interesting and 'hackerish' to me as using the switch on your surge
protector to turn on two lights at once.

------
dukecitypal
40+ embedded engineer here. Still yearning for working on a start up of
something significant. Feel like I have the experience and skill to contribute
significantly better than the young engineers I have had a chance to work
with. Just hoping that the right opportunity will knock on the door some day.

------
bcheung
I'm 40, started programming at age 7 on the Commodore 64.

Recently I have been exploring and implementing my own ideas with child-like
purity. Programming has always been a hobby and a passion but once I started
working professionally it kind of went on the backburner.

In the past I would learn new frameworks and hop on the bandwagon of whatever
the newest technology was. It is getting to the point now that I'm really sick
of how bad things have become. Programming in assembly required 1 op code to
set a variable. Now in Redux I need 20+ SLOC across 4 files to do the same?
Functions are now API calls, modules are now containers.

The tools I use are designed for specialized (division of labor) roles and
favor simplicity and verbosity over power. So many barriers are erected with
all the technical bureaucracy we have now.

The tools out there are built under the paradigm of a large team. There's
nothing out there that is a tool for experienced programmers writing an entire
app themselves.

I've set about building what I wish I could be using and am ignoring what the
industry considers best practices, commonplace, etc. It's a pure creativity
mode and feels more like play than work. I'm going with my gut, intuition, and
experience without a concern about how it will interop with existing paradigms
and what other developers are used to. I'm building short explorations to test
out a concept and trying to figure out how to use these new concepts.

I'm exploring new programming paradigms: applications as a graph. How to
compile said graph into an AST. How to manipulate the graph using tools
appropriate for that section of the graph (lots of different structured
editors / modes for each task). I think the paradigm of manipulating all
aspects of an application using the same 2D grid of characters we call source
code is an outdated concept.

I also enjoy mentoring interns and junior developers. It's amazing seeing them
learn and using the insights that took me ages to learn.

In short, I'm concentrating on being true to myself and what I want to build
rather than just programming for a paycheck.

I've found that it is very easy to get a new job, but it's much harder to find
a company I like. In the past I would switch jobs chasing a hirer paycheck but
now fit is much more important. Find a company where you feel like you are
appreciated, can contribute meaningful work, and that gives you the freedom to
do so.

------
rubin55
I'm 42, turning 43 somewhere in the coming months. What I gather from your
question is actually a more general property of aging imho. As we get older we
actually have seen quite a few things before; we've burned our hands a few
times and naturally've become more careful and considerate when evaluating
choices.

The big advantage of youth is its naïveté; to be able to dive head first into
a new idea, uncompromised enthusiasm, strong believe in your abilities because
why the hell not! All the patterns are new.

The big advantage of our later years is experience, wisdom, recognizing
certain things a viable and others as not so much because we recognize the
patterns.

I think that one should be wary of our more negative experiences leading us to
cynicism, imho the opposite of youthful enthusiasm. You see, we have the
tendency to think we really do know the outcomes of certain things based on
our wisdom, but the way the world works, sometimes that is totally counter-
intuitive.

Case in point: when I was about 21, I got a 25000 loan to buy a Silicon
Graphics O2 with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator + MIPSPro Compiler license (I
kid you not) because I wanted to learn about this awesome computer and
operating system. It was not a well-thought-out descision (it took me 6 years
to pay of that debt). I couldn't afford software for it (hell, Alias Wavefront
PowerAnimator was 35000 a seat!) so I decided to call companies that were
releasing software for IRIX and bluntly ask them if I could test their
software for them. I got on the phone with one guy and he said: "wait. are you
telling me you bought a 25k computer just to learn?". I got a job interview
the next day. Funnily enough, by buying that O2, I got a job at a graphics
software company (my first programming job), I travelled the world because of
that descision, met a whole bunch of awesome people and essentially, that
thing kickstarted my life + career in a way that I could not have anticipated.
My point is: when you think you've seen it all before, or something seems like
a bad idea, keep in mind that you often can't really tell the consequences of
something. At least, that's what I tell myself and it helps keep the cynical
part of me in check.

I think my advice would be: kill cynicism, dive in something new head first
without over-analyzing, just for the heck of it, try to find the fringes of
your knowledge and push the boundary outward a bit more. Don't over-analyze
try to re-connect that enthousiasm you feel/felt when
discovering/exploring/coding/inventing.

