3 ms·

This article didn’t touch on the biggest obstacle for career changes: Giving up seniority. The reality is that someone switching to software development mid-ca

This article didn’t touch on the biggest obstacle for career changes: Giving up seniority. The reality is that someone switching to software development mid-career is going to have similar programming knowledge to anyone else who has never had a programming job before. If they’re willing to truly accept going back to junior status with junior pay and defer to team leads and managers who might be younger than themselves, it’s not a problem. But that’s easier said than done for a lot of people. It’s hard to go back to being a junior and it’s hard to be managed by someone much younger than yourself. I’ve worked with a lot of great engineers in their 50s who had no problems reporting to someone in their 20s, but I’ve also worked with some grumpy old guys who wanted their 2-3 decades of work experience to be the trump card in every dispute.

rhacker 5y ago
It shifts in the 50s. Often earlier though. 20 - 25: Please please please everyone 26 - 30: Hey I've been pleasing everyone and everyone loves me so I should be a technical lead now. I'm quitting if that doesn't happen. 31 - 35: Hey I'm pretty much doing this perfectly but the major problem now is that the management layer has no idea how this stuff works. Promote me and I can provide insight into why things are going slow and I can help improve things. 36 - 45: Management layers and potentially vice this or chief "tech" that. 46 - 55: Most major burns and let go for new blood. 56 - Onward until you no longer want to work: Go back to development work and focus more on that getting that pool or a house out in the country. I don't care about climbing the ladder I just want that huge dev salary and take care of myself and wife.
- indemnity 5y ago
  I’m already at the terminal stage at 42 ;) Happy to go back to dev only roles until I retire. Don’t give a shit about titles or org chart any more, since house paid off last month, no debt, a few hundred K in liquid investments. Only reason I went for those roles was to accelerate this time table. Dev compensation in return for no responsibility over people or project execution or deliveries any more is juuust fine by me.
  - yakak 5y ago
    Curious, have you avoided companies with the new fads? I feel like it would be more draining to be an individual dev in an org of young people doing agile than someone with responsibilities in a place that avoids meetings.. But I have been avoiding directly working in agile orgs, so I could be wrong?
    - indemnity 5y ago
      I was in a few startups, but stopped moving around and climbed the org chart with the last acquisition. Kept myself up to date, so I’m pretty comfortable on modern stack infra and backend (avoid front end churn). Agile is everywhere, we work in two week sprints here. But take a more sanguine view towards the metrics, it’s not the end of the world if something slips. I’d love to avoid meetings, my current role leans 70% meetings in my calendar. But I just seem to accumulate architecture, process and delivery responsibilities in whatever team I go into, which is annoying because I love nothing more than head down coding, but I can’t stand things being done the “wrong way” (a.k.a over engineering or under engineering, wrong debt being taken on at the wrong time, etc). And this means meetings and lots of communication.
  - oh-4-fucks-sake 5y ago
    Checking in at 33 in the same boat. I still feel like I have juice in these legs to hit it hard hands-on-keyboard for another decade or two--but I keep getting pushed into a position where I manage/architect-for ~12 devs and growing. If C-suite had its way, I'd probably move full-time into an advisory/admin position on ARBs, OKR initiatives, drawing diagrams ... I feel I'm moving into Peter Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) territory. I don't care about pay bumps--I just want to work full-time as an individual contributor.
- throwaway22032 5y ago
  This feels like the either the 1980s, or more like 'first order approximation' track to me. In reality it's more like, read this online, then you're jaded before you even start so you just go all out. If you tell a 20 year old that at 40 they're going to be in some middle management job still paying off the mortgage they'll laugh you out of the room. Everyone I know is either balls deep FIRE so half of that chart is "on the beach", or doing jobs they enjoy that pay fuck all.
- ckdarby 5y ago
  With this timeline and if you put away 35% of that net income then you can cut the timeline in half. Not by age but by the list. Which results around late 30s and early 40s already retired. Broad assumptions around kids, how many kids, what lifestyle, and moving to a lower cost of living area eventually.
karaterobot 5y ago
> I’ve worked with a lot of great engineers in their 50s who had no problems reporting to someone in their 20s, but I’ve also worked with some grumpy old guys who wanted their 2-3 decades of work experience to be the trump card in every dispute. True, but I bet those grumpy old guys were jerks for other reasons before they had that trump card to play. In other words, some people are just like that, and will use age as an excuse. Relevant personal anecdote: In a previous phase of my career, I made it to director level along a certain track, only to discover the work (and frankly the personal investment) was dangerously unsuitable to my, err, temperament. So I switched careers at age 40, and the second manager I had was only a couple years out of college. She was an amazing, natural manager, much better than I ever was. Why would I get mad about the opportunity to have a good manager, regardless of age? Some people are good at that stuff AND it doesn't drive them insane to do it, so more power to them.
sathomasga 5y ago
> But that’s easier said than done for a lot of people. It's also very easy for some people, myself as an example. I took the standard career path, eventually serving as VP of Engineering and CTO for several startups. (None successful enough to give me FU money, alas.) Now, at age 60, I've gone back to being just a regular developer with a manager 30 years my junior. I love it. No time wasted on worthless meeting, corporate BS, etc. All I do all day is write code. That's what gives me joy, and I'm very fortunate to be able to do it.
- LVB 5y ago
  Can you share more about the transition back? Even a few years away from code and I can feel my fluency waning. As is my appetite to spend my small amount of free time on dev projects just to attempt to stay current. (Such things are fun, but so is time with me kids). But I do have a desire to eventually pivot back to development.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Being fine with someone 20 or 30 years younger than you being your boss is easy. They're just a kid so it's funny, whatever, aww, look at them go. It's when they're 3-10 years younger than you that it can be a challenge for the ol' ego Also, junior pay in programming is better these days than senior pay in almost all other fields
d4rkp4ttern 5y ago
Maybe the seniority issue is only in full time jobs where you are slotted into a hierarchy? I think this is less of an issue if you go the consulting/freelance route.

