
Ask HN: Is software engineering really a dead-end job after 35-40? - dosy
Reading this: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Is-software-development-really-a-dead-end-job-after-age-35-40<p>But it seems grey bias is deep rooted.
======
rossdavidh
I _started_ working as a developer when in my mid-30's. I am 50 now. I get
paid more than I did when I was younger, and I generally have less trouble
getting a job. However, two caveats: 1) your age is not necessarily held
against you, but it also doesn't buy you anything. Expect to need to learn new
skills every year, just like your 20-something coworkers. 2) the older you
get, the easier it is to feel snarky about every new technology that comes
along, and nobody wants to work with that guy, even when they are sometimes
right. Suppress the urge to pour scorn on every new
library/framework/language/architecture that comes along. If it is actually
that bad, then it will become apparent. In the meantime, see what you can
learn from it.

~~~
andrei_says_
Thank you for number two. Enduring the (perceived, not necessarily objective)
idiocy of cargo culting and reinventing shinier but crappier wheels can be
tiring.

On the other hand, there are always amazing new ways to think about code, new
languages, new perspectives.

It’s an exciting field.

P.S. if you’re over 40 you owe it to yourself to read Dan Lyon’s Disrupted.
He’s also the guy behind Fake Steve Jobs blog.

------
runjake
As a gray-haired programmer who happens to be on interview teams, I interview
a lot of older candidates along with a team of younger professionals.

It's not so much their age, but rather they have a tendency to be set in their
ways, are less eager to learn and explore and change.

On a personal level, I'm impressed you've stuck with Perl all these years, and
I'd love to nerd out with you over a beer later. On a professional level, I'm
wondering if you're an inflexible curmudgeon.

Also as an older person, you're going to be expected to have some good basic
management skills and wisdom. It's just the course of human nature.

Another couple of anti-bias tactics:

1\. Dress nicely and modern. I see a lot of candidates who wear a suit that
looks like its been slept in, or it looks like a suit they bought in the 80s.
I'm not telling you to wear skinny jeans and Supreme shirts, but just dress
relatively clean and modern.

You can get away with a lot on this front as a youngster, but it really works
against you once you become one of us grays.

2\. Stay fit/eat right. It doesn't do you any well if you're old, and
overweight, and breathing hard during the interview.

------
anon284271
I believe (vanilla) software development is a young man's/woman's game. I
realized this last year at age 38 and I've been rapidly trying to alter my
career trajectory.

\- If you aren't a specialist, you are constantly competing against
20-somethings who will always be more current in their skills and breadth than
yourself, because they have more free time than you have (e.g. I have a wife,
kid)

\- I've written GUI widgets from scratch, servers from scratch, same thing
with linked lists, sorting, etc. Guess what? That doesn't likely justify an
ever-increasing salary. No one cares.

\- Older programmers tend to be very opinionated and have lots of war stories.
This gets on peoples nerves. The stereotype, based entirely on truth, is that
they are cranky and hard to work with.

I don't believe the same is true in specialized disciplines like engineering
or modelling/simulation, numerical programming, etc. A 40, 50, 60 year-old
engineer/mathematician/analytics developer doesn't have the same stigma. Those
decades of experience are invaluable. The fundamentals of engineering or
statistics aren't being reinvented every 3-5 years. Web development skills
that are 5 years old are literally worthless today. Aside from general problem
solving techniques, unless you've really specialized, the stuff you developed
10-20 years ago is of minimal value today and that experience (writing
software that is now obsolete and could now be written in a fraction of the
time, likely!) doesn't make you competitive against younger programmers.

My takeaway was to go deep as possible into analytics and math. AI, ML,
anything that requires heavy math background, those are what I'm focusing on
now.

~~~
artsyxxx
Younger developers are way more naive and out to prove their skills by
engaging in any fool's errand they are presented with. Older folks have a lot
of heuristics and experience that pushes them away from conventional
collaboration and makes them unwilling to engage in negative work or emotional
labour.

There is definitely a middle ground, I believe emotional agility is at the
heart of 'true' agility and the emotions have been highly overlooked by people
who either master the art of bottling it up (looking at you former managers)
or brooding (that's on me and many of us I believe)

The middle ground is becoming aware of the spectrum of unpleasant emotions and
learning to feel in more depth while using intellect to guide your own
actions.

