13 ms·

As a mediocre mid-20s developer, I fear for my future.

by biohax2015 8y ago

danso 8y ago
The deceased in this case actually didn’t start getting into computers until he was in his 30s (his first aspiration was to be an actor). It sounds like he willingly quit his jobs at Oracle and Dell. What’s also worrying to me is that it sounds like he made the jump from programmer to manager but still couldn’t find work (even after 481 interviews)
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  > It sounds like he willingly quit his jobs at Oracle and Dell. After ~five years. We should be able to change jobs occasionally and not have to hold on to our current one for dear life. Sounds like once you hit fifty you'll never be hired again, so must do anything to avoid a layoff.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    IME, I've only seen happen to people who had stopped learning and growing years earlier.
  - yayana 8y ago
    It's actually more conservative to leave Oracle on your own schedule of no more than 5 years.
  - illumin8 8y ago
    This is not true. I'm 44, a principal engineer at $BigTechCo, and I know people in mid 50s that are very in demand and will remain gainfully employed as long as they want to. The problem is that people start a career as a J2EE programmer in their 20s and expect to coast and never update/learn new skills. This will serve you fine for a decade or two, but if you're in your mid 40s and you're only comfortable with technology from the late 90s, your job prospects will be limited. In order to have a long career in tech, you need to constantly be learning new technologies, frameworks, and languages. If you don't, you can coast for a while, but don't act all surprised at 50 when you get laid off and can't find any work. Would you honestly expect to be able to find work as a VAX/VMS engineer now if that was what you started working with right out of college and never learned UNIX, Linux, or Wintel?
    - drfuchs 8y ago
      I take your point, but Unix does predate the Vax.
      - illumin8 8y ago
        Agreed, but UNIX remains relevant, or at least easily transferrable to Linux, while Vax remains a niche platform.
        anticensor 8y ago
        Vax Management System is predecessor of Windows: the New Technology (aka NT).
        varjag 8y ago
        While that's conceptually true, there is little transferable skills between the two.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Nope, I'm near expert-level in Python3 and recent JS, with well-rounded platform and industry experience and it still took me a year to get hired last time. Didn't work so well for the guy in the article, did you read it? Ageism isn't the only problem though, just as big is that no one will allow you to learn on the job. With the explosion of tech stacks it should be a requirement, but the opposite is true. Tech interviews under the gun are another.
      - illumin8 8y ago
        You also need to be honest about what your criteria is for a job search. Are you expecting to find a 6 figure job for a rockstar 10x Python/JS engineer in Podunk, Iowa? Come to any of a dozen cities that have a decent tech representation and you won't need a year to get an offer. And I'm not talking about SF or NY, you can go to places like Denver, Salt Lake City, Austin, or Boise.
- tunesmith 8y ago
  In his 30s... he's in his low 60s. So he got into computer at around the time the internet was taking off.
brianwawok 8y ago
If you save a non-trivial amount of your income - you will be set at 60.
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Assuming you can stay fully employed throughout your 50s.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    If you save a non-trivial amount of your income, you can retire by 50.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      What is this non-trivial amount? And what happens the next time we have a global financial meltdown? With life expectancy on the rise and the cadence of global economic catastrophe what it is someone retiring at 50 has to expect to face at least one financial crisis in retirement. I don't see how a person can feel secure into their 90s when retiring at 50.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - Spooky23 8y ago
        20-25% if you rent or expect the same income. You can go a little less if you own your home and pay it off.
        jesseb 8y ago
        Let me give you an example of where I live. I make (for here, not in general) reasonable money; most of my friends make considerably less than I do. I also happen to be lucky and live with room mates which drastically reduces my cost of living. As it stands, if I wanted to rent my own apartment, 50% of my monthly income would be gone right there. That's not including utilities, internet, or food, and that's not a "nice" place - it's just what you can find. With those other expenses factored in, I'd be looking at roughly another 15% gone on top of that. So as it is, just to keep a roof over my head, and keep myself fed and minimally entertained, it would cost 65% of my monthly income. I don't drive, but my transit pass is another almost 5%, so that brings it up to 70%; if I did drive it'd be another 10-15% on top of that for fuel and maintenance. So somehow 30% of my income needs to be spread out for ALL of life (clothing, surprise bills, travel for visiting family, actually doing things you enjoy, etc.). On top of that, now there's saving for my retirement; you say 20-25% should go into savings. Being conservative and using the 20% figure, that leaves 10% of my monthly income to live off of. This also doesn't take into account any sort of savings for a mortgage or car, "Rainy-day Fund", or even allow for the remote possibility of ever traveling in your life.
aswanson 8y ago
Save/invest your $. Tech is Logan's Run....age is red flag. If you dont have your own profitable startup in the next 5-10 years, you may want to start investing in another career path that values older people more.
- biohax2015 8y ago
  Yeah, thinking about MD school. It doesn't seem like tech is a long-term sustainable career.
  - aswanson 8y ago
    Good call. I've given it serious thought also.
  - eunoia 8y ago
    I feel like this might be the valley monoculture in play. Counter example: I lead a software team doing new product development for a multi billion company NOT in the valley. Plenty of my engineering coworkers are grandparents. They are very much comfortably employed. My boss is 50ish, young at heart and a brilliant software architect. He still gets actively recruited and has no end of companies approaching him for contracting gigs outside of work. Find a niche and stay effective. You'll probably be employable forever.
    - deadmetheny 8y ago
      I live in the Midwest - it's absolutely Valley people convinced the tech world outside the Valley is either the same, or cavemen banging on C64s. Age isn't a detriment here, but you do have to be willing to work for established companies that don't operate on hipster frameworks.
