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Likewise here. I'm 47, been programming since I'm 12. I'm very good at it. I also know I'd be a bad manager, unless I work with /very/ good people. And yes, Ic

Likewise here. I'm 47, been programming since I'm 12. I'm very good at it. I also know I'd be a bad manager, unless I work with /very/ good people. And yes, Ican relate to the article; I've seen (I still see) junior managers who can barely tie their shoes make more money than excellent engineers with 25y experience, but that's the way the world is... Basically 'engineer'/'programmer' is a calling for some; it is for me. People for whom this is not a calling will never be /really/ good at it (for one thing, they don't spend their spare time doing it!) and eventually gravitate out of it. But the ones for whom it is a calling, well, sod the money, give me some nice project/people to work on/with and I'm happy. Or, do that but also get the money by going consulting. That's what I do for the last few years. It's quite exciting being a 'mercenary' in a way, and you can dissociate yourself from the companies/products and focus on the engineering.

woofyman 11y ago
I'll be 57 in 3 months. I've been coding professionally for 35 years.
- buserror 11y ago
  I started working at 17. So that's 30 years for me! Darn, I should have some sort of celebration ;-) My very first paid project was designing the PA audio system in the Lille (france) metro. It was a fancy Mac SE/30 with a IEEE GPIO card. That was driving two big Revox Tape machines, and was playing one, rewinding the other etc. Occasionally it would also play a digital audio file (w000t!). It was all in Pascal at the time, and I had a whooping 4MB of ram. System ran for well over 10 years!
  - woofyman 11y ago
    My first program was written in Dartmouth Basic. The original version of Basic. In college, for the first 2 years I used punched cards. Then after college I programmed a jet fighter. Then realtime embedded avioinics stuff. I got tired of working with custom hardware which was challenging distinguishing between hardware and software bugs. After 20 years of Windows programming, I re-invented myself as a HTML, CSS, CoffeeScript, Javascript, LUA, PHP, Angular, Ember and iOS developer.
    - joshmanders 11y ago
      Thanks guys, you all make me feel better about turning 31 in a month and a half and have been coding since 15.
      - valine 11y ago
        I stated coding when I was 11. I turned 19 a couple months ago. I guess that makes me one of those junior developers everyone talks about.
        ska 11y ago
        Coding as a child often makes you a better junior developer. It very rarely makes you anything but a junior developer, your first few years full time at it.
        valine 11y ago
        This is very true. I had my first full time internship last summer and although I wouldn't say I was unprepared, it opened my eyes to all the things I don't know. Code reviews take some getting used to when you're coming from a purely academic world. From reading hacker news I knew there would be blindspots in my education. It felt good filling in some of the blanks.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    I started coding at the age of 10 with Timex Basic, Z80 and everything evolve from there. On my first internship after high school while waiting for university applications to come out was done in Clipper and Access/Visual Basic. Also starting OS/400 backup jobs. Not the set of languages that I already enjoyed most, but it kept myself busy during the Summer.
    - randcraw 11y ago
      I'm 58 too. First program: HP25 assembly (calculator) in 1975; second: Dartmouth BASIC (horrible) in 1976. After a degree in zoology, I went back for a MS in CS part time. I've been programming in various forms of R&D since. I can't imagine having done anything else. Sure, many other careers sound appealing. But software has been stimulating and sustainable while affording me a managable level of stress and downtime as needed. (Try doing that as a physician or veterinarian, both careers that I once considered). That said, I sympathize with the OP's frustrations. Software jobs usually imply a rather flat hierarchy, with little opportunity for advancement other than leads or principals. Any further rise in responsibility requires that you leave tech behind and spend your days in meetings. Not for me. However if you work in R&D without a PhD, I've found a severe glass ceiling (especially at larger companies). In general, no advancement beyond lead staff for you. If I'd known that 10-20 years ago, I would have handled that differently (get a PhD, work at smaller firms, or leave R&D). The road not taken, I guess...
- BatFastard 11y ago
  Noob, 58 and 40 years under my belt! I have been down the VP route, started my own successful company (at someone made a lot of money from it, not me). But I choose to program, I sleep well at night, I feel great about what I do (usually, every once in awhile I hit some problem that is incredibly frustrating). And I love to create things! I worked as an electrical engineer for a few years, but the turn-around time on my creations was weeks if not months. With software ware its hours or days. What is it about flo? That your life goes by so quickly, but you feel so good about it?
  - flatline 11y ago
    > What is it about flo? That your life goes by so quickly... The past is just a memory, the present moment is so fleeting that it cannot be grasped, and the future hasn't happened yet:) I think being in a flow state is about living with this fact, in the moment, as it is, without all the mental overhead that is past and future. You're not 58, you are brand new, right now, just as you are.
- lucaspottersky 11y ago
  I'm about to write my first Hello World and I already dislike it.
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    Stick with it - it really pays returns down the line. Specifically, do some real soul-crushing busy work for a while (Excel is a good place to start) and then realize that you can automate large chucks of that in just a few minutes. It'll take days/hours at first, but eventually hours/minutes. It's hard to beat the feeling of having a computer make your life easier. There's a triumph in it.
  - murukesh_s 11y ago
    don't worry you could end up as the lucky one the author talks about :)
madengr 11y ago
"I've seen (I still see) junior managers who can barely tie their shoes make more money than excellent engineers with 25y experience, but that's the way the world is.." Screw that. I'd never work for a place like that.
- evook 11y ago
  This attitude works out if your extremely good in your Spezialisation. I had kept track of my own ROI for the companies I worked for, granted them a bit of that and the rest should be for me. It worked because I always had the digits at hand. Basically "I need a raise, I have 3 jobs offers lined up, your making this of me and I demand x% of that otherwise you loose y over the course of z. Deal?"
  - madengr 11y ago
    Funny, I specialize in RF/Microwave circuit design, and did just the same. Had a good job offer, and used that to leverage promotion and raise.

