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> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn

by Swizec 11y ago

> I don't want to end up being a 50+ year old who can no longer get a job So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. All those endless hours spent learning how to make games in Pascal, irrelevant technologies. All those endless hours spent learning PHP3/4 and cobbling together websites and crude frameworks, irrelevant tech. But on a higher level, all of that has proven useful. Technologies change, syntax evolves, semantics improve, but your deep understanding of how to ask just the right question of a business person that turns a mathematically unsolvable problem, into something you can build in three days. That is always going to stay relevant. Keep improving. Be an engineer, not just a coder.

terrywilcox 11y ago
> Technologies change, syntax evolves, semantics improve, but your deep understanding of how to ask just the right question of a business person that turns a mathematically unsolvable problem, into something you can build in three days. That is always going to stay relevant. I used to think like you. But I'm 51 now. I've discovered that I was wrong. The younger the technical interviewer, the less interested they are in my experience. I'm guessing that the less experience they have, the less value they see in experience. I suspect I was the same way 25 years ago. I now understand why good developers go on to be lousy managers. They get old and get pushed out of development. Mid-level management is all that's available to them. Fortunately I still have a job in an older development group. I still have some value, for now.
- kamaal 11y ago
  >>But I'm 51 now. I've discovered that I was wrong. When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is. - Oscar Wilde I've seen clear bias in our industry. Though I'm in my 30's. I've seen people in my age group clearly discriminate against older programmers. Save, invest, prepare for your retirement and be safe instead of betting your life on a unforgiving younger generation.
  - NotSammyHagar 11y ago
    I have to believe this depends on your experience, ability to learn, and location. I'm in seattle and my office is full of 40-60 year olds (with tons of younger people) working on demanding technical work. It's not php programming, it. It's software engineering. Learn to be an engineer and you shouldnot have a problem.
kasey_junk 11y ago
> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs don't do that as a matter of course while younger ones do.
- fecak 11y ago
  I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years. I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers as you might think. I know many over 50 (I'm mid 40s) that have never and will never have any difficulty finding jobs for the foreseeable future because they've stayed relevant. The main thing I would avoid is long tenures at employers where you are not working with newer technologies, not producing tangible accomplishments, or not challenged to learn on a regular basis. If you've been at the same thing for many years, it's difficult to differentiate age bias from a bias against someone who hasn't learned much or kept up with the industry. Older devs that work for (or consult to) employers that use newer tech have no choice but to stay relevant.
  - pc86 11y ago
    Always happy to see your username on threads discussing these matters! I think you bring up an important point - your average 50 year old developer is much more likely to have spent the last 10 years at the same company, working with the same technology, maybe even with the same title, than the 35 year old developer. Most of my experience has been .Net web application development in the northeast/mid-Atlantic. I think it'd be damn near impossible for me to get a job writing Ruby or Go for a startup at this point unless I made it a goal (it's definitely not) and spent considerable effort in my spare time working on projects. I'm only 29. If you're a 52 year old developer who has spent 22 years writing RPG reports for AS/400s and you get laid off, you're either going to end up in doing the exact same job for another company, or you're going to be retiring.
chroma 11y ago
> So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. One thing that older people (50+) have impressed upon me is that learning gets harder as you age. It's not just that your body and mind become tired more easily. In general, if a 20-year-old and a 50-year-old spend the same amount of time studying something, the 20-year-old will do better on a quiz. At least, that's what older people tell me. I'm your age, so I haven't experienced this firsthand. If at some point your rate of learning becomes slower than the rate at which relevant technologies change, it's not possible to stay relevant. Your deep understanding won't do you nearly as much good if you only know languages and frameworks from 15 years ago.
- terrywilcox 11y ago
  Learning doesn't get much harder. Making time to learn gets much harder. The real problem is that while the 50 year old has already had 30 years more learning than the 20 year old, the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? My exact experience.
  - true_religion 11y ago
    > the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? I know it's just a throw-away example, but I'd like to point out "Keeping up with the Kardashians" has been on TV continuously since 2007. The more prominent Kardasihan sisters themselves are all 34-36 years old. I don't think anyone in their 50s really would have a hard time relating to someone in their mid-30s, nor be completely flummoxed by a TV show that's been available for 10 years. More to the point--pop culture is popular culture and seeps its way through all age groups. A better example would be a music artist that's popular only with teenagers or some niche group. I couldn't name a single artist popular with teens/tweens now.
    - terrywilcox 11y ago
      You've just reinforced my point. You understand that you are unaware of the younger generation's pop culture (pop music is as much part of pop culture as TV is), but you don't understand how people of my generation can be unaware of your generation's pop culture.
kamaal 11y ago
>>Keep improving. Be an engineer, not just a coder. Better. Why just stop there. Avoid the need to do something to make a living. Save, invest and plan for your retirement. Once you've done that, you could on any day 'enjoy' programming just for fun.