      - WalterSear 8y ago
        > you do have to be willing to work for established companies that don't operate on hipster frameworks. Well, one man's established company and non-hipster framework is another man's cave and commodore 64. I've personally experienced a glaring cultural and technical difference between work environments in the SF/Seattle areas and ones in other technology hotspots - even within the same company.
pcurve 8y ago
Don't worry, you're still young. It's important to save and live below your means. I'm sure his divorce didn't help, but I was surprised to read how quickly he became broke.
- projectileboy 8y ago
  If you’re in the U.S., have a couple kids and run into some health issues, and then you can talk to me about your savings accounts. You’re not wrong - personal responsibility matters, but it’s way easier to slip into poverty than most young developers would like to acknowledge.
  - pkaye 8y ago
    Having chronic health issues, I certainly can understand this. However the problem is not unique to software developers. I'd even say developers are in a better position than most other professions because it is an low exertion high income office job and they can do things like remote work.
    - ericd 8y ago
      Well, lack of exercise isn't exactly good for you. In that way, we have a worse job than many from a health perspective.
      - pkaye 8y ago
        If you use obesity as a proxy, software and IT is probably not too far from construction which is a very physical activity. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-jobs-with-the-highest-obesity-rates/359849/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-jobs-... The best indicator of low obesity prevalence seems to be if the job depends on a persons appearance and attire.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        > The best indicator of low obesity prevalence seems to be if the job depends on a persons appearance and attire. That's probably just due to selection, though - if a job depends on appearance and attire, people not looking good enough won't get hired for it.
twic 8y ago
If it's any consolation, most other lines of work have it even worse.
- illumin8 8y ago
  I'm not sure this is true. Medical professionals must keep updated on newer technologies, but it doesn't move anywhere near as fast as software does.
  - twic 8y ago
    A key word in that sentence was most. Certainly not all.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Medical professionals have this in reverse. You start out overworked, with shit pay and possibly a lot of debt, but if you succeed, you'll eventually start raking it in.
cabaalis 8y ago
Pay your dues through mid-to-late-20s, then get into the startup world as quickly as you can. Even if the startup fails, the experience will push you to the next level and the contacts you make will help you land. As difficult as programming feels right now, it is an absolute cakewalk to pursuing, building, funding, running a startup of any kind--even self-driven freelance. The truth of the matter is that your skill with language X will get you pretty far, at least until X is no longer relevant. But the experience you would gain through operating your own group are the skills that really matter. Those are the skills that will get the ultimate big bucks and guarantee future opportunity. Would YOU hire YOU? (Edit, maybe people think I am being condescending with that question, I'm not--it's an existential question I suggest to be asked)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
war1025 8y ago
If you fear for your future, start living like it and preparing for it. You'll fare a lot better if you plan for rough patches along the way than if you just keep living like you'll always be on the up and up.
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
His last job was "senior director of development at Dell", so his problem probably wasn't mediocrity but rather that jobs at that level are very hard to come by, even if you are qualified.
- WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
  My last boss had a killer job and a killer salary to go with it. He lost his job and could not find a similar one. He also had lost most of his relevant tech knowledge after being a manager for so many years so he couldn't go down the career ladder to get a job. Finally, he bought a dry cleaners franchise and that's what he's doing now. Lesson learned, sometimes you have to move on.
  - philliphaydon 8y ago
    I don't want to move up.I really hope I can stay programming when I'm 90. For me it's as fun now as it was 20 years ago.
    - gbear605 8y ago
      Don’t let yourself be promoted out of being a developer
    - WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
      You won't be a developer until you're 90. At some point, you'll slow down relevant to a younger developer. That's where you're value to a company will decrease. Your company or a potential employer will perceive you as expensive and lay you off or not hire you. My best advice is to make yourself indispensable to a company and hope the company will stick around. Or create your own company that you can control.
      - angus-prune 8y ago
        Or make a fortune maintaining the legacy rivy and python that the whippersnappers don't understand anymore?
WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
The reality is that you can't be a developer forever. Many people here will tell you that you can but they are the exception. Figure out what else you want to be and work towards it.
- gregrata 8y ago
  What in the world are you basin that on?
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Computers have been around for awhile now. Stand up and look around. There is hardly any old people.
    - gbear605 8y ago
      You’re in a bubble; there are many software companies that have many old people.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      Where are you where there are no old people? When I was at google there were tons of old people, just like me :-)
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
As you should, as everyone should who is paying attention to the world. There are no guarantees anywhere in life, and the world is changing very quickly.
gwbas1c 8y ago
Having interviewed and worked with a lot of people: A mediocre mid-20s developer is given a lot of chances, and not much is expected of the developer. Once you're mid-career, the expectation is that you'll take some kind of a leadership role: People management, high-level architecture, or direct mentorship. Otherwise, if you're mediocre, you need to target roles where you're given chances. (Basically, a consultant.) What's also important is staying current, which becomes so much harder once you have kids, a house, and your hobbies don't involve staying up all night on a side project. I'm trying to use vacation time for this, but family obligations tend to soak up my vacation time like a dry sponge.

