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A big problem was that most bright engineers were promoted into management, so the ones left programming at 40 weren't so bright. So not so much that age kille
by blazespin 12y ago
A big problem was that most bright engineers were promoted into management, so the ones left programming at 40 weren't so bright. So not so much that age killed the skills, it's just a selection bias.
I think we've got better at that and bright engineers are just being promoted into senior engineers, so hopefully it's fixing the selection bias.
- derrekl 12y agoInterestingly nearly all the guys over 40 I know who are "senior" devs never wanted to go into management. They just said "no!". They are solid reliable devs. They are all doing fine. But then again so are all the guys who went into management. (Sorry, I write "guys" all the time 'cause I grew up in the midwest - not trying to make it all about males)
- blazespin 12y agoI was talking past tense, as I said, things have changed. Does no one read here?
- MCRed 12y ago"most bright engineers were promoted into management so the ones left programming at 40 weren't so bright." Just wow. Quite a bit of agism there. In my experience most CEOs are not technical, and thy want "business guys" in management. This ranges from big companies (my manager at Amazon had a criminal justice degree and could barely operate a computer, and his IQ was less than 100) to startups (often the CTO will be technical, but also a founder, so there's not a lot of opportunity to become "middle management" during the startup phase.
- blazespin 12y agoIt's the opposite of ageism. Try re-reading what I said.
- mibbitirc 12y agoIMHO It's more usually bad developers who get promoted into management, so they can do less damage.
- blazespin 12y agoThat wasn't so in the past. There was no great career track for developers other than management. This has changed onlly relatively recently.