7 ms·

Same story here. The most talented engineers I know are either in their early 20s or in their late 40s/50s. Of course it's for different reasons. Something man

Same story here. The most talented engineers I know are either in their early 20s or in their late 40s/50s. Of course it's for different reasons. Something many people don't want to admit is that a lot of talent comes from practice and experience, and someone in their 40s is much more likely to have 20+ years of experience than someone in their 20s. The early-20s geniuses I know are talented for different reasons. The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. But some of them are extremely undisciplined (which may or may not be related). Those same people with age, gain not only experience but also hopefully discipline. A combo like that yields you people like John Carmack and the like: Not just talented, but out-of-this-world "next level".

carlmr 8y ago
>The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. That's my experience as well. Generalists are often the most productive people. A good generalist can often grasp the whole system faster than a niche programming language specialist. And you usually don't need those niche programming skills for 99.9% of problems. Humans are capable of much more than the small niches companies put us in. Generalists are generally (hrhr) ignored by HR though. They don't fit any mold so have a harder time getting hired. The most successful ones I know usually freelance.
- Steve44 8y ago
  When I stopped programming I moved more into technical testing and that morphed into 'project guru' on some quite large projects. I could understand from low level network protocols up to the big fluffy clouds, I could also pick things up very quickly as I understood all the building blocks if not the latest buzz words. From my first exposure to SQL I was optimising databases better than the incumbent dba within a couple of months, and that wasn't even my job. I loved the work, but the downside was no one ever advertised for that role despite it was very important to the project.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > From my first exposure to SQL I was optimising databases better than the incumbent dba within a couple of months, and that wasn't even my job. That doesn't mean much, as in the not so distant past (and in some small shops even today) the resident database expert is far from experienced or even technically apt. In fact, it was and still is a job that was assigned internally to someone who happened to have anything to do with the project, who was thus forced to accumulate yet another responsibility.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  As a specialist who is currently looking for a job, HR generally only seeks generalists. Almost all interview loops that have been standardized seriously prefer generalists. The mold doesn’t fit anyone and are just generic programming/system design questions that do not evaluate specialist skills and experience at all. PL specialists are also pretty good generalists. I mean, what hasn’t Jeff Dean done and do people even remember that he has a PL PhD anymore?
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    I think whether or not you're a capable generalist is independent of whether or not you have a PL PhD. Jeff Dean is a generalist because he invested significant time in working across a wide variety of problems, not because of his PhD. If anything, a PhD makes you a specialist by default. You need to do extra work to gain diverse experience across the stack. This is to say that I don't think you should use Jeff Dean as an argument for hiring PL specialists in generalist roles.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Google does this though. Whenever is PL PhDs get together, someone invariably talks about how they are doing ads for google these days. It’s actually so common that it has become a meme.
  - barrkel 8y ago
    I think experience in compiler and language design is a strong signal of meta-thinking about problems and high-level abstraction. Compiler implementation requires a kind of rigorous thinking and separation of concerns to keep straight, because you're writing code that writes code, and need to model execution explicitly. Also, all edge cases and interacting features need to be considered in both disciplines - you generally can't get away with smoke and mirror demos or handwaving. I don't think it adds up to generalist though. Generalists need knowledge in a lot of different things (though one man's generalist is another man's "full stack" web app developer), or else they're just smart people who don't know much yet.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  I hire at a FAANG for two roles where we specifically target generalists: Solutions Architect (design solutions for complex real-world problems) and Technical Solutions Engineer (last line of support for really gnarly cases). Both need people who can cover a lot of ground, and it's hard to be good at either if you don't have significant practical experience and can't traverse the stack from source code to tcpdumps if needed. That said, being just a generalist is not going to cut the mustard, you're going to need depth in at least one field, plus you need to be able to talk to customers too. Mandatory plug: if you think you'd fit the bill and are keen to explore, find me through my HN profile. Bonus points for being anywhere in APAC, although I can refer you elsewhere too.
