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Seen on Mastodon (not me): >Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I

Seen on Mastodon (not me): >Whenever I hear "We need more programmers! Make more young people interested in programming! Teach programming at kindergarten!" I always get the urge to ask "What did you do with the old ones you had?" >Where are all those programmers you hired 5-20 years ago? Why is no programmer at your company older than 40? Why do you have senior software engineers that are 25 years old? What did you do to all those people? >If you can't take care of your employees, no wonder you never have enough.

rolltiide 7y ago
there are obvious answers, likely interrelated older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. the ones that failed in some way - meaning a disruption in their spending and earning capability - are the only ones on the market trying to get programming jobs, and complaining about it. fixing the earning trajectory in a programming track helps fix this outcome too. FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already hired.
- pixelrevision 7y ago
  I wonder how much the transition to management helps nowadays. I have a few friends who did that, lost a lot of technical relevance and have had a terrible time finding new jobs as many places promote from within.
- RandomOpinion 7y ago
  > older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory ... FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already hired. The FAANG companies and other technology platform companies have separate technical and management career tracks. Only those who want to be managers become managers.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    In theory, yes. In practice, no. At a certain point, a lot of engineers plateau in terms of technical ability and are unable to continue to level up. For many, they feel compelled to switch tracks to management to continue to make progress, regardless of whether they have any innate ability or desire to excel at management.
    - maxheadroom 7y ago
      >...they feel compelled to switch tracks to management to continue to make progress, regardless of whether they have any innate ability or desire to excel at management. Can confirm: Once you "plateau" in a division, the only options are lateralling to a technology you don't know (with the same expectations exacted upon you) or simply going management and that assumes that there's room in management. Given how frequently "organisational shifts/changes" occur, that could leave you out in the cold, just as well.
    - JudgeWapner 7y ago
      > to continue to make progress, or they fall for the money-making scam, where their new car payment is now the same amount as their rent originally was when they began their careers. Buying larger houses, etc. Basically always barely acclimating to their new level of wealth, so that they always try to climb up the next rung. I recently quit a job that was advertised as a developer but turned into 90% paperwork. Lasted over a year (it was contractor anyway). But in hindsight, basically NO amount of money would make me happy or willing to fill out forms all day. Seriously, even another $100k wouldn't make me feel any better, I'd still be miserable and not doing what I love.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      My company does explicitly say that certain levels, roughly equivalent to a staff engineer at most companies, will likely be a career level (as in, you will never advance beyond it) for many people that level still pays very well - easily in the 200-300 TC range maybe more. As long as companies are okay with developers being at this level for a long time - perhaps even decades - I'm fine with it. The only thing that would bother me is an "up or out" kind of culture, that prioritizes "velocity". Fortunately I think more and more companies are getting comfortable with developers that they no will never progress beyond a senior developer role.
- jobigoud 7y ago
  > older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. This just implies they like keeping their career trajectory more than coding.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    yes, money. life changes that required more money to maintain their current or desired standard of living. expectation of life changes that required more money to maintain their current or desired standard of living. expectation of generational wealth if their inheritance or lack thereof doesn't already accomplish that for them. did I really need to spell that out? I know some people can't relate, but its not clear to me how much they can't relate
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    They like paying their mortgage and providing for their families more than coding.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      If you live anywhere besides the west coast in a major city and have 7-10 years of experience you can easily make $130K as a senior developer. That puts you right at the 5th quintile of household income. If your spouse is making even $50K that puts you in the top decile. https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ You don’t need to move into middle management to comfortable support a family.
      - rolltiide 7y ago
        Except you have to spend an entire month of your life commuting every year. Non-optimal. Gotta make more, gotta save more, gotta send your children to better school. And thats just the baseline.
        scarface74 7y ago
i_am_proteus 7y ago
From Primer (2004 film): "You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out and shoot them."
invalidOrTaken 7y ago
My own commentary on this: I've been consulting the last few months, mostly brought in to coach CTO's. I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers. This leads to mismanagement, and nobody likes being mismanaged, (also it usually means you're being underpaid), so devs eventually wise up and get out. If you think about it, this is a natural extension of the "the best code is no code" ethos. The best situations I've seen are programmers-managing-programmers. I've been lucky in my career to work for multiple "engineer-turned-founder" types, and these have felt the most "aligned." I suspect that MBA programs should start including a CS component.
- ScottBurson 7y ago
  > I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers. That's because they don't. I've had good managers and bad ones, and all the good ones were, or had been, software engineers themselves. (Of course, some of the engineers were not so great as managers.) As I like to say, software engineering is about the management of complexity, and if you've never worked on a complex system, you don't understand how to do that.
- scottLobster 7y ago
  Sounds about right. A non-technical manager managing technical people is like the commander of a tank battalion not knowing how fast his tanks can go or what kind of ammunition they shoot, their fuel range, hell he probably doesn't even know how many people can fit in a single tank. But he thinks he's fit to manage such a unit because he's an expert in "general warfare", and he has all the "metrics". I've seen it in my own employment multiple times, my team's(admittedly good-hearted) managers come in and say "We'd like to do (list of 10 things). Now we know the software has limitations, and we don't have any money for feature enhancement, so feel free to tell us no on any of these." Us: "We can do 2 of those, maybe three if you can give us a couple of days to hack in one of the simpler requests" Managers: confused, questioning but begrudgingly accepting looks
  - geomark 7y ago

rolltiide 7y ago

there are obvious answers, likely interrelated older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. the ones that failed in some way - meaning a disruption in their spending and earning capability - are the only ones on the market trying to get programming jobs, and complaining about it. fixing the earning trajectory in a programming track helps fix this outcome too. FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already hired.