As a mediocre mid-20s developer, I fear for my future.

The deceased in this case actually didn’t start getting into computers until he was in his 30s (his first aspiration was to be an actor). It sounds like he willingly quit his jobs at Oracle and Dell. What’s also worrying to me is that it sounds like he made the jump from programmer to manager but still couldn’t find work (even after 481 interviews)

mixmastamyk 8y ago
> It sounds like he willingly quit his jobs at Oracle and Dell. After ~five years. We should be able to change jobs occasionally and not have to hold on to our current one for dear life. Sounds like once you hit fifty you'll never be hired again, so must do anything to avoid a layoff.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  IME, I've only seen happen to people who had stopped learning and growing years earlier.
- yayana 8y ago
  It's actually more conservative to leave Oracle on your own schedule of no more than 5 years.
- illumin8 8y ago
  This is not true. I'm 44, a principal engineer at $BigTechCo, and I know people in mid 50s that are very in demand and will remain gainfully employed as long as they want to. The problem is that people start a career as a J2EE programmer in their 20s and expect to coast and never update/learn new skills. This will serve you fine for a decade or two, but if you're in your mid 40s and you're only comfortable with technology from the late 90s, your job prospects will be limited. In order to have a long career in tech, you need to constantly be learning new technologies, frameworks, and languages. If you don't, you can coast for a while, but don't act all surprised at 50 when you get laid off and can't find any work. Would you honestly expect to be able to find work as a VAX/VMS engineer now if that was what you started working with right out of college and never learned UNIX, Linux, or Wintel?
  - drfuchs 8y ago
    I take your point, but Unix does predate the Vax.
    - illumin8 8y ago
      Agreed, but UNIX remains relevant, or at least easily transferrable to Linux, while Vax remains a niche platform.
      - anticensor 8y ago
        Vax Management System is predecessor of Windows: the New Technology (aka NT).
        varjag 8y ago
        While that's conceptually true, there is little transferable skills between the two.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Nope, I'm near expert-level in Python3 and recent JS, with well-rounded platform and industry experience and it still took me a year to get hired last time. Didn't work so well for the guy in the article, did you read it? Ageism isn't the only problem though, just as big is that no one will allow you to learn on the job. With the explosion of tech stacks it should be a requirement, but the opposite is true. Tech interviews under the gun are another.
    - illumin8 8y ago
      You also need to be honest about what your criteria is for a job search. Are you expecting to find a 6 figure job for a rockstar 10x Python/JS engineer in Podunk, Iowa? Come to any of a dozen cities that have a decent tech representation and you won't need a year to get an offer. And I'm not talking about SF or NY, you can go to places like Denver, Salt Lake City, Austin, or Boise.
tunesmith 8y ago
In his 30s... he's in his low 60s. So he got into computer at around the time the internet was taking off.