  - cc81 8y ago
    Do you (or anyone else) know of any more resources of what a Solutions Architect is doing day to day at that company? What artifacts are they producing, how much hands on are they, do they belong to teams etc? I have the title right now but it is a new one in the company and it is up to me to navigate really what it means for us. EDIT: And are there any books or other resources you or you see Solution Architects recommend?
  - thepredestrian 8y ago
    Do you happen to hire co-ops for these type of roles? I have recently had interest in consulting
- nickjj 8y ago
  > Generalists are generally (hrhr) ignored by HR though. They don't fit any mold so have a harder time getting hired. The most successful ones I know usually freelance. I think as you gain experience you naturally become more of a generalist over time. I've been a freelance developer for 20ish years and I would consider myself a generalist at this point, but it took many many years to get to this point. Everything from learning the Linux basics, how networking works, various programming languages and web frameworks, database modeling, dealing with the ops side of things, and the list goes on and on. Basically I spent a majority of my life learning all of these things in a lot of detail, but most of it ended up being on a need to know basis. Basically once you become somewhat proficient in something, you naturally start learning about some other related topic. Even today I still think I know almost nothing in the grand scheme of things.
- arandr0x 8y ago
  I don't know if I'd call that talented though? I mean, I also got the right number in the IQ and motivation lottery, but not only is that like 80% biochemistry, it's not a differentiator in the sense of doing qualitatively different things. I do all the same things as everybody else, just faster and without guidance. But I work with people who are extreme specialists. (I don't mean in React. I mean in computer vision or non linear optimization, that kind of thing.) There is an entire class of problems that only those people can address properly; I could learn to but it would take me a couple years and the output from these years would be significantly below state of the art. In general they're skilled, not just talented, but they also work with mental models that require some amount of essential ability to grasp and that plenty of people will never be able to fully understand. Although, the most successful developers I know (of) are both generalists and extremely talented. Their special talent is "people understanding"!
spinach 8y ago
That begs the question then, what happens to these early-20s geniuses once they are late 20s/30s?
- scalesolved 8y ago
  Whilst half joking I've had children around this age and I don' claim to be a genius but the time afforded to technical exploration and learning has dropped significantly while they are young.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  Well, one of them now works at Facebook, another at Google, another at Amazon. The youngest one is still at a smaller company but I suspect he'll end up finding a job at a Big Five or some such. To answer your question, they get swallowed. Google etc hoard talent, and those that can fake it. I don't know if that's good, but they definitely end up with resources to produce incredible things. Then again what would they do alone, I wonder.
- rotten 8y ago
  Life gets in the way for a while: Kids. Spouse/partner. House. Hobbies. Cynicism. Burnout. Health. Elder care. Then things settle. You work through the life thing, and in your 50's you get a fresh perspective and new energy.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    All of the above, plus, at most (non-FAANG) tech companies, as an individual contributor your salary will plateau when you’re around 30-35. During your 20s you’ll get used to double digit pay raises and then all of a sudden that will stop. Even changing jobs won’t give you more than a 1-2% bump as some point. I’ve had that surreal “we really want you to stay but we can’t give you a raise” conversation too many times in my career.
    - SimonPStevens 8y ago
      Yes, this. So then those young brilliant individuals move into management because it's the only way to continue some semblance of career progression in your 30s. Then a subset of the gifted technical individuals grow tired of management, step down and go back to the tech to do what they really loved all along. I've met a fair amount of brilliant engineers in their 40s/50s who have been through management and decided it's not for them and are now shining as engineers again after a decade lost to leadership roles
iheartpotatoes 8y ago
Younger programmers: know less, but are more flexible learning new things; broad yet shallow Older programmers: tired of having to be "flexible" for decades; extremely deep knowledge, siloed Most clever programmer I saw was a guy in his 40's (in early 2000). He was a layout engineer who wrote a PowerPoint+VBA design rule checker for extremely rapid prototyping of layout ideas. Most clever team I met was a group of 30 somethings (mid-1990s) who wrote a CPU architectural simulator that was essentially a tweak of the first linux kernel. Most "how the fuck did you do that" was a 25 year old out of Russia who wrote a Windows 10 hack for hooking system calls for performance monitoring. He did things Windows docs said you couldn't do. All un-commented assembly. Glad I left before I had to own it!

