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I'm 36 and think I faced similar issues. Was proposed a management role about 3 times. Somehow it felt like the end in general. For my coworkers age isn't as

I'm 36 and think I faced similar issues. Was proposed a management role about 3 times. Somehow it felt like the end in general. For my coworkers age isn't as relevant as simply coding skills. They want to be able to give me any task and be technically lead, if they don't know the technology themselves. I've set a goal for myself: be able to do most of the coding related tasks - including devops, testing, deployment, monitoring - using up-to-date tech stacks. During this weekend I've played around with self hosting and ended up replicating my company's development pipeline. It's quite barebone, but includes a git server (with working ssh clone urls), simple docker based CI pipeline, nexus repo and some management apps. All apps are proxied behind let's encrypt's SSL certificate. I also added a simple google oauth integration so that anybody with google account could quickly set-up their own repos. I don't remember last time I had so much fun to be honest. Also, as a byproduct, I hope, I gained the "hard to get unless you're in trenches" knowledge that is so valuable, when opportunity comes. It does come often in the place I work. This is an example of the general approach I take: make sure to keep technical skills up to date using free time, by setting up goals, which are easy (for me) and fun - the end result should give the "I'm so happy with, what I made" feeling. It shouldn't be forced, because that would make me hate it in the long term. I have a long list of things to try out sometime (computer vision, home automation, simple raspberry pi project, webapp to manage a game we play) and just pick something in free time.

wayoutthere 6y ago
I’m glad you have time for this! I’m 37 and haven’t had time for personal tech projects in years; family, home ownership and life have all gotten in the way. I’m on the management side (senior director equivalent), but I do make more than any of my engineers and I probably spend 50% less time working. I do a mix of people management, architecture design and executive communication, but it’s 95% stuff that falls into “important but not urgent” so I delegate most of what I can. I don’t get the satisfaction of being happy with what I made, but the quarterly bonuses and stock grants make me ok with that :) Management is a great 9-5 job if you do it right, and if you’re a people person it’s super easy. Lots of potential career growth if you’re willing to put in the face time and play politics; your knowledge is less important than your style the further up you go.
- tafox 6y ago
  Are you openly bragging about making more money while working half as much as the people you are supposed to be responsible for? I would be embarrassed to write that.
  - slumpvaldperson 6y ago
    I think a lot of people are in a similar position but not as open and honest about it. I feel refreshed reading it, rather than that it’s something to be embarrassed about. Edit: better english
  - eurekin 6y ago
    To grandparent's defense - I find management genuinely essential and quite impactful. It's a rare occurrence that developers on their own can communicate well with any kind of stakeholder. It might be anecdotal, but I find a high correlation between best technical and worse communication skills. I've seen people, who might be seen as typical 10x developers, cause they were so productive, be extremely bad with speaking about development in general. I've seen product owners literally gnashing their teeth in anger, but holding it up, since the guy really delivers - despite the bad "style". Also, seeing already quite a fair share of stakeholder meetings... The part about style couldn't be closer to the truth. The non-technical people act, as if they didn't hear "99% percentile uptime is so so" or anything similar - at all! What they do hear instead are the speaker's emotions. They want to feel secure and good about going forward. I've seen big budget moves based mostly on that: how well the project was sold to them. Technical merits were irrelevant. Whole teams disbanded, despite being quite productive, because someone got management excited about the new thing (also completely inapplicable to the problem at hand, but with good marketing: e.g. AI, cloud) I find the grandparent just frank. It aligns pretty well with my anecdotal experience. I also think managers should be well compensated, since so much is at stakes (whole team, departments).
  - foogazi 6y ago
    > I would be embarrassed to write that. And working twice as long for half as much
  - 6y ago

wayoutthere 6y ago

I’m glad you have time for this! I’m 37 and haven’t had time for personal tech projects in years; family, home ownership and life have all gotten in the way. I’m on the management side (senior director equivalent), but I do make more than any of my engineers and I probably spend 50% less time working. I do a mix of people management, architecture design and executive communication, but it’s 95% stuff that falls into “important but not urgent” so I delegate most of what I can. I don’t get the satisfaction of being happy with what I made, but the quarterly bonuses and stock grants make me ok with that :) Management is a great 9-5 job if you do it right, and if you’re a people person it’s super easy. Lots of potential career growth if you’re willing to put in the face time and play politics; your knowledge is less important than your style the further up you go.

tafox 6y ago
Are you openly bragging about making more money while working half as much as the people you are supposed to be responsible for? I would be embarrassed to write that.
- slumpvaldperson 6y ago
  I think a lot of people are in a similar position but not as open and honest about it. I feel refreshed reading it, rather than that it’s something to be embarrassed about. Edit: better english
- eurekin 6y ago
  To grandparent's defense - I find management genuinely essential and quite impactful. It's a rare occurrence that developers on their own can communicate well with any kind of stakeholder. It might be anecdotal, but I find a high correlation between best technical and worse communication skills. I've seen people, who might be seen as typical 10x developers, cause they were so productive, be extremely bad with speaking about development in general. I've seen product owners literally gnashing their teeth in anger, but holding it up, since the guy really delivers - despite the bad "style". Also, seeing already quite a fair share of stakeholder meetings... The part about style couldn't be closer to the truth. The non-technical people act, as if they didn't hear "99% percentile uptime is so so" or anything similar - at all! What they do hear instead are the speaker's emotions. They want to feel secure and good about going forward. I've seen big budget moves based mostly on that: how well the project was sold to them. Technical merits were irrelevant. Whole teams disbanded, despite being quite productive, because someone got management excited about the new thing (also completely inapplicable to the problem at hand, but with good marketing: e.g. AI, cloud) I find the grandparent just frank. It aligns pretty well with my anecdotal experience. I also think managers should be well compensated, since so much is at stakes (whole team, departments).
- foogazi 6y ago
  > I would be embarrassed to write that. And working twice as long for half as much
- 6y ago