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How so? The job situation for good developers has never been better. We can make salaries that would have seemed unthinkable two decades ago while working from

How so? The job situation for good developers has never been better. We can make salaries that would have seemed unthinkable two decades ago while working from home and doing something we enjoy.

Grimm1 6y ago
That's true but that is to offset the really negative aspects. How many places never let dev's actually design systems that stand up to scrutiny because the execs don't care if BS is pumped out because as long as the business floats then it doesn't matter. Then the code base becomes a mass of spaghetti that at this point the revolving door of devs have to both figure out and keep alive in ever increasingly stressful situations until they either burn out or move on for greener pastures perpetuating that cycle. So far in my career the split is 60:30:10 places who don't care about actual engineering and run their business on crap, those who recognized things are biting them but the amount of inertia you need to counteract things and rebuild is huge and then the very fine percentage of places that actually have a good culture around engineering. The first is horrible because you're a fungible asset and the job is miserable the second is better but still bad because at this point they do see you as valuable but you're going to be spending your time digging them out of a grave and then the third is just a magical experience where you're valued and the codebase isn't constantly a light breeze away from collapsing. The majority of the industry is in position 1 and I guess we'll see if it ever makes it to 2 or 3. Worth noting that I made high salaries and could work from home in every case but it would be correct to say I continue to enjoy programming in spite of the industry. I also don't think it's a coincidence that companies who are in group 3 are typically leagues ahead of 1 and 2.
- blackrock 6y ago
  How old are you now? Or what age group are you in now? It seems like businesses want the expertise of a 20+ veteran, but want to hire 18 year olds, so they can pay them less, and dangle silly trinkets like free cafeteria food in front of them. Oh and, why is it taking so long to work on it?
- notriddle 6y ago
  The other problem is that there's factors in a company other than, strictly, its engineering culture. I could get a good job, in a good engineering culture, working in adtech, but as long as I have a choice I'd rather not. The place I work instead can charitably be described as "a victim of regulatory capture," but at least I'm working in a business that I believe has a legitimate reason to exist.
  - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
    +1
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
This has not been my experience. It seems that it's a young person's game, and us older folks are not particularly encouraged to participate. Frankly, I've been stunned by the way in which I was treated, in the short period of time I spent looking for work, after leaving my last company. Thankfully, I am not required to work, and have been having the best time I could imagine, since giving up on working for others. Instead, I work with people for free, on projects that I think are constructive and give back to society. I am working from home, doing something that I enjoy tremendously. I'm doing the best work of my life. I just got done refactoring a fairly large backend that I wrote a couple of years ago, and am actually thrilled at the quality (and quantity) of my work. It's driving the application that I'm developing. I wasn't satisfied with some of the popular offerings, and had already written the backend as an exercise, so I used that, instead. It just needed a bit of tweaking to fit the new application. I love programming and system design. I'm really good at it. I write code every single day of my life (My GH profile is solid green, and it's not "gamed"[0]). It's just that I found others are not interested in working with me. It hurt, as I had spent my entire career, working on teams, but I rubbed some dirt on it and walked it off. In the aggregate, I'm actually glad that I went through that. [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff
- wwww4all 6y ago
  Companies look for expertise in older software engineers. They want senior level to help them maintain legacy systems or lead the upgrade to latest tech stack. If backend is your specialty, market oneself as expert in backed solutions using latest stack. The fundamental CS principles never change. Learn the basics of cloud, containers, orchestration, micro services, and inform recruiters about experiences delivering solutions in latest stack. The recruiters will be rushing to your profile and demanding interview slots. Good luck.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    Actually, frontend is my strength. I've written (and shipped) dozens of apps. I'm quite good at "closing" the app development process. I've been shipping (as opposed to just "coding") applications for over thirty years. The backend was just a more challenging project. I won't go into all the reasons that I wrote it, but it works a charm. A dedicated backend engineer could probably do better (actually a dedicated backend team. I'm fairly productive). I'm just glad I have a use for it. I was assuming it would never be used. I wrote it on a lark. Took seven months, but it was fun. I do stuff like that. A number of years ago, I taught myself to program Android, but decided I didn't like it, and never followed through. As far as recruiters...They do rush to my profile. I have a lot of nice buzzwords. As soon as they find out how old I am, though, the call suddenly has "connection problems," and I never hear from them again. I've taken to making sure that my age is clear upfront, just to save time. It's amusing how quickly they start discouraging me. They start by lowballing me, and when I make it clear that I would have no problem working for low wages (I do it for fun, and I don't really need the work), they start trying to find other reasons I wouldn't want the job. Like I said, I bailed on the rat race. It was just making me grumpy.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
A good salary motivates people temporarily or if they are in dire need for money. In the long term, it's far from enough.

