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Similarly, my husband is a commercial pilot and is now starting to make more money than me in tech after his 10+ years of underpaid work and a high student loan

Similarly, my husband is a commercial pilot and is now starting to make more money than me in tech after his 10+ years of underpaid work and a high student loan debt load. But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. I imagine your wife will be seen the same way. She can comfortably work until retirement age, in an profession that sees experience as a positive thing, while you might be a pariah before you know it. Yes, we make good money when we're young in tech. But we age out much more quickly due to the bias common in our industry.

egl2021 3y ago
"he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65" ...unless he fails the flight physical.
mrits 3y ago
If you were bringing in a competitive salary in tech for the last 20 years you don't even need to work anymore. So there is that..
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  BLS says US median programmer salary in the US was just under $100,000 last year. 20 years of a normal US tech salary won't let you retire. A top-few-percent one, maybe.
  - mrits 3y ago
    That was a competitive salary when I started in 2005.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Well, it'd also represent a raise for about 50% of programmers in 2022. [EDIT] Further: "The lowest 10 percent earned less than $54,310, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $157,690." (in 2022, still). The ones who can retire in 20 years are making (ballpark) top-5%-of-field wages most or all of that time. [EDIT EDIT] I didn't pick the best category for this, but the numbers only skew up 25ish % for the most-relevant one. Not a single BLS computer job category has a median particularly close to "retire in 20 years at this income" money. FAANG, finance, and a small segment of the startup market that's in that same category—yeah. Almost all the rest? No.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    They classified people we don't think of as programmers as programmers. Classic job stats mistake.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Ok, sure, that's one category and some of the others do have a higher median. Some of what we think of as "programmers" or "developers" will actually land in other categories, and also some we don't, will too. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... But still, even the top-median category, "Computer and Information Research Scientists", doesn't have "retire in 20 years" median wages.
  - polyomino 3y ago
    What's the distribution of experience though? In a fast growing field, most will be early in career, which will push this metric down relative to established fields with little growth.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      The question's whether 20 years of a "competitive" tech salary is enough money to retire. I think one must have a very-skewed, bubble-bound definition of "competitive" for that to be plausibly true. Programming jobs don't pay enough to grant easy-mode early retirement for most of our field—even in the US.
  - woobar 3y ago
    First, Computer Programmer is a strange occupation. According to BLS there are just 147K positions in the US. Instead I'd suggest looking at Software Developers (1.5M positions) with median income at $127K. Second, by definition median is not a competitive salary. I'd think top 25% of devs are getting competitive salary. Which is $161K [1] 20 years of savings at 30% of income will get you $2M. Which is not a fat retirement, but still doable. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#nat https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#nat
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      > Second, by definition median is not a competitive salary. Yes, it is. For the field as a whole? Yes, it absolutely is. For specific segments of it? No. Some of those are higher. And others are lower. > 20 years of savings at 30% of income will get you $2M. Which is not a fat retirement, but still doable. Healthcare complicates early retirement badly in the US. Retire at (say) 45 with only $2m in the bank and you are... gambling. To put it mildly. Even if you live reasonably frugally.
      - rootusrootus 3y ago
        > Healthcare complicates early retirement badly in the US. Retire at (say) 45 with only $2m in the bank and you are... gambling. To put it mildly. Even if you live reasonably frugally. 100% this. I'm almost 50, and as I look towards retirement, I think I should try to find a cushy job that'll last me to 65 without causing too much stress, because until you qualify for Medicare it's really hard to afford health insurance premiums unless you're fashionably wealthy.
        manzanarama 3y ago
        Really, what is a good ballpark for a family of 4? Is it like 5k a month?
        madengr 3y ago
        [dead]
  - randomdata 3y ago
    The median income is ~$30,000. That means you have ~$70,000 to invest each year. If we assume a 5% rate of return, you'll have ~$2MM after 20 years. At the same rate, that will continue to provide you $100,000 each year in retirement. Bad luck can happen, but generally speaking retirement should have been quite easy with that kind of income.
    - adra 3y ago
      I love your optimism. Some may be able to live off software at 30k/yr making 100/yr "somewhere", but not most places. My rent started at around 40% of my take home and adding taxes alone, my pay rate was well under this 70% fantasy which doesn't even begin to address any other "incidental" living expenses like food, transport, children, elderly, school loans, etc......
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > My rent started at around 40% of my take home You were paying ~$3,000 per month for rent 20 years ago? I remember renting a place 22 years ago for $250 per month. Maybe you were in some super insane cost of living area, but if that's the case, why would you accept just an average developer salary? Average salaries are for average places.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Median topped $40k in 2022. The (just under) $100k is pre-tax. You won't get much social security when you hit "retirement age" if you retire after only 20 years of working at that level of income, so you'll need more savings at that age than others do. $100k/yr is a 5% withdrawal rate on $2 million, which might be a "safe" rate at normal retirement age (debatable) but is risky as hell if you start doing it at 45 and don't plan to die in your 60s. If you've been saving that aggressively (as cash/investments), you won't own your own house, or at least, you definitely won't be anywhere near paying it off. That significantly raises your costs in retirement. You have significant risk from healthcare costs until you hit medicare age (and even then...). You're probably looking at $5k-10k a year in premiums (individual) at age 45+, and still five figures of annual risk exposure despite already paying that much. Retiring on $2m at 45 would be very likely to end in failure, even as an individual supporting only yourself.
- irrational 3y ago
  What is a competitive salary? Do you mean the small fraction of programmers that work for FAANG companies? Or do you mean the more normal salaries the vast majority of programmers make at non-FAANG companies? I’ve worked for the past 20 years and am as far from not needing to work anymore as my first day. Well, that isn’t strictly true, but my 401k only has about 33-50% of what it needs for me to retire. I have no savings beyond that.
  - mrits 3y ago
    I didn't realize anyone could go to medical school.