by Swizec 11y ago

terrywilcox 11y ago

> Technologies change, syntax evolves, semantics improve, but your deep understanding of how to ask just the right question of a business person that turns a mathematically unsolvable problem, into something you can build in three days. That is always going to stay relevant. I used to think like you. But I'm 51 now. I've discovered that I was wrong. The younger the technical interviewer, the less interested they are in my experience. I'm guessing that the less experience they have, the less value they see in experience. I suspect I was the same way 25 years ago. I now understand why good developers go on to be lousy managers. They get old and get pushed out of development. Mid-level management is all that's available to them. Fortunately I still have a job in an older development group. I still have some value, for now.

kamaal 11y ago
>>But I'm 51 now. I've discovered that I was wrong. When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is. - Oscar Wilde I've seen clear bias in our industry. Though I'm in my 30's. I've seen people in my age group clearly discriminate against older programmers. Save, invest, prepare for your retirement and be safe instead of betting your life on a unforgiving younger generation.
- NotSammyHagar 11y ago
  I have to believe this depends on your experience, ability to learn, and location. I'm in seattle and my office is full of 40-60 year olds (with tons of younger people) working on demanding technical work. It's not php programming, it. It's software engineering. Learn to be an engineer and you shouldnot have a problem.

kasey_junk 11y ago

> So just stay relevant? The point of age bias isn't bias against people without relevant skills, its an actual bias against person of certain ages. Our industry is ripe with stories of folks with extremely relevant skill sets not getting jobs after a certain age (50 seems to be common). There is some (unintentional I'm sure) age bias even in the response of "stay relevant" as if the implication is that older devs don't do that as a matter of course while younger ones do.

fecak 11y ago
I don't believe that most anecdotal claims of age bias are truly a bias against someone's age, but rather a bias against someone who had a long tenure at a single company perhaps with a single technology on a single product development effort. It looks like age bias because you may be 50, but you worked on the same thing for 25 years. I don't think the industry is nearly as ripe with unemployed and relevant 50+'ers as you might think. I know many over 50 (I'm mid 40s) that have never and will never have any difficulty finding jobs for the foreseeable future because they've stayed relevant. The main thing I would avoid is long tenures at employers where you are not working with newer technologies, not producing tangible accomplishments, or not challenged to learn on a regular basis. If you've been at the same thing for many years, it's difficult to differentiate age bias from a bias against someone who hasn't learned much or kept up with the industry. Older devs that work for (or consult to) employers that use newer tech have no choice but to stay relevant.
- pc86 11y ago
  Always happy to see your username on threads discussing these matters! I think you bring up an important point - your average 50 year old developer is much more likely to have spent the last 10 years at the same company, working with the same technology, maybe even with the same title, than the 35 year old developer. Most of my experience has been .Net web application development in the northeast/mid-Atlantic. I think it'd be damn near impossible for me to get a job writing Ruby or Go for a startup at this point unless I made it a goal (it's definitely not) and spent considerable effort in my spare time working on projects. I'm only 29. If you're a 52 year old developer who has spent 22 years writing RPG reports for AS/400s and you get laid off, you're either going to end up in doing the exact same job for another company, or you're going to be retiring.

chroma 11y ago

> So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now. One thing that older people (50+) have impressed upon me is that learning gets harder as you age. It's not just that your body and mind become tired more easily. In general, if a 20-year-old and a 50-year-old spend the same amount of time studying something, the 20-year-old will do better on a quiz. At least, that's what older people tell me. I'm your age, so I haven't experienced this firsthand. If at some point your rate of learning becomes slower than the rate at which relevant technologies change, it's not possible to stay relevant. Your deep understanding won't do you nearly as much good if you only know languages and frameworks from 15 years ago.

terrywilcox 11y ago
Learning doesn't get much harder. Making time to learn gets much harder. The real problem is that while the 50 year old has already had 30 years more learning than the 20 year old, the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? My exact experience.
- true_religion 11y ago
  > the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you? I know it's just a throw-away example, but I'd like to point out "Keeping up with the Kardashians" has been on TV continuously since 2007. The more prominent Kardasihan sisters themselves are all 34-36 years old. I don't think anyone in their 50s really would have a hard time relating to someone in their mid-30s, nor be completely flummoxed by a TV show that's been available for 10 years. More to the point--pop culture is popular culture and seeps its way through all age groups. A better example would be a music artist that's popular only with teenagers or some niche group. I couldn't name a single artist popular with teens/tweens now.
  - terrywilcox 11y ago
    You've just reinforced my point. You understand that you are unaware of the younger generation's pop culture (pop music is as much part of pop culture as TV is), but you don't understand how people of my generation can be unaware of your generation's pop culture.

kamaal 11y ago

>>Keep improving. Be an engineer, not just a coder. Better. Why just stop there. Avoid the need to do something to make a living. Save, invest and plan for your retirement. Once you've done that, you could on any day 'enjoy' programming just for fun.