For example, one can sense disgust at a certain codebase. That's perfectly
acceptable, and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault. The disgust will drive
us to want to improve it. Unfortunately, our managers tell us `bottle up your
disgust and do some more disgusting things so we can ship` in which case young
guys jump to the challenge and old guys tend to feel completely undervalued.

Edit: this statement is intentionally opinionated. It's alright to have an
emotional reaction to it. I'd be interested to know what emotions it evokes in
the reader.

------
chrisbennet
This following is meant this in sincere and non-snarky way:

If the problems you are working on can _actually_ be done/solved at a large
table with lots of people around, then it probably isn't a problem that
requires 10+ years of experience i.e. it probably could be done by someone
younger/cheaper. [Of course, if you "hack" around this by coming in early,
working from home, etc. you aren't actually "doing it at a table with lots of
people around you".]

I know lots of gray haired guys solving problems in the desktop and embedded
space. I'm a not-a-genius developer/consultant and at 0x38 years old, I have
no problem getting work.

~~~
dosy
0x38 is cool. Never thought about doing that. Hex years. Makes everything seem
younger. I'm still an 0x20-something then, not so bad! :)

I thin I'd like to get into the niche / older spaces, liked embedded /
desktop, but I wanted to learn a lot about web dev / cloud first, based on
interest and curiosity.

I programmed in C when younger, and had an embedded opportunity a couple years
ago in it which I turned down, but I think I'd like to take that up now.

Do you think there's more work / less applicants ( or at least a higher such
ratio ), in C / embedded, etc?

~~~
chrisbennet
>Do you think there's more work / less applicants ( or at least a higher such
ratio ), in C / embedded, etc?

I don't know but I think you are on the right track thinking in terms of
ratios. If there are (only) 100 jobs for technology X and 90 people with that
skill, that's a good skill to have. If there are 10000 jobs for technology Y
and 11000 developers for that technology, the ratio is not as favorable.

I think the Internet Of Things (IOT) might be a nice bridge from the "webby"
world to the embedded one. One of my friends was doing node.js on an embedded
medical device for example. (Queue "Security is the 'S' in IOT.")

At the end of the day, job security is based on creating value. If you want to
be remunerated well for that value, you don't want to have a lot of direct
competition.

I deliver solutions on the "edge" of the embedded realm sometimes - things
that run on small Linux computers (Beagle Bones and Raspberry Pi). I can't
speak to the demand for "real" embedded developers. By "real" I mean dealing
with things like "board bring up" and FPGAs. Perhaps the graybeards I know
that do that stuff are there through selection bias.

As consultant, I create the software for complete products or the core
technology/secret sauce for companies that don't have that skill in-house.
They could hire a skilled web developer fairly easily (assuming they pay
reasonably). It's a lot harder to higher a developer that can turn data
packets into a radar display, make a desktop product to monitor laser plasma
emissions or track a flying golf ball using computer vision (my last 3
projects).

I hope that was helpful.

~~~
alltakendamned
I understand from your other comments you're mostly getting work through word
of mouth. That said, in your experience, what would be the channels through
which the kind of projects you do are advertised? I hardly see any of those.

~~~
chrisbennet
For one of those jobs, I was approached by a head hunter. I outright tell the
headhunters I know (that do contracts) to call me if they come across
something “weird” but they generally can’t pay enough for it to be worth it.

All the rest where word of mouth from people I know. I wish I knew of a place
where these sorts of jobs were advertised.

------
Mc_Big_G
I'm 46 and this question seems a little ridiculous if you're located in a good
market. In the bay area there is such demand for developers that you will find
a job. It may not be the most amazing, perfect job for you but the pay won't
be "bad".

However, I do see a few problems:

1\. If you've been out of the algorithm, leetcode, game for a while, passing
the bs interviews is going to be a challenge. The truth is that almost no one
uses that shit or they just google an implementation. So, you're choice is to
dedicate a significant portion of your free-time to studying or use the
shotgun approach unless you have a network "in".