    - dmoy 3y ago
      Maybe a little overly sarcastic, but there's a real point there: Not everyone can get into med school (~5% acceptance rate?), but even more disturbingly some people get out of med school with tons of debt, and then either fail their step 2 or don't pass quickly enough to get a residency. Or fail boards after residency. Then you're in a really shitty position, with hundreds of thousands of debt but no ability to practice medicine.
      - squigglingAvia 3y ago
        Thing is which med school you’ll go will determine your debt load. Not all med schools charge the same rate.
        radlad 3y ago
        And also your board exams success rate!
- sokoloff 3y ago
  That depends exclusively on your savings rate (which dictates your years-needed-to-retire): https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... Most people aren't saving ~43% of their take-home pay, no matter how much they earn.
encoderer 3y ago
I’m 41 and I totally understand this sentiment. A silver lining is that the tech industry is just so much larger now than it was when we started, a trend I think will continue, and there are now tons of jobs where it’s really helpful to also be a developer. Some examples: Developer and marketer/technical writer - selling to other devs is a giant business now and it often takes devs to make that content. Developer and SRE - we live in the world of huge scaled our saas businesses where there are always support issues too advanced to be handled by non-devs Developer and project manager - everybody has worked with non-dev project managers and it’s usually terrible. Developer and people manager - there are so many more eng manager roles than there used to be, and moving to the management side is a well worn path now. Developer and product manager - you have to develop a lot of new skills but in this role a past life as a developer can give you super powers. That said, I moved first into people management and then into running a small software company which sort of demands a little bit of all of those skills
- okdood64 3y ago
  > Developer and SRE I'd say these are pretty interchangeable in one's career if they wanted to. The others not so much.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    If you're 20+ years experience and not any good as at least a project manager, I think your core skills are also pretty suspect.
    - pipes 3y ago
      You mean your core tech skills will be suspect if you aren't a decent project manager? Well that's a depressing thought. Though in my experience so far we have dedicated project managers. But maybe you are right.
      - morelisp 3y ago
        I think dedicated project managers are a good idea to keep people focused, but I also think if you've been buildings things for 20 years you should have absorbed enough of the process to be at least basically capable at it. That's not really true of people management (an entirely different skillset) or technical writing (though it's a bit closer) or even product management (but if you code mostly customer-facing features, probably you should have picked up a lot of this too). If you've just been a "turn the crank" developer implementing someone else's sprint-scoped tickets for 20 years, you probably topped out after around five years. (Or you're doing all the interesting stuff outside work, in which case... you definitely have project management skills.)
pcthrowaway 3y ago
I'm almost 40, never made good money... this makes me sad
- lnsru 3y ago
  Join the club. I did good money once with tiny startup exit. Salary is just enough to pay for food, mortgage and vacations.
- llsf 3y ago
  I am almost 50, and my partner (ophthalmologist) always made more than me as developer, and architect. But to be fair, I only worked for small startups in the Bay, and startups that did not make big. Not complaining, but a bit worried for the next decade though. Especially as I am super busy at work, so much that I cannot spend time on programming anymore.
- randomdata 3y ago
  A case of the keeping up with the Joneses syndrome? Recent figures are not readily available, but as of 10 years ago a yearly income of $32,000 was enough to put you in the global top 1%. Adjusted for inflation, that is around $42,000 today. Interestingly, the median income in the USA is $41,535, so it is likely that half of all Americans are in the top 1%. Although I would think that "good money" would cast a larger net than just the top 1%. Surely at least a 75th percentile income would be considered "good" by most? As such, it is likely that a $20-30,000 income is "good money". If you have not even made that much at some point over the past 25 or so years that you have been of working age, how can you afford to be here?
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    it's a bit disingenuous to compare US citizens to 3rd world countries. yes, it's technically true, but no one with a 3rd world income would ever be able to afford to live in the US, they'd be homeless. its apples and oranges.
    - randomdata 3y ago
dboreham 3y ago
Until AI is flying planes...
- bdamm 3y ago
  I could not feel comfortable as a passenger on a commercial airliner without a human on board that could take over and fly the plane manually. There are all kinds of failure scenarios where a computer, AI or not, would get confused. Even just the specter of malware is enough for me to expect a human being, that values their own life, is able to take over.
  - AussieWog93 3y ago
    >Even just the specter of malware is enough for me to expect a human being, that values their own life, is able to take over. I'd be more concerned abouta human going insane than malware. I'd imagine they're mostly fly by wire anyway, so a virus could theoretically just disable the human input.
    - bdamm 3y ago
      Airbus designs are substantially fly by wire, although supposedly with an isolated control system. Boeing designs are isolated electro-hydraulic. There's a big difference between isolating a single control link vs an entire control system comprising of, at least, a corpus database and all the supporting code that streams inputs and actuates outputs.
    - sgarland 3y ago
      I assume / hope that there still exists manual hydraulic controls for the control surfaces. Maybe not in the cockpit, but somewhere accessible in flight in an emergency. Modern U.S. submarines are also fly-by-wire, but hydraulic overrides are in the engine room in case of emergency.
  - saghm 3y ago
    > I could not feel comfortable as a passenger on a commercial airliner without a human on board that could take over and fly the plane manually. There are all kinds of failure scenarios where a computer, AI or not, would get confused. "Person there just in case to take over in the rare case of emergencies" might not be as well paid as "person who's responsible for the plane at all times". Plus, if you're concerned about malware, you'll probably want a person still involved in vetting the code outputted by some hypothetical AI, so there would still be at least some engineering jobs.
borkt 3y ago
I hope you’re correct but the very realistic possibility of SPO (single Pilot Operations) is what pushed myself - and many others like me - away from the career. The current pilot shortage was by design, as the airlines were well aware of the issue and had many ways to avoid it. I’m still of the mind the current shortage (and short term plans to mitigate it) are just to hold them over long enough to end the current 2-pilot system and bring the standard to single pilot operations
- freedomben 3y ago
  Wouldn't that require FAA complicity? And do you think pilot unions would allow it? Do they have power to stop it?
  - textide 3y ago
