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This is why I'm leaving the field for healthcare at the age of 39. I saw the writing on the wall when I worked in SV for over 10 years. I saw how young most o

This is why I'm leaving the field for healthcare at the age of 39. I saw the writing on the wall when I worked in SV for over 10 years. I saw how young most of the employees were at most of the start ups and smaller companies. I saw that the older folks worked at tired corporate cogs such as IBM--nothing wrong with that, just not for me. I also saw that these older folks were just not capable of keeping up with the rapidly changing field. In fact, I worked with one guy in his late 50's or early 60's who had a Ph.D. from CalTech in EE, and he either would keep forgetting, or not understanding, what Telnetting or SSH'ing into another machine was about. I remember working with the guy and setting up a distributed monitoring system, and we were SSH'ed into several different machines on his laptop. The way he kept stumbling through the installation and configuration of each machine was pretty disheartening to see. That wasn't the only older person I've worked with who had trouble keeping up. It was ALL of them. Mind you this was at IBM, so I don't know if it was the corporate culture that eventually did these guys in or their age. I will never know. What I did eventually realize is that I needed to find a different career. So, here I am, 39 and starting a graduate program in health care.

filereaper 13y ago
Thank you for your comment. I would like to add that not everybody at IBM is like that just to prevent HN from forming the wrong image. Since client/server has been around the 60's from System 360 its hard to find a grey-beard who isn't familiar with the concept. Although the grey-beards may not know the new upcoming frameworks such as node.js et al... they're worth every penny when it comes to design and architecture of large software systems, its usually the foresight of what will work and fail which matters the most. Many wisened gray-beards still code everyday but they do approach us wet-behind-the-ears on simple day-to-day details.
- hga 13y ago
  "Since client/server has been around the 60's from System 360...." Eh??? What was the client to the 360's server? (Then again I never actually did IBM mainframe programming at that level.)
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I tend to think there's an XKCD 385 (http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/) thing going on with this idea that older programmers are more resistant to change or somehow inferior. There are plenty of young programmers who can't/won't learn anything except what they were explicitly taught, have a shitty attitude, and generally fight anything different from what they're comfortable with... but it's never attributed to their age. Anti-intellectualism is a problem all throughout the software world. It may be that a certain late-career decline is one symptom of it, but I've seen it manifest just as badly in young people.
eugenejen 13y ago
My old boss who is working for google now knows ssh. He is 60. But maybe due to he is a member of IETF so he gets updates. I don't think he is in trench. But I think what you described is related to company culture.
- mililani 13y ago
  Well, to be fair, this guy we're referring to DID come to IBM from the CrossWorlds acquisition. Which, at the time, was a start up. So, I really don't know.

filereaper 13y ago

Thank you for your comment. I would like to add that not everybody at IBM is like that just to prevent HN from forming the wrong image. Since client/server has been around the 60's from System 360 its hard to find a grey-beard who isn't familiar with the concept. Although the grey-beards may not know the new upcoming frameworks such as node.js et al... they're worth every penny when it comes to design and architecture of large software systems, its usually the foresight of what will work and fail which matters the most. Many wisened gray-beards still code everyday but they do approach us wet-behind-the-ears on simple day-to-day details.

hga 13y ago
"Since client/server has been around the 60's from System 360...." Eh??? What was the client to the 360's server? (Then again I never actually did IBM mainframe programming at that level.)
michaelochurch 13y ago
I tend to think there's an XKCD 385 (http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/) thing going on with this idea that older programmers are more resistant to change or somehow inferior. There are plenty of young programmers who can't/won't learn anything except what they were explicitly taught, have a shitty attitude, and generally fight anything different from what they're comfortable with... but it's never attributed to their age. Anti-intellectualism is a problem all throughout the software world. It may be that a certain late-career decline is one symptom of it, but I've seen it manifest just as badly in young people.

eugenejen 13y ago

My old boss who is working for google now knows ssh. He is 60. But maybe due to he is a member of IETF so he gets updates. I don't think he is in trench. But I think what you described is related to company culture.

mililani 13y ago
Well, to be fair, this guy we're referring to DID come to IBM from the CrossWorlds acquisition. Which, at the time, was a start up. So, I really don't know.