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Ask Slashdot: Joining a Startup As an Older Programmer?
First time accepted submitter bdrasin (17319) writes "I've had a series of interviews with a late-term startup (approx. 300 employees) and I think there is a good chance they will make me an offer. The technology is great, my skills and interests are a good fit for the position, I think the company has a promising future, and I like they team. Frankly I'm damn excited about it, more so than for any job in my career. However, I'm worried about what could euphemistically be called 'cultural' issues. I'm a few years over 40, with a wife and kids, and all of the engineers at the company seem to be at least 10 years younger than I am. Being at the company's office gives me a distinct old guy at the club feeling.
I don't think the overall number of hours the team works is more than I could handle, but the team does a lot of young-single-guy-at-a-startup group activities (rent-a-limo-and-go-clubbing night, weekends in Tahoe, Burning Man, in-office happy hour) that I wouldn't want or be able to participate in; I need to be home with my family for dinner most nights and weekends and so on. I'm wondering if anyone else has had the experience of working at a startup with, or as, an older programmer, and how it worked out?"
Maybe you should just do your work instead of trying to co-exist with younger people raising hell. If these activities you mentioned are part of the company requirements then the company isn't focused on success; just spending their investors' money.
Don't try to make any jokes or allusions that would get modded funny on /.
Gently reply
If it were a very small company and that were the culture, I'd be wary. But 300 people is reasonably big. Can you get an impression of whether the limo-and-clubbing type activities are something everyone participates in? It's quite possible that, despite being a high-profile part of the "company culture", it's only a smallish subset of people who actually go to those events, not all 300 employees. In that case it might not be a big issue, you'd just join the other people who don't go.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
300 employees doesn't really sound like a startup to me.
Are you sure they're not just leveraging the startup culture to sucker employees into working insane hours without compensation?
They all knew I had a family and could not experience all the single-guy-out-on-the-town stuff. I instead, genuinely, showed interest in hearing about their antics, which they enjoyed sharing with me. I also kept up on all the newest techniques and news of the languages and frameworks we used. Thus instead of "old guy" I became the quasi guru. Having a beard helps.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. - Adam Smith (1723-90)
That's pretty absurd. There is very little in common between software development and company development. You seem to postulate that company building is a more advanced form of development that software development grows into naturally. That's a pretty ridiculous assertion.
This question so accurately describes where I currently work, that I'm seriously wondering if you're talking about my company. If so, I can tell you, I am one of the younger guys who works at a company exactly as you described and we recognize that we lack experience. We have youthful vigor, time and energy, but we are hungry for experienced people who have seen the pitfalls and mistakes that can be made and give us guidance. There are always the people who put in the extra time because they are young, with no spouses or children, and the culture is sort of transitioning from a startup to a more compartmentalized corporate culture. We recognize the people who put in the extra blood sweat and tears, but we also recognize the value of an experienced worker who doesn't have to do that, and as such, there is no negative stigma from the company culture around people who want to go home at the normal time, and stick to putting in sane (40 - 50 hour weeks) time. I say go for it, because the older guys in the club get respect and recognition. If you really have wisdom and have not wasted your years, then your experience will be plenty to show for it.
The firm, now large and organized, can no longer be a roving band of inspired friends. It has to dock onto the household world.
Just admire your co-workers and invite a few to dinner now and then. They've already decided they like you.
Also, the "you should be founding startups at your age" sounds very much like those child games where four kids decide to play an army - a general, a colonel, a lieutenant and a private. If everyone after 40 is going to be a CEO or a VP, who's going to be doing all the expert technical work at the grunt first class level?
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm 55. 4 years ago, I left a good paying job at a Fortune-100 cube farm (where I was miserable) and went with a startup (where I'm having fun again). Best decision I ever made. I'm the oldest person in the company. Many of the people I work with are half my age. It all works just fine. Get over it. You're there to do a job, not be a frat buddy. If you don't want to go clubbing with the guys after work, don't go clubbing.
On the other hand, go into it with your eyes open. Startups are not the most financially stable place to work. Before I took this job, I discussed it with my wife. We've got no kids, no debt, and enough in the bank that if the startup went bust in 6 months (as, statistically, startups are likely to do), we'd still be OK. I would be more worried if I had kids to support, and loss of a paycheck might mean missing a mortgage or car payment.