carlmr 8y ago

>The ones I am thinking about are people who pick up new things absurdly quickly; pick up on patterns very easily; have general experience in enough domains to make quick connections; etc. That's my experience as well. Generalists are often the most productive people. A good generalist can often grasp the whole system faster than a niche programming language specialist. And you usually don't need those niche programming skills for 99.9% of problems. Humans are capable of much more than the small niches companies put us in. Generalists are generally (hrhr) ignored by HR though. They don't fit any mold so have a harder time getting hired. The most successful ones I know usually freelance.

Steve44 8y ago
When I stopped programming I moved more into technical testing and that morphed into 'project guru' on some quite large projects. I could understand from low level network protocols up to the big fluffy clouds, I could also pick things up very quickly as I understood all the building blocks if not the latest buzz words. From my first exposure to SQL I was optimising databases better than the incumbent dba within a couple of months, and that wasn't even my job. I loved the work, but the downside was no one ever advertised for that role despite it was very important to the project.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > From my first exposure to SQL I was optimising databases better than the incumbent dba within a couple of months, and that wasn't even my job. That doesn't mean much, as in the not so distant past (and in some small shops even today) the resident database expert is far from experienced or even technically apt. In fact, it was and still is a job that was assigned internally to someone who happened to have anything to do with the project, who was thus forced to accumulate yet another responsibility.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
As a specialist who is currently looking for a job, HR generally only seeks generalists. Almost all interview loops that have been standardized seriously prefer generalists. The mold doesn’t fit anyone and are just generic programming/system design questions that do not evaluate specialist skills and experience at all. PL specialists are also pretty good generalists. I mean, what hasn’t Jeff Dean done and do people even remember that he has a PL PhD anymore?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I think whether or not you're a capable generalist is independent of whether or not you have a PL PhD. Jeff Dean is a generalist because he invested significant time in working across a wide variety of problems, not because of his PhD. If anything, a PhD makes you a specialist by default. You need to do extra work to gain diverse experience across the stack. This is to say that I don't think you should use Jeff Dean as an argument for hiring PL specialists in generalist roles.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Google does this though. Whenever is PL PhDs get together, someone invariably talks about how they are doing ads for google these days. It’s actually so common that it has become a meme.
- barrkel 8y ago
  I think experience in compiler and language design is a strong signal of meta-thinking about problems and high-level abstraction. Compiler implementation requires a kind of rigorous thinking and separation of concerns to keep straight, because you're writing code that writes code, and need to model execution explicitly. Also, all edge cases and interacting features need to be considered in both disciplines - you generally can't get away with smoke and mirror demos or handwaving. I don't think it adds up to generalist though. Generalists need knowledge in a lot of different things (though one man's generalist is another man's "full stack" web app developer), or else they're just smart people who don't know much yet.
jpatokal 8y ago
I hire at a FAANG for two roles where we specifically target generalists: Solutions Architect (design solutions for complex real-world problems) and Technical Solutions Engineer (last line of support for really gnarly cases). Both need people who can cover a lot of ground, and it's hard to be good at either if you don't have significant practical experience and can't traverse the stack from source code to tcpdumps if needed. That said, being just a generalist is not going to cut the mustard, you're going to need depth in at least one field, plus you need to be able to talk to customers too. Mandatory plug: if you think you'd fit the bill and are keen to explore, find me through my HN profile. Bonus points for being anywhere in APAC, although I can refer you elsewhere too.
- cc81 8y ago
  Do you (or anyone else) know of any more resources of what a Solutions Architect is doing day to day at that company? What artifacts are they producing, how much hands on are they, do they belong to teams etc? I have the title right now but it is a new one in the company and it is up to me to navigate really what it means for us. EDIT: And are there any books or other resources you or you see Solution Architects recommend?
- thepredestrian 8y ago
  Do you happen to hire co-ops for these type of roles? I have recently had interest in consulting
nickjj 8y ago
> Generalists are generally (hrhr) ignored by HR though. They don't fit any mold so have a harder time getting hired. The most successful ones I know usually freelance. I think as you gain experience you naturally become more of a generalist over time. I've been a freelance developer for 20ish years and I would consider myself a generalist at this point, but it took many many years to get to this point. Everything from learning the Linux basics, how networking works, various programming languages and web frameworks, database modeling, dealing with the ops side of things, and the list goes on and on. Basically I spent a majority of my life learning all of these things in a lot of detail, but most of it ended up being on a need to know basis. Basically once you become somewhat proficient in something, you naturally start learning about some other related topic. Even today I still think I know almost nothing in the grand scheme of things.
arandr0x 8y ago
I don't know if I'd call that talented though? I mean, I also got the right number in the IQ and motivation lottery, but not only is that like 80% biochemistry, it's not a differentiator in the sense of doing qualitatively different things. I do all the same things as everybody else, just faster and without guidance. But I work with people who are extreme specialists. (I don't mean in React. I mean in computer vision or non linear optimization, that kind of thing.) There is an entire class of problems that only those people can address properly; I could learn to but it would take me a couple years and the output from these years would be significantly below state of the art. In general they're skilled, not just talented, but they also work with mental models that require some amount of essential ability to grasp and that plenty of people will never be able to fully understand. Although, the most successful developers I know (of) are both generalists and extremely talented. Their special talent is "people understanding"!

