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Is it Possible to Age Yourself Out of a Job?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm a programmer with more than twelve years of experience. In all that time, I've never been a 'senior' developer. I'm competent and I work hard, but I don't think I am quite a senior developer in terms of technical or people skills. More and more I feel that I'm aging myself out a job. By this time, employers expect someone with my experience to have advanced some, and they may not be willing to even talk to me now, thinking that my pay requirements have grown while I have not. Even if I did get hired someplace new, my peers would likely be much younger than me. What do you do when you have an applicant like that? Are my fears legitimate?"
read a lot of programming books and learn as many useful programming languages as you can. even if you don't want to be a senior developer, you can still be the guy everyone goes to when something has to be done right.
when searching for a job if you think they will overestimate your salary requirements be upfront about what you expect to make to eliminate that problem.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
As somebody who hires people at startups and small companies, my take is "maybe". Programmers are a quirky lot, and I try to take each one individually. Although the arrogant ones get the press, there are quite a number that are ridiculously modest, and you might be one of those.
Even if you aren't, there are advantages to age. The biggest one is maturity. There are mistakes that every novice makes that are (I hope!) behind you. Instead of a drama generator, you are probably a drama shock absorber. Even if your people skills aren't as great as you like, they're probably a lot better than 12 years ago. And best of all, you can see that with age comes some self-awareness. Everybody has problems, but in hiring one of the things I really look for is an awareness of your limitations and the ability to manage them yourself.
When evaluating somebody in your situation, one of the big questions I'd have aside from the usual ones (e.g, can you do the work) is whether you are still like the work and are eager to improve. For example, I feel like every programmer should learn a new language once a year. That doesn't mean that you become expert in it, just that you are stretching your brain. Or you might have a side project you're excited about. Or you might be studying software architecture patterns. Anything that proves you aren't a clock-puncher who just isn't sure what else to do.
So I'd say as long as you are doing work you want to do and doing it well, don't sweat it much. You may have to work harder to find a job than some young hotshot, but there are plenty of employers who value a steady producer who won't be a pain in the ass.
be just pay. Younger people tend not to have families and, lacking experience, will often be coerced into working longer hours etc. They could be afraid that you would not put up with such conditions and bolt as soon as you got the chance.
I'm 26, but I am saving like hell because I know that age discrimination is rife in this industry, and the more I save for retirement right now, the less I have to worry about such things.
Monstar L
Advanced users are users too!
I hate to say it, but yes. When reviewing a resume, I look for things like growth & ambition. At 12 years experience, I've seen very good architects. If one wasn't even Senior, I'd wonder why that is. Lack of ability? Lack of desire? Clock puncher?
In most cases, I'll never know or have the chance to ask the candidate. Instead, I'll just move to the next 99 resumes in the stack.
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but hopefully honesty will help.
I can't speak from experience about your situation, but I think you might have a number of very good options.
There are probably unlimited more things we could think about. You shouldn't underestimate your 12 years of experience, especially if you are a hard worker, and have a reputation of getting things done.
One last thing, I get the feeling from reading your question that you might have the problem where you keep your head down and work hard, and as a result people forget who you are, and then forget you are even there. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, pardon the cliche. As I pointed out above, it is in your best interest to maintain some level of connection to people around you and above you in your company. The more they see you and talk to you, the more they feel they know you, and the more likely you are to be presented with opportunities for advancement.
I've been a software engineer for 25 years. No issues. There is no expectation that you should move to management at some point. The main expectation is that you are able to keep up with technology as it changes. I've moved from COBOL to C to Java to perl to php. I've used more scripting languages than I can remember. You have to keep moving forward. You never stop reading. Provide mentoring to less experienced engineers. Never hide what you know. It is not good being the curmudgeon that keeps his knowledge to himself. You become a teacher. Understand where projects you have participated in have succeeded or failed. Bring that experience to that table. Most of us have seen more product the never made it to market than have made it. Your experience in knowing why projects succeed is something import you bring to the table. Plus you are the senior guy you get more opportunities to take lead on the cool projects. So I would not worry. I am seeing more people with some gray and missing hair. So as long as you produce, people will continue to hire you.