rhacker 5y ago

It shifts in the 50s. Often earlier though. 20 - 25: Please please please everyone 26 - 30: Hey I've been pleasing everyone and everyone loves me so I should be a technical lead now. I'm quitting if that doesn't happen. 31 - 35: Hey I'm pretty much doing this perfectly but the major problem now is that the management layer has no idea how this stuff works. Promote me and I can provide insight into why things are going slow and I can help improve things. 36 - 45: Management layers and potentially vice this or chief "tech" that. 46 - 55: Most major burns and let go for new blood. 56 - Onward until you no longer want to work: Go back to development work and focus more on that getting that pool or a house out in the country. I don't care about climbing the ladder I just want that huge dev salary and take care of myself and wife.

indemnity 5y ago
I’m already at the terminal stage at 42 ;) Happy to go back to dev only roles until I retire. Don’t give a shit about titles or org chart any more, since house paid off last month, no debt, a few hundred K in liquid investments. Only reason I went for those roles was to accelerate this time table. Dev compensation in return for no responsibility over people or project execution or deliveries any more is juuust fine by me.
- yakak 5y ago
  Curious, have you avoided companies with the new fads? I feel like it would be more draining to be an individual dev in an org of young people doing agile than someone with responsibilities in a place that avoids meetings.. But I have been avoiding directly working in agile orgs, so I could be wrong?
  - indemnity 5y ago
    I was in a few startups, but stopped moving around and climbed the org chart with the last acquisition. Kept myself up to date, so I’m pretty comfortable on modern stack infra and backend (avoid front end churn). Agile is everywhere, we work in two week sprints here. But take a more sanguine view towards the metrics, it’s not the end of the world if something slips. I’d love to avoid meetings, my current role leans 70% meetings in my calendar. But I just seem to accumulate architecture, process and delivery responsibilities in whatever team I go into, which is annoying because I love nothing more than head down coding, but I can’t stand things being done the “wrong way” (a.k.a over engineering or under engineering, wrong debt being taken on at the wrong time, etc). And this means meetings and lots of communication.
- oh-4-fucks-sake 5y ago
  Checking in at 33 in the same boat. I still feel like I have juice in these legs to hit it hard hands-on-keyboard for another decade or two--but I keep getting pushed into a position where I manage/architect-for ~12 devs and growing. If C-suite had its way, I'd probably move full-time into an advisory/admin position on ARBs, OKR initiatives, drawing diagrams ... I feel I'm moving into Peter Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) territory. I don't care about pay bumps--I just want to work full-time as an individual contributor.
throwaway22032 5y ago
This feels like the either the 1980s, or more like 'first order approximation' track to me. In reality it's more like, read this online, then you're jaded before you even start so you just go all out. If you tell a 20 year old that at 40 they're going to be in some middle management job still paying off the mortgage they'll laugh you out of the room. Everyone I know is either balls deep FIRE so half of that chart is "on the beach", or doing jobs they enjoy that pay fuck all.
ckdarby 5y ago
With this timeline and if you put away 35% of that net income then you can cut the timeline in half. Not by age but by the list. Which results around late 30s and early 40s already retired. Broad assumptions around kids, how many kids, what lifestyle, and moving to a lower cost of living area eventually.

karaterobot 5y ago

> I’ve worked with a lot of great engineers in their 50s who had no problems reporting to someone in their 20s, but I’ve also worked with some grumpy old guys who wanted their 2-3 decades of work experience to be the trump card in every dispute. True, but I bet those grumpy old guys were jerks for other reasons before they had that trump card to play. In other words, some people are just like that, and will use age as an excuse. Relevant personal anecdote: In a previous phase of my career, I made it to director level along a certain track, only to discover the work (and frankly the personal investment) was dangerously unsuitable to my, err, temperament. So I switched careers at age 40, and the second manager I had was only a couple years out of college. She was an amazing, natural manager, much better than I ever was. Why would I get mad about the opportunity to have a good manager, regardless of age? Some people are good at that stuff AND it doesn't drive them insane to do it, so more power to them.

sathomasga 5y ago

> But that’s easier said than done for a lot of people. It's also very easy for some people, myself as an example. I took the standard career path, eventually serving as VP of Engineering and CTO for several startups. (None successful enough to give me FU money, alas.) Now, at age 60, I've gone back to being just a regular developer with a manager 30 years my junior. I love it. No time wasted on worthless meeting, corporate BS, etc. All I do all day is write code. That's what gives me joy, and I'm very fortunate to be able to do it.

LVB 5y ago
Can you share more about the transition back? Even a few years away from code and I can feel my fluency waning. As is my appetite to spend my small amount of free time on dev projects just to attempt to stay current. (Such things are fun, but so is time with me kids). But I do have a desire to eventually pivot back to development.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Being fine with someone 20 or 30 years younger than you being your boss is easy. They're just a kid so it's funny, whatever, aww, look at them go. It's when they're 3-10 years younger than you that it can be a challenge for the ol' ego Also, junior pay in programming is better these days than senior pay in almost all other fields

d4rkp4ttern 5y ago

Maybe the seniority issue is only in full time jobs where you are slotted into a hierarchy? I think this is less of an issue if you go the consulting/freelance route.