brianwawok 8y ago

If you save a non-trivial amount of your income - you will be set at 60.

ricardobeat 8y ago
Assuming you can stay fully employed throughout your 50s.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  If you save a non-trivial amount of your income, you can retire by 50.
  - mulmen 8y ago
    What is this non-trivial amount? And what happens the next time we have a global financial meltdown? With life expectancy on the rise and the cadence of global economic catastrophe what it is someone retiring at 50 has to expect to face at least one financial crisis in retirement. I don't see how a person can feel secure into their 90s when retiring at 50.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      20-25% if you rent or expect the same income. You can go a little less if you own your home and pay it off.
      - jesseb 8y ago
        Let me give you an example of where I live. I make (for here, not in general) reasonable money; most of my friends make considerably less than I do. I also happen to be lucky and live with room mates which drastically reduces my cost of living. As it stands, if I wanted to rent my own apartment, 50% of my monthly income would be gone right there. That's not including utilities, internet, or food, and that's not a "nice" place - it's just what you can find. With those other expenses factored in, I'd be looking at roughly another 15% gone on top of that. So as it is, just to keep a roof over my head, and keep myself fed and minimally entertained, it would cost 65% of my monthly income. I don't drive, but my transit pass is another almost 5%, so that brings it up to 70%; if I did drive it'd be another 10-15% on top of that for fuel and maintenance. So somehow 30% of my income needs to be spread out for ALL of life (clothing, surprise bills, travel for visiting family, actually doing things you enjoy, etc.). On top of that, now there's saving for my retirement; you say 20-25% should go into savings. Being conservative and using the 20% figure, that leaves 10% of my monthly income to live off of. This also doesn't take into account any sort of savings for a mortgage or car, "Rainy-day Fund", or even allow for the remote possibility of ever traveling in your life.

aswanson 8y ago

Save/invest your $. Tech is Logan's Run....age is red flag. If you dont have your own profitable startup in the next 5-10 years, you may want to start investing in another career path that values older people more.

biohax2015 8y ago
Yeah, thinking about MD school. It doesn't seem like tech is a long-term sustainable career.
- aswanson 8y ago
  Good call. I've given it serious thought also.
- eunoia 8y ago
  I feel like this might be the valley monoculture in play. Counter example: I lead a software team doing new product development for a multi billion company NOT in the valley. Plenty of my engineering coworkers are grandparents. They are very much comfortably employed. My boss is 50ish, young at heart and a brilliant software architect. He still gets actively recruited and has no end of companies approaching him for contracting gigs outside of work. Find a niche and stay effective. You'll probably be employable forever.
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    I live in the Midwest - it's absolutely Valley people convinced the tech world outside the Valley is either the same, or cavemen banging on C64s. Age isn't a detriment here, but you do have to be willing to work for established companies that don't operate on hipster frameworks.
    - WalterSear 8y ago
      > you do have to be willing to work for established companies that don't operate on hipster frameworks. Well, one man's established company and non-hipster framework is another man's cave and commodore 64. I've personally experienced a glaring cultural and technical difference between work environments in the SF/Seattle areas and ones in other technology hotspots - even within the same company.

pcurve 8y ago

Don't worry, you're still young. It's important to save and live below your means. I'm sure his divorce didn't help, but I was surprised to read how quickly he became broke.