*sigh* This is part of the problem with programming. This is rarely an issue in any other career (except maybe medicine). For just about any other occupation, candidates who are married with children are more desirable because even though they may have commitments outside of work, other people are relying on them, and they are less likely to make haphazard career decisions. Simply put, they are better long term employees -- they are already committed to their families and are therefore more committed to their employer. Yet, somehow, in IT, a family is often a liability. Something about that is not right in my book.
I'm 26, but I am saving like hell because I know that age discrimination is rife in this industry, and the more I save for retirement right now, the less I have to worry about such things.I'm 28 and I'm out of the programming game. Enron's collapse did me in. I'm going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering. If the IT industry wasn't so abusive maybe I'd still be in it, but I'm just not that interested in programming anymore (for a living, anyway - I still program in my spare time). You know, if there was ever an industry in the last 50 years that needed to unionize, it's IT...
That goes double if you put it on the net...
I spent a lot of time early on walking through HR and sitting in on interview processes and their aftermaths to let HR understand beyond any uncertain terms where I stand as their manager and what I expect out of them.
I have a simple rule that I demand they abide be. Pay is proportional to proven skill level. Age can kiss my ass. A 14 year old coder of the newest and greatest Firefox or a middle aged old hand, or someone who's been in my organization for x years and who has been lukewarm and suddenly caught on fire, it's all the same. When the light comes on it must shine on a hill and not be stuffed under a rug.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Sure, it's called retirement. Next!
A related and somewhat provocative question that it hardly every asked is whether programmers 'peak' and are less effective after a certain age or not.
I know it's widely believed that mathematicians have already peak by their late 20s or early 30s.
I am now in my mid-30s, and i believe that my memory and ability to hold a lot of things in my mind at once has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 10-15 years. I have a lot of experience that makes up for it of course, but i think at some point i suspect i'm going to become less productive as a programmer (it may have already happened).
I don't want to contribute to ageism because i know that there are a lot of great programmers in their 40s, 50s and beyond - i just think it's an interesting question. Anyone have any opinions?
(I remember hearing that Steve Wozniak thinks that for him the magic age was around 40)
People with MBAs are happy to pay people highly with MBAs... if you can't beat them, then join them.
My little Linux and tech blog
Here here my friend. I'm 24, and have been doing IT for 6 years. I made my hobby my job, and in search of a new hobby I began taking flying lessons. I hope one day to make it my new career. Then IT will be more fun again =)
You say you lack the technical and social skills to get to senior level. Develop either one or both.
:-)
Specialise:
Get some focused, advanced specialist trianing in a subect that interests you and is commercially interesting. Invest some money in doing this.
Develop your social skills:
There are courses in social skills, customer handeling, consultancy skills etc. Get a good training and develop what you already have further. You are asking for the opinion of others here, why not expand that communication urge to fields where it can be beneficial to you personally or, even better, professionally.
Get some management skills:
If it interests you in the least, get some business degree, a MBA or some form of management training. It may not be what you want to do now, but it provides an option to be of value to a company later and keep a job.
Bottom line:
Invest in yourself. Don't be scared of investing some money in this, but choose quality and choose education in a direction you feel confident will provide you options. Be cautious of things you like now and think are fun: They may not add extra skills. Also be cautious with things you do actively dislike: it may take a lot of effort to master something like that and you would have te grow to like it if you want to be succesfull in it.
Good luck from a chemical engineer/project manager/sales representative/marketeer/manager. Yes, I chose the diversify option
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Actually, that sounds like a quick way to begin a new career where you could charge customers $20 a month to download content from a website...
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Yet, somehow, in IT, a family is often a liability. Something about that is not right in my book.
The main reason why family is considered a liability in IT is because IT is an industry where sweatshop labour is considered the holy grail.
Families have a tendency to get in the way of Dad working 18 hours a day, and the sorts of demoniacs at the top of the IT management pile don't want that. They want people who are willing to work for as long as possible at a stretch, for as little money as possible, in as poor conditions as possible. It's the entire reason why importing people from India has become so popular.