How so? The job situation for good developers has never been better. We can make salaries that would have seemed unthinkable two decades ago while working from home and doing something we enjoy.

Grimm1 6y ago

That's true but that is to offset the really negative aspects. How many places never let dev's actually design systems that stand up to scrutiny because the execs don't care if BS is pumped out because as long as the business floats then it doesn't matter. Then the code base becomes a mass of spaghetti that at this point the revolving door of devs have to both figure out and keep alive in ever increasingly stressful situations until they either burn out or move on for greener pastures perpetuating that cycle. So far in my career the split is 60:30:10 places who don't care about actual engineering and run their business on crap, those who recognized things are biting them but the amount of inertia you need to counteract things and rebuild is huge and then the very fine percentage of places that actually have a good culture around engineering. The first is horrible because you're a fungible asset and the job is miserable the second is better but still bad because at this point they do see you as valuable but you're going to be spending your time digging them out of a grave and then the third is just a magical experience where you're valued and the codebase isn't constantly a light breeze away from collapsing. The majority of the industry is in position 1 and I guess we'll see if it ever makes it to 2 or 3. Worth noting that I made high salaries and could work from home in every case but it would be correct to say I continue to enjoy programming in spite of the industry. I also don't think it's a coincidence that companies who are in group 3 are typically leagues ahead of 1 and 2.

blackrock 6y ago
How old are you now? Or what age group are you in now? It seems like businesses want the expertise of a 20+ veteran, but want to hire 18 year olds, so they can pay them less, and dangle silly trinkets like free cafeteria food in front of them. Oh and, why is it taking so long to work on it?
notriddle 6y ago
The other problem is that there's factors in a company other than, strictly, its engineering culture. I could get a good job, in a good engineering culture, working in adtech, but as long as I have a choice I'd rather not. The place I work instead can charitably be described as "a victim of regulatory capture," but at least I'm working in a business that I believe has a legitimate reason to exist.
- hackerfromthefu 6y ago
  +1

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

This has not been my experience. It seems that it's a young person's game, and us older folks are not particularly encouraged to participate. Frankly, I've been stunned by the way in which I was treated, in the short period of time I spent looking for work, after leaving my last company. Thankfully, I am not required to work, and have been having the best time I could imagine, since giving up on working for others. Instead, I work with people for free, on projects that I think are constructive and give back to society. I am working from home, doing something that I enjoy tremendously. I'm doing the best work of my life. I just got done refactoring a fairly large backend that I wrote a couple of years ago, and am actually thrilled at the quality (and quantity) of my work. It's driving the application that I'm developing. I wasn't satisfied with some of the popular offerings, and had already written the backend as an exercise, so I used that, instead. It just needed a bit of tweaking to fit the new application. I love programming and system design. I'm really good at it. I write code every single day of my life (My GH profile is solid green, and it's not "gamed"[0]). It's just that I found others are not interested in working with me. It hurt, as I had spent my entire career, working on teams, but I rubbed some dirt on it and walked it off. In the aggregate, I'm actually glad that I went through that. [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff

wwww4all 6y ago
Companies look for expertise in older software engineers. They want senior level to help them maintain legacy systems or lead the upgrade to latest tech stack. If backend is your specialty, market oneself as expert in backed solutions using latest stack. The fundamental CS principles never change. Learn the basics of cloud, containers, orchestration, micro services, and inform recruiters about experiences delivering solutions in latest stack. The recruiters will be rushing to your profile and demanding interview slots. Good luck.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Actually, frontend is my strength. I've written (and shipped) dozens of apps. I'm quite good at "closing" the app development process. I've been shipping (as opposed to just "coding") applications for over thirty years. The backend was just a more challenging project. I won't go into all the reasons that I wrote it, but it works a charm. A dedicated backend engineer could probably do better (actually a dedicated backend team. I'm fairly productive). I'm just glad I have a use for it. I was assuming it would never be used. I wrote it on a lark. Took seven months, but it was fun. I do stuff like that. A number of years ago, I taught myself to program Android, but decided I didn't like it, and never followed through. As far as recruiters...They do rush to my profile. I have a lot of nice buzzwords. As soon as they find out how old I am, though, the call suddenly has "connection problems," and I never hear from them again. I've taken to making sure that my age is clear upfront, just to save time. It's amusing how quickly they start discouraging me. They start by lowballing me, and when I make it clear that I would have no problem working for low wages (I do it for fun, and I don't really need the work), they start trying to find other reasons I wouldn't want the job. Like I said, I bailed on the rat race. It was just making me grumpy.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

A good salary motivates people temporarily or if they are in dire need for money. In the long term, it's far from enough.