Yes, and the warning is that you will be respected for your technical expertise and not for any foolish attempt to "fit in" bar hopping with super-annuated adolescent co-workers.
Yeah, first 2 -4 weeks is the honeymoon. Everybody figuring out what to do, they're exited - 'Yeah! We're in a start up!", people are dreaming of sotck options and retiring early, ....
The about a month, management says, "OK! There's a trade show coming up and we need our product in THAT show THEN! It's in 10 weeks!"
At first, everyone is like we're badass engineers! We can do it!"
So, everyone is working 12-18 hour days, weekends, some contractors are brought it...and you barely make it - or you have a prototype.
Then, just when you are about to catch up on your sleep, another dealine like that.
Then another ....
After about 6 months to a year, you are then informed of a "transaction".
You are then out the door, no stock or options.
My mistake. I took 6 months off to recoup. Unfortunately, taking time off in this field is a death sentence to your career.
I was involved in a startup in my 40s. It ultimately failed, but I learned lessons that will hopefully be valuable to you to. What you describe sounds like a dream job for most people. As long as you get it, I don't think you have to be concerned at all about being older than the others. They will appreciate the times when someone comes up with a bad idea that looks good, but you can say "I've seen this before, here's what happened..." - as long as you are right. Even better will be the times when someone has an unproven idea and you can say, "I remember a couple of times when one of our developers had an off the wall idea that we all wondered about, but it was appealing enough that we went with it anyway and it worked." As for the hours, there will be 20 and 30 somethings who will go on 24+ hour coding binges. Did you do that when you were in your 20s? Do you think you would be productive doing it? Does management expect you to disrupt your family life? It's hard to believe a company that has grown to have 300 employees would have leadership that expects all of their employees to destroy their personal life. If they do, the company won't be the success everyone hopes for anyway. (Well, the founders might walk away with a lot of money before it implodes, but you won't. You have to assess that risk.)
The great thing about a good startup is the chance it offers to to new kinds of work and see it succeed in the marketplace. This can be really exciting. It's possible that you might have a similar opportunity in a large company but the odds are very low since you will be separated from the product or service by layers of management and bureaucratic rules. Yes you will get a steady paycheck, but it will never compare with the huge win you can get at a startup and the satisfaction of knowing you had a direct role in the success. You can also ask yourself if the startup role will make you a better developer. If the company fails, will you have improved your technical knowledge so that you are still valuable to other companies? In an established company it's more likely that you will just be a code monkey whose skills slowly evaporate without you realizing it, although you don't sound like the kind of person who would let that happen. If OTOH, the company you work for is run by PHBs who are forcing you to work on obsolete stuff, you have to leave anyway. Some large companies do have great jobs, though, but I don't think you would be looking if you were really happy where you are.
From your description of the job and given that you don't sound like the Get Off My Lawn type, I would suggest that you join the startup if they make you an offer that is reasonable.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
I'm only in my mid-30s, but I've worked at 2 startups with a successful exit, and am currently at a 3rd. Both of the successful ones had older programmers (the new one doesn't because it's tiny. When we hire next older programmers will be considered). They were all respected for their contribution at work. Both startups had some of the "startup atmosphere", but there was never more than friendly invitations to join in, rather than pressure to be there. If you want to join in once in a while you'd likely be welcome, and a beer with your colleagues every few weeks can be a great way to lower tensions (or in my case a soda as I watched them drink).
The main thing is to remember to treat the younger people with respect. At a startup you'll likely hire a lot of young people because they're cheap, especially for non-critical roles. Remember that they're young, not stupid (at least most of them)- show them why they're wrong politely and show them why your way is better respectfully. There's great opportunities for mentorship there. Do that and you'll fit in just fine. You may even make friends with the more mature younger people- the age difference tends not to be as big a deal as people think.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I used to be a project manager. Although I wrote some code, I didn't become a full time software developer until I went with a startup 6 years ago when I was 55. I don't think I ever ran into problems with culture, maybe because the company was not a monoculture as described above. The software group had Indians, an Orthodox Jew, Asians, etc. That might be more typical of East Coast companies. Ages ranged from 20's up and I think all ideas were respected. The problems I had were not with the engineers but with the company management who made some pretty terrible decisions and did not respect my (or anyone else's) experience. I am now a happy Principal Software Engineer at a larger company, also with no problems with the engineers and with much better management.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Or you're supposed to be in management by now. And you've slowed down and can't possibly hope to keep up with the 20-somethings.