India at least used to be a third world country, and so you can import someone from there, pay them south of $250 a week without any other sorts of benefits, and expect to get 18 or so hour workdays out of them, and they'll still think they've died and gone to heaven. An American rank and file employee on the other hand is never going to put up with that, but American managers crave being able to treat their staff like that, because it keeps overhead to a bare minimum, which means more money in their pockets...which is also the *only* thing they care about.
That is the reason why IT managers don't want workers having families...it's because they don't want to treat IT workers like human beings. They don't want to *acknowledge* that IT workers are human beings, because doing so means they lose more money than they're comfortable with. The "money is more important than life itself," crowd don't care about anything else...in the end they don't even care about their own lives. All they care about is the size of their bank balance.
I'd like to present an opposing view to the posts that have been modded up so far.
I believe that yes your fears are definitely legitimate. You state that you don't see yourself moving up from your current position even though you expect higher pay. Unfortunately these two options are not compatible.
Companies constantly judge the value that they get out of an employee versus how much that employee costs. The reason managers get paid more is that they are able to leverage more people (=value) and therefore create more overall value as a result.
If you haven't already, you will definitely hit a ceiling in terms of pay. If your salary continues to go up past that ceiling (due to company policy or a friendly manager), you will be the first person earmarked to go when the company downsizes (as a result of the previously mentioned value judgment).
I do understand that it might be harder for you to gain the required people skills to move up, especially in an industry that, at the lower ranks, requires very little in terms of people skills. But people skills, just like any other skill, can be learned and acquired by practice.
The good news is this: if you do make an effort to acquire those people skills, you'll be able to move up the ladder much quicker than those younger than you because, as mentioned in another post, the level of maturity you should now possess will definitely play a big role in the more senior roles.
Life's not fair - deal with it. Each profession has pros and cons. Quit whining and start learning something new. It's nothing to do with unions, and I've never found it abusive. At least, I don't take any crap. You need to try working in a few places until you find something you like - perhaps contracting.
Wow. What great advice! I almost wish I'd said something about "going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering" in my original post! You know, assuming you don't have Asperger's Syndrome, I think you'd be terrific management material. Again, thanks for the wonderful advice! Cheers.
Hooters?
Disclaimer: I only read the article title. Please mod me down!
Vehicle Stars used car search is my current project
Good, now after you have vented your spleen let me correct some of your facts and reasoning:
First, based on my experience other countries lead in the "slaverunner" routine. In fact, I would prefer to work for all of the American bosses I have worked for in my career any day compared to some of the British ones I have encountered. With nearly all of Americans the result was the most important item and how many hours did you clock on it was irrelevant. Similarly, most of them defined sane and achieveable deadlines instead of a UK-style deadline which is known to be blown beforehand. There is a reason why Britain is the only EU country to start throwing toys out of the pram every time the EU working time directive is discussed. And you can guess what it is.
Second, any IT person complaining about antisocial working conditions should look at the BioTech industry. They have take the leaf out of the IT book and have gone where no IT PHB Slaver has dreamed to go before. IT is a family friendly calm 9-5 desk job by comparison.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Unfortunately this is way too true and its something people in IT miss.
When someone looks at a resume IT people think they have to say what skills do they have; "I have language/skill X with Y years of experience."
What is much more impressive is answering the question "What did you do in Y years with language/skill X that helped the company." I don't do this yet, but I believe it gets you from the "maybe" pile to the "lets call him/her in" pile.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
The main reason why family is considered a liability in IT is because IT is an industry where sweatshop labour is considered the holy grail.
You clearly have never worked at an architecture, marketing, or any other firm that is driven by the need to have brain-hours to make money. They all flog their people to be caffine-overdosing, red-eyed drones. It's everywhere. The only way to get to the top is to stand on top of others. The only way to stay at the top is to keep the others down. There are exceptions of course - but they usually rely on graft or extortion (ex: AutoDesk - great working environment because they can extort $1000/seat out of all of their customers every year. Don't like maintenance? Every three years the format changes to be incompatible with previous releases, and the upgrade charge is *suprise* the same price as 3 years of maintenance!).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Wow, get me a job with your former or current employers. Every project I've been on since 1999 has been behind schedule before the first line of code had even been thought of. Most were delivered early or on time with the last 5 years all being based on face time only, even if telecommuting or flex time were given lip service.
