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Programming Until Retirement?
DataDragon asks: "Here's the situation- I'm a now 30something computer programmer in Silicon Valley working for one of the local billion+ dollar tech companies. I'm unhappy with my present job, but am thankful that I've got one. Although I pride myself on having written over a million lines of code in my career, with nearly 15 commercial software products under my belt (8 of them were my own concepts from start-to-finish). I've had carpal tunnel for 6 years now, my skillset looks like it came from a 3 year old magazine, and I didn't make good on stock options. Since settling down in a quiet place somewhere and having a family sounds like a great idea to myself and my bride-to-be, I was wondering: instead of all the buzz I always get like Google's 'Do you <insert technology task> in your sleep?' job opportunities I've read about, are there any employers that would rather have a person who: wants to put in an honest day's work; get to know the job and the people well; and a desire to ultimately be a mentor for the company processes, instead of a here-today-gone-tomorrow programmer, who is interested in actually working there until retirement age?"
You have now outlasted your usefulness to the state. Please report to your nearest execution chamber.
Switch to dvorak!
Being a programmer, you probably want one of the layouts tweaked for programming (that put braces and stuff in easy locations).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
We've got a runner!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Just gotta move to India
All of the software shops I've worked at or been involved with NEED a person in the role you seek, but none of them wants to pay the salary requisite to get a skilled veteran.
I wish you luck.
My company writes a specific software app for the banking industry. There isn't a single programmer under 30, few (other than the boss) works more than 45 hours a week, and most have been there 5 years or more.
It's not all that interesting, but it's a decent job. Just don't expect the megabucks.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Have you considered starting your own company? Since you seem to be capable and understand that a good employee is vital to a company's overall success beyond each quarter, maybe you could do well if you did things yourself. You also may have a nest egg if you chose to sell the company as you retire.
I think more people should consider starting their own company since small businesses have always been a staple of the American economy.
That's just my 2 cents, so take it with a grain of sand I guess.
If you like programming, keep doing it as long as you can. If you don't like programming, stop immediately and do something you like. This applies to any field. On your deathbed you are not going to be worried about stock options, you are going to wonder if you wasted your life or not.
As people grow wiser and more experienced inside a company, they tend to move upwards towards mentoring/management-like activities.
Probably because their experience with coding makes them more suitable for taking decisions regarding project lead and also more suitable for giving answers to questions (in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again).
I've noticed that most companies do this - use their internal pool of experienced programmers in order to push them into mentoring/management positions, instead of throwing the management openings at the public and accepting CVs for it.
On one side, it's a good practice, because only those with previous experience inside the company will have access to those places, and by the time they get there they should know the process inside out. On the other hand, not throwing those positions towards the public makes them lose a full range of potential employees.
Larger companies generally have more process and more overhead, but they also have more people who are in it for the long haul, and thus aren't working overtime every day.
There's always periods where you need to put in time, but in a small company those are the norm; in a big company (I'm talking 10k or more people here) it's more normal to work something close to a regular work day.
Think IBM, government, HP, Kodak..
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http://www.stevex.org/longtail
You might consider looking for a job at a college or University - the smaller ones in the suburbs often offer a very nice family atmosphere and stable job. I think you would be surprised how far your experience would go in a situation like that; they need people who have skills and who can also communicate well with non-techies - i.e., students and the people who deal with the students. If you have database and/or PHP/ASP skills, you could try to join a web-development team for an academic institution; if not, you could learn them or find another software/technology-based position to apply for at one. I highly recommend it, though - if not for the atmosphere and stability, but also for the free courses. Many institutions allow employees to take courses for free, something that's definitely worth looking into if you're interested in learning. Good luck!
http://www.tenjou.net/
I'm a 30something programmer myself. I have worked for several tech companies in NorCal (startups that went nowhere), and after an 8 month stint of being unemployed I landed a programming job (mostly Perl no less) at a local CSU. Now I'm happy, I get lots of "perks" (Conferences, Training, etc.), and nobody busts my nuts when I "only" work 8 hours a day. I have good benefits, a good retirement & job stability (unless Schwartznegger screws me), and I work with good people who appreciate my work.
You really don't want to damage your wrists. if you are a programmer.
Especially after you've been married for a few years.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
The short answer to your question is, "yes." There are companies that want experience, leadership, and mentoring skills. There are companies that want experienced leadership to guide and direct younger minds (and younger wrists) in developing software. And no, Virginia, those companies are not all moving their jobs to India.
Focus on the technology, or on the business?
Programmers I've worked with over the years have tended to follow one of two tracks: focus on the technology, or focus on the business. If you focus on the technology, your skills are portable: the risk you take, however, is that your portable skills may be supplanted by a newer, better-marketed technology. (Case in point: Powersoft's PowerBuilder, which was all the rage ten years ago, and has all but disappeared from the marketplace.) To adopt a focus-on-the-technology view, you're committing to a permanent learning curve--and to constantly having to evaluate which of the new technologies are most likely to be worth pursuing.
