3 ms·

I'm in my 24th year now as a Dev, and I can tell you that the career perspective for senior devs is not nearly as dim as you describe. On the contrary, the more

I'm in my 24th year now as a Dev, and I can tell you that the career perspective for senior devs is not nearly as dim as you describe. On the contrary, the more senior I've gotten the more possibilities I have got to move to different countries and/or better salaries. The key is that you have to keep working on your skills to stay valuable for your (next) employer. When you're 40+ you can't compete with a 20 year old anymore when it comes to the ability to work crazy hours. But do you even want that? As a senior you have a big advantage though, and that is your experience. But you have to make sure all the time that that experience is useful. 20 years experience is some dying language has very limited value. But 20 years of studying algorithms or general language concepts can get you almost anywhere. It helps of course if you like what you're doing, not everybody likes to study algorithms all the time. But there are plenty of other specialties around that will always be in demand.

plainnoodles 5y ago
> But 20 years of studying algorithms or general language concepts I don't think that's quite what's valuable though. I'm right in the middle of "senior/not" (~7 years of experience) and I think in general, even our new hires can code fairly well, and can even design quite well. What seniors have over juniors is just battle experience. I liken software devs to jungle guides. Even the best jungle guide hasn't seen every scrap of jungle and probably doesn't even necessarily have the best map of the jungle you're going to go through. But what they do know is how to use a machete and rope like its an extension of their arm, and what all the different kinds of quicksand and poisonous frogs are, and which water holes have clean water. Similarly, experienced software devs are going to know when it feels right to use various stacks of various complexities, when to KISS and when to do big-brain CS stuff, when to argue with someone else's manager and when to pick their battles. They'll just generally be more acquainted with the entire techno-social process of developing software that drives business value. "20 years of studying algorithms or general language concepts" would leave me with a pretty uninterested view of a candidate since those are frequently the least interesting parts of driving business impact.

plainnoodles 5y ago

> But 20 years of studying algorithms or general language concepts I don't think that's quite what's valuable though. I'm right in the middle of "senior/not" (~7 years of experience) and I think in general, even our new hires can code fairly well, and can even design quite well. What seniors have over juniors is just battle experience. I liken software devs to jungle guides. Even the best jungle guide hasn't seen every scrap of jungle and probably doesn't even necessarily have the best map of the jungle you're going to go through. But what they do know is how to use a machete and rope like its an extension of their arm, and what all the different kinds of quicksand and poisonous frogs are, and which water holes have clean water. Similarly, experienced software devs are going to know when it feels right to use various stacks of various complexities, when to KISS and when to do big-brain CS stuff, when to argue with someone else's manager and when to pick their battles. They'll just generally be more acquainted with the entire techno-social process of developing software that drives business value. "20 years of studying algorithms or general language concepts" would leave me with a pretty uninterested view of a candidate since those are frequently the least interesting parts of driving business impact.