2\. It's probably going to be difficult for you if you refuse to learn new
things. I've been specializing in front-end for a while and the framework I'm
an expert in (Ember.js) is basically dead. Time to learn react. Luckily 90% of
what I know translates.

3\. If you want ever-increasing salaries, you're going to have a hard time.
There is a cut-off for even the best senior developers. The only way up is
management.

If you can still add value as a developer, someone will hire you.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
If you're doing anything more involved than CRUD apps knowing the "bs things"
is pretty useful; especially if you think you qualify as a "senior developer".
Mindlessly copying from google won't tell you the right questions to ask, and
won't help you mentor new talent. If you're found yourself at 40+ and don't
know the fundamentals that tells me you've done little to no mentoring and
probably _don 't_ fit in my organization.

Given (1) 3 also becomes a bit of dead end. If you're actually on a principle
track (that's ownership, aptitude, etc) senior developer tracks can be nearly
unbounded; especially at the usual suspects and increasingly at companies
serious about growing their technology department.

I'd caution against striving for "just adding value"; being one of the people
that have 2 years of experience 10 times is going to cut you off from most
employment opportunities.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
Funny because I've built many, many apps and worked as a professional dev for
15+ years and literally never, not even once, needed to write a reverse bubble
sort or whatever from scratch. Modern development is more about making good
design choices and knowing how to leverage languages, frameworks and systems
to develop a solution that meets the companies objectives and does it quickly
and in the most cost-effective way. I've saved and produced millions of
dollars of value for many companies and advanced algorithms knowledge was
never part of the solution. This leetcode shit is just a hazing ritual
perpetuated by the majority of companies because they're unwilling to do
something more sensible because it requires time and effort. Wouldn't it be
more effective to review my code on github and bitbucket than to give me a
puzzle to solve? Right, that takes effort.

[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/834146806594433025](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/834146806594433025)

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Through these first 2 decades of the 21st century I think this industry has
thrived on the fact that all of the fruit is laughably low hanging. You could
"produce millions of dollars" with an excel macro. That doesn't make the skill
a good thing to peg the long term health to your tech company to. Hint playing
this
<[https://media.giphy.com/media/kwEmwFUWO5Ety/giphy.gif>](https://media.giphy.com/media/kwEmwFUWO5Ety/giphy.gif>)
game isn't software development any healthy company wants to hire for.

Moore's law has smoothed over many the failing of a mediocre dev; the next
generation isn't going have same luxury (just the same as the current
generation has to know exponentially more than those that made their fortune
during the dot com boom).

------
mabynogy
Ken Thomson and Rob Pike still program. They are inspiring people I wanna
follow not those useless and inefficient bureaucrats in charge of "human
resources".

As programmers, we should take the control of the recruitment with coopting.
The market is in our favor. We are more needed than we need. We can do that
smoothly and the good business men will understand they can save a lot of
money with a such system.

I already know few good programmers who are available and I can recommend.

------
artsyxxx
Fellows, grey bias, impostor syndrome, burnout, toxicity, anxiety and the
others are all symptoms of the rigid mindstate that permeates our industry.

It has to do with the curse of comfort and a lack of emotional agility which
is exceptionally pronounced in this industry for many reasons which I shall
not accentuate here except to state that `casual` is another word for `toxic`
in my view.

I would care to suggest to everyone in this thread the following work:
[http://a.co/3Wlz2bw](http://a.co/3Wlz2bw)

Having read this book my views on how we ought to be engaging in our day-to-
day have been completely transformed. Going from a rigid mindstate to a growth
mindstate changes the whole game and I bet you anything it would go a long way
to alleviating the burden of grey bias and all the other evils we face.

~~~
kqr2
Non-shortened link:

[https://smile.amazon.com/Emotional-Agility-Unstuck-
Embrace-C...](https://smile.amazon.com/Emotional-Agility-Unstuck-Embrace-
Change/dp/1592409490)