Any other cliches we've missed that are impossible to apply to everyone who's a 40-something programmer?
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Exactly. It's not like Zuckerberg coded facebook himself. He stole it of someone else. Entirely different skillset already.
Assuming I don't lose my dentures and my hip doesn't give out I'm sure I'll be able to come up with some right after my daily afternoon nap.
- 43-year-old programmer
Bark less. Wag more.
There is very little in common between software development and company development.
Yup, and "age" has nothing to do with either, experience does. If you work as a programmer, then as you age you should get better. But not because you are older, but because you are more experienced. I am an old guy (mid-fifties) and on my fifth startup. One was a clear success, the current one has been partially successful, and the other three were complete failures. I learned much more from the failures. The first was when I was when I was thirty, and I have worked at startups ever since. My situation is different in a number of ways: I was on the founding team every time, and my wife is more of a workaholic than me, so I am under no pressure on that. The biggest risk with a startup is usually financial, but if this company already has 300 employees, they either have plenty of funding or solid revenues. Your gray hair can be a significant asset to a startup. Investors like to see some adult supervision, so you should try to take on the role of the wise old veteran when you meet with them. Don't worry about the "social activities". If you pull your weight at work, the twenty-somethings aren't going to care if you go snowboarding with them.
What surprises me about it is that they're still having the party even though they've got 300 employees. My experience watching startups in Silicon Valley over the last few decades is that the typical pattern is that somewhere between 100 and 200 employees, the company hires a professional HR department instead of doing it informally, and the first thing the HR department does is shut down the beer party.
The purpose of the beer party isn't drinking beer. It's getting everybody to hang around and socialize and have unfocused discussions about what they're doing. It's especially valuable after the company reaches the first dozen or two people, because cross-organizational discussions tend to slow down by that point, and you desperately need them.
And if you're the old-timer joining the group? You really want to be at that beer party, because you'll have heard all those discussions a dozen times before at your previous companies, and you've got a lot to add. (On the other hand, you don't actually need to go to Burning Man with them, and going skiing depends on whether you're the skiing type; at one of my wife's previous startups, the 50-somethings were more likely to be skiers than the kids.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Also, if the company does well, you may get $20-$50K out of it. If the company does really well, you may get $100K. Don't even think about being in the next Google or Facebook, It. Will. Not. Happen. Even if you're in a superbly great company that's going to be making billions, you need to have an employee number less than 10 to become fabulously wealthy from it.
So what this means is, do NOT bypass the salary. Getting a decent salary can more than make up for the lack of equity. That equity may not pay for for 10 years, and all the while it's being diluted.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have been conditioned to worship at the altar of entrepreneurship. Mass media is hyping it all. People act as if everyone in silicon valley is wealthy or planning high level business deals. They will be the ones that voluntarily work the 16 hour days, and are baffled when others do not follow suit.
All that said. The 300 person company as described is NOT a start up. 300 is too large to be a startup. It may be pre-IPO but that is not the same thing. Many companies in that boat are in the stage where they already have or are nearing a reliable revenue stream. A startup is a company with no income and no near term prospects for income and survives solely upon third party investment and second mortgages.
At such a company, don't let the kids push you around (and 43 is not an "older worker", sheesh). Do NOT feel compelled to go drinking with a lot of party mad kids. You won't keep up. Don't go to burning man unless you've been before (if all of them are in that culture, you're in the wrong place, seek a place with more diversity quickly). Your main job as the "adult" is to instill a professional environment: code reviews, design reviews, respectful language, push back hard against unrealistic management deadlines, insist upon proper 8 hours days when there's no pending emergency. If everyone really is that young, then they have no experience at all with real companies.