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There a couple of aspects to this issue. I'm 53. Management: I would argue that it's critical to garner management skills well before you turn 40. If you wait

There a couple of aspects to this issue. I'm 53. Management: I would argue that it's critical to garner management skills well before you turn 40. If you wait until 50, you're going to find it very difficult to move from talent-oriented jobs to management ones. Coding: I hate to generalize, but it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done. It's fairly common for projects to need completion over correctness and quality. This is where younger developers are great. They don't know they're creating technical debt, so they have no angst over it. But you will and this is bad for the project and for you. You probably need to find a place in software development where you can mentor and lead, but reduce your involvement with actual day-to-day coding. Challenges: I personally suffer from "it-must-be-challenging-or-I-get-bored" syndrome. The longer you write code, the harder this is to suppress and the more you look for shiny things to work on. This is bad for you because it's bad for your employer. If you don't suffer from this, you're amazing and any employer would love to keep you until you're dead.

JimboOmega 9y ago
I agree with your points, and also suffer from that syndrome. So I have to ask - how do you do the management portion of that? Getting into it, I mean, more than just developing the skills or interest. I've been trying to get into the management side of things but get stymied over and over, and typically people who express disinterest (and no particular aptitude) keep getting chosen to do it. This has had a tendency to wind up with most of the people involved (except the person who gave the promotion) quitting, and it's really frustrating to watch it play out again and again. I suppose in one case I did get promoted to lead, but I was lead of nothing, because literally everyone else had quit. The point is I want to move - badly - in that direction, and see lots of opportunity to do lots of things there, but keep getting stymied. How can I get past that?
- jqgatsby 9y ago
  If you are looking for a smooth transition, get on a large team that is under-managed (say, >14 people and only one manager/tech-lead), and in addition to doing your regular tasks, start getting heavily involved in sprint planning and technical & product specs. Gradually do more and more of that and less individual work. Voila, you are a manager!
  - ChicagoDave 9y ago
    I think this is the primary path to management.
    - JimboOmega 9y ago
      When I tried this, what happened was one of the engineers who didn't want to manage, but had been around longer than me, got promoted - and I got moved on to his team. People came to me expecting me to be leading the team (or at least know what's going on), but I suddenly got cut out of doing that. It was chaos. The person who was selected as lead left a month later, since they weren't that interested in doing it anyway. The powers that be still didn't let me lead the team, though by that point attrition had gotten so high, it kind of didn't make sense. (There wasn't really a team to lead). The team before that was a similar deal (chosen lead quit not too long after) but I got made a lead... of a team with two people on it (including me). The company went basically bankrupt, and having only 6 months experience with 1 report didn't impress people. I don't think being a trans woman helps. I really do try; I come up with new initiatives, I follow through on them, I give talks to educate the team, but in the end, I'm always waiting some number of years for the next magical re-org, which may or may not go my way.
pbnjay 9y ago
This is simultaneously what I needed to hear and what I didn't want to hear. You pretty much nailed it all for me.
david-cako 9y ago
>"it-must-be-challenging-or-I-get-bored" syndrome I don't know if I can handle this one getting worse.
- geomark 9y ago
  I hear ya. I've long had the challenge that a problem is interesting and exciting until I see how I would solve it. Then I can barely force myself to implement the solution. I get it done, but if it gets any worse I'll never be able to finish anything.
  - kthejoker2 9y ago
    Has this condition been named and explored further? Anyway, if you have this tendency become an architect at a large company.
misja111 9y ago
> .. it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done. And then you will learn to be pragmatic and solve technical debt only when there is enough time for it or when it brings a clear benefit in terms of business value or development speed. I can tell this from my own experience. As a developer you typically progress along a path; in the beginning you just don't know how to do things 'well' so you're introducing technical debt without knowing it. Then you'll learn about clean code, design patterns and what not, and you think you have to apply this knowledge everywhere. Until you learn that there are times to be pragmatic as well. This pattern is not unique to programming, it's universal. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari
penetrarthur 9y ago
I also suffer from that "it-must-be-challenging-or-I-get-bored" syndrome. Is there any way to fight it?
wott 9y ago
> Coding: I hate to generalize, but it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done. It's fairly common for projects to need completion over correctness and quality. This is where younger developers are great. They don't know they're creating technical debt, so they have no angst over it. But you will and this is bad for the project and for you. I disagree: it is when you are young that: * you spend and lose your time reinventing the wheel, either because you don't know the wheel you want already exists, or because you are sure you can do a better wheel (and after an extra 3 months it ends up being square); * lose time overdesigning things because you want to apply all your lessons and your new readings, despite the fact that they do not map to the problem you need to solve.

