
Ask HN: How plausible is it to continue becoming a lifelong programmer? - muzani
I find that a lot of the really good developers get promoted to managers by their 30s. Or similar roles that are over 50% communication&#x2F;meetings, such as product, scrum master, analyst, architecture, etc.<p>Even though a highly productive programmer can be even more valuable than a manager, few people remain as a programmer.<p>What keeps people from staying on as a programmer? What should I watch for if I want to go down this path?
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daly
I've been programming for 47 years. I've been offered (and refused) management
positions 8 times. I know nothing about management, although I've had it done
to me all my life.

Being a programmer all your life is like being a musician. It rarely pays
well, it has a lot of issues. Lots of people think of themselves as
programmers, just like most people who learn to play an instrument think of
themselves as musicians. But there is a vast difference between being able to
wrie a program (or play an instrument) and making it into a career.

There are very few musicians who perform throughout their lifetimes. There are
very few programmers who write code throughout their lifetimes. You have to
love the work.

~~~
lgregg
I like that analogy.

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baccredited
>What should I watch for if I want to go down this path?

Watch out for age discrimination. The best way to fight it is to start saving
immediately for financial independence if you haven't already. Once you have
F.U. money you can work on whatever you want--paid or unpaid, it will not
matter.

Collins - The Simple Path to Wealth is a good book with the basics of how to
achieve financial independence.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
I’ve found that though it takes many years there does come a time when you
have mastered it. Of course you can’t know every language or the intricacies
of every sub discipline (graphics, audio, networking and on and on) but the
core algorithms, data structures etc certainly. And then it can start to feel
repetitive. It took me over 10 years as a professional dev coding everyday to
reach that level. Now that I have I’m ready to do other things and have done.
Nothing will stop you from continuing to be a programmer if you want to be,
there are people 20-30 years older than me at places I’ve worked. It’s you who
decides when it’s time to move on. They said I’ll always be a lifelong
programmer just not as a professional (paid) one.

~~~
muzani
After knowing everything, would you consider it viable to be a specialist?
Like I'm sure you could build anything, but what about, say, being able to
build the most efficient ecommerce sites or specializing in building apps from
scratch in the fastest speed?

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markcheno
There is nothing keeping you from remaining a programmer as long as you are
good at it. I am in my early 50's and have been programming since I was 13
years old, professionally since I was 18. I have studiously avoided management
for my entire career and have survived several severe layoffs. Middle managers
can be replaced far easier than a good programmer with extensive experience.
You do need to be either an expert in an obscure field or be able to keep up
with the latest technologies. I do both. I intend to retire as a programmer.

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DoreenMichele
There is an excellent book called "The Peter Principle" that is exactly about
this sort of thing. The concept it uses is that people get "promoted to their
level of incompetence." In other words, you are a great programmer, so you get
promoted to manager because it's a promotion. You are a so so manager. You
stay there until you retire, though you would have added a lot more value as a
programmer.

It has a few examples of people who managed to avoid getting promoted out of
the thing they truly excelled at. One gardener had a personal quirk of failing
to pick up his paychecks on time. This drove management crazy and kept him
gardening instead of whatever people did who got promoted.

Another individual had an office that looked like a paperwork bomb had gone
off. There were untidy stacks of paper everywhere. Management was convinced he
was a disorganized mess, though he had a very efficient paperwork system
wholly unrelated to the mountains of papers stacked all over the place.

I highly recommend the book. After you have read it to establish a mental
framework, you might need to read up on social psychology to come up with a
strategy for convincing management that promoting you out if programming is a
silly idea.

~~~
muzani
I don't mean being promoted out of your level of competence though.

Like in my case I make a good manager and a good programmer. But the skills
needed to be a good manager are not rare. You need to have N years of
experience, be a good communicator, and take responsibility.

To be a good programmer requires a lot of willpower and discipline. You have
to constantly work hard and be on your toes. It's not something most people
can do.

So in some regions, like Asia, someone who would be good at both would
probably have a much more lucrative career as a star programmer than as a star
manager.

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skybrian
I have no particular insight, other than to say that it's certainly possible;
I've met people who were programming when they retired.

It might be good to think instead about leaving your options open? After all,
how do you know this is what you'll want? After programming for 10 or 20
years, maybe you'll want to try something new? Presumably you'll know more
then than you do now.

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demygale
Mid forties and I've been programming all my life. If you don't want to be in
management, don't take a management position. Same goes for architect or
whatever else they throw at you.

You will make less money. You may get tired of learning new stuff all the
time. I've gone from Domino, PalmOS, C, C++, Java, web stack, Objective C,
Swift, and more. It can be exhausting or exhilarating. But no hiring manager
cares that I worked on PalmOS back in the day.

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ljw1001
The hardest part will be getting people to take you seriously if you want to
switch companies