    I think the biggest obstacle will be public acceptance of a single pilot at the helm. It would take some serious backup tech assurances and maybe a generation's worth of time before it happens.
laserlight 3y ago
> he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65 There's no such guarantee in any of the professions.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  True but it's likely, unless fully-autonomous commercial airliners are developed. There's a shortage of pilots as well, and unlike most other careers, they have to retire at 65 (or maybe younger?).
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    They're one failed First Class Medical exam away from losing it.
  - rvba 3y ago
    Even if autonomous aircraft are developed, will the "old" planes be converted? Could they be converted without tons of changes? Sounds unlikely.
    - patall 3y ago
      Doesn't necessarily matter when its rich countries (or their carriers) that buy the new planes and out of a sudden, pilots have the choice of flying for an indonesian island hopper or not at all.
    - Clamchop 3y ago
      Planes are typically in service for decades but if they could eliminate the pilots, that could very well change the calculus. But, public mistrust of a pilotless plane might very well put the kibosh on that for a long time. People have trouble trusting air travel as it is, doesn't matter if it's irrational, and they usually know that it is.
      - sfn42 3y ago
        Imagine a lottery where instead of winning, you die in a terrifying way. That's flying. You enter into an aluminium can, and from that point you are completely helpless, whatever happens. The only thing you can do if something goes wrong is assume the fetal position and hope. And yes, life is pretty much like that. You could get cancer or get hit by a car or a meteorite for that matter, but even these things feel more controlled. I can pay attention to my surroundings to avoid getting hit by a car. I can potentially treat cancer. I could probably not do much against a meteorite or gamma ray burst or whatever cosmic thing might happen but that stuff feels less real anyway. I agree that the fear of flying is somewhat irrational, but at the same time I think it's a valid fear especially in light of things like Russia shooting down passenger planes, the whole Boeing Max 8 thing etc.
rstuart4133 3y ago
> But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. Errr, I'm 64, generally get a title like "senior programmer", and have switched jobs a few times recently and didn't have a day out of work. I expect to be going for a few years yet - in fact I expect your husband will be forced into retirement, whereas I will chose my time. Moreover, I have quite a few software engineering friends or about the same age. It's the same for them. Some are still working, some not. But in every case it's been their choice, they weren't forced into it by the industry.
- silisili 3y ago
  Thanks for posting. It's something that concerns me as I head into my 40's, so it's really nice to read anecdotes from folks showing there are opportunities for those getting up there in age.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  I'm 45 and have often wondered if I'm just lucky, based upon your post my experience isn't nearly as unique as many seem to think. I wonder if it's more about skill level (certainly I'd like to think so :])
manzanarama 3y ago
Maybe I am naïve but I don't get this age vibe really. I do backend java distributed system stuff for a large company. A lot of my peers and managers are "older" 40s and 50s with kids. A lot of the work is high collaborative and design focused. Maybe I am just in a bubble of an aging tech stack but it does seem like we are always using "new" (at least different) databases, caching, and network layers to stay somewhat current. Its hard to imagine that 5,10,15 years of distributed systems and system design experience and knowledge along with domain knowledge and social skills will be all of a sudden be so irrelevant that it is worth phasing all of us "old guys" out for someone who happened to learn the newest programming language straight out of school. We are constantly expected to learn the new stuff and will just a project assigned with a mandate "okay this is to be done in spring boot, using this DB, this HTTP layer, etc...
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  It's still unfortunately common, because there are always young workers in the pipeline. HP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38043552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38043552 ("It took seven years but over-40s fired by HP win $18M settlement") IBM: https://www.diversityjobs.com/career-advice/team-building/how-tech-giants-have-been-getting-away-with-age-discrimination/ https://www.diversityjobs.com/career-advice/team-building/ho... (Control-f "Sources") https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/ https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a... ("ProPublica: Cutting 'Old Heads' at IBM") https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/17/prior-ageism-allegations-at-google-facebook-and-ibm-raise-concerns-about-older-workers-being-targeted-for-termination/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/17/prior-agei... ("Prior Ageism Allegations At Google, Facebook And IBM Raise Concerns About Older Workers Being Targeted For Termination") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932680 ("HN: Ageism is forcing many to look outside Silicon Valley") https://www.orangecountyemploymentlawyersblog.com/dfeh-90-age-discrimination-complaints-filed-against-tech-firms-since-2012/ https://www.orangecountyemploymentlawyersblog.com/dfeh-90-ag... ("DFEH: 90 Age Discrimination Complaints Filed Against Tech Firms Since 2012")
- simonbarker87 3y ago
  It’s the bubble of very online people and start up culture who think tech people age out at 40. I know plenty of devs in theirs 50s, after that they just take early retirement since they’ve earned enough. Most devs aren’t terminally online, they treat coding as a job not a lifestyle and for them it’s just like any other industry - so you don’t hear from them. Also, some devs retire into SQL and DBA like work since you can basically make yourself unfireable if you want to coast out the last decade of your career.
atleastoptimal 3y ago
Here's the thing. There won't be "tech work" or any kind of work in 5 years due to AGI. In fact any long term plans at this point seem silly. AI is going to make all human labor irrelevant.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Your husband is also in the position where any mental issue and a lot of physical health issues will force an early retirement. And if he wants to make the big bucks, there are not that many companies to work for (~10 mainline carriers in the US at the moment), and the seniority rules suck.
SystemOut 3y ago
I think the ageism thing is not as big of an issue anymore. Yes, you will see it in startups that are run by 20somethings but I'm in my early 50s and haven't had any problem staying employed or getting offers. If you stagnate skills wise or stop trying to grow/evolve your abilities then you definitely will have issues but that's true in many industries, not just ours.
- ido 3y ago
  As someone whose done a lot of hiring (at several companies), senior devs with a lot of (applicable) experience can always find work even if they’re “old” (40/50/60+). But career changers will have a rough time - e.g. I remember a social worker who went back to school in his late 30s looking for an internship(as a developer), he had a much harder time getting hired than someone in the same position in their early 20s.