Your question sounds to me like you're looking for the other tack: focusing on the business. In that role you're still working with the technology--but you're focused on how to improve the business. You're more technologically-agnostic: you know more about the specifics of the business than any particular tool.
The key: find a company that views you as an asset, not a cost
If you've been doing contract work, you're focused on the technology. And you've probably worked for a number of companies that view you as just another piece of meat to put in front of a computer to type code. To them, you're an expense. Far, far better is to find a company that views information technology as an asset--that says "if we do what we do better, smarter, faster, we have a competitive advantage." Those companies will, in turn, challenge you to do more, learn more, and offer more.
Where I work...
I work in Engineering, not in Information Systems--developing new products. The company very definitely wants me to do more, much more, of what I'm doing. From an accounting standpoint my work is booked as a depreciable asset--not as a line item on the expense ledger. I'm 46--while I still do quite a bit of coding (and I'm at work now, coding Transact-SQL for a big project), a lot of my day is spent teaching, coaching, and encouraging young programmers.
Want a gig like mine?
Some thoughts:
Is this just a young man's game?
I think you'll see
The federal government works on amazingly diverse and exciting software development projects, and they are looking for people EXACTLY like you. You can make a lot more than normal GS-payscale people, and get to work on incredibly interesting and unique projects. I'm sure that Military and intelligence agencies do some REALLY neat stuff, and you could be a part of it. You also get a real feeling of serving your country. The benefits are REALLY good, and if you plan right, you can make out quite well in retirement.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I believe that most companies think that they can hire any codemonkey out of college to do what you can do (but their's will need massive rework/refactoring) in 10x the time, even though they're only 1/2 to 1/3 the cost. Plus the older you get, the more time you're going to want to spend with your family (you did manange to pick up one of those along the way, didn't you?), and then there's other outside interests, like neighborhood associations and other civic and church (or Cthulhu) functions. Oh yeah, the older you get, the more time you're going to need for medical visits, and there's a health club in your future where you'll injure yourself once or twice a year.
And do you really want to continue working in software? Especially with the hours and working conditions? You have to face it, one cannot easily estimate how long software takes to get done (and I'll address that later), and since developers are some of the most optimistic people in the world, you'll invariably end up staying late about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time, especially if a PHB takes everybody's estimates and cuts them by a third, 'cuz he knows you can do it!
Unless you can find yourself one of the few jobs open at a big software shop like IBM where they have people that hopefully do a good job at estimating effort (and I had a buddy there that they didn't, and he had to essentially work 1 year of 60-hour weeks), you'll end up working at a small coding shop where they'll have to make optimistic projections to get the contract, and hence you're working late... again! And if you work at a place where software isn't the main product, you'll have clueless PHBs that are unable to figure out that software indeed *does* take that long to do, and why aren't you coding yet??!?
The folks that I know that are older and are making it in software have made names for themselves, have written one or more books, attend OOPSLA where they're presenters or panelists, or are otherwise looked upon as gurus. The rest of them are scraping along, waiting for the axe to fall... again. The true failures I know are those that don't want to update their skill set, or have truly vertical knowledge and are unable/unwilling to move to where their market is.
Unless a young person I know has true passion for software, and is willing to do the Software Engineering thing, which they used to not emphasize enough in undergrad, I tell them to find something else to do since unless they trip on the pot o' gold (and I know a guy that's been doing MS Access programming from home on a government contract for the past 10+ years that has been pulling in six figures the entire time), they're not going to make it on less-than-passion.
Now, where do you go from here? Hmmm... that's a really good question. As soon as I know, I'll let you in on it.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
I've worked commercial and academic. All of those were fun and interesting, but some (mostly commercial) demanded long hours. That late-night work never resulted in the promised recognition.
Now I work for a govt. research lab. Although money is sometimes tight, and the paperwork is sometimes a pain in the butt, there are some really nice things about it:
- The pay is good (not mind blowing, but quite good).
- I work with some of the smartest people I've ever worked with. Almost everyone has a master's degree, and a good fraction have their PhDs.
- The job stability is pretty good (although no guarantees)
- Because of the stability, I can feel free to dedicate my efforts to learning the problem domain, rather than staying abreast of each new glitzy programming language. I.e., I can focus on my current job rather than always focusing on being sellable in case I'm laid off.
- If you land the right job, you get the sense that you're work actually goes to help people, rather than just line the pockets of some rich sociopathological CEO. That's a nice feeling.
