5 ms·

Do yo see many 55-65 year olds doing technical work at your company? Or any company you’ve been at in the past?

by stcroixx 4y ago

mixmastamyk 4y ago
Why wouldn’t you, other than ageism? How about other professionals like lawyers and doctors?
- majormajor 4y ago
  In software development the other big elephant in the room is the age of the field itself. If the world thirty years ago needed fewer software developers, then you'd have fewer 20 year old new software developers - and that strongly reduces the odds of having as many 50 year old developers today as 20 year old developers today.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    If your definition is focused on javascript slingers, ok. But it’s been ~eighty years since WWII and the Top Secret Rosies and Bletchley Park. Business and govts got the on board with automation early. Population has vastly increased as well, which affects all professions.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      80 years is a very young profession, still. How long have their been lawyers training in university programs? Doctors? The answer is in centuries and so you'd expect a lot more supply/demand equilibrium. How many times has that automation resulted in the business saying "great, things are easier" instead of "great, that's quicker now, let's do more things with the time we freed up?" I've only seen the latter, which just breeds more* need for more automation. You can see it in how much software the average business employee used 40 years ago vs today, even halfway through your timeline.
      - mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Yes, though 80 years of workers is enough for almost everyone starting to be dead already. So “centuries” is not quite as biting as it sounds. Engineering does happen to be that old of course. My father ran his two-person business with spreadsheets, word processing, and games (haha) about 40 years ago. I think people forget how much tech was around in the old days. Moon landing and SR-71 happened in the late sixties. Mythical Man Month talks of the software/PM angle and most chapters apply directly to today.
- kjs3 4y ago
  A couple of years ago I went to a birthday party for a fellow who was one of my attorneys back it the wild, wild dot-bomb days. He's still a respected partner, go-to contract law guy and absolutely as sharp as the day I met him. He was turning 80.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  I don’t know, I’ve seen maybe 10 in my 25 years in the industry and they were mostly all at the start of my career in a mainframe shop. I ‘taught’ them AIX as we moved a critical system off the big iron onto a RISC system. I don’t think I’ve seen any in the wild in over 15 years. Other professions age doesn’t seem to matter much at all.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    At a certain point internet shops refused to hire me, so not surprised you don't see any. (No, I specialize in Python and JS not COBOL so shouldn't be considered out of date.)
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  > other than ageism Ageism is a thing. Then our field is somewhat unique because it's evolving extremely fast, I don't know about Lawyers and Doctors, but I doubt things change nearly as fast. I used to teach CS. I routinely had to teach stuff I just learned a few years before, even in undergraduate classes. Sometimes I learned things from my students... In comparison, my 60 years old maths colleague has been teaching the same linear algebra class his whole life.
jaggederest 4y ago
I'm not sure about others, but as a very young programmer I was lucky enough to be mentored by a succession of 60ish year old seasoned developers still writing code every day. It was very formative and helpful to have a guide who had seen the growth of the modern software industry from infancy forward. I now try to pay back that mentoring investment, and I encourage other people in the last half of their career to do the same - much of the challenge of software as an occupation and avocation is self-doubt and mentoring really helps provide objective feedback and perspective on what is truly important.
- kjs3 4y ago
  One of my first jobs was a consulting gig in the mid-80s with a Very Large Airline that had a strong, effective "train and promote from within" ethic. That meant a lot of people who 1) didn't start out it IT (or often in technology) and 2) lots of folks who had some amount of a career before getting into IT, so trended older. It was extremely formative. My 2 supervisors were in their 50s, and started out slinging bags on the tarmac. Knew their stuff cold...not just about the tech, but how to actually deal with and manage people. Lots of life experience shared with this very green kid who on paper was the technical 'expert'. And because they'd been there and seen waaay more than just the inside of an office, they understood the business we supported intimately. "Knew were all the bodies are buried" was the key phrase. I went on to consult with a Very Large Telco, which had a similar culture of valuing experience and worked with some of the most knowledgeable techs I ever met, most several decades older than me. Shoot...there was a lot of grey hair at IBM when I was there, before someone decided ageism as official corporate policy was a swell idea. And that has made all the difference.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I was lucky enough to be mentored by a succession of 60ish year old seasoned developers still writing code every day. I'm in my late 50s and have been programming professionally for 30 years or so. And, right now, I'm being mentored by 78 year old engineer still writing code every day!