projectileboy 8y ago
If you’re in the U.S., have a couple kids and run into some health issues, and then you can talk to me about your savings accounts. You’re not wrong - personal responsibility matters, but it’s way easier to slip into poverty than most young developers would like to acknowledge.
- pkaye 8y ago
  Having chronic health issues, I certainly can understand this. However the problem is not unique to software developers. I'd even say developers are in a better position than most other professions because it is an low exertion high income office job and they can do things like remote work.
  - ericd 8y ago
    Well, lack of exercise isn't exactly good for you. In that way, we have a worse job than many from a health perspective.
    - pkaye 8y ago
      If you use obesity as a proxy, software and IT is probably not too far from construction which is a very physical activity. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-jobs-with-the-highest-obesity-rates/359849/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-jobs-... The best indicator of low obesity prevalence seems to be if the job depends on a persons appearance and attire.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        > The best indicator of low obesity prevalence seems to be if the job depends on a persons appearance and attire. That's probably just due to selection, though - if a job depends on appearance and attire, people not looking good enough won't get hired for it.

twic 8y ago

If it's any consolation, most other lines of work have it even worse.

illumin8 8y ago
I'm not sure this is true. Medical professionals must keep updated on newer technologies, but it doesn't move anywhere near as fast as software does.
- twic 8y ago
  A key word in that sentence was most. Certainly not all.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Medical professionals have this in reverse. You start out overworked, with shit pay and possibly a lot of debt, but if you succeed, you'll eventually start raking it in.

cabaalis 8y ago

Pay your dues through mid-to-late-20s, then get into the startup world as quickly as you can. Even if the startup fails, the experience will push you to the next level and the contacts you make will help you land. As difficult as programming feels right now, it is an absolute cakewalk to pursuing, building, funding, running a startup of any kind--even self-driven freelance. The truth of the matter is that your skill with language X will get you pretty far, at least until X is no longer relevant. But the experience you would gain through operating your own group are the skills that really matter. Those are the skills that will get the ultimate big bucks and guarantee future opportunity. Would YOU hire YOU? (Edit, maybe people think I am being condescending with that question, I'm not--it's an existential question I suggest to be asked)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

war1025 8y ago

If you fear for your future, start living like it and preparing for it. You'll fare a lot better if you plan for rough patches along the way than if you just keep living like you'll always be on the up and up.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

His last job was "senior director of development at Dell", so his problem probably wasn't mediocrity but rather that jobs at that level are very hard to come by, even if you are qualified.

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
My last boss had a killer job and a killer salary to go with it. He lost his job and could not find a similar one. He also had lost most of his relevant tech knowledge after being a manager for so many years so he couldn't go down the career ladder to get a job. Finally, he bought a dry cleaners franchise and that's what he's doing now. Lesson learned, sometimes you have to move on.
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  I don't want to move up.I really hope I can stay programming when I'm 90. For me it's as fun now as it was 20 years ago.
  - gbear605 8y ago
    Don’t let yourself be promoted out of being a developer
  - WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
    You won't be a developer until you're 90. At some point, you'll slow down relevant to a younger developer. That's where you're value to a company will decrease. Your company or a potential employer will perceive you as expensive and lay you off or not hire you. My best advice is to make yourself indispensable to a company and hope the company will stick around. Or create your own company that you can control.
    - angus-prune 8y ago
      Or make a fortune maintaining the legacy rivy and python that the whippersnappers don't understand anymore?

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago

The reality is that you can't be a developer forever. Many people here will tell you that you can but they are the exception. Figure out what else you want to be and work towards it.

gregrata 8y ago
What in the world are you basin that on?
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Computers have been around for awhile now. Stand up and look around. There is hardly any old people.
  - gbear605 8y ago
    You’re in a bubble; there are many software companies that have many old people.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Where are you where there are no old people? When I was at google there were tons of old people, just like me :-)

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

As you should, as everyone should who is paying attention to the world. There are no guarantees anywhere in life, and the world is changing very quickly.

gwbas1c 8y ago

Having interviewed and worked with a lot of people: A mediocre mid-20s developer is given a lot of chances, and not much is expected of the developer. Once you're mid-career, the expectation is that you'll take some kind of a leadership role: People management, high-level architecture, or direct mentorship. Otherwise, if you're mediocre, you need to target roles where you're given chances. (Basically, a consultant.) What's also important is staying current, which becomes so much harder once you have kids, a house, and your hobbies don't involve staying up all night on a side project. I'm trying to use vacation time for this, but family obligations tend to soak up my vacation time like a dry sponge.