/. community reads /. during work hours.... ;)
If you take those two statements together, you'll see something had to give, and it was working hours. Only in the past 2 years have I forced the issue of the 40 hour work week back into my life. I'm now somewhere between 40-45 hours a week instead of 70-95, and I still manage to deliver those ridiculous deadlines. What I have noticed is that I am now working 6-8 straight hours a day (as compared to the estimated 3 hours of value add work in some government survey I'm too lazy to pull up - that's due to email, phone calls, meetings, people interrupting you, the web, bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, etc) If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, as most of the
But, I'll make this comment, after many years in IT, my upward career swing is stalling. Does that have to do with my attitude? Undoubtedly, as traveling more than 10% is out of the question for the next couple of years (kids can have that effect). It also has to do with the realization that I'm already at an apex of sorts, and there's really no opportunities for advancement without career development of the sort that involves major changes (sr architect (technical) -> technical director (mgmt)). Unfortunately, the particular type job I'm looking for typically involves geographically spread out operations and 25%+ travel. This causes a conundrum where I have to decide whether to travel, or work below my level. Pick your evil.
I'm sure I'm not the only "older programmer" out there that's realized this.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Unionizing IT is not the answer. A couple of years ago I did a contract in a unionized IT shop and it was a nightmare! Incompetent, unqualified, downright lazy people in critical support positions, and protected by the union. Unions cater to the lowest common denominator and cause quality and productivity to suffer. Individuals have as much power as a union, they just need to stand up for it!
I have been in IT for 20+ years, I have worked in a lot of different shops, and you only get abused if you accept it. I have worked in shops that expected long hours, and I only did it if I felt like it. If the situation got too bad, i.e. they start demanding that I spend extra hours, I walked. The beauty of IT is that there is ALWAYS another job out there. In 20+ years I have only been out of work ~2 months total, and yes, I have changed jobs twice in the last 5 years. Outsourcing is completely overblown, computers are here to stay and only getting more integrated into our lives and businesses, there is going to be IT work for a very long time.
Seriously. Nearly every programmer I know over the age of 40 works in a mainframe shop maintaining legacy COBOL programs. These programs never go away - ever. People try to rewrite them, but I've never seen a COBOL conversion actually succeed. COBOL guys, unless grossly incompetent, are untouchable. They all seem to be labeled a Sr. Engineer regardless of what they actually do or what their skill level is.
Keep on keepin' on. Get new languages as you need them. Be flexible. Number one, above, probably has an awful lot to do with it.
When I started using the Internet there was almost nothing out there but Nix or Mainframe command lines. If you couldn't handle those you were SOL. I started reading /. very early on when it and the web were new. Still read it almost every day. Good going, Taco.
What is true is that salaries top out quickly...so if you want to keep getting more than nominal salary increases, you eventually have to go into management. What is also true is that as you age, you have to stay on top of the technology. Too many people get themselves in trouble by attaching themselves to a technology. I remember when the Defense industry died in the late eighties, lots of Cobol programmers hit the streets and started screaming "age discrimination!!!" because no one would teach them C++. This is why I've made damn sure I have things like "XML" and "Python" and "Javascript" on my resume now. If you're good, you can stay in this career as long as you want, but it takes work, and it takes planning. Be prepared to quit jobs that are decent, but use outdated technology.
The cake is a pie
Ahem. I have the same observation.
8 hours per day is maximum and even 8 hours per day every day is not sustainable for more than a month or so if you want to produce quality work (it is OK if these are not solid 8 hours and you distract yourself with email, meetings, studying, etc). If you work more than 8 hours per day (in fact more like 5-6 solid coding hours) you end up producing crap code and spending more time on maintaining it and fixing issues. As a result you end up going down a vicious circle. The more you work per day, the worse your code quality and the more time you need to maintain it. Recursion - see recursion.
The best thing to do is to break the vicious circle once and for all and do it when your brain is fresh. Coming back from a holiday is one of the best times to do it. I did it after I saw the number of bugs in something which I wrote by deadline just before going on holiday finishing at 4am. And I have never regretted this from that time onwards.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/