------
codewritinfool
Mostly I'm just rambling and drinking Bell's "The Oracle", so take this for
what it is worth. Maybe not even 2 cents.

I've been coding for hire since I was 13, and I'm in my early 50's. I always
loved electronics so about 20 years ago I moved into embedded. I left the rat
race of the latest language / latest libraries etc. I code in straight C and
maybe some assembly if the task demands it.

I feel I get better every year, and the demand and pay shows that. The only
thing I've noticed is that I'm slower to anger and more willing to listen to
ideas, but like you said, my BS meter is very sensitive.

About the only age-related thing I've noticed is that it takes me longer to
heal when I injure something. I can't participate as easily with softball on
the parking lot or even frisbee.

I'm not an expert; I truly learn something new EVERY DAY. The difference now
is that I can often out-think my coworkers that are in their 20's, all from
experience. About twice a year I get to work on things that have never been
done before. Mostly, though, it is state machine after state machine, but to
be honest, I've never found a lack of motivation with embedded.

It seems that there will always be a need for firmware down on bare metal. At
least I'm banking on it, and plan to be doing this for 20 more years or so. As
far as "making it big", I don't care. That was never a huge goal. I just
wanted to provide for my family and retire some day.

PC app development is a different story. I was burned one too many times and
cannot concentrate to write ANYTHING. Why that is (or what the difference is)
I don't know.

------
mwyau
I built a web-hosting site when I was 17, but I did not go to college for
computer science, instead I studied physics. Then I went into scientific
research in graduate school.

Now in the early 30s I am finally starting a career in software development. I
am still excited to learn new things all the time, and I really enjoy the
process. Just wondering what will be different if I started a software job 8
years ago instead of now, moneywise or not...

------
fecak
46, and not a software developer, but I recruited for 20 years for startups
and now I'm a resume writer and career consultant that works with lots of
older engineers. The ones that are happy seem to not stay in one place too
long (either moving internally to different projects or changing jobs), so
they are always learning new things and often meeting new people.

I think a lot of 40+ engineers are unnecessarily skeptical about startups and
smaller companies. Sure, the chances of any individual startup going under are
pretty obvious, but once you're in that ecosystem it's not hard to get picked
up by others in the ecosystem. Everyone from that startup is going to find
work at another, and they'll bring along some friends, and your network gets
pretty spread out pretty quickly which provides more and more opportunities.

I'm not even sure what "making it big at 40+" means - if you mean building
something technically significant, many won't hit that goal. If it means
having a good paycheck and lifestyle, that's attainable for most skilled devs
it seems.

------
qpiox
I am programming since 1986. I have programmed in Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Logo,
Forth, C, C++, Pascal, Lisp, Prolog, Java. I love programming.

I don't know if I made it "big".

What is big?

None of the projects I have made in the past are still in use. Most have been
forgotten. Some were forgotten even by me, although I was the only developer
:)

Software is a moving target. There is no making it big. Everything you do will
get obsolete pretty soon.

But this is good! That is exactly the point. Software is intended to be "soft"
and changed whenever a change is needed.

So, when programming you are competing with yourself and your abilities as of
that moment in time. The only negative outcome is when you fail to make it at
that time, so you fail the expectations you have from yourself.

If you don't love programming and deeply understand that all software projects
will be "failed ones", consider another approach.

In programming you should not aim towards motivation from recognition by
others, but from exceeding your expectations from your self. To a better job,
always! Aim high, really high! Aim complex, really complex!

------
gdulli
On the one hand, I'm more productive and valuable than ever because I have
wisdom, which comes with time. I was good at this and successful when I was
20, but I wasn't in a position then to know what the ceiling is for a 20 year
old vs. a 40 year old.

And after 20 years I have my perfect toolbox. The languages, frameworks,
editors, etc. that work best for me, that are an extension of myself and make
writing code as easy as speaking English. We compare these things as if their
objective qualities matter most when we should discuss them more subjectively.
(Or at a minimum, context-specifically.)

The downside is, the industry values and rewards knowledge, not wisdom. I
slowly drift further from what the industry wants me to be, or the industry
slowly drifts further from being what I want. The work takes less effort than
ever but finding an environment I enjoy working in is getting harder. That's
the fire I'm having trouble keeping up. I don't know how if I'll continue in
technology through retirement or not.

