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I'm glad to hear I'm wrong. I'm certainly not rooting for anyone to fail. But a couple of things. One, the higher you rise in responsibility the more likely y

I'm glad to hear I'm wrong. I'm certainly not rooting for anyone to fail. But a couple of things. One, the higher you rise in responsibility the more likely your work is to be meta-work. I saw your personal site and the services you're advertising, as time goes on you'll be offering more business-like services because inevitably that's what customers want. Sadly most programmers have to choose between having the satisfaction of doing IC work and having their salary plateau or transitioning into management and/or biz dev consulting. Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. That is, if you work for Facebook or Amazon or whoever for 5 years, that's a hard skill you can trade in for a better job elsewhere, or at the very least your benefits start to accrue higher and higher (e.g. at my Big Tech Co: discount off public stock purchase). How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I'm sure they exist but unless the have some very specific skill set (e.g. COBOL programming for banks) it's hard to have a forever career as a generalist IC. But again, more power to you if you can make it work. I'm not criticizing the lifestyle, only suggesting that it's not some peaceful freedom from BS that we'd all want to imagine it to be.

enobrev 8y ago
> How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I think this might be too young of a profession for that point to add up. I've been a solo independent Dev for 20 years and I'm only 40. I don't know if I'll be doing this for another 15 years, but I certainly don't expect to take a job anywhere.
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  I sincerely hope you can continue as you've been doing, but as you'll see from many testimonials here at HN ageism in tech is a real thing, people's reactions to you will start to change as soon as you "look" old. Most of the ageism applies to FT work at Big Tech Co but IMO it sadly applies to solo, independent devs as well since 50% of it is how you market yourself, and "old" will equate to "out of touch" in too many people's eyes.
  - spraak 8y ago
    Have you ever done solo though? From reading your responses here I get the feeling no. Not that your views would be invalid if you haven't, but it does give a different weight to them vs someone who has been doing it a long time, especially who is now e.g. over 50
    - ordinaryperson 8y ago
      I have but not in many years. Maybe things have changed since then -- I don't know. But as I've said many times in this thread my point is not to say freelancing is terrible or not viable, just that articles like these seem to underrate some of the tradeoffs, which are significant. Glad it works out for the OP and you, I guess. But when your wife is pregnant or your kids need to go to the ER life can get very expensive as a freelancer. Too easy to judge the career path as a single 20-something, IMHO.
  - dboreham 8y ago
    I think ageism might be less prevalent for freelancers/consultants. Same with being remote, ime.
prewett 8y ago
> Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. Your description of "equity" sounds more like "skills". You can always buy stocks of companies, just make sure to charge enough to cover those benefits. However, I argue that freelancing tends to accumulate skills. If you work at FB, you're going to be doing the same stuff with the same platforms; at best you change languages/platforms every couple years as you get moved between projects. Every freelance contract I've had has been a different set of languages and skills. In fact, one of my contracts came because I am such a generalist. I feel like the clients I've interacted with want an "expert"--someone skilled in the exact areas they need (as opposed to companies, which are a little more willing for you to have related experience but not exact experience), so the more different things you can point to having done, the more contracts are available to you. It also helps you credibly claim "I'm not very familiar with X, but I've been able to get up to speed in a day on my other projects"
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  Not skills. I meant more institutional knowledge, connections, reputation and advancement within a company. With solo dev you restart at 0 with every new contract. You can definitely acquire skills freelancing. The question is, what is the endgame? What do you do at 50? If there are a lot of 45-65 year old solo devs out there I would LOVE to hear from them, have them share their experiences. But my sinking suspicion is ageism in tech spans outward to include independent, generalist contractors.
jasonkester 8y ago
How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? Lots. Quick question? Would you prefer to be a 55 year old salaried senior dev, or a 55 year old specialist consultant? Same answer if you're one of those two, but currently between gigs and looking for work? Being the "old guy" looking for a job is how you get discriminated against. "Why is this guy on the market now?" "How many years does he have left?" "Is he still any good?" Being the "old guy" specialist consultant means you're going to be really good at the thing they need to bring you in to do. You're also really expensive, which just reinforces how good you must be. Nobody is going to hold your lack of inexperience against you when they have a problem their kids can't solve. No need for the specialty to be Geriatric COBOL or FORTRAN either. A 55 year old Javascript guy today might have 24 years experience in it, and can certainly teach your front-end guys a few things about writing code that runs in browsers. So yeah, when the time comes, make sure you're either consulting or running your own company.
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  Well there's no fact-based way to settle this debate, the evidence is all anecdotal, but I see discrimination against older consultants every single day. Executives at Fortune 100 companies (in my experience) pick an agency speed, price and 'sexiness' -- I've never once heard them positively rate the age and experience level of a solo developer. And I have never, ever seen a F100 co bring in an old guy to tutor front-end devs. I can't even imagine. I would absolutely rather be the old guy at a big tech co but I wouldn't be a solo developer, I'd be in management. There's no question there's a path out there for solo devs in their 50s but is it really all roses and rainbows like you say? Seems like the harder path to me.