Racing0461 3y ago
I wouldnt be so sure. aviation is ripe for automation (and planes can even land on its own now.). I can see airline companies pushing for only 1 pilot in the cockpit.
bsder 3y ago
> Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. I disagree. Go to some technical meetups. At practically all of them I have seen people offering jobs to both juniors and greybeards. The biggest problem everybody is having right now is connecting. The garbage in the middle is clogging everything up. So, everybody is going back to the old tried and true, the weak social network of in-person acquaintances. Yeah, you have to not suck and you have to keep your skills up-to-date. But, that's true whether you are 20 or 60.
TheGRS 3y ago
I question the aging out aspect of software dev on a career level. Yes you might get agism at trendy companies started by and heavily employing young people, but there are many software companies out there with many industries now employing software divisions, and the heavy demand I always see is for senior developers with experience. One “problem” in software: it’s really difficult to coast for a long period of time without training up new skills. You can certainly do it, but eventually the industry shifts underneath you. So the cushy senior Java dev position in a particular service might be able to last you for a decade or more at some companies, but I think most developers agree that if you want to keep getting better salaries you need to stay on top of trends and keep reeducating yourself. And I don’t really see this as a problem as much as a feature of tech, but if you’re looking for predictability in a career I think it’s a tough thing to get in tech.
enraged_camel 3y ago
I mean, mathematically speaking, having your high-income years happen earlier in life is significantly better because of the way compound interest works.
- gorlilla 3y ago
  What do you do when 'high-earning' last decade is somewhat laughable to this one? Was compounding worth it when inflation just gobbled up all of the effort you out into those earnings faster than interest could compound? It's been a rough couple of decades afterall.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Some napkin paper math. I googled "largest index fund" and got these 3 results: Vanguard 500: 3x return over last 10 years Vanguard total stock market index fund: 2x over last 10 years SWPPX: 3x over last 10 years. Google is telling me inflation from 2013 to 2023 is 41%. So even with inflation accounted for you're looking at a 50-150% ROI over 10 years. Maybe I just got incredibly lucky picking index funds, so I googled the total market capitalization of US domestic companies and that grew from about 15 to 30 trillion. This stat seems to be wonkier, other estimates claim 45 trillion (probably a more inclusive estimate counting smaller companies). But TL;DR: No, inflation did not gobble up the returns on investments
    - hnfong 3y ago
      It depends on how you measure "inflation". The standard way is to measure the amount of stuff money can buy, where "stuff" is daily necessities and so on. But prices are just relative. It can be argued that such daily necessities like food, clothes, etc. have actually gotten "cheaper", and the increases in stock and other asset prices are a function of how much money is printed by central banks. (There's a strong correlation there, at least.) It's not the standard narrative, but it's something to think about in such cases where these numbers are absolutely crucial to your life plans. There's also the element of the US stock market basically outperforming everyone else in the past decade. (And it's mostly because of tech.) If you pick a couple non-US indices the numbers look much more shaky.
throwaway_isms 3y ago
> But we age out much more quickly due to the bias common in our industry. Just prove you lost a job or weren't hired due to age, and you'll have a lawsuit that results in a large enough settlement you will once again be paid more than your spouse and won't even need to work.
- kcplate 3y ago
  And how exactly would one do that?
  - throwaway_isms 3y ago
    Same way as any age discrimination lawsuit. If you have reason to believe you were terminated or not hired because of age, meet with a lawyer. If a lawsuit it filed, discovery is a powerful tool in litigation to help gather evidence that is generally required to prove the claim. Often this will be data about the other employees they have let go or in the case you weren't hired the age of the person ultimately hired and those that were interviewed but not hired. There are about 10,000-15,000 a year, like all areas of law probably about 90% settle pre-trial.
    - kcplate 3y ago
      My point is that I don’t think it’s that easy to prove unless it’s blatantly obvious from an outside perspective and most lawyers wouldn’t take a case on contingency unless it was blatantly obvious to them that it was a winner. So do you pursue it paying some lawyer an hourly rate to sift through a thousand emails just to find that the company hired a younger but still fully qualified candidate? If you are a person at the sunset of your career and still need a job it’s likely that you will not bankroll the effort…so you just move on.
kcplate 3y ago
> I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. Can confirm, but it’s more like around 50. That is why you tend to not see a lot of senior folks wanting to bounce gigs every three years like the younger folk do. I hope to ride out another 7 years at my current gig and retire. Hopefully they won’t have other plans because at that point I’ll likely have to shift to WalMart greeter.
alephnerd 3y ago
> Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all My dad is in his 60s and is still doing cutting edge work on Kubernetes, Golang, eBPF, etc in a big tech company in the Bay Area. It honestly isn't that hard to keep yourself up to date with technology looking at his experience. If you can't get yourself interested in upskilling or learning the next new paradigm you're in the wrong field.
joe_the_user 3y ago
It's not a matter of the goodness of the deal that a doctor has versus that of a software engineer. It's that the deal doctors get is emotionally scaring to them and it produces horrific social dysfunction.
LastTrain 3y ago
I think if you actually take the time to talk to some older dev people you will find that you are wrong, and when you actually get older you will find out how wrong. We are doing great - financially and professionally, despite having to face a small number of people with this attitude.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
> Yes, we make good money when we're young in tech. But we age out much more quickly due to the bias common in our industry. 52. Gimme 10 more years, I won't care. I don't want to be working any job after that even though I love programming and it's all I ever wanted to do (for a living).
shiroiuma 3y ago
>But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. People used to believe this, but it's not true at all in my experience.
faeriechangling 3y ago
Not to sound like a naive optimist, but the average age of somebody working in tech is going up over time, and that is likely going to make tech less exceptional in its ageism. Tech is also slowing down in how much it is changing, which makes it easier to do the work while older, which again takes the edge off of ageism.
eru 3y ago
> But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. My grandfather made good money fixing systems for y2k in the 1990s and retired shortly after. There's plenty of work for dinosaurs. Plenty of systems quickly hacked together today will be around for much longer than planned for.

