
Life as a Middle-Aged Geek - rcarmo
http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/09/15/2240
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czbond
My advice is to deeply study your personality, proclivities, and weaknesses.
Decide if you will move from "specialist to generalist" (eg: management) or
"specialist to deep specialist" (deep engineer). Actively plan your career....
Are you idea, information, or people focused? The world rewards each - but you
have to find your niche. I like to lead, inspire, plan products, add
significant revenue, and mold careers in high risk, time compressed
situations. I dislike managing day-to-day. I've learned this. Plan that
everything you do will become "the new normal", always pushing the edge.

I've found that as I get older my value has increased exponentially, but it's
related to my personality type and actions. No matter your thoughts on Myers
Briggs, it offers a "starting point". I'm an ENTP - which I used to believe "a
curse" in engineering circles, until I've realized it is the best gift I could
have ever had.

Focus on where your personality excels, and find an area of interest where
others are not like you.

~~~
Qworg
What do you do, if not manage day to day? This definitely sounds like the
direction I'm leaning, so it'd be helpful to see what others have done. My
email is in my profile if you'd prefer.

~~~
czbond
I help companies realize new revenue paths, and to execute on new products
quickly. Specifically, I figure out the 20% of engineering effort to get to
the initial results. I often skip much of the initial "Product Manager-y"
tasks, and build quickly with a very small team, to be in a position to sell -
often based on intuition. I realized years ago that I couldn't compete in
"traditional domains" of engineering - my interests in everything meant I
could not become a master, traditional engineer. That career path was out. I
can't compete with INTJ or ISTJ (deeply focused personalities) which is what
many software engineers classify as - but I can outcompete on innovation and
new revenue.

~~~
elliotec
I'd like to have a chat with you if you're up for it, I don't see any contact
info for you in your profile but you can contact me through my website listed
in mine if you want.

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agentultra
Nice work!

I'm not there yet but I'm getting closer every day. Mid-30's geek.

I definitely feel as though I've never been better. Even with a family and a
job I'm knee deep in predicate calculus, model checking, computer-assisted
proofs, and dependently-typed languages. I still have room for a little fun
and like to write little games and procedural graphics demos.

I think my 20-year old self had a lot more time and energy but he had to fake
a lot to get by... between then and now I've had the time to research and
understand many concepts that I only took for granted and pretended to have an
understanding about. It's pretty cool working with my younger colleagues since
I love teaching so much and I can show them tricks and patterns I wish I had
known when I was starting out. We work well together.

~~~
nojvek
I would love to have someone like you as a mentor.

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rcarmo
Hi there, I'm the OP. AMA, I'll try to give cogent replies despite my advanced
age :)

~~~
russellbeattie
I don't think they believed you, you old codger.

~~~
rcarmo
Ah, the pot calling the kettle black :)

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mildbow
I like to think about this like compound interest.

What skills can you invest time in, continuously & over time, that will make
it impossible for people to catch up with you?

Consequently, I'm not convinced "keeping skills current" is the way to go.
Most of us are curious about new tech: it's probably what brought us into, and
keeps us in, the field. But, anyone can pickup "current tech X". Sure, you
might become faster at learning something, but I'm not convinced that 5 years
of experience vs 10 years makes much of a difference.

~~~
smrtinsert
Math math and more math.

~~~
zallarak
Can you elaborate? Do you have any personal experience that makes you say
this?

~~~
engi_nerd
I'm not the parent, but I agree with 'math, math, and more math' as good
advice.

My own situation is this: I've been working as an RF telemetry and
instrumentation engineer for 8 years. Time and time again, I've been able to
rise above because I put in the time to understand the fundamental math
underlying what we're doing, and use that understanding to troubleshoot
issues. Surprisingly, most of my colleagues have not put in this level of
effort and their career trajectories have suffered as a result.

I would also add this: learn to program. Now, the vast majority of people here
already do know how to program, but many people in the aerospace and
mechanical engineering fields really don't, or don't use what knowledge they
gained in school. I put in the time on the side to learn some data science and
programming skills. I was able to use these skills to solve some rather tricky
problems, gaining me additional recognition. I have now used this success to
switch career tracks to a software engineering position. I start the new
position next month, wish me luck!

~~~
madengr
Good luck with the new position. I'm also an RF guy, but do some SDR
programming, mainly as a hobby, but had a job offer over it recently.

~~~
engi_nerd
In a related note, I _just_ had a conversation with an Aerospace Engineer here
who said that throughout his degree he never had to program. Now he's trying
to find other employment (as this program is winding down) and all the jobs
that he is seeing require some programming skills.

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3pt14159
So heres a pretty simple question for older developers. If the field is so
rough why not apply to remote working jobs with a stripped down resume that
makes it look like you're in your mid thirties? Throttle your internet for any
video calls so at best it looks blocky and then switch to just voice. If all
that matters is your code why would anyone notice? Like women in tech I can
understand, it's harder to disguise yourself, but if you're in your mid 40s or
mid 50s why not just pretend?

~~~
ccallebs
I think plenty of people take this route. There are stories from SV about
middle-aged men who undertake cosmetic surgery to look younger, so it's not a
stretch that some people would do what you're saying.

However, what you're suggesting isn't a solution. It's not even a band-aid.
Imagine living your days worrying about whether or not you'd be exposed for
being older than what you are. That would be maddening.

I'm only 28, but I fear what the career landscape will look like when I hit
mid-life as well. My inclination is that the field has grown so much we're
looking at peak-agism right now. Although I've never seen it in person, it
makes me wonder when so many teams don't look like they have anyone over 40.

~~~
3pt14159
I think I'm being misunderstood. I'm not saying this is a solution, I'm asking
why this doesn't happen. Maybe it does though.

~~~
ccallebs
Ah, gotcha. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. But I think it does
happen frequently (and not just in software development). Certainly if I were
faced between not providing for my family and dying my hair / getting botox
injections, I would choose the latter.