------
bigtech
When friends try to pitch me on their million-dollar ideas, I feel that I have
a much better ability to estimate the size and scope. So instead of starting
construction, I'm more likely to say something like '3 full-time devs working
6 months for a solid prototype, another 6 months for something that could be
released' \-- who's paying for all of this?

------
PaulHoule
It is a common story to see a bunch of young brogrammers on the west coast
build something big and ambitious and then have it fall flat on its face. (For
instance, GE Predix)

You might have to fight every bit of the way, but with experience you can save
this kind of group from itself, or at least help them have a plan B that works
when plan A fails.

~~~
m3mpp
Yes, save some, destroy inspiration in some others too, experience can do
both, don't you think?

------
coldtea
> _And I mean, it 's not very surprising, if you haven't made it big at 40+,
> that means you worked on a lot of failed projects, that makes it harder to
> believe you can change that._

Not even 5% of the population "makes it big at 40+" (or ever) so there's that.

------
EliRivers
_I think I am as productive, maybe even more, than I was 20 years ago._

That's interesting. Only "maybe"?

I am _so_ much more productive than I was 15 years ago. Is it possible you're
looking back at your much younger self through rose-tinted bifocals? I am at
least an order of magnitude more productive than I was 15 years ago. Nowadays,
things get DONE and done right, and then I have time for a cup of tea and a
chapter of Josuttis (this second edition templates book is a monster).

------
tmaly
I am 40 now, I have been programming since I was 7 and I still enjoy it.

I am still trying to build side projects and improve my skill.

Learning to write code that is easy to maintain is one of the key skills you
come to appreciate with time. Documentation is another thing that becomes
important.

I would add that teaching and mentoring are just as important as you get
older. The junior programmers can really benefit for the knowledge you have
gained in the trenches over the years.

------
gexla
I think you have to start with the art. Creativity and critical thinking is
what keeps me excited for what I do. The experience and the tooling is just
the attachments which extend the capabilities of the brain stuff. Maybe I
would get more down on my work if that were to get out of balance, less
creativity and more process. Maybe a change of scenery would be good? Try
something completely different?

------
souprock
"if you haven't made it big at 40+, that means you worked on a lot of failed
projects"

Say what? No! The project gets done, the customer is happy, and you move on to
the next project. After a couple decades of this, I have a hard time recalling
failures... maybe at 40+ the failures can't be remembered? This is fine.

------
scarecrowbob
One of the most helpful things that I've done in my life has been to make sets
of friends who are different ages than I am.

It helps me understand that although there are certain states of life people
tend towards, aging isn't as harsh for everyone.

When I was 25, I thought that people who were 50 were ancient. But I play with
a blues band and the drummer is 73 and still gets under houses to do plumbing.

My friends in their 80s who are still working are often slow... we all become
geriatric at some point if we live long enough.

But I've also met people in their 50s who are really, really old. And I mostly
date women in their 40s, and one of the most interesting things has been how
old some people in their 40s are and how young some people in their 50s are.

A second thing that has helped me is that I keep playing with new stuff, just
for fun. I keep taking up new instruments (I've been spending a lot of time
playing banjo and piano, but this year I built a modular synthesizer and have
been enjoying that way of making noise quite a bit). I keep learning new
technical skills and because of the business I am in I can have my boss sell
projects that allow me to practice the ones I think will be more profitable.
And all that has taught me how much we can actually learn if we're just
spending a 20-30 minutes a day on a specific practice, over the course of
years.

So, I just turned 40 a couple of months ago, I sent my kid off to list first
day as a high school senior. And I've got enough time to do about 3 more
careers in my life. I've been a university professor, a semi-professional
musician, and right now I'm a pretty good programmer and all-around IT worker.

Knowing all those people older than me, I'm able to see how much longer I
might be here. I stopped drinking, got down to a very healthy weight, took up
exercises that are fun (a lot of yoga, mountain biking, and hiking). I've
gotten a lot picker about how I have romantic relationships. I travel more to
visit my friends who have their kids tying them to a locale.

And knowing how much progress we can make by constant, slow study has made me
super excited about learning general things. I read a lot of philosophy and
history, but I also do a lot of playing with technology.

I started learning math again, because I feel like that will be important for
understanding the various kinds of statistics I'll have to do to work with
statistical tools like machine learning. CRUD apps have paid my bills for a
long time, but I don't know how much longer I'll get a thrill out of building
them.

So that's what I do. I'm not worried about making it big as a musician or a
programmer because I like the process and I can get enough remuneration from
it to keep everything going as long as I feel like living.

And I suspect that I am actually a lot quicker witted, can pay attention
longer, and have a better memory now that I occasionally fast, am not drinking
every day. I suspect that a lot of my friends in their 40s aren't "slower",
they just have kids and are dealing with it by drinking, like I did in my 20s.
And I do know that we age, but I also know that how we age isn't the same for
everyone... with good luck, we have a whole lot of time to learn and play with
interesting ideas.