egl2021 3y ago

"he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65" ...unless he fails the flight physical.

mrits 3y ago

If you were bringing in a competitive salary in tech for the last 20 years you don't even need to work anymore. So there is that..

hotnfresh 3y ago
BLS says US median programmer salary in the US was just under $100,000 last year. 20 years of a normal US tech salary won't let you retire. A top-few-percent one, maybe.
- mrits 3y ago
  That was a competitive salary when I started in 2005.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Well, it'd also represent a raise for about 50% of programmers in 2022. [EDIT] Further: "The lowest 10 percent earned less than $54,310, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $157,690." (in 2022, still). The ones who can retire in 20 years are making (ballpark) top-5%-of-field wages most or all of that time. [EDIT EDIT] I didn't pick the best category for this, but the numbers only skew up 25ish % for the most-relevant one. Not a single BLS computer job category has a median particularly close to "retire in 20 years at this income" money. FAANG, finance, and a small segment of the startup market that's in that same category—yeah. Almost all the rest? No.
- dboreham 3y ago
  They classified people we don't think of as programmers as programmers. Classic job stats mistake.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Ok, sure, that's one category and some of the others do have a higher median. Some of what we think of as "programmers" or "developers" will actually land in other categories, and also some we don't, will too. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... But still, even the top-median category, "Computer and Information Research Scientists", doesn't have "retire in 20 years" median wages.
- polyomino 3y ago
  What's the distribution of experience though? In a fast growing field, most will be early in career, which will push this metric down relative to established fields with little growth.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    The question's whether 20 years of a "competitive" tech salary is enough money to retire. I think one must have a very-skewed, bubble-bound definition of "competitive" for that to be plausibly true. Programming jobs don't pay enough to grant easy-mode early retirement for most of our field—even in the US.
- woobar 3y ago
  First, Computer Programmer is a strange occupation. According to BLS there are just 147K positions in the US. Instead I'd suggest looking at Software Developers (1.5M positions) with median income at $127K. Second, by definition median is not a competitive salary. I'd think top 25% of devs are getting competitive salary. Which is $161K [1] 20 years of savings at 30% of income will get you $2M. Which is not a fat retirement, but still doable. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#nat https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#nat
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    > Second, by definition median is not a competitive salary. Yes, it is. For the field as a whole? Yes, it absolutely is. For specific segments of it? No. Some of those are higher. And others are lower. > 20 years of savings at 30% of income will get you $2M. Which is not a fat retirement, but still doable. Healthcare complicates early retirement badly in the US. Retire at (say) 45 with only $2m in the bank and you are... gambling. To put it mildly. Even if you live reasonably frugally.
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      > Healthcare complicates early retirement badly in the US. Retire at (say) 45 with only $2m in the bank and you are... gambling. To put it mildly. Even if you live reasonably frugally. 100% this. I'm almost 50, and as I look towards retirement, I think I should try to find a cushy job that'll last me to 65 without causing too much stress, because until you qualify for Medicare it's really hard to afford health insurance premiums unless you're fashionably wealthy.
      - manzanarama 3y ago
        Really, what is a good ballpark for a family of 4? Is it like 5k a month?
        madengr 3y ago
        [dead]
- randomdata 3y ago
  The median income is ~$30,000. That means you have ~$70,000 to invest each year. If we assume a 5% rate of return, you'll have ~$2MM after 20 years. At the same rate, that will continue to provide you $100,000 each year in retirement. Bad luck can happen, but generally speaking retirement should have been quite easy with that kind of income.
  - adra 3y ago
    I love your optimism. Some may be able to live off software at 30k/yr making 100/yr "somewhere", but not most places. My rent started at around 40% of my take home and adding taxes alone, my pay rate was well under this 70% fantasy which doesn't even begin to address any other "incidental" living expenses like food, transport, children, elderly, school loans, etc......
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > My rent started at around 40% of my take home You were paying ~$3,000 per month for rent 20 years ago? I remember renting a place 22 years ago for $250 per month. Maybe you were in some super insane cost of living area, but if that's the case, why would you accept just an average developer salary? Average salaries are for average places.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Median topped $40k in 2022. The (just under) $100k is pre-tax. You won't get much social security when you hit "retirement age" if you retire after only 20 years of working at that level of income, so you'll need more savings at that age than others do. $100k/yr is a 5% withdrawal rate on $2 million, which might be a "safe" rate at normal retirement age (debatable) but is risky as hell if you start doing it at 45 and don't plan to die in your 60s. If you've been saving that aggressively (as cash/investments), you won't own your own house, or at least, you definitely won't be anywhere near paying it off. That significantly raises your costs in retirement. You have significant risk from healthcare costs until you hit medicare age (and even then...). You're probably looking at $5k-10k a year in premiums (individual) at age 45+, and still five figures of annual risk exposure despite already paying that much. Retiring on $2m at 45 would be very likely to end in failure, even as an individual supporting only yourself.
irrational 3y ago
What is a competitive salary? Do you mean the small fraction of programmers that work for FAANG companies? Or do you mean the more normal salaries the vast majority of programmers make at non-FAANG companies? I’ve worked for the past 20 years and am as far from not needing to work anymore as my first day. Well, that isn’t strictly true, but my 401k only has about 33-50% of what it needs for me to retire. I have no savings beyond that.
- mrits 3y ago
  I didn't realize anyone could go to medical school.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Maybe a little overly sarcastic, but there's a real point there: Not everyone can get into med school (~5% acceptance rate?), but even more disturbingly some people get out of med school with tons of debt, and then either fail their step 2 or don't pass quickly enough to get a residency. Or fail boards after residency. Then you're in a really shitty position, with hundreds of thousands of debt but no ability to practice medicine.
    - squigglingAvia 3y ago
      Thing is which med school you’ll go will determine your debt load. Not all med schools charge the same rate.
      - radlad 3y ago
        And also your board exams success rate!
sokoloff 3y ago
That depends exclusively on your savings rate (which dictates your years-needed-to-retire): https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... Most people aren't saving ~43% of their take-home pay, no matter how much they earn.

