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I'm thinking feeling 'not as sharp' is exacerbating the growing skills gap. There's ALWAYS been stuff I didn't know, It's just that now that seems to be acceler

I'm thinking feeling 'not as sharp' is exacerbating the growing skills gap. There's ALWAYS been stuff I didn't know, It's just that now that seems to be accelerating and I'm not as well equipped to handle it. Doubly so where security is concerned. You used to secure something by knowing all aspects of the application...you knew the OS, the software, the firewall rules, you had a small batch of logs you could conceivably review. Now it's fully automated and just....goes. A deceptively small action produces a substantial result, 99% of it being abstracted away.

Jtsummers 6y ago
If you're feeling it to be too difficult (or you lack the desire) to keep up with all the changes, you still have a lot of knowledge and experience. It may be time to change the kinds of places you work at and what you work on. As an example, I have worked in the defense and aerospace industry (so far my whole career, working on changing that). We get a lot of people coming to us at 50+ and 60+ years old with a lot of useful knowledge that's more applicable to our domain than most other domains, even though they weren't in our field before. This works because, even though many of our projects are new, they're still very much "legacy" in the way things work and the languages and tools used. You could explore employers who have those kind of legacy systems that you have expertise in. Either to help extend their useful life, or to help dismantle them and migrate to a more "modern" (whatever that means to them) system.
runjake 6y ago
It might feel like being "not as sharp", but perhaps it's more self-awareness. As I grow older, I'm not any dumber or less wise, but I'm definitely far more aware of what I don't know. Additionally, technology systems are getting more and more complex, which exacerbates the feeling. This is a big reason why I focus hard on and continually revisit the fundamentals. Being an expert on the fundamentals of systems will save you.

Jtsummers 6y ago

If you're feeling it to be too difficult (or you lack the desire) to keep up with all the changes, you still have a lot of knowledge and experience. It may be time to change the kinds of places you work at and what you work on. As an example, I have worked in the defense and aerospace industry (so far my whole career, working on changing that). We get a lot of people coming to us at 50+ and 60+ years old with a lot of useful knowledge that's more applicable to our domain than most other domains, even though they weren't in our field before. This works because, even though many of our projects are new, they're still very much "legacy" in the way things work and the languages and tools used. You could explore employers who have those kind of legacy systems that you have expertise in. Either to help extend their useful life, or to help dismantle them and migrate to a more "modern" (whatever that means to them) system.

runjake 6y ago

It might feel like being "not as sharp", but perhaps it's more self-awareness. As I grow older, I'm not any dumber or less wise, but I'm definitely far more aware of what I don't know. Additionally, technology systems are getting more and more complex, which exacerbates the feeling. This is a big reason why I focus hard on and continually revisit the fundamentals. Being an expert on the fundamentals of systems will save you.