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It doesn't suck to be an old engineer. It sucks to be an engineer with outdated skills. I learned FORTRAN in 1968. I learned Scala in 2012. I'll be 61 this we
by MaggieL 13y ago
It doesn't suck to be an old engineer. It sucks to be an engineer with outdated skills.
I learned FORTRAN in 1968. I learned Scala in 2012.
I'll be 61 this week...and I just started a new job developing in Scala.
- rlu 13y agoGood for you and happy birthday! May 30th here.
- hashset 13y agoAwesome. Good luck!
- onemorepassword 13y agoYou're my new hero.
- morganwilde 13y agoYou should write a counter-post expanding on what you've said, because this, especially the ending "choose yourself a new profession", is super out-of-whack. All the power to people like you, Ma'am!
- gruseom 13y agoI'm guessing MaggieL is not a Sir? All the more interesting if so.
- morganwilde 13y agoI didn't even assume to look at the alias, since in my mind there was no doubt a man was behind that statement... Fixed my comment :) and this made me want to read a blog post from MaggieL even more so!
- MetaCosm 13y agoOne of the sharpest developers I have ever worked with -- was 63. He did only mobile development and only would agree to work 30 hours a week. When I pressed him on it, he explained that he liked to constantly be working on both Android and iOS projects, 30 hours a week each, and that kept his backlog of waiting clients happy. EDIT: He completed the iOS application under budget with wonderful tests.
- zerr 13y agoI really wonder at what rates one might work at these ages.
- ihsw 13y agoAt that age the rates are irrelevant compared to the health insurance compensation. Most people at that age would be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for generous health benefits and flexible hours.
- jarek 13y agoI must have missed the part where MetaCosm stated his developer was buying health insurance in an age-discriminating market.
- MetaCosm 13y agoHe was in the US (Arizona if I remember correctly), and had been incorporated for a number of years... but I have no idea about his health care situation... the joy of contractors, I don't have to care. I give him $180 an hour for X hours, he gives me a wonderful product, everyone goes home happy.
- rbanffy 13y ago> the joy of contractors, I don't have to care. Not really. If the contractor gets sick, it's still your problem. I care for my contractors and always make sure they are paid enough to afford good medical care and a stable financial situation. It makes sense, even from a deeply selfish point of view - the less time they spend worrying about such things, the more they spend working.
- mark_l_watson 13y ago+1 investing constantly in education and learning new skills is the way to go! I am 62 and I have been consulting for 15 years so age has not such an issue. Honestly, I can understand why a company might not want to hire an older software engineer but in my experience companies don't mind old consultants. When asked for advice by people wanting to have a lifestyle (work on your own terms) consulting business, I suggest they, in addition to working, also invest time in writing a lot (blogging, books) and contributing to open source projects.
- morganwilde 13y agoExactly! Contribute, be visible and relevant. If you're not putting in the effort, at the end of the day, no one will hire you, old or young or whatever. It's a classic story of where circumstances are to blame in the case of you failing, and it's all you if you're "winning".
- zura 13y agoeh, I foresee my comment from the not so far future: I learned C++ in 1999 and it still does the job in 2055.
- rbanffy 13y agoI'm 45 and easily the oldest on my team. Next to you, guys, I feel like a toddler. :-)
- kp27 13y agoMaggieL, As a guy in his 30's it would be interesting to read more on how you did this. Were you laid off at any point? Did you learn Scala on your own or through a previous employer, or a class? And finally, how hard was it for you to make your transition & land this job? I find myself having to learn new skills with things changing every ~5yrs. Its scary, but also quite interesting to see things fork SO MUCH so fast lately. I feel its exponential...I'm basing this on only 2+ iterations, lets see how my 3rd ends up.
- beat 13y agoI've been in IT for ~20 years. I started in Unix systems programming, in C. in 2002, I shifted into Java/J2EE. Another decade later and I find myself shifting again, this time to modern lightweight systems (Rails, Node) and NoSQL (Neo4J). They're just languages, not that big a deal. What's more important is my ability to put problems in perspective.
- nahname 13y agoHow do you stay with it? I'm approaching 30 and worry about burning out. Many people I talk to seem to agree the shelf life for exceptional engineers is about 7 years.
- deanwampler 13y agoCongrats! I'm 8 years behind you and following the same trajectory, at least concerning these two languages. ;)