encoderer 3y ago

I’m 41 and I totally understand this sentiment. A silver lining is that the tech industry is just so much larger now than it was when we started, a trend I think will continue, and there are now tons of jobs where it’s really helpful to also be a developer. Some examples: Developer and marketer/technical writer - selling to other devs is a giant business now and it often takes devs to make that content. Developer and SRE - we live in the world of huge scaled our saas businesses where there are always support issues too advanced to be handled by non-devs Developer and project manager - everybody has worked with non-dev project managers and it’s usually terrible. Developer and people manager - there are so many more eng manager roles than there used to be, and moving to the management side is a well worn path now. Developer and product manager - you have to develop a lot of new skills but in this role a past life as a developer can give you super powers. That said, I moved first into people management and then into running a small software company which sort of demands a little bit of all of those skills

okdood64 3y ago
> Developer and SRE I'd say these are pretty interchangeable in one's career if they wanted to. The others not so much.
- morelisp 3y ago
  If you're 20+ years experience and not any good as at least a project manager, I think your core skills are also pretty suspect.
  - pipes 3y ago
    You mean your core tech skills will be suspect if you aren't a decent project manager? Well that's a depressing thought. Though in my experience so far we have dedicated project managers. But maybe you are right.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      I think dedicated project managers are a good idea to keep people focused, but I also think if you've been buildings things for 20 years you should have absorbed enough of the process to be at least basically capable at it. That's not really true of people management (an entirely different skillset) or technical writing (though it's a bit closer) or even product management (but if you code mostly customer-facing features, probably you should have picked up a lot of this too). If you've just been a "turn the crank" developer implementing someone else's sprint-scoped tickets for 20 years, you probably topped out after around five years. (Or you're doing all the interesting stuff outside work, in which case... you definitely have project management skills.)

pcthrowaway 3y ago

I'm almost 40, never made good money... this makes me sad

lnsru 3y ago
Join the club. I did good money once with tiny startup exit. Salary is just enough to pay for food, mortgage and vacations.
llsf 3y ago
I am almost 50, and my partner (ophthalmologist) always made more than me as developer, and architect. But to be fair, I only worked for small startups in the Bay, and startups that did not make big. Not complaining, but a bit worried for the next decade though. Especially as I am super busy at work, so much that I cannot spend time on programming anymore.
randomdata 3y ago
A case of the keeping up with the Joneses syndrome? Recent figures are not readily available, but as of 10 years ago a yearly income of $32,000 was enough to put you in the global top 1%. Adjusted for inflation, that is around $42,000 today. Interestingly, the median income in the USA is $41,535, so it is likely that half of all Americans are in the top 1%. Although I would think that "good money" would cast a larger net than just the top 1%. Surely at least a 75th percentile income would be considered "good" by most? As such, it is likely that a $20-30,000 income is "good money". If you have not even made that much at some point over the past 25 or so years that you have been of working age, how can you afford to be here?
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  it's a bit disingenuous to compare US citizens to 3rd world countries. yes, it's technically true, but no one with a 3rd world income would ever be able to afford to live in the US, they'd be homeless. its apples and oranges.
  - randomdata 3y ago

dboreham 3y ago

Until AI is flying planes...

bdamm 3y ago
I could not feel comfortable as a passenger on a commercial airliner without a human on board that could take over and fly the plane manually. There are all kinds of failure scenarios where a computer, AI or not, would get confused. Even just the specter of malware is enough for me to expect a human being, that values their own life, is able to take over.
- AussieWog93 3y ago
  >Even just the specter of malware is enough for me to expect a human being, that values their own life, is able to take over. I'd be more concerned abouta human going insane than malware. I'd imagine they're mostly fly by wire anyway, so a virus could theoretically just disable the human input.
  - bdamm 3y ago
    Airbus designs are substantially fly by wire, although supposedly with an isolated control system. Boeing designs are isolated electro-hydraulic. There's a big difference between isolating a single control link vs an entire control system comprising of, at least, a corpus database and all the supporting code that streams inputs and actuates outputs.
  - sgarland 3y ago
    I assume / hope that there still exists manual hydraulic controls for the control surfaces. Maybe not in the cockpit, but somewhere accessible in flight in an emergency. Modern U.S. submarines are also fly-by-wire, but hydraulic overrides are in the engine room in case of emergency.
- saghm 3y ago
  > I could not feel comfortable as a passenger on a commercial airliner without a human on board that could take over and fly the plane manually. There are all kinds of failure scenarios where a computer, AI or not, would get confused. "Person there just in case to take over in the rare case of emergencies" might not be as well paid as "person who's responsible for the plane at all times". Plus, if you're concerned about malware, you'll probably want a person still involved in vetting the code outputted by some hypothetical AI, so there would still be at least some engineering jobs.

borkt 3y ago

I hope you’re correct but the very realistic possibility of SPO (single Pilot Operations) is what pushed myself - and many others like me - away from the career. The current pilot shortage was by design, as the airlines were well aware of the issue and had many ways to avoid it. I’m still of the mind the current shortage (and short term plans to mitigate it) are just to hold them over long enough to end the current 2-pilot system and bring the standard to single pilot operations

freedomben 3y ago
Wouldn't that require FAA complicity? And do you think pilot unions would allow it? Do they have power to stop it?
- textide 3y ago
  I think the biggest obstacle will be public acceptance of a single pilot at the helm. It would take some serious backup tech assurances and maybe a generation's worth of time before it happens.

laserlight 3y ago

> he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65 There's no such guarantee in any of the professions.