~~~
artsyxxx
Very kind of you to provide this link; highly interested to know your take on
this work.

~~~
kbrisso
Thank you for sharing book. I am always looking for interesting stuff to read.

------
hluska
I'm 41 and doing great. I 'work' for an amazing organization (work is in
quotes because I do exactly what I'd do if I was retired) and have a number of
extremely interesting problems on my plate.

A few caveats:

1.) I don't bash new frameworks (even if I know they're a bad idea) until I've
built something non trivial with them.

2.) My education and experience are outside the norm for developers where I
live. I have a business degree (with a marketing major) and have spent most of
my life working for or founding startups.

3.) I love introducing people to each other. When you get older, you're
usually much more connected than you imagine.

4.) I make fun of myself when it is deserved.

5.) I praise others when it is deserved.

6.) I stay current. Hell, I have built things with blockchains even though I
didn't think it would be a good idea.

Basically, I stay current and try to be a good member of a team.

~~~
brianmcc
Agree; being a good team player, someone folks _want_ to work with, counts for
a hell of lot, IMO. Too many devs, young and old, are oblivious to this.
Humility, a sense of humour, and being generous with credit are all great
traits to help ensure a long and happy career!

------
slipwalker
my personal situation is: 45yo, just back to the corporate world after
bankrupting my own consultancy company ( i shot myself on the foot with the
tax and labor laws ) as a senior java developer. I fly circles around my
20-something teammates, and also around the tech team from our current
client... became the de facto tech leader without even trying. Bad thing is,
now i have more responsabilities than i bargained for, and dont't have that
"workdays are just payed vacations" feeling anymore.

~~~
andrei_says_
You get the satisfaction of neatly organized maintainable code and teaching
many by example :)

------
growlist
Find a niche that serves as a barrier to entry to the young, trendy, and
easily distracted. Security clearance could be one example.

------
sAbakumoff
The average age of my team >30 and it's the best team I ever was a part of.
It's not the dead end, but rather the light at the end of the tunnel..Hope
it's not the freight train coming my way though...

------
HeyLaughingBoy
I hear that, but I haven't seen it. The age range where I work (small company)
goes from 20 to almost 70. Same at the last two $BIG_CORP jobs, except there
the bottom of the range was a bit higher.

------
pieterr
I don’t think so. Building software is a creative process that benefits from
team diversity in multiple aspects. You need both young and older people. I’m
54 and still going strong. :-)

Also, not every ‘new’ development is as new as it appears; “Old is the New
New”.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbgsfeGvg3E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbgsfeGvg3E)

~~~
childintime
I mostly work with firmware, which hasn't seen much innovation, especially on
small devices (finally Rust is coming along). There is no way youngsters can
compete with me in breadth of experience. They are still building their
toolbox and design patterns, so they can learn a lot, including from me. I
value their appetite.

I see myself as a child of my time, with home-grown skills typical for a time-
frame. I see that time-frame fading into history much like pop-music is doing.
Going by the example of rockstars, maybe my skills will still be in demand 20
years from now, because the original author has so much more depth.

In some ways I am at the peak of my skills, more focused on results and a well
balanced, easy to evolve design. But grey, so not cool I suppose ;)

------
m3talsmith
40 here and not seeing a flagging salary or problem with work. I just get
calls from larger companies than I did when I was younger. Stay away from the
startups, Keep your skills up to date, drop the complaining habit if you have
it and find ways to be a positive influence around your community, find a
decent company that does things you care about, and settle in.

------
amorphous
A lot of good answers in this thread. I want to emphasize that, though ageism
clearly exist, it more than anything else depends on you. I have many
colleagues and friends that started coding in their childhood (like me) who
got burned out after doing it for decades. I have also experienced several
times the feeling that coding just doesn't motivate me anymore. Software
development is quite different from other technical work, constant pressure to
learn new things while at the same time nothing really changes.

What helps is to acquire additonal skills or knowledge outside IT, for example
domain knowledge of an industry. This takes time and dedication. Personally, I
got very interested in training and I'm now building a training business.

Also important to keep in mind that there exist a whole different IT world
outside startups and what you read on HN where ageism is much less a problem.

------
lordCarbonFiber
I find the whole hypothesis of the "grey bias" to be rather baffling. My
personal thought is that boomers are puzzled that this industry doesn't
confirm to the standards set in the other engineering discipline (ie younger
workers are treated like shit and expected to like it with next to no
advancement opportunities).