woofyman 11y ago

I'll be 57 in 3 months. I've been coding professionally for 35 years.

buserror 11y ago
I started working at 17. So that's 30 years for me! Darn, I should have some sort of celebration ;-) My very first paid project was designing the PA audio system in the Lille (france) metro. It was a fancy Mac SE/30 with a IEEE GPIO card. That was driving two big Revox Tape machines, and was playing one, rewinding the other etc. Occasionally it would also play a digital audio file (w000t!). It was all in Pascal at the time, and I had a whooping 4MB of ram. System ran for well over 10 years!
- woofyman 11y ago
  My first program was written in Dartmouth Basic. The original version of Basic. In college, for the first 2 years I used punched cards. Then after college I programmed a jet fighter. Then realtime embedded avioinics stuff. I got tired of working with custom hardware which was challenging distinguishing between hardware and software bugs. After 20 years of Windows programming, I re-invented myself as a HTML, CSS, CoffeeScript, Javascript, LUA, PHP, Angular, Ember and iOS developer.
  - joshmanders 11y ago
    Thanks guys, you all make me feel better about turning 31 in a month and a half and have been coding since 15.
    - valine 11y ago
      I stated coding when I was 11. I turned 19 a couple months ago. I guess that makes me one of those junior developers everyone talks about.
      - ska 11y ago
        Coding as a child often makes you a better junior developer. It very rarely makes you anything but a junior developer, your first few years full time at it.
        valine 11y ago
        This is very true. I had my first full time internship last summer and although I wouldn't say I was unprepared, it opened my eyes to all the things I don't know. Code reviews take some getting used to when you're coming from a purely academic world. From reading hacker news I knew there would be blindspots in my education. It felt good filling in some of the blanks.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  I started coding at the age of 10 with Timex Basic, Z80 and everything evolve from there. On my first internship after high school while waiting for university applications to come out was done in Clipper and Access/Visual Basic. Also starting OS/400 backup jobs. Not the set of languages that I already enjoyed most, but it kept myself busy during the Summer.
  - randcraw 11y ago
    I'm 58 too. First program: HP25 assembly (calculator) in 1975; second: Dartmouth BASIC (horrible) in 1976. After a degree in zoology, I went back for a MS in CS part time. I've been programming in various forms of R&D since. I can't imagine having done anything else. Sure, many other careers sound appealing. But software has been stimulating and sustainable while affording me a managable level of stress and downtime as needed. (Try doing that as a physician or veterinarian, both careers that I once considered). That said, I sympathize with the OP's frustrations. Software jobs usually imply a rather flat hierarchy, with little opportunity for advancement other than leads or principals. Any further rise in responsibility requires that you leave tech behind and spend your days in meetings. Not for me. However if you work in R&D without a PhD, I've found a severe glass ceiling (especially at larger companies). In general, no advancement beyond lead staff for you. If I'd known that 10-20 years ago, I would have handled that differently (get a PhD, work at smaller firms, or leave R&D). The road not taken, I guess...
BatFastard 11y ago
Noob, 58 and 40 years under my belt! I have been down the VP route, started my own successful company (at someone made a lot of money from it, not me). But I choose to program, I sleep well at night, I feel great about what I do (usually, every once in awhile I hit some problem that is incredibly frustrating). And I love to create things! I worked as an electrical engineer for a few years, but the turn-around time on my creations was weeks if not months. With software ware its hours or days. What is it about flo? That your life goes by so quickly, but you feel so good about it?
- flatline 11y ago
  > What is it about flo? That your life goes by so quickly... The past is just a memory, the present moment is so fleeting that it cannot be grasped, and the future hasn't happened yet:) I think being in a flow state is about living with this fact, in the moment, as it is, without all the mental overhead that is past and future. You're not 58, you are brand new, right now, just as you are.
lucaspottersky 11y ago
I'm about to write my first Hello World and I already dislike it.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  Stick with it - it really pays returns down the line. Specifically, do some real soul-crushing busy work for a while (Excel is a good place to start) and then realize that you can automate large chucks of that in just a few minutes. It'll take days/hours at first, but eventually hours/minutes. It's hard to beat the feeling of having a computer make your life easier. There's a triumph in it.
- murukesh_s 11y ago
  don't worry you could end up as the lucky one the author talks about :)

madengr 11y ago

"I've seen (I still see) junior managers who can barely tie their shoes make more money than excellent engineers with 25y experience, but that's the way the world is.." Screw that. I'd never work for a place like that.

evook 11y ago
This attitude works out if your extremely good in your Spezialisation. I had kept track of my own ROI for the companies I worked for, granted them a bit of that and the rest should be for me. It worked because I always had the digits at hand. Basically "I need a raise, I have 3 jobs offers lined up, your making this of me and I demand x% of that otherwise you loose y over the course of z. Deal?"
- madengr 11y ago
  Funny, I specialize in RF/Microwave circuit design, and did just the same. Had a good job offer, and used that to leverage promotion and raise.