spinach 8y ago

That begs the question then, what happens to these early-20s geniuses once they are late 20s/30s?

scalesolved 8y ago
Whilst half joking I've had children around this age and I don' claim to be a genius but the time afforded to technical exploration and learning has dropped significantly while they are young.
scrollaway 8y ago
Well, one of them now works at Facebook, another at Google, another at Amazon. The youngest one is still at a smaller company but I suspect he'll end up finding a job at a Big Five or some such. To answer your question, they get swallowed. Google etc hoard talent, and those that can fake it. I don't know if that's good, but they definitely end up with resources to produce incredible things. Then again what would they do alone, I wonder.
rotten 8y ago
Life gets in the way for a while: Kids. Spouse/partner. House. Hobbies. Cynicism. Burnout. Health. Elder care. Then things settle. You work through the life thing, and in your 50's you get a fresh perspective and new energy.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  All of the above, plus, at most (non-FAANG) tech companies, as an individual contributor your salary will plateau when you’re around 30-35. During your 20s you’ll get used to double digit pay raises and then all of a sudden that will stop. Even changing jobs won’t give you more than a 1-2% bump as some point. I’ve had that surreal “we really want you to stay but we can’t give you a raise” conversation too many times in my career.
  - SimonPStevens 8y ago
    Yes, this. So then those young brilliant individuals move into management because it's the only way to continue some semblance of career progression in your 30s. Then a subset of the gifted technical individuals grow tired of management, step down and go back to the tech to do what they really loved all along. I've met a fair amount of brilliant engineers in their 40s/50s who have been through management and decided it's not for them and are now shining as engineers again after a decade lost to leadership roles

iheartpotatoes 8y ago

Younger programmers: know less, but are more flexible learning new things; broad yet shallow Older programmers: tired of having to be "flexible" for decades; extremely deep knowledge, siloed Most clever programmer I saw was a guy in his 40's (in early 2000). He was a layout engineer who wrote a PowerPoint+VBA design rule checker for extremely rapid prototyping of layout ideas. Most clever team I met was a group of 30 somethings (mid-1990s) who wrote a CPU architectural simulator that was essentially a tweak of the first linux kernel. Most "how the fuck did you do that" was a 25 year old out of Russia who wrote a Windows 10 hack for hooking system calls for performance monitoring. He did things Windows docs said you couldn't do. All un-commented assembly. Glad I left before I had to own it!