a good quote from the article: "The way to avoid the same fate as the previous generation’s industrial workers is to continue to learn, grow, and gain skills that are valuable beyond the very particular skill you have now."
I am in my 60s, and while I still work on interesting projects as they come my way, the majority of my "tech time" is now spent studying and learning new things or doing deeper study of older technology. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have the financial resources and time to do this! I used to use neural networks in the 1980s for projects for SAIC and DARPA and in the last few years (like millions of other people) I have become very interested in deep learning, especially as it applies to natural language processing. This is a practical thing to study. Less practical: I am taking a deeper dive into Common Lisp and Scheme (I wrote books on each language for Springer-Verlag decades ago) studying not just practical applications but also getting deeper into both languages. This is not so beneficial financially but is a lot of fun.
This seems like a very odd answer to the question since the undertone to this question is whether you will be discriminated against based on your age when you start becoming visibly old.
While nothing written here is untrue, isn't its premise kind of self evident? Whether you're 22 or 52 the key to staying relevant in this line of work is to never stop growing and learning.
The premise here is that many people (most, even?) are not as interested in career growth and learning once they hit 50 as they were right out of college.
That fact is what makes many people consider software development a dead-end job unless you get into management at which point the growing and learning becomes much more like other professions.
I passed 40. I have kids and got a huge mortgage on my home. I used to do development but somehow I got into doing more architecture and advising.
I miss developing but try to do some on my spare time, but I have to be careful with IP because of my current contract states that anything I produce potentially is not owned by me.
My experience working as a developer was that it got exponentially harder when I got my kids. Kids suck up all your free time and then also a little bit of your working time. Especially when they are small and need to go to kindergarten, they need to be picked up early, cared for and have vacations.
Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and how I have changed as a parent - but it made it much more difficult to compete with developers without kids and without a partner.
why? imo, when I was without kids and a partner myself I was much more productive, I worked all the time, always giving 100% and then doing free overtime just to fix that hard issue that had ready by certain time and date.
It is difficult to compete with someone like that.
Almost every job becomes a dead end if you don't pursue management by age 40 as there typically isn't anything more senior to aspire to after 10-20 years.
I wouldn't call it a dead end to be a senior programmer. Even if afterward you are never promoted, if you are making around $100,000 a year, then many people would be content with that.
And it's not like going into middle management would bring a higher salary. And your job security would be worse. Every time there have been mergers or cuts, the first to be cut is not the specialized technicians but middle management.
This. All of this. I will never stop coding if I can help it. Every coder I've ever met who got promoted to management (not hands on) ended up having a terrible time finding work after that role ended. No way. Not for me.
That said that's just my experience. Obviously there are no absolutes and managerial roles are necessary for a medium to large company to function properly. It's a shame that things are the way they are in that regard.
>Every coder I've ever met who got promoted to management (not hands on) ended up having a terrible time finding work after that role ended.
Where I work periodically upper management decides there are too many middle managers and fires a bunch of them. Guys who went into management in their late 30s and 40s don't have enough experience to stand out as managers and haven't kept up enough to go back to the technical track. Most of them end up finding something, but it's usually not ideal (lower pay, longer commute, longer hours). Some call it quits and retire early.
Every few years someone from the company swings by my cubicle and asks me if I'd like to be a manager. I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted. Half those guys are gone by the time the question comes up again.
IMO the only way to do management in the US is to go to a prestigious school and start along a career path that puts you in the C-suite.
It would be interesting to have some statistical data on this question.
There are plenty of anecdotal information either way: I'm 45 and doing quite well as a software developer. So, no, not a dead-end job for me. On the other hand, I see less and less software developers my age or older in my company and others around.
So while I'm sure you will get a lot of anecdotal data in the comments, it would be great to get some actual statistically relevant data. Does anyone know any good source for this type of data?
The day my "job" as a programmer disappear I will take my stuff and expend my time fishing all day in Alaska...
Actuality, I'm looking very much forward to that.. :)
Yeah, other people have it worse, why don't you just be happier?! I can't believe people with burnout and depression haven't thought of that novel strategy.
Slightly off topic: I saw an interesting presentation once where the presenter complained that modern day developers are expected to do open source projects in their spare time in addition to all the work on the job and ended by saying construction workers don't have to do open-source jack-hammering. It is a bit unfair.
many folks raise their public profile in professions by donating time to causes - builders donating free rehab work in low-income areas or for schools/churches, accountants doing pro-bono work, etc.
When I hire a carpenter for some building work, I'd rather hire somebody who has built his own house, or at least renovated an old one into something homely than the guy who lives in a derelict trailer.
Being someone else's employee is a dead-end job after 35-40. It has nothing to do with software development. The easiest way to counter that, is to at least engage in subcontracting. But then again, the whole idea of selling your hours to someone else is in itself a long-term dead-end strategy. Instead, build a platform and sell something else than your own hours on it. That is what your employer is doing anyway. So, why not do it yourself too?
I am in my 60s, and while I still work on interesting projects as they come my way, the majority of my "tech time" is now spent studying and learning new things or doing deeper study of older technology. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have the financial resources and time to do this! I used to use neural networks in the 1980s for projects for SAIC and DARPA and in the last few years (like millions of other people) I have become very interested in deep learning, especially as it applies to natural language processing. This is a practical thing to study. Less practical: I am taking a deeper dive into Common Lisp and Scheme (I wrote books on each language for Springer-Verlag decades ago) studying not just practical applications but also getting deeper into both languages. This is not so beneficial financially but is a lot of fun.