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I am 36, my job title is a Lead Developer (I made it despite fucking up all of my late teens and the entirety of my 20s), and I have been outclassed in some res

I am 36, my job title is a Lead Developer (I made it despite fucking up all of my late teens and the entirety of my 20s), and I have been outclassed in some respects by people in their 20s, and I am at peace with this. You know there is some aspect of jealousy going on here, and being so self-aware in that way is really important and you're half the way there already! So any time you feel that you want to tear apart someone's ideas or someone's code or whatever else, that might just be the jealousy talking. While there's a lot to be said for being an old motherfucker (by tech standards) and lessons that you can teach others, just always use that as a damper on yourself. Perhaps a good antidote to that mindset is to refocus. Tell people what they are doing right. Look for little moments of genius when you see them. Actively look for things that are done right, and be sure to let the person in question know what they did right! Building people up will make you feel good, and it will definitely feel a lot better than professional jealousy. I hope this is helpful in some way.

MassiveOwl 7y ago
I'd be interested in your take on this as someone slightly older than the cliched tech employee. To be honest, i'm never usually that impressed with people that are in their mid-20s and working as developers. They can typically produce good output, but in my experience they are unable to state 'why' something works well. They're following best practices laid down by people in their 40s/50s years ago. I think they have the energy to not give up and trawl the forums till they get the answer, not necessarily finding the answer by considering the principles underlying the task
- lewiscollard 7y ago
  Don't limit it to the younger developers: we're all doing that all the time! Always have all our lives. We learn a lot of things by imitating, then understanding, then building on that. I mean, I learned English from my mother at a very young age (who was following the best practices of the 1950s) without understanding any of the underlying principles. :) Likewise, some of the "kids these days" (literally what I call the rest of my much younger development team, and they're just as capable about poking me about my age :)) may be doing that in tech in their early-ish careers. I think it'd be underestimating younger devs to apply that too broadly, because I've seen too many little gems of genius from younger devs. The way I see my role leading a younger team is to help the folks somewhat younger than me learn from some of the lessons I have learned: to spot code that is going to be a nightmare in the long run, to maybe gain my weird knack of being able to tell people what their bug is without even seeing the code. But they also have a valuable role in teaching me to be less conservative (disposition, not politics) when I should not be, or coming up with brilliant solutions that I was blind to. If I had a point, it's that there's room in the world for all of us, and that both the old motherfuckers and the Kids These Days have a lot to bring to the table to build up each other. I hope this was useful in some way. :)

MassiveOwl 7y ago

I'd be interested in your take on this as someone slightly older than the cliched tech employee. To be honest, i'm never usually that impressed with people that are in their mid-20s and working as developers. They can typically produce good output, but in my experience they are unable to state 'why' something works well. They're following best practices laid down by people in their 40s/50s years ago. I think they have the energy to not give up and trawl the forums till they get the answer, not necessarily finding the answer by considering the principles underlying the task

lewiscollard 7y ago
Don't limit it to the younger developers: we're all doing that all the time! Always have all our lives. We learn a lot of things by imitating, then understanding, then building on that. I mean, I learned English from my mother at a very young age (who was following the best practices of the 1950s) without understanding any of the underlying principles. :) Likewise, some of the "kids these days" (literally what I call the rest of my much younger development team, and they're just as capable about poking me about my age :)) may be doing that in tech in their early-ish careers. I think it'd be underestimating younger devs to apply that too broadly, because I've seen too many little gems of genius from younger devs. The way I see my role leading a younger team is to help the folks somewhat younger than me learn from some of the lessons I have learned: to spot code that is going to be a nightmare in the long run, to maybe gain my weird knack of being able to tell people what their bug is without even seeing the code. But they also have a valuable role in teaching me to be less conservative (disposition, not politics) when I should not be, or coming up with brilliant solutions that I was blind to. If I had a point, it's that there's room in the world for all of us, and that both the old motherfuckers and the Kids These Days have a lot to bring to the table to build up each other. I hope this was useful in some way. :)