~~~
rubin55
> "because I like the process"

This! Awesomely inspirational answer by the way..

------
duxup
I quit one career because I felt similarly.....so I switched TO web
development at age 40 and I love it.

Sometimes quitting is the answer...

------
RickJWagner
Oh, 40 years old! Piece of cake, I thought the question was about 40 years in
development.

I'm 53 this year, still love programming. I think the trick is to always be
trying to move forward, and also look for ways to share your experiences with
younger generations.

------
bra-ket
Switch to math-heavy domain, e.g. quant finance. Besides being a fascinating
field in its own right, the maturity and depth of thinking and experience that
comes with age are actually valued here.

~~~
jason_slack
I'm doing this now, actually. It keeps my attention :-)

------
scarface74
I keep it going because I’m passionate about being able to afford the upper
middle class lifestyle that it affords me.

I keep learning because I want the optionality of leaving a job of it starts
to suck.

------
sjg007
Well... technology is constantly changing, so there is always a lot of
potential at every phase of its evolution. I watched Silicon Cowboys last
night and it was inspiring.

------
mchahn
> if you haven't made it big at 40

I remember a meme in Silicon Valley that if you weren't a millionaire by 30
then you failed. And that was in the 1980's.

------
mrburton
Do shit - do all kinds of shit - go into a shit frenzy if you like! Just stop
letting your professional work limit your experiences in programming.

So right now, I'm in the "shit frenzy" phase. I'm building small devices
during the weekend using the NodeMCU (ESP8266) microcontroller, designing
custom cases for it and then 3D printing it. It's pretty exciting!

I'm also using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and a couple of modules to track how many
times my hamster runs on his wheel, the temperature near his cage and soon
I'll set up a Load Cell to weigh his little fat ass daily.

A month ago, I wrote a CLI tool written in Go that allows you to write SQL
against Google's Firestore. It gave me a chance to use Antlr to define a
custom SQL language and create fun commands like the ability to load a
collection from a file.

At night time, I've been working on a course that will teach people with _no_
programming experience how to code. I'm only covering what would be
fundamental for getting started. That means I leave out things like recursion
and other concepts. When the course is finished, I will publish it online
including videos, presentations, homework assignments and more.

I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and it feels like I
just started.

All that fluffy shit being said, there have been points in my life where I
thought "How can I continue to keep learning and doing at this pace"? In those
moments I paused and reflected on the months surrounding those questions, and
I discovered that I wasn't doing shit exciting.

I think you might be a little tired of the stress/ownership of coding and all
of the details that are required in building a system. That might be a sign
you need a different team.

In regards to younger folks - listen, I get what you go through at times. I
use to hate having some old lazy person tell you bullshit. Here's some advice
for you.

1\. Sometimes older people are just beaten and worn down - because of that,
and they'll try to slow you down. Try to listen to their reasoning and
determine "is this person full of shit and wants to look good or am I moving
too fast and it's hurting me"?

2\. Age has not a fucking thing to do with how experienced you are in this
industry. I've seen code monkeys who pushed the same key for 15 years. Ask
yourself.. is that asshole a senior engineer?

3\. Try to find someone who's a) knowledgeable and b) gives a shit about you.
Make friends and learn!

4\. Remember - one day you'll become that old ass person. So try not to turn
into a dick yourself. It's far too easy to grow an ego and shut people down in
this industry. 99% of the shit people say is highly subjective, but 1% of the
shit is fact. e.g., "This is easier to maintain!" \- subjective "This will
cause the system to shut down, and me beat your ass" \- fact.

------
shove
"I'm always angry" \-- Hulk