Maybe the most important thing is the regular hours. If you're planning on having kids, it's great for them to expect you home every night for dinner and for you to actually show up. Kids thrive with that kind of stability and with your actually being around when they're awake. They only have one childhood - don't miss it. A slightly more exciting career isn't worth it.
I've just started my own hitman business, and could really use the work! Right now, my equipment is limited to a fairly sharp pencil, but I'm quite good with it!
I think it depends on what sort of company you are with
I joined my current employer straight from university in 1972. At the time it was a small software development company, writing bespoke software for customers on a paid basis. They key to a long career in the same firm is to continue to re-invent yourself as the experience kicks in, and the industry changes, and to hope that the company continues to be a success and grows. For it is only the ability to take on more responsibility that allows the company to pay you more for the experience you have gained.
For the first 6 months I didn't really do any programming, more learning how the business worked (how to write proposals to customers! - when I started I didn't even know what a proposal was). Then I got an assignment at the space centre in Germany for a year, and when I came back I was seen as someone with a little experience. So then, not only did I program (I became the expert in RSX-11M on PDP 11s) but I was also expected to supervise others.
From there - right until the late 1980s, I combined technical work (not just programming, but as I got more experience I designed more and more complex systems) with project and eventually line management. The more senior I got, the less the technical work involved detail and the more it became strategic.
Some times this would combine with management responsibility for people (and profit) at other times I was setting technical policy for senior management (I was responsibly for getting networked PCs on to peoples desks in those early days of the PC).
At the beginning of the 1990s, the ability for our company to win projects in which you wrote a bespoke solution for a customer started to decline, and the new business was more about buying in products and configuring them to meet business requirements. So again, my career and my skill sets had to migrate. This time, it was more about understanding the business needs of the customer and being to select and propose the correct solution. So now my career became a combination of consultancy and pre-sales support. I still had to have a technical knowledge of what was possible, but it was now a long time since I had written serious amounts of software as a programmer, and the knowledge of how business operates and how IT can help it became more important.
And the type of business is changing again, and as it does so does my role. Business Process Outsourcing (possibly offshore) is where the real volume of business is now. My role therfore is to identify, on a worldwide basis, and in my specific business oriented field (IT necessary to allow competitive electricity and gas markets to work), where the market is spending money, and how our company can bring its experience to win business in the BPO area. I am then called upon to both present these issues to potential customers to help win business, but to also present in public forums (conferences, magazine articles etc) these ideas and why they are sound.
Each of these steps has been a step away from pure programming. Some steps have been scary (its very nerve racking having to present in public in front of a large audience), but ultimately the fact that you have met the challenge is very rewarding. And so today, I am far removed from the original career. But I am still with the same company, in the IT business, its just that I have changed with the times.
I have described my career, and I am not alone in the company of having people who have been around for a long time and continue to do (to a greater or lesser degree) technical (from an IT sense) sort of work (there are even more who have migrated into pure management). I don't think any of them do serious programming (although sometimes someone will write a small proof of concept or a quick demonstration for a customer), but somehow there careers have migrated to being the "liaison" between the business world and the technical world. I think all of them would say that its a rewarding type of role.
I experienced the same desire to leave the Silicon Valley coupled with wondering how to do it. I sorta started wanting to leave back in '99... the bust hadn't set in, and paychecks were huge, but I was freaked out by the crash I knew was coming. Then I had a kid, and suddenly I was going deeper into debt every month. Couldn't possibly afford to have another kid there, couldn't even really afford the one I had. No chance of buying a house I wanted. We were one missed paycheck away from not knowing what the hell would happen to us, a scary prospect when working in high tech. Considered moving to the east coast near family, but didn't get a single nibble on the resume as the bust was in full bloom.
My chance to leave came in an unexpected way. The small company I worked for was acquired by a huge company, and this huge company had a fairly liberal work-from-home policy. I inquired and was told I could work from anywhere I cared to move. Coincidentally enough, my wife's company was simultaneously acquired by a huge company, also with a superb work-from-home policy. We knew we had to take the opportunity, and burned rubber moving to a cheaper state. One with a reasonable job market, and WAY better housing prices and cost of living prices.
It's been a dream come true. The culture here is much more focused on family. We've had our second kid. We're paying off our debt at a radical clip. We live in a house so nice that we couldn't have even afforded to rent one like it in The Valley. We can now afford to have either one of us lose our jobs for over a year and we'd be fine. And the likelihood is that we'd eventually find worthy replacements for our jobs.
I feel that we got very lucky, but I do think that in our experience lies the potential seed of a way out for someone like yourself: you could seek work at one of these huge companies (IBM, Oracle, HP, etc) with a particular eye open for prospectively working from home, either right away or perhaps after some amount of time on a project. It may take some time, but the good thing about such an approach is that there's no "cliff" of risk - unlike moving somewhere and hoping you pick up a job right away.
Best of luck.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.