kjs3 4y ago
Hundreds where I'm at now. Same as many places in the past. Not every company sidelines or discards employees based on age.
SimonPStevens 4y ago
To be a 60 year old software engineer now you would have to have started in 1984. (Assuming graduating age 21 and going straight into work*) There just wasn't the same number of developers back then. I can't find good numbers, but according to [1], there were 612,000 developers in the US in 2002, compared to 4.4 million in 2023 in the. It's reasonable to assume that there were probably an order of magnitude less again in 1984. So very little opportunity to become a 60 year old software engineer in 2023. I'd hazard a guess that in another 40 years there will be a lot more 60 year old developers. (Either that, or zero because ChatGPT 15 has taken over) [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demogra... * Yes, I know this doesn't quite hold as I'm sure people switched careers. Particularly early on in the computer industry where I imagine many people switched into software from more technical electrical/hardware type roles. But I still think the major point still stands which is the main reason for the lack of older developers now, is just the lack of younger developers 40 years ago.
- mnky9800n 4y ago
  So a bit more than 1% of all Americans is developing software. I wonder what fraction are truck drivers?
  - umeshunni 4y ago
    Quick search: > 7.99 million people employed throughout the economy in jobs that relate to trucking activity in 2021 so, about 2.5%
    - mnky9800n 4y ago
      fascinating.
    - ptero 4y ago
      To nitpick, the number of actual truck drivers is likely much lower. My guess is 2.5% includes mechanics, loaders, dispatchers, etc.
ncphil 4y ago
Heh. Lots, actually. I'm one of them. Been at my current job for 25 years. Started in tech as a second career when I was 41. A colleague who is actually a year younger than me has been at it for well over 40 years (came on while still in school as a summer intern). In fact, the one thing my hiring director said that really got my attention was, "I've got people out there who are retiring after 30 years". People sometimes forget that tech isn't just about the FAANGs or startups. There are lots of us out here who working for big and small enterprises where 50 years and the gold watch are the norm.
jerhewet 4y ago
67, been paid for throwing code since 1975. Still employed full-time, still enjoying what I do. Wish my job wasn't 20% coding and 80% "DEVOPS", but I guess times have changed ...
freedude 4y ago
My career in IT didn't exist at my place of business that far back. That said one of my coworkers is 53 and started in IT about 15 years ago.
JohnFen 4y ago
> Do yo see many 55-65 year olds doing technical work at your company? Or any company you’ve been at in the past? I have. At the last company I worked for, 3/4 of the devs were over 50. At the company I work for now, about half are. Both companies are doing real cutting-edge stuff requiring skills with modern tools and technologies.
Scubabear68 4y ago
There were far fewer developers back then, so we are hard to find. But I am in that bracket, I started in the late 80’s. Very fortunate timing for me to literally grow up with technology.
sizzzzlerz 4y ago
Raises hand. I retired at 65 in Sept, 2021, closing out a 43 year career as a software engineer, software systems engineer, and, finally, a full systems engineer at retirement. My final job was writing and running test procedures on very complicated signal processing system my company built. I also ran several IR&D programs in what little spare time I had. A number of similarly aged colleagues were doing similar work. Some have retired, a few are still on the job.
burnte 4y ago
I'm in healthcare, and top management, so we don't have a huge IT staff. I transitioned from purely technical work about 8 years ago to avoid the age-ism trap for non-management people. But in general, 30 years ago PCs were still relatively rare as compared to today, and there's a LOT more to the IT industry than being a developer in Silicon Valley. I've met plenty of 50 and 60+ year olds in IT, and a few years ago I had to tap on an 70 year old for some ancient AIX knowledge.
tunesmith 4y ago
There will be a lot more of then in 10-20 years.
spc476 4y ago
At my previous job, I was the youngest person in my group, at 52. The others in my department were alkl developers (even my msnager, who was a developer turned relunctant manager). Many of the other developers were 40+.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Yes, I'm one of them. [edit] I just remembered that before I interviewed for my previous job, the recruiter mentioned that the company preferred to hire "more seasoned" engineers :-)

