5 ms·

A 55yr Old Developer Tells Us What It's Like In A Youth-Obsessed Silicon Valley

13 points by 001sky 13y ago

pedalpete 13y ago
He may be in the 'youth-obsessed Silicon Valley', but aren't non-startups less youth-obsessed, and youth likely don't want to get involved in old-staid big business. I say this because here in Sydney, Australia, I'm amazed at how many positions there are in finance for a Java developer, or C developers at places like Dolby Labs, or .net developers all over the place. I'd suspect a 55 year old generalist to have the abilities to get into one of these more stable jobs. Do they really not exist in San Francisco? What about in other states? I'd think most start-ups are using more modern languages/frameworks (Rails or Node.js specifically), so that may not be appealing to an older developer either. I say this as somebody who is approaching older developer age. I've just turned 40, and though I have kept up to date with the latest languages and frameworks, I suspect that if I continue to develop for another 20 years, I may not always be up on the newest thing, which is why I'm trying to focus not on what's hot today, but what I think will be a solid background in 5 years. If I get that right, then hopefully in 15 years, people will still be using those systems or looking to migrate to something newer, and hopefully there is an opportunity for me there.
- _random_ 13y ago
  "I'm trying to focus not on what's hot today, but what I think will be a solid background in 5 years." - any tips?
  - dozzie 13y ago
    Data structures. Architecture patterns. Software packaging and deployment principles (actual methods change, but core idea stays the same). Communication and data exchange patterns in distributed systems. Good languages present in the market for quite long time (Lisp, Erlang, Haskell, Python).
    - _random_ 13y ago
      Things that don't change basically. Makes sense.
  - pedalpete 13y ago
    The way I look at it is to not jump on every new thing that comes along, but try to keep on eye on what's growing and what people are excited about. For me, at the moment, that means Angular and Node. Four years ago it was Rails and Backbone. I'm keeping an eye on React, but am not ready to jump on that bandwagon yet. Lots of people may suggest Haskell, Scala, Go, Ember, React, etc. etc. and I may add one or two of those in the future, but at this point, I don't see enough broad interest in those languages to make it on my list yet. Keep an eye on job postings and you'll see trends in languages and frameworks growing.
    - _random_ 13y ago
      Angular and Node are exactly fresh new things. I would say it is better to learn MVVM/MVC and Reactor patterns those respective frameworks are based on.

13 points by 001sky 13y ago

He may be in the 'youth-obsessed Silicon Valley', but aren't non-startups less youth-obsessed, and youth likely don't want to get involved in old-staid big business. I say this because here in Sydney, Australia, I'm amazed at how many positions there are in finance for a Java developer, or C developers at places like Dolby Labs, or .net developers all over the place. I'd suspect a 55 year old generalist to have the abilities to get into one of these more stable jobs. Do they really not exist in San Francisco? What about in other states? I'd think most start-ups are using more modern languages/frameworks (Rails or Node.js specifically), so that may not be appealing to an older developer either. I say this as somebody who is approaching older developer age. I've just turned 40, and though I have kept up to date with the latest languages and frameworks, I suspect that if I continue to develop for another 20 years, I may not always be up on the newest thing, which is why I'm trying to focus not on what's hot today, but what I think will be a solid background in 5 years. If I get that right, then hopefully in 15 years, people will still be using those systems or looking to migrate to something newer, and hopefully there is an opportunity for me there.

_random_ 13y ago
"I'm trying to focus not on what's hot today, but what I think will be a solid background in 5 years." - any tips?
- dozzie 13y ago
  Data structures. Architecture patterns. Software packaging and deployment principles (actual methods change, but core idea stays the same). Communication and data exchange patterns in distributed systems. Good languages present in the market for quite long time (Lisp, Erlang, Haskell, Python).
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Things that don't change basically. Makes sense.
- pedalpete 13y ago
  The way I look at it is to not jump on every new thing that comes along, but try to keep on eye on what's growing and what people are excited about. For me, at the moment, that means Angular and Node. Four years ago it was Rails and Backbone. I'm keeping an eye on React, but am not ready to jump on that bandwagon yet. Lots of people may suggest Haskell, Scala, Go, Ember, React, etc. etc. and I may add one or two of those in the future, but at this point, I don't see enough broad interest in those languages to make it on my list yet. Keep an eye on job postings and you'll see trends in languages and frameworks growing.
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Angular and Node are exactly fresh new things. I would say it is better to learn MVVM/MVC and Reactor patterns those respective frameworks are based on.