In my experience, older (20+ years exp) workers that have kept their skills
sharp and were above average throughout their careers tend to do well.
However, those that expect software to work like other engineering fields,
where seniority is a sole function of tenure, tend to take arms and complain
about the new generation out performing them.

------
bsvalley
From an employer perspective, as long as the employee is a good asset there's
no dead-end. To be a good asset as a developer, you need to be good at coding
and somehow easy to work with. That's it for an employer. Now, from an
employee perspective it's a complete different story. When you have fresh
grads coming in every day with a lot of energy and already up to date with all
the latest trends and technologies, no family life, no mortgages, no kids, no
responsibilities. How do you keep up with that at 40? They can spend 15h at
the office who cares.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You keep up by being better.

Those kids can code 15 hours a day if they want. I'll code 8, and I'll still
produce _working_ code faster than them. I won't waste (as much) time with
flawed designs. I won't write nearly as many bugs that then have to be fixed.
My code will be more maintainable.

In short, I'm more valuable than those kids. If an employer can't see that,
then the employer is still at the kid level, and they aren't someone I want to
work for.

But if you're going to try to compete with the kids when you have just the
same skills, well, that's a hard road. You have to have gotten better over the
years.

~~~
mooreds
> I'll still produce working code faster than them

I think my advantage (I'm over 40) is that I produce the _right_ working code.
Listen to the client, think about the problem, suggest short cuts or
alternatives (including COTS if needed). I am much more focused on solving
problems now than I was when I was younger.

------
hullsean
Your mileage may vary of course. But i’ve been independent consulting now for
25yrs. Started doing primarily dba/unix work in the 90’s and now of course
cloud heavy. Devops is in extremely high demand. i do docker, ecs, terraform,
kubernetes, aws, gcp. Python. postgresql, mysql, redshift. athena. it goes on
& on.

yes as others have mentioned you have to be willing to learn. to be also
excited to learn. that’s key.

i’m also much more mature now. so i can work well with anyone and see
perspectives others miss.

opportunities abound !

------
avgDev
I'm 31, my company also contracts a dev that is almost 60. He knows much more
than me about architecture, old systems that we still use, I would not want to
do his work. I work on the newer stuff.

As I get older I plan to shift to a different role. Maybe management, I am
waiting for a position to open in a city for a dev project manager. I'm not
really concerned.

------
alunchbox
Not really sure if this mindset is more regionally based than anything else
but as a full stack developer working in Toronto at 24 years old I've never
heard of this stigma in the workplace. The past 2 companies I've worked at
have all had an average age of 40+. Same story for most of my college friends
now working in the GTA.

~~~
framebit
I'm in the Southeastern US and have similar observations, average age around
40+ and experience generally very highly prized.

------
borplk
Generally it is. It's "become a manager or get out".

Like everything there are exceptions but you and I are probably not the
exception.

------
sweetbee
No, of course it’s not! :)

------
jabberslocku
I'm 36 and run circles around guys in their early and mid 20's.

Every 2-3 years I reinvent myself with new tech and new challenges.

If you feel you cannot compete at 36 (my age) and are not getting interviews
and offers from Amazon, Google, other companies.... then the problem is You
and not your nominal age.

The fact that you're seeking out validation for self-victimization is alresdy
going to shine through in your insecurities and victim complex. Leading to a
self fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
AIX2ESXI
In the middle of a self-reinvent cycle myself. Great points you made there.

------
phendrenad2
Is there discrimination at the average company against 35+ candidates? Yes.

Is it because the candidates don’t know the latest languages and frameworks?
Sometimes, not always.

Is it because “fresh grads” have “energy” or something? Almost certainly not.
What does that even mean?

Is it negated by the comments here like “oh there are 70-year-olds doing
programmig where _I_ work!”? No, that’s just an anecdote, not statistically
relevant.

~~~
steve1011
Where is your evidence then?

------
taf2
Wat!?!? Ok I’m 37- but like why would I ever need to stop pwning nubs? Hack
and slash for life bro!

If anything I know more now about solving problems and handling stress.
Likewise, everyone I work with who is older than me I have crazy respect for
ageism is so silly