Do yo see many 55-65 year olds doing technical work at your company? Or any company you’ve been at in the past?

mixmastamyk 4y ago

Why wouldn’t you, other than ageism? How about other professionals like lawyers and doctors?

majormajor 4y ago
In software development the other big elephant in the room is the age of the field itself. If the world thirty years ago needed fewer software developers, then you'd have fewer 20 year old new software developers - and that strongly reduces the odds of having as many 50 year old developers today as 20 year old developers today.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  If your definition is focused on javascript slingers, ok. But it’s been ~eighty years since WWII and the Top Secret Rosies and Bletchley Park. Business and govts got the on board with automation early. Population has vastly increased as well, which affects all professions.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    80 years is a very young profession, still. How long have their been lawyers training in university programs? Doctors? The answer is in centuries and so you'd expect a lot more supply/demand equilibrium. How many times has that automation resulted in the business saying "great, things are easier" instead of "great, that's quicker now, let's do more things with the time we freed up?" I've only seen the latter, which just breeds more* need for more automation. You can see it in how much software the average business employee used 40 years ago vs today, even halfway through your timeline.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      Yes, though 80 years of workers is enough for almost everyone starting to be dead already. So “centuries” is not quite as biting as it sounds. Engineering does happen to be that old of course. My father ran his two-person business with spreadsheets, word processing, and games (haha) about 40 years ago. I think people forget how much tech was around in the old days. Moon landing and SR-71 happened in the late sixties. Mythical Man Month talks of the software/PM angle and most chapters apply directly to today.
kjs3 4y ago
A couple of years ago I went to a birthday party for a fellow who was one of my attorneys back it the wild, wild dot-bomb days. He's still a respected partner, go-to contract law guy and absolutely as sharp as the day I met him. He was turning 80.
stcroixx 4y ago
I don’t know, I’ve seen maybe 10 in my 25 years in the industry and they were mostly all at the start of my career in a mainframe shop. I ‘taught’ them AIX as we moved a critical system off the big iron onto a RISC system. I don’t think I’ve seen any in the wild in over 15 years. Other professions age doesn’t seem to matter much at all.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  At a certain point internet shops refused to hire me, so not surprised you don't see any. (No, I specialize in Python and JS not COBOL so shouldn't be considered out of date.)
yodsanklai 4y ago
> other than ageism Ageism is a thing. Then our field is somewhat unique because it's evolving extremely fast, I don't know about Lawyers and Doctors, but I doubt things change nearly as fast. I used to teach CS. I routinely had to teach stuff I just learned a few years before, even in undergraduate classes. Sometimes I learned things from my students... In comparison, my 60 years old maths colleague has been teaching the same linear algebra class his whole life.

jaggederest 4y ago

I'm not sure about others, but as a very young programmer I was lucky enough to be mentored by a succession of 60ish year old seasoned developers still writing code every day. It was very formative and helpful to have a guide who had seen the growth of the modern software industry from infancy forward. I now try to pay back that mentoring investment, and I encourage other people in the last half of their career to do the same - much of the challenge of software as an occupation and avocation is self-doubt and mentoring really helps provide objective feedback and perspective on what is truly important.

kjs3 4y ago
One of my first jobs was a consulting gig in the mid-80s with a Very Large Airline that had a strong, effective "train and promote from within" ethic. That meant a lot of people who 1) didn't start out it IT (or often in technology) and 2) lots of folks who had some amount of a career before getting into IT, so trended older. It was extremely formative. My 2 supervisors were in their 50s, and started out slinging bags on the tarmac. Knew their stuff cold...not just about the tech, but how to actually deal with and manage people. Lots of life experience shared with this very green kid who on paper was the technical 'expert'. And because they'd been there and seen waaay more than just the inside of an office, they understood the business we supported intimately. "Knew were all the bodies are buried" was the key phrase. I went on to consult with a Very Large Telco, which had a similar culture of valuing experience and worked with some of the most knowledgeable techs I ever met, most several decades older than me. Shoot...there was a lot of grey hair at IBM when I was there, before someone decided ageism as official corporate policy was a swell idea. And that has made all the difference.
JohnFen 4y ago
> I was lucky enough to be mentored by a succession of 60ish year old seasoned developers still writing code every day. I'm in my late 50s and have been programming professionally for 30 years or so. And, right now, I'm being mentored by 78 year old engineer still writing code every day!

kjs3 4y ago

Hundreds where I'm at now. Same as many places in the past. Not every company sidelines or discards employees based on age.