SoftTalker 3y ago
True but it's likely, unless fully-autonomous commercial airliners are developed. There's a shortage of pilots as well, and unlike most other careers, they have to retire at 65 (or maybe younger?).
- sokoloff 3y ago
  They're one failed First Class Medical exam away from losing it.
- rvba 3y ago
  Even if autonomous aircraft are developed, will the "old" planes be converted? Could they be converted without tons of changes? Sounds unlikely.
  - patall 3y ago
    Doesn't necessarily matter when its rich countries (or their carriers) that buy the new planes and out of a sudden, pilots have the choice of flying for an indonesian island hopper or not at all.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    Planes are typically in service for decades but if they could eliminate the pilots, that could very well change the calculus. But, public mistrust of a pilotless plane might very well put the kibosh on that for a long time. People have trouble trusting air travel as it is, doesn't matter if it's irrational, and they usually know that it is.
    - sfn42 3y ago
      Imagine a lottery where instead of winning, you die in a terrifying way. That's flying. You enter into an aluminium can, and from that point you are completely helpless, whatever happens. The only thing you can do if something goes wrong is assume the fetal position and hope. And yes, life is pretty much like that. You could get cancer or get hit by a car or a meteorite for that matter, but even these things feel more controlled. I can pay attention to my surroundings to avoid getting hit by a car. I can potentially treat cancer. I could probably not do much against a meteorite or gamma ray burst or whatever cosmic thing might happen but that stuff feels less real anyway. I agree that the fear of flying is somewhat irrational, but at the same time I think it's a valid fear especially in light of things like Russia shooting down passenger planes, the whole Boeing Max 8 thing etc.

rstuart4133 3y ago

> But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. Errr, I'm 64, generally get a title like "senior programmer", and have switched jobs a few times recently and didn't have a day out of work. I expect to be going for a few years yet - in fact I expect your husband will be forced into retirement, whereas I will chose my time. Moreover, I have quite a few software engineering friends or about the same age. It's the same for them. Some are still working, some not. But in every case it's been their choice, they weren't forced into it by the industry.

silisili 3y ago
Thanks for posting. It's something that concerns me as I head into my 40's, so it's really nice to read anecdotes from folks showing there are opportunities for those getting up there in age.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
I'm 45 and have often wondered if I'm just lucky, based upon your post my experience isn't nearly as unique as many seem to think. I wonder if it's more about skill level (certainly I'd like to think so :])

manzanarama 3y ago

Maybe I am naïve but I don't get this age vibe really. I do backend java distributed system stuff for a large company. A lot of my peers and managers are "older" 40s and 50s with kids. A lot of the work is high collaborative and design focused. Maybe I am just in a bubble of an aging tech stack but it does seem like we are always using "new" (at least different) databases, caching, and network layers to stay somewhat current. Its hard to imagine that 5,10,15 years of distributed systems and system design experience and knowledge along with domain knowledge and social skills will be all of a sudden be so irrelevant that it is worth phasing all of us "old guys" out for someone who happened to learn the newest programming language straight out of school. We are constantly expected to learn the new stuff and will just a project assigned with a mandate "okay this is to be done in spring boot, using this DB, this HTTP layer, etc...

toomuchtodo 3y ago
It's still unfortunately common, because there are always young workers in the pipeline. HP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38043552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38043552 ("It took seven years but over-40s fired by HP win $18M settlement") IBM: https://www.diversityjobs.com/career-advice/team-building/how-tech-giants-have-been-getting-away-with-age-discrimination/ https://www.diversityjobs.com/career-advice/team-building/ho... (Control-f "Sources") https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/ https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a... ("ProPublica: Cutting 'Old Heads' at IBM") https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/17/prior-ageism-allegations-at-google-facebook-and-ibm-raise-concerns-about-older-workers-being-targeted-for-termination/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/17/prior-agei... ("Prior Ageism Allegations At Google, Facebook And IBM Raise Concerns About Older Workers Being Targeted For Termination") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14932680 ("HN: Ageism is forcing many to look outside Silicon Valley") https://www.orangecountyemploymentlawyersblog.com/dfeh-90-age-discrimination-complaints-filed-against-tech-firms-since-2012/ https://www.orangecountyemploymentlawyersblog.com/dfeh-90-ag... ("DFEH: 90 Age Discrimination Complaints Filed Against Tech Firms Since 2012")
simonbarker87 3y ago
It’s the bubble of very online people and start up culture who think tech people age out at 40. I know plenty of devs in theirs 50s, after that they just take early retirement since they’ve earned enough. Most devs aren’t terminally online, they treat coding as a job not a lifestyle and for them it’s just like any other industry - so you don’t hear from them. Also, some devs retire into SQL and DBA like work since you can basically make yourself unfireable if you want to coast out the last decade of your career.

atleastoptimal 3y ago

Here's the thing. There won't be "tech work" or any kind of work in 5 years due to AGI. In fact any long term plans at this point seem silly. AI is going to make all human labor irrelevant.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Your husband is also in the position where any mental issue and a lot of physical health issues will force an early retirement. And if he wants to make the big bucks, there are not that many companies to work for (~10 mainline carriers in the US at the moment), and the seniority rules suck.

SystemOut 3y ago

I think the ageism thing is not as big of an issue anymore. Yes, you will see it in startups that are run by 20somethings but I'm in my early 50s and haven't had any problem staying employed or getting offers. If you stagnate skills wise or stop trying to grow/evolve your abilities then you definitely will have issues but that's true in many industries, not just ours.

ido 3y ago
As someone whose done a lot of hiring (at several companies), senior devs with a lot of (applicable) experience can always find work even if they’re “old” (40/50/60+). But career changers will have a rough time - e.g. I remember a social worker who went back to school in his late 30s looking for an internship(as a developer), he had a much harder time getting hired than someone in the same position in their early 20s.