pixelrevision 7y ago
I wonder how much the transition to management helps nowadays. I have a few friends who did that, lost a lot of technical relevance and have had a terrible time finding new jobs as many places promote from within.
RandomOpinion 7y ago
> older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory ... FAANG companies seem to have figured it out for people they've already hired. The FAANG companies and other technology platform companies have separate technical and management career tracks. Only those who want to be managers become managers.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  In theory, yes. In practice, no. At a certain point, a lot of engineers plateau in terms of technical ability and are unable to continue to level up. For many, they feel compelled to switch tracks to management to continue to make progress, regardless of whether they have any innate ability or desire to excel at management.
  - maxheadroom 7y ago
    >...they feel compelled to switch tracks to management to continue to make progress, regardless of whether they have any innate ability or desire to excel at management. Can confirm: Once you "plateau" in a division, the only options are lateralling to a technology you don't know (with the same expectations exacted upon you) or simply going management and that assumes that there's room in management. Given how frequently "organisational shifts/changes" occur, that could leave you out in the cold, just as well.
  - JudgeWapner 7y ago
    > to continue to make progress, or they fall for the money-making scam, where their new car payment is now the same amount as their rent originally was when they began their careers. Buying larger houses, etc. Basically always barely acclimating to their new level of wealth, so that they always try to climb up the next rung. I recently quit a job that was advertised as a developer but turned into 90% paperwork. Lasted over a year (it was contractor anyway). But in hindsight, basically NO amount of money would make me happy or willing to fill out forms all day. Seriously, even another $100k wouldn't make me feel any better, I'd still be miserable and not doing what I love.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    My company does explicitly say that certain levels, roughly equivalent to a staff engineer at most companies, will likely be a career level (as in, you will never advance beyond it) for many people that level still pays very well - easily in the 200-300 TC range maybe more. As long as companies are okay with developers being at this level for a long time - perhaps even decades - I'm fine with it. The only thing that would bother me is an "up or out" kind of culture, that prioritizes "velocity". Fortunately I think more and more companies are getting comfortable with developers that they no will never progress beyond a senior developer role.
jobigoud 7y ago
> older devs had to go into management to keep their career trajectory, no matter whether they liked coding or management more. This just implies they like keeping their career trajectory more than coding.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  yes, money. life changes that required more money to maintain their current or desired standard of living. expectation of life changes that required more money to maintain their current or desired standard of living. expectation of generational wealth if their inheritance or lack thereof doesn't already accomplish that for them. did I really need to spell that out? I know some people can't relate, but its not clear to me how much they can't relate
- lallysingh 7y ago
  They like paying their mortgage and providing for their families more than coding.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If you live anywhere besides the west coast in a major city and have 7-10 years of experience you can easily make $130K as a senior developer. That puts you right at the 5th quintile of household income. If your spouse is making even $50K that puts you in the top decile. https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ You don’t need to move into middle management to comfortable support a family.
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Except you have to spend an entire month of your life commuting every year. Non-optimal. Gotta make more, gotta save more, gotta send your children to better school. And thats just the baseline.
      - scarface74 7y ago

i_am_proteus 7y ago

From Primer (2004 film): "You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out and shoot them."

invalidOrTaken 7y ago

My own commentary on this: I've been consulting the last few months, mostly brought in to coach CTO's. I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers. This leads to mismanagement, and nobody likes being mismanaged, (also it usually means you're being underpaid), so devs eventually wise up and get out. If you think about it, this is a natural extension of the "the best code is no code" ethos. The best situations I've seen are programmers-managing-programmers. I've been lucky in my career to work for multiple "engineer-turned-founder" types, and these have felt the most "aligned." I suspect that MBA programs should start including a CS component.

ScottBurson 7y ago
> I'm (somewhat unwillingly) coming to the conclusion that nobody really feels like they know how to manage programmers. That's because they don't. I've had good managers and bad ones, and all the good ones were, or had been, software engineers themselves. (Of course, some of the engineers were not so great as managers.) As I like to say, software engineering is about the management of complexity, and if you've never worked on a complex system, you don't understand how to do that.
scottLobster 7y ago
Sounds about right. A non-technical manager managing technical people is like the commander of a tank battalion not knowing how fast his tanks can go or what kind of ammunition they shoot, their fuel range, hell he probably doesn't even know how many people can fit in a single tank. But he thinks he's fit to manage such a unit because he's an expert in "general warfare", and he has all the "metrics". I've seen it in my own employment multiple times, my team's(admittedly good-hearted) managers come in and say "We'd like to do (list of 10 things). Now we know the software has limitations, and we don't have any money for feature enhancement, so feel free to tell us no on any of these." Us: "We can do 2 of those, maybe three if you can give us a couple of days to hack in one of the simpler requests" Managers: confused, questioning but begrudgingly accepting looks
- geomark 7y ago