SimonPStevens 4y ago

To be a 60 year old software engineer now you would have to have started in 1984. (Assuming graduating age 21 and going straight into work*) There just wasn't the same number of developers back then. I can't find good numbers, but according to [1], there were 612,000 developers in the US in 2002, compared to 4.4 million in 2023 in the. It's reasonable to assume that there were probably an order of magnitude less again in 1984. So very little opportunity to become a 60 year old software engineer in 2023. I'd hazard a guess that in another 40 years there will be a lot more 60 year old developers. (Either that, or zero because ChatGPT 15 has taken over) [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demogra... * Yes, I know this doesn't quite hold as I'm sure people switched careers. Particularly early on in the computer industry where I imagine many people switched into software from more technical electrical/hardware type roles. But I still think the major point still stands which is the main reason for the lack of older developers now, is just the lack of younger developers 40 years ago.

mnky9800n 4y ago
So a bit more than 1% of all Americans is developing software. I wonder what fraction are truck drivers?
- umeshunni 4y ago
  Quick search: > 7.99 million people employed throughout the economy in jobs that relate to trucking activity in 2021 so, about 2.5%
  - mnky9800n 4y ago
    fascinating.
  - ptero 4y ago
    To nitpick, the number of actual truck drivers is likely much lower. My guess is 2.5% includes mechanics, loaders, dispatchers, etc.

ncphil 4y ago

Heh. Lots, actually. I'm one of them. Been at my current job for 25 years. Started in tech as a second career when I was 41. A colleague who is actually a year younger than me has been at it for well over 40 years (came on while still in school as a summer intern). In fact, the one thing my hiring director said that really got my attention was, "I've got people out there who are retiring after 30 years". People sometimes forget that tech isn't just about the FAANGs or startups. There are lots of us out here who working for big and small enterprises where 50 years and the gold watch are the norm.

jerhewet 4y ago

67, been paid for throwing code since 1975. Still employed full-time, still enjoying what I do. Wish my job wasn't 20% coding and 80% "DEVOPS", but I guess times have changed ...

freedude 4y ago

My career in IT didn't exist at my place of business that far back. That said one of my coworkers is 53 and started in IT about 15 years ago.

JohnFen 4y ago

> Do yo see many 55-65 year olds doing technical work at your company? Or any company you’ve been at in the past? I have. At the last company I worked for, 3/4 of the devs were over 50. At the company I work for now, about half are. Both companies are doing real cutting-edge stuff requiring skills with modern tools and technologies.

Scubabear68 4y ago

There were far fewer developers back then, so we are hard to find. But I am in that bracket, I started in the late 80’s. Very fortunate timing for me to literally grow up with technology.

sizzzzlerz 4y ago

Raises hand. I retired at 65 in Sept, 2021, closing out a 43 year career as a software engineer, software systems engineer, and, finally, a full systems engineer at retirement. My final job was writing and running test procedures on very complicated signal processing system my company built. I also ran several IR&D programs in what little spare time I had. A number of similarly aged colleagues were doing similar work. Some have retired, a few are still on the job.

burnte 4y ago

I'm in healthcare, and top management, so we don't have a huge IT staff. I transitioned from purely technical work about 8 years ago to avoid the age-ism trap for non-management people. But in general, 30 years ago PCs were still relatively rare as compared to today, and there's a LOT more to the IT industry than being a developer in Silicon Valley. I've met plenty of 50 and 60+ year olds in IT, and a few years ago I had to tap on an 70 year old for some ancient AIX knowledge.

tunesmith 4y ago

There will be a lot more of then in 10-20 years.

spc476 4y ago

At my previous job, I was the youngest person in my group, at 52. The others in my department were alkl developers (even my msnager, who was a developer turned relunctant manager). Many of the other developers were 40+.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago

Yes, I'm one of them. [edit] I just remembered that before I interviewed for my previous job, the recruiter mentioned that the company preferred to hire "more seasoned" engineers :-)