enobrev 8y ago

> How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I think this might be too young of a profession for that point to add up. I've been a solo independent Dev for 20 years and I'm only 40. I don't know if I'll be doing this for another 15 years, but I certainly don't expect to take a job anywhere.

ordinaryperson 8y ago
I sincerely hope you can continue as you've been doing, but as you'll see from many testimonials here at HN ageism in tech is a real thing, people's reactions to you will start to change as soon as you "look" old. Most of the ageism applies to FT work at Big Tech Co but IMO it sadly applies to solo, independent devs as well since 50% of it is how you market yourself, and "old" will equate to "out of touch" in too many people's eyes.
- spraak 8y ago
  Have you ever done solo though? From reading your responses here I get the feeling no. Not that your views would be invalid if you haven't, but it does give a different weight to them vs someone who has been doing it a long time, especially who is now e.g. over 50
  - ordinaryperson 8y ago
    I have but not in many years. Maybe things have changed since then -- I don't know. But as I've said many times in this thread my point is not to say freelancing is terrible or not viable, just that articles like these seem to underrate some of the tradeoffs, which are significant. Glad it works out for the OP and you, I guess. But when your wife is pregnant or your kids need to go to the ER life can get very expensive as a freelancer. Too easy to judge the career path as a single 20-something, IMHO.
- dboreham 8y ago
  I think ageism might be less prevalent for freelancers/consultants. Same with being remote, ime.

prewett 8y ago

> Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. Your description of "equity" sounds more like "skills". You can always buy stocks of companies, just make sure to charge enough to cover those benefits. However, I argue that freelancing tends to accumulate skills. If you work at FB, you're going to be doing the same stuff with the same platforms; at best you change languages/platforms every couple years as you get moved between projects. Every freelance contract I've had has been a different set of languages and skills. In fact, one of my contracts came because I am such a generalist. I feel like the clients I've interacted with want an "expert"--someone skilled in the exact areas they need (as opposed to companies, which are a little more willing for you to have related experience but not exact experience), so the more different things you can point to having done, the more contracts are available to you. It also helps you credibly claim "I'm not very familiar with X, but I've been able to get up to speed in a day on my other projects"

ordinaryperson 8y ago
Not skills. I meant more institutional knowledge, connections, reputation and advancement within a company. With solo dev you restart at 0 with every new contract. You can definitely acquire skills freelancing. The question is, what is the endgame? What do you do at 50? If there are a lot of 45-65 year old solo devs out there I would LOVE to hear from them, have them share their experiences. But my sinking suspicion is ageism in tech spans outward to include independent, generalist contractors.

jasonkester 8y ago

How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? Lots. Quick question? Would you prefer to be a 55 year old salaried senior dev, or a 55 year old specialist consultant? Same answer if you're one of those two, but currently between gigs and looking for work? Being the "old guy" looking for a job is how you get discriminated against. "Why is this guy on the market now?" "How many years does he have left?" "Is he still any good?" Being the "old guy" specialist consultant means you're going to be really good at the thing they need to bring you in to do. You're also really expensive, which just reinforces how good you must be. Nobody is going to hold your lack of inexperience against you when they have a problem their kids can't solve. No need for the specialty to be Geriatric COBOL or FORTRAN either. A 55 year old Javascript guy today might have 24 years experience in it, and can certainly teach your front-end guys a few things about writing code that runs in browsers. So yeah, when the time comes, make sure you're either consulting or running your own company.

ordinaryperson 8y ago
Well there's no fact-based way to settle this debate, the evidence is all anecdotal, but I see discrimination against older consultants every single day. Executives at Fortune 100 companies (in my experience) pick an agency speed, price and 'sexiness' -- I've never once heard them positively rate the age and experience level of a solo developer. And I have never, ever seen a F100 co bring in an old guy to tutor front-end devs. I can't even imagine. I would absolutely rather be the old guy at a big tech co but I wouldn't be a solo developer, I'd be in management. There's no question there's a path out there for solo devs in their 50s but is it really all roses and rainbows like you say? Seems like the harder path to me.