Racing0461 3y ago

I wouldnt be so sure. aviation is ripe for automation (and planes can even land on its own now.). I can see airline companies pushing for only 1 pilot in the cockpit.

bsder 3y ago

> Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. I disagree. Go to some technical meetups. At practically all of them I have seen people offering jobs to both juniors and greybeards. The biggest problem everybody is having right now is connecting. The garbage in the middle is clogging everything up. So, everybody is going back to the old tried and true, the weak social network of in-person acquaintances. Yeah, you have to not suck and you have to keep your skills up-to-date. But, that's true whether you are 20 or 60.

TheGRS 3y ago

I question the aging out aspect of software dev on a career level. Yes you might get agism at trendy companies started by and heavily employing young people, but there are many software companies out there with many industries now employing software divisions, and the heavy demand I always see is for senior developers with experience. One “problem” in software: it’s really difficult to coast for a long period of time without training up new skills. You can certainly do it, but eventually the industry shifts underneath you. So the cushy senior Java dev position in a particular service might be able to last you for a decade or more at some companies, but I think most developers agree that if you want to keep getting better salaries you need to stay on top of trends and keep reeducating yourself. And I don’t really see this as a problem as much as a feature of tech, but if you’re looking for predictability in a career I think it’s a tough thing to get in tech.

enraged_camel 3y ago

I mean, mathematically speaking, having your high-income years happen earlier in life is significantly better because of the way compound interest works.

gorlilla 3y ago
What do you do when 'high-earning' last decade is somewhat laughable to this one? Was compounding worth it when inflation just gobbled up all of the effort you out into those earnings faster than interest could compound? It's been a rough couple of decades afterall.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Some napkin paper math. I googled "largest index fund" and got these 3 results: Vanguard 500: 3x return over last 10 years Vanguard total stock market index fund: 2x over last 10 years SWPPX: 3x over last 10 years. Google is telling me inflation from 2013 to 2023 is 41%. So even with inflation accounted for you're looking at a 50-150% ROI over 10 years. Maybe I just got incredibly lucky picking index funds, so I googled the total market capitalization of US domestic companies and that grew from about 15 to 30 trillion. This stat seems to be wonkier, other estimates claim 45 trillion (probably a more inclusive estimate counting smaller companies). But TL;DR: No, inflation did not gobble up the returns on investments
  - hnfong 3y ago
    It depends on how you measure "inflation". The standard way is to measure the amount of stuff money can buy, where "stuff" is daily necessities and so on. But prices are just relative. It can be argued that such daily necessities like food, clothes, etc. have actually gotten "cheaper", and the increases in stock and other asset prices are a function of how much money is printed by central banks. (There's a strong correlation there, at least.) It's not the standard narrative, but it's something to think about in such cases where these numbers are absolutely crucial to your life plans. There's also the element of the US stock market basically outperforming everyone else in the past decade. (And it's mostly because of tech.) If you pick a couple non-US indices the numbers look much more shaky.

throwaway_isms 3y ago

> But we age out much more quickly due to the bias common in our industry. Just prove you lost a job or weren't hired due to age, and you'll have a lawsuit that results in a large enough settlement you will once again be paid more than your spouse and won't even need to work.

kcplate 3y ago
And how exactly would one do that?
- throwaway_isms 3y ago
  Same way as any age discrimination lawsuit. If you have reason to believe you were terminated or not hired because of age, meet with a lawyer. If a lawsuit it filed, discovery is a powerful tool in litigation to help gather evidence that is generally required to prove the claim. Often this will be data about the other employees they have let go or in the case you weren't hired the age of the person ultimately hired and those that were interviewed but not hired. There are about 10,000-15,000 a year, like all areas of law probably about 90% settle pre-trial.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    My point is that I don’t think it’s that easy to prove unless it’s blatantly obvious from an outside perspective and most lawyers wouldn’t take a case on contingency unless it was blatantly obvious to them that it was a winner. So do you pursue it paying some lawyer an hourly rate to sift through a thousand emails just to find that the company hired a younger but still fully qualified candidate? If you are a person at the sunset of your career and still need a job it’s likely that you will not bankroll the effort…so you just move on.

kcplate 3y ago

> I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. Can confirm, but it’s more like around 50. That is why you tend to not see a lot of senior folks wanting to bounce gigs every three years like the younger folk do. I hope to ride out another 7 years at my current gig and retire. Hopefully they won’t have other plans because at that point I’ll likely have to shift to WalMart greeter.

alephnerd 3y ago

> Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all My dad is in his 60s and is still doing cutting edge work on Kubernetes, Golang, eBPF, etc in a big tech company in the Bay Area. It honestly isn't that hard to keep yourself up to date with technology looking at his experience. If you can't get yourself interested in upskilling or learning the next new paradigm you're in the wrong field.

joe_the_user 3y ago

It's not a matter of the goodness of the deal that a doctor has versus that of a software engineer. It's that the deal doctors get is emotionally scaring to them and it produces horrific social dysfunction.

LastTrain 3y ago

I think if you actually take the time to talk to some older dev people you will find that you are wrong, and when you actually get older you will find out how wrong. We are doing great - financially and professionally, despite having to face a small number of people with this attitude.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

> Yes, we make good money when we're young in tech. But we age out much more quickly due to the bias common in our industry. 52. Gimme 10 more years, I won't care. I don't want to be working any job after that even though I love programming and it's all I ever wanted to do (for a living).

shiroiuma 3y ago

>But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. People used to believe this, but it's not true at all in my experience.

faeriechangling 3y ago

Not to sound like a naive optimist, but the average age of somebody working in tech is going up over time, and that is likely going to make tech less exceptional in its ageism. Tech is also slowing down in how much it is changing, which makes it easier to do the work while older, which again takes the edge off of ageism.

eru 3y ago

> But, here's the deal: he's basically going to make top dollar until he's 65. Meanwhile, I'll likely be seen as a dinosaur in tech by that age and will be lucky to find work at all. My grandfather made good money fixing systems for y2k in the 1990s and retired shortly after. There's plenty of work for dinosaurs. Plenty of systems quickly hacked together today will be around for much longer than planned for.