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This is moving the goalposts. Due to rampant ageism, most people in this field are afraid of becoming irrelevant in their forties due to the rapid evolution of

This is moving the goalposts. Due to rampant ageism, most people in this field are afraid of becoming irrelevant in their forties due to the rapid evolution of the industry, therefore staying relevant is of concern. But if we are going to talk about what drives the success and failure of projects, the "stakeholder interactions" are only one part of the problem. I've worked with 3 startups already and have heard stories from many others ... For startups that die, usually the blame lies with not finding the "product/market fit" however the reality is that startups only have a small window of time in which they can present their product and win customers and if your MVP has bugs or is underfeatured, it can kill your business, irregardless of how well connected you are to your stakeholders and your clients. Going further than startups, in software companies developers do have to talk with stakeholders in order to understand the requirements. Asking the right questions however is a matter of technical skill and no discipline will teach you how to better dissect a problem in smaller problems than math and a scientist will always be better at asking questions than non-technical folks ;-)

beat 8y ago
I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my 50s, so I have some perspective on this. I don't worry about becoming irrelevant at all. But that is as much due to the "soft skills" that you dismiss as the hard skills, maybe even more so. I've been through enough projects, from tremendous successes to total disasters, that I can see large-scale patterns. And those are never about tiny algorithmic details. They're only sometimes about technology. The people my age that suffer career losses and anxiety usually do so because they stayed in one place too long. Getting laid off or fired after 10-15 years (or longer) in one place can be disastrous. Part of it is that they no longer have practical interview skills, or even understand the current trends in recruiting and hiring. But a lot of it is because their skill set becomes company-specific, deeply tied to the business of their long-time employer. They might be (and often are) fine programmers or analysts, but their resume doesn't reflect that. As for startups... if you think an initial product (MVP) having bugs or lacking features is the reason startups die, you're not paying much attention. I would go far in the other direction! A company that doesn't release a buggy, incomplete product will die. That's because startups are a race against the clock. They need to show results (usually measured in sales) quickly enough to not run out of money, or at least get them to another round of investment to keep them going. The longer the time to market, the harder that is. And customer feedback is the best way to find the shortcomings in your product. The reason anyone buys from a startup is desperation. That startup needs to be offering something that cannot be obtained from an existing, stable market player. This is especially true in B2B, where businesses are actually risking something by committing to a startup, other than their free time. A startup needs to find such a big pain point, such a big market gap, that customers will put up with a buggy, incomplete app, and pay for the privilege. That is the secret to a successful startup - certainly not polishing the turd til it glows. (Read Crossing the Chasm for great depth on this, if you don't mind a bunch of boring soft-skill reading.)
- schwurb 8y ago
  > The reason anyone buys from a startup is desperation. That startup needs to be offering something that cannot be obtained from an existing, stable market player. Thank you! That is one more encouragement to get my prototype started and think about how to do my marketing.
  - beat 8y ago
    That's the sound of me having learned it the hard way...
    - schwurb 8y ago
      Thank you for passing on the knowledge - I hope you are well off now!
- russdpale 8y ago
  Hi, this is a great post, thank you for sharing your experience. I have a colleague who is in that company focused rut. He is a great bug fixer and such, but his confidence has been shattered because he knows he is in this rut and isn't sure how to get out of it. I am rapidly approaching my 40's, and lately I am fearful of ending up in the same position. I was wondering, if I could ask you, what can I do to make sure I don't end up like that? I'm a full stack programmer with a great job, but we are very vendor locked. I feel like I already made one step in the right direction, where I don't focus too much on frameworks, but more on the soft skills. For instance, instead of reading a book about d3.js, I started with a book about the underlying fundamentals of data visualization (Grammar of Graphics). Instead of focusing on tsql, I focus on database architecture and indexing fundamentals. Is there anything more I can do, though? I guess I should really explore finding another job.
  - beat 8y ago
    Best thing? Find another job. Pick up some currently-useful skills (AWS certification is great if you aren't currently working with it). My rule of thumb is to not stay more than five years anywhere, if you want to make sure you can move when needed.
munchbunny 8y ago
Asking the right questions however is a matter of technical skill and no discipline will teach you how to better dissect a problem in smaller problems than math and a scientist will always be better at asking questions than non-technical folks ;-) My experience from leading both engineering and product teams is that this is mostly wrong. If it's product/market fit you're worried about, then the problem of asking the right questions is not a hard-skills problem. It's domain expertise and communication skill. Knowing what an S-expression is or POSIX internals won't make you better at any of those things. Working on your soft skills will.
tracker1 8y ago
One would assume someone in their forties would have a lot of experienced with the fundamentals the article talks about, and more time to discover modern tools, libraries and frameworks. Aside, I'm 43.

