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I was also curious, as they didn't mention their age. As the age of retirement is currently ~67 (depends on the country but unlikely to go down in the future)

by ido 6y ago

I was also curious, as they didn't mention their age. As the age of retirement is currently ~67 (depends on the country but unlikely to go down in the future) and we assume you start your career after college in your early 20s - let's say 22 - you get ~45 years of work. Let's say the above is closer to a maximum than an average & "generously" go with a round 40 years of work; Then mid-career would be in your 40s.

bradleyjg 6y ago
A baseball player might well do something after the majors—coaching, announcing, hawking life insurance—but it’s still reasonable to talk about a “mid-career shortstop” six years in.
- virgilp 6y ago
  In baseball the average retirement age is 32, maybe slightly more recently - so yeah, 26-27 is "mid-career". For your analogy to work, there would have to be no programmers that are 60years old, and very few that are above 40.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - bradleyjg 6y ago
    What percentage of people whose job duties are entirely or almost entirely programming would you say are: <40, 40-60, >60?
    - virgilp 6y ago
      Don't know - and I suspect it's heavily dependent on location. Also, if I may add, it's heavily influenced by "production" of programmers (it's really not that old of a job, 40 years ago not that many programmers were graduating from university, compared with 10years ago). Also in the case of my country it's heavily influenced by emigration (basically everybody older than me who could emigrate, did; I'm one of the first generations where it made _some_ sense to stay in the country if you were a programmer). I definitely agree that programmers tend to skew young. But both in my current & previous companies I've worked with plenty "old" programmers - 32 is definitely not retirement age, as it is in baseball. But yes, I also admitted that many tend to move to management, too.
shawabawa3 6y ago
mid-career isn't necessarily a single point It could go: early career is first 5 years. Mid-career is the next 30 years. Late-career is anything after 35 years There's no real definition of these terms so who knows
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jakemal 6y ago
I suspect they are conflating mid-career with mid-level engineer. The latter would generally be around 6 years of experience.

by ido 6y ago

bradleyjg 6y ago

A baseball player might well do something after the majors—coaching, announcing, hawking life insurance—but it’s still reasonable to talk about a “mid-career shortstop” six years in.

virgilp 6y ago
In baseball the average retirement age is 32, maybe slightly more recently - so yeah, 26-27 is "mid-career". For your analogy to work, there would have to be no programmers that are 60years old, and very few that are above 40.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  What percentage of people whose job duties are entirely or almost entirely programming would you say are: <40, 40-60, >60?
  - virgilp 6y ago
    Don't know - and I suspect it's heavily dependent on location. Also, if I may add, it's heavily influenced by "production" of programmers (it's really not that old of a job, 40 years ago not that many programmers were graduating from university, compared with 10years ago). Also in the case of my country it's heavily influenced by emigration (basically everybody older than me who could emigrate, did; I'm one of the first generations where it made _some_ sense to stay in the country if you were a programmer). I definitely agree that programmers tend to skew young. But both in my current & previous companies I've worked with plenty "old" programmers - 32 is definitely not retirement age, as it is in baseball. But yes, I also admitted that many tend to move to management, too.

shawabawa3 6y ago

mid-career isn't necessarily a single point It could go: early career is first 5 years. Mid-career is the next 30 years. Late-career is anything after 35 years There's no real definition of these terms so who knows

deleted 6y ago

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jakemal 6y ago

I suspect they are conflating mid-career with mid-level engineer. The latter would generally be around 6 years of experience.