4 ms·

I'd love to see a survey of what developers do as they age, how many leave the industry, why, and to do what. I'm 43 and I'm the oldest person on my team by aro

by allenu 5y ago

I'd love to see a survey of what developers do as they age, how many leave the industry, why, and to do what. I'm 43 and I'm the oldest person on my team by around 5-15 years. My manager is younger, my coworkers are younger, even my manager's manager is younger. Earlier in my career, most people I worked with were older than me, which makes sense, but what happened to all those people? Did the industry just expand so much that I can't find them? Or did I just join a company that attracts younger devs? I know for me, I'd like to still be programming when I'm 50, but I'm already souring on the "working in a medium to large company" aspect. The coding is still fun, and the money is great, but the process of making software in the context of a corporation isn't.

teddyh 5y ago
There is a case to be made that since the number of programmers are increasing to the point of approximately doubling the number of programmers every five years, every old programmer could still potentially be active in the field, but constantly be more and more obscured by the ever-increasing mass of new programmers, and all the programmers you see around you should have on average less than five years’ experience. In other words, nothing happened to those older people, except that they are now dispersed among an ocean of new programmers.
- lliamander 5y ago
  A lot of the economics around software and programming are going to change as that rate of growth slows.
  - jonfw 5y ago
    We will see. One thing programmers have always seemed to be really good at is producing more work for programmers :)
- codetrotter 5y ago
  > the number of programmers are increasing to the point of approximately doubling the number of programmers every five years Like a Moore's Law but for computer programmers.
hhjj 5y ago
I think they jump without return...
beambot 5y ago
Purely anecdotal, but many of the older Software Engineers I know in the Bay Area "retire" or "FIRE" in their early-to-mid 40s -- i.e. they are financial secure and they choose to either (a) move to a LCOL area and stop working entirely, or (b) they forego W2 income for side projects and part-time work -or- work on passion jobs.
zsmi 5y ago
According to this BLS report [1] in 1989 the US had 739K "computer and data processing" jobs. By 1999 it was 1830K. Wikipedia say there were nearly 21M "software developers" by 2016 [2]. I'm pretty sure our industry hasn't gotten any smaller so, basically, we just got really diluted. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/12/art1full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/12/art1full.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph...
ryandrake 5y ago
Sample size = 1, I'm closing in on 50 and moved from programming to product management and then project management about 10 years ago. It was a significant compensation hit, and the skill gap took a lot to overcome (I am a much better programmer than project manager), but overall I am happy with the change. I took a look at my trajectory in my 30s and didn't like what I saw: 1. I didn't want to be a JIRA ticket monkey for the rest of my life, and people management seemed way out of reach. 2. The "win the battle, lose the war" pattern of projects started getting demoralizing: You're developer #21190 on the team, make the best technical decisions in your little corner of the product, but after a year it gets canceled or fails because some decision maker way above you on the totem pole blew a deadline/estimate by an order of magnitude. It's tiring to do your best work on projects pre-doomed to fail. 3. Work life balance sucks as a developer. I spent countless nights working through to 2AM to meet my ever-increasing ticket goals. 4. The technology-of-the-month treadmill gets you nowhere. I'm all for learning new things, but the constant emphasis on switching to a new fashionable framework just because it is new and fashionable, and just to put another keyword on your resume, is IMO a waste of learning. All in all I felt like a well-paid cog under enormous pressure to always be cogging harder.
- avenger123 5y ago
  I definitely can relate to Point 4. I think one way of countering this is to focus on a platform versus the base technologies. In particular, I am thinking along the lines of doing development work with the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics or SAP. The years of experience are valued more and the rate of change is inherently slower. The obvious downside is that the development work itself may not be as interesting but that can be mitigated somewhat on the projects one takes on within these platforms.
- allenu 5y ago
  I agree with all your points, although I'm lucky that where I'm working today, #3 is not an issue, but it has been before. I absolutely agree with #2. I definitely got demoralized over the years when I realized even if I did a good job, the project could fail in so many other ways, often due to decisions much higher up in the chain. All these issues are harder to live with as you mature. You can live with them a bit more when you're young since you're still naive and may not be aware of them or even care.
JohnFen 5y ago
I'm in my mid-50s, and have been programming professionally for over 30 years. I'm not the oldest or most experienced person on my team, though! I have no intention to stop programming. I don't program because there's money in it, but because that's what I truly like to do -- so the thing that attracts me to certain positions isn't pay, but how interesting the work they're offering is, and whether I'll learn new things from it. The question I face isn't if I will me doing development in the future, it's if I will be doing it at the place I currently work.
- brian_cunnie 5y ago
  > I have no intention to stop programming... because that's what I truly like to do I'm 57, and I completely agree.