beat 8y ago

I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my 50s, so I have some perspective on this. I don't worry about becoming irrelevant at all. But that is as much due to the "soft skills" that you dismiss as the hard skills, maybe even more so. I've been through enough projects, from tremendous successes to total disasters, that I can see large-scale patterns. And those are never about tiny algorithmic details. They're only sometimes about technology. The people my age that suffer career losses and anxiety usually do so because they stayed in one place too long. Getting laid off or fired after 10-15 years (or longer) in one place can be disastrous. Part of it is that they no longer have practical interview skills, or even understand the current trends in recruiting and hiring. But a lot of it is because their skill set becomes company-specific, deeply tied to the business of their long-time employer. They might be (and often are) fine programmers or analysts, but their resume doesn't reflect that. As for startups... if you think an initial product (MVP) having bugs or lacking features is the reason startups die, you're not paying much attention. I would go far in the other direction! A company that doesn't release a buggy, incomplete product will die. That's because startups are a race against the clock. They need to show results (usually measured in sales) quickly enough to not run out of money, or at least get them to another round of investment to keep them going. The longer the time to market, the harder that is. And customer feedback is the best way to find the shortcomings in your product. The reason anyone buys from a startup is desperation. That startup needs to be offering something that cannot be obtained from an existing, stable market player. This is especially true in B2B, where businesses are actually risking something by committing to a startup, other than their free time. A startup needs to find such a big pain point, such a big market gap, that customers will put up with a buggy, incomplete app, and pay for the privilege. That is the secret to a successful startup - certainly not polishing the turd til it glows. (Read Crossing the Chasm for great depth on this, if you don't mind a bunch of boring soft-skill reading.)

schwurb 8y ago
> The reason anyone buys from a startup is desperation. That startup needs to be offering something that cannot be obtained from an existing, stable market player. Thank you! That is one more encouragement to get my prototype started and think about how to do my marketing.
- beat 8y ago
  That's the sound of me having learned it the hard way...
  - schwurb 8y ago
    Thank you for passing on the knowledge - I hope you are well off now!
russdpale 8y ago
Hi, this is a great post, thank you for sharing your experience. I have a colleague who is in that company focused rut. He is a great bug fixer and such, but his confidence has been shattered because he knows he is in this rut and isn't sure how to get out of it. I am rapidly approaching my 40's, and lately I am fearful of ending up in the same position. I was wondering, if I could ask you, what can I do to make sure I don't end up like that? I'm a full stack programmer with a great job, but we are very vendor locked. I feel like I already made one step in the right direction, where I don't focus too much on frameworks, but more on the soft skills. For instance, instead of reading a book about d3.js, I started with a book about the underlying fundamentals of data visualization (Grammar of Graphics). Instead of focusing on tsql, I focus on database architecture and indexing fundamentals. Is there anything more I can do, though? I guess I should really explore finding another job.
- beat 8y ago
  Best thing? Find another job. Pick up some currently-useful skills (AWS certification is great if you aren't currently working with it). My rule of thumb is to not stay more than five years anywhere, if you want to make sure you can move when needed.

munchbunny 8y ago

Asking the right questions however is a matter of technical skill and no discipline will teach you how to better dissect a problem in smaller problems than math and a scientist will always be better at asking questions than non-technical folks ;-) My experience from leading both engineering and product teams is that this is mostly wrong. If it's product/market fit you're worried about, then the problem of asking the right questions is not a hard-skills problem. It's domain expertise and communication skill. Knowing what an S-expression is or POSIX internals won't make you better at any of those things. Working on your soft skills will.

tracker1 8y ago

One would assume someone in their forties would have a lot of experienced with the fundamentals the article talks about, and more time to discover modern tools, libraries and frameworks. Aside, I'm 43.