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I find it hard to reconcile the common complaint that software developers are often unemployable past 35 with my personal observations. This is pure anecdata,

by vostok 5y ago

I find it hard to reconcile the common complaint that software developers are often unemployable past 35 with my personal observations. This is pure anecdata, but I don't think I know a single software developer who was unable to continue in the industry past 35 as commonly claimed. On the other hand, I know tons of former financial employees who became unemployable in the industry at 30 or even earlier.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
I work for a large software company that is well-established and has a lot of legacy code. The majority of programmers I work with are in their 30’s and 40’s, myself included. The company does have a reputation for great work-life balance and the product is most decidedly “unsexy”. I wonder if the key difference is the retention, or the fact that the code base takes so much time to understand that young people either stay or jump ship quickly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- majewsky 5y ago
  Tangent: My first job out of college was maintaining parts of one of these seemingly impeneterable legacy codebases. I was allowed to refactor and rewrite stuff, but only if bug-for-bug compatibility was retained. In retrospect, I think this was a blessing in disguise. It was good character-building, setting me up to follow good engineering practices from day one.
rarecoil 5y ago
I can confirm that these statements just don't ring very true at most major technology companies; it may be a thing specifically for startups which I have little recent experience with. I know plenty of people in FAANG, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc. that are still ICs that are well over the age of 35. Ageism may be alive in startups, but in technology as a whole, it doesn't really seem to be a big deal if you are up to date on your skills.
- ptmcc 5y ago
  I think part of it may also be that us "older" folks are not fooled by the startup glitz, and would rather work somewhere with a little more stability and work-life balance. I did the startup thing a bit, it was fun, but I'm mostly over it. I have other things in life I want to focus my time and energy on.
ignoramous 5y ago
> This is pure anecdata, but I don't think I know a single software developer who was unable to continue in the industry past 35 as commonly claimed. Tech industry is ageist. There's a reason why senior+ programmers find it hard to recover their career when detached from the BigTech company they have been long working at. Doubly so, if they work at a company that stack-ranks them at the bottom when they already are on the wrong-side of the 30.
piva00 5y ago
Can confirm, I've been working in this industry since I was 16, around 17 years ago. Since then I've worked with people 30+ and the older I'm getting the more common it got to have colleagues on the 30-50 year old range. I don't see at all this supposed ageism in software, is this skew coming from startup people? Because in startups, yeah, I see mostly youngsters but that's due to the work environment and pay, I refuse to work in startups for the foreseeable future as I did when I was 20-something. The pay is shit, the hours can be grueling, expectations and stress are way way too high for my current lifestyle. Of course, it can be your golden ticket but it's such a major risk that I don't feel I would like to waste 5 years on it.

by vostok 5y ago

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago

I work for a large software company that is well-established and has a lot of legacy code. The majority of programmers I work with are in their 30’s and 40’s, myself included. The company does have a reputation for great work-life balance and the product is most decidedly “unsexy”. I wonder if the key difference is the retention, or the fact that the code base takes so much time to understand that young people either stay or jump ship quickly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
majewsky 5y ago
Tangent: My first job out of college was maintaining parts of one of these seemingly impeneterable legacy codebases. I was allowed to refactor and rewrite stuff, but only if bug-for-bug compatibility was retained. In retrospect, I think this was a blessing in disguise. It was good character-building, setting me up to follow good engineering practices from day one.

rarecoil 5y ago

I can confirm that these statements just don't ring very true at most major technology companies; it may be a thing specifically for startups which I have little recent experience with. I know plenty of people in FAANG, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc. that are still ICs that are well over the age of 35. Ageism may be alive in startups, but in technology as a whole, it doesn't really seem to be a big deal if you are up to date on your skills.

ptmcc 5y ago
I think part of it may also be that us "older" folks are not fooled by the startup glitz, and would rather work somewhere with a little more stability and work-life balance. I did the startup thing a bit, it was fun, but I'm mostly over it. I have other things in life I want to focus my time and energy on.

ignoramous 5y ago

> This is pure anecdata, but I don't think I know a single software developer who was unable to continue in the industry past 35 as commonly claimed. Tech industry is ageist. There's a reason why senior+ programmers find it hard to recover their career when detached from the BigTech company they have been long working at. Doubly so, if they work at a company that stack-ranks them at the bottom when they already are on the wrong-side of the 30.

piva00 5y ago

Can confirm, I've been working in this industry since I was 16, around 17 years ago. Since then I've worked with people 30+ and the older I'm getting the more common it got to have colleagues on the 30-50 year old range. I don't see at all this supposed ageism in software, is this skew coming from startup people? Because in startups, yeah, I see mostly youngsters but that's due to the work environment and pay, I refuse to work in startups for the foreseeable future as I did when I was 20-something. The pay is shit, the hours can be grueling, expectations and stress are way way too high for my current lifestyle. Of course, it can be your golden ticket but it's such a major risk that I don't feel I would like to waste 5 years on it.