by allenu 5y ago

teddyh 5y ago

There is a case to be made that since the number of programmers are increasing to the point of approximately doubling the number of programmers every five years, every old programmer could still potentially be active in the field, but constantly be more and more obscured by the ever-increasing mass of new programmers, and all the programmers you see around you should have on average less than five years’ experience. In other words, nothing happened to those older people, except that they are now dispersed among an ocean of new programmers.

lliamander 5y ago
A lot of the economics around software and programming are going to change as that rate of growth slows.
- jonfw 5y ago
  We will see. One thing programmers have always seemed to be really good at is producing more work for programmers :)
codetrotter 5y ago
> the number of programmers are increasing to the point of approximately doubling the number of programmers every five years Like a Moore's Law but for computer programmers.

hhjj 5y ago

I think they jump without return...

beambot 5y ago

Purely anecdotal, but many of the older Software Engineers I know in the Bay Area "retire" or "FIRE" in their early-to-mid 40s -- i.e. they are financial secure and they choose to either (a) move to a LCOL area and stop working entirely, or (b) they forego W2 income for side projects and part-time work -or- work on passion jobs.

zsmi 5y ago

According to this BLS report [1] in 1989 the US had 739K "computer and data processing" jobs. By 1999 it was 1830K. Wikipedia say there were nearly 21M "software developers" by 2016 [2]. I'm pretty sure our industry hasn't gotten any smaller so, basically, we just got really diluted. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/12/art1full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/12/art1full.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demograph...

ryandrake 5y ago

Sample size = 1, I'm closing in on 50 and moved from programming to product management and then project management about 10 years ago. It was a significant compensation hit, and the skill gap took a lot to overcome (I am a much better programmer than project manager), but overall I am happy with the change. I took a look at my trajectory in my 30s and didn't like what I saw: 1. I didn't want to be a JIRA ticket monkey for the rest of my life, and people management seemed way out of reach. 2. The "win the battle, lose the war" pattern of projects started getting demoralizing: You're developer #21190 on the team, make the best technical decisions in your little corner of the product, but after a year it gets canceled or fails because some decision maker way above you on the totem pole blew a deadline/estimate by an order of magnitude. It's tiring to do your best work on projects pre-doomed to fail. 3. Work life balance sucks as a developer. I spent countless nights working through to 2AM to meet my ever-increasing ticket goals. 4. The technology-of-the-month treadmill gets you nowhere. I'm all for learning new things, but the constant emphasis on switching to a new fashionable framework just because it is new and fashionable, and just to put another keyword on your resume, is IMO a waste of learning. All in all I felt like a well-paid cog under enormous pressure to always be cogging harder.

avenger123 5y ago
I definitely can relate to Point 4. I think one way of countering this is to focus on a platform versus the base technologies. In particular, I am thinking along the lines of doing development work with the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics or SAP. The years of experience are valued more and the rate of change is inherently slower. The obvious downside is that the development work itself may not be as interesting but that can be mitigated somewhat on the projects one takes on within these platforms.
allenu 5y ago
I agree with all your points, although I'm lucky that where I'm working today, #3 is not an issue, but it has been before. I absolutely agree with #2. I definitely got demoralized over the years when I realized even if I did a good job, the project could fail in so many other ways, often due to decisions much higher up in the chain. All these issues are harder to live with as you mature. You can live with them a bit more when you're young since you're still naive and may not be aware of them or even care.

JohnFen 5y ago

I'm in my mid-50s, and have been programming professionally for over 30 years. I'm not the oldest or most experienced person on my team, though! I have no intention to stop programming. I don't program because there's money in it, but because that's what I truly like to do -- so the thing that attracts me to certain positions isn't pay, but how interesting the work they're offering is, and whether I'll learn new things from it. The question I face isn't if I will me doing development in the future, it's if I will be doing it at the place I currently work.

brian_cunnie 5y ago
> I have no intention to stop programming... because that's what I truly like to do I'm 57, and I completely agree.