JimboOmega 9y ago

I agree with your points, and also suffer from that syndrome. So I have to ask - how do you do the management portion of that? Getting into it, I mean, more than just developing the skills or interest. I've been trying to get into the management side of things but get stymied over and over, and typically people who express disinterest (and no particular aptitude) keep getting chosen to do it. This has had a tendency to wind up with most of the people involved (except the person who gave the promotion) quitting, and it's really frustrating to watch it play out again and again. I suppose in one case I did get promoted to lead, but I was lead of nothing, because literally everyone else had quit. The point is I want to move - badly - in that direction, and see lots of opportunity to do lots of things there, but keep getting stymied. How can I get past that?

jqgatsby 9y ago
If you are looking for a smooth transition, get on a large team that is under-managed (say, >14 people and only one manager/tech-lead), and in addition to doing your regular tasks, start getting heavily involved in sprint planning and technical & product specs. Gradually do more and more of that and less individual work. Voila, you are a manager!
- ChicagoDave 9y ago
  I think this is the primary path to management.
  - JimboOmega 9y ago
    When I tried this, what happened was one of the engineers who didn't want to manage, but had been around longer than me, got promoted - and I got moved on to his team. People came to me expecting me to be leading the team (or at least know what's going on), but I suddenly got cut out of doing that. It was chaos. The person who was selected as lead left a month later, since they weren't that interested in doing it anyway. The powers that be still didn't let me lead the team, though by that point attrition had gotten so high, it kind of didn't make sense. (There wasn't really a team to lead). The team before that was a similar deal (chosen lead quit not too long after) but I got made a lead... of a team with two people on it (including me). The company went basically bankrupt, and having only 6 months experience with 1 report didn't impress people. I don't think being a trans woman helps. I really do try; I come up with new initiatives, I follow through on them, I give talks to educate the team, but in the end, I'm always waiting some number of years for the next magical re-org, which may or may not go my way.

pbnjay 9y ago

This is simultaneously what I needed to hear and what I didn't want to hear. You pretty much nailed it all for me.

david-cako 9y ago

>"it-must-be-challenging-or-I-get-bored" syndrome I don't know if I can handle this one getting worse.

geomark 9y ago
I hear ya. I've long had the challenge that a problem is interesting and exciting until I see how I would solve it. Then I can barely force myself to implement the solution. I get it done, but if it gets any worse I'll never be able to finish anything.
- kthejoker2 9y ago
  Has this condition been named and explored further? Anyway, if you have this tendency become an architect at a large company.

misja111 9y ago

> .. it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done. And then you will learn to be pragmatic and solve technical debt only when there is enough time for it or when it brings a clear benefit in terms of business value or development speed. I can tell this from my own experience. As a developer you typically progress along a path; in the beginning you just don't know how to do things 'well' so you're introducing technical debt without knowing it. Then you'll learn about clean code, design patterns and what not, and you think you have to apply this knowledge everywhere. Until you learn that there are times to be pragmatic as well. This pattern is not unique to programming, it's universal. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari

penetrarthur 9y ago

I also suffer from that "it-must-be-challenging-or-I-get-bored" syndrome. Is there any way to fight it?

wott 9y ago

> Coding: I hate to generalize, but it's very likely you'll learn so much over your career that you will become an ineffective developer. You will know how to do things well and will have a difficult time doing things just to get them done. It's fairly common for projects to need completion over correctness and quality. This is where younger developers are great. They don't know they're creating technical debt, so they have no angst over it. But you will and this is bad for the project and for you. I disagree: it is when you are young that: * you spend and lose your time reinventing the wheel, either because you don't know the wheel you want already exists, or because you are sure you can do a better wheel (and after an extra 3 months it ends up being square); * lose time overdesigning things because you want to apply all your lessons and your new readings, despite the fact that they do not map to the problem you need to solve.