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Ask Slashdot: IT Career Path After 35?
An anonymous reader writes "All my friends seem to be moving towards a managerial role, and I'm concerned about my increasing age in a business where, according to some, 30 might as well be 50. But I still feel young, and feel like I have so much to learn. So many interesting technical challenges cross my path, as I manage to move towards larger and more complex projects. I am in higher demand than ever, often with multiple headhunters contacting me in the same day. But will it last? Is age discrimination a myth? Are there statistics on how many IT people move into management? I know some older programmers who got bored with management and successfully resumed a tech-only career. Others started their own small business. What has been your experience? Do you/have you assumed a managerial role? Did you enjoy it? Have you managed to stay current and marketable long after 35?"
Hire a few people. Delegate. Train them. As your projects get more complex - grow your team. Before you know it - you're the boss of a sizeable team, able to manage several projects concurrently, whose portfolio grows exponentially. Unless of course you want to be pulling your own cart well into the 'standard' retirement age... Just a thought...
I work with someone who started an IT career in their mid 30s in an entry level (help desk) position. I've seen people retire from IT from the same help desk, the same as I've seen people advance to other parts of the company and other government agencies. At 28 I'm actually the second youngest on our team. When I say help desk that's just the beginning too. We do production monitoring as well as being system operators.
You are NOT too old to start in IT!
sudo mod me up
To get hired in such an organization without starting out at the helpdesk or as a monkey with a screwdriver you'll need to have your certifications. I'm not talking A+ either, I'm talking MCP/MCSE/CCNA type certs.
It sucks, but certifications are a way of demonstrating that you have enough commitment to the field to get them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
...the coffee almost shot thru my nose!
i'm 49, and still love solving technical challenges and learning new shit, so I still code...I must admit its getting harder and harder these days to be on a "team" of 20-somethings. It's very possible these folk I infrequently work with consider me a "loser" for still being in the trenches.
fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
maybe you will enjoy management, maybe not...perhaps give it a try for awhile and see how it fits you...you can always easily go back.
imfuo, the hardest part of *not* going into management is the social aspect of it.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
And still technical. 100% technical. There have been a few cases where I felt like I was denied a job because I was too old ... "not a good fit with company culture" and that sort of thing... but as others have said, those companies just disqualified themselves.
The reality is that I'm a better programmer now than when I was 25. I havre a much better understanding of "craftsmanship" -- things like testing, documentation, making sure my code is not "brittle" -- even though my ability to devour new technologies has slacked a bit.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
But it can happen.
I'm 43, and managing a group of software engineers at a streaming company; my peers range from early 30s to early 50s, but there are other managers and directors here who are (at least somewhat) older than that.
More importantly, though, there are engineers here who are older than me, and who you could argue are as senior as I am, or more senior (in either the "more people listen to them" sense or the "they get paid more than I do" sense). This company also has a strong belief that you shouldn't go into management because you want a promotion or more money, so people who enjoy being engineers are encouraged to continue being engineers. There's no salary cap on being an engineer, and for pretty much as long as I've been a manager here, I've had engineers reporting to me who made more money (sometimes, significantly more money) than I do.
Having demonstrated pretty decent Individual Contributor (IC) skills, my last two bosses have always said that if I ever got tired of management and wanted to do the IC thing again for a while, they'd be delighted to find a slot for me.
But that's us. And we aren't representative of the business, I suspect. We're not QUITE the outlier -- high tech company, Silicon Valley, ~16 years in operation -- but we're definitely not your 20-person SOMA startup running on Red Bull and testosterone.
I'll tell you one life lesson my parents taught me, though, that has served me well: Figure out what you love doing, and do that. You'll occasionally be buffeted off-course. That's OK -- get back on-course.
I've been married for about 7 years now; early in our relationship, when I was an IC in another company, making a lot less money, my wife argued I should be thinking about maximizing my family's income and financial stability and go into management just because of that; she persuaded me, and I went into management at that company, and was profoundly unhappy. Finally, luckily, got laid off in 2009. We both learned our lesson, and these days my wife's only rule is "pick a job that will make you happy; if we need more money I'll go out and make it." Works well.
Shit's only changed for people that are constantly jumping from job to job. Sounds like subby is one of them (you sound like one too).
For those of us "older" IT professionals that actually stay at one company this isn't an issue at all.
Find a good company that exposes you to the challenges you want, pays well, and has benefits and then stick your ass in the chair and stay there. You'll soon come to realize that yes job security actually does exist.
Absolutely.
You'd have to pry the keyboard and mouse from my cold, dead hands. ;)
A catastrophic health problem can change your plans overnight, at any age. Throw in that the older you get, the more likely it is to happen ... and employers can do the math too.
I thought I'd be coding until the week I die. After a couple of years not coding (couldn't use a computer because my retinas were messed up) I'm actually kind of glad that I can't get back into it. The allure of the "high" from "getting into the zone" and doing awesome stuff in marathon coding sessions isn't as attractive as it used to be anyway.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I ended up at a startup run by adults, actually in Silicon Valley. Contrary to the usual stereotypes, we do value experience and actually have a lot of engineers who are over 40. We have hardly anyone in a "management" role, so many of them had to make the transition from management back to actual development when coming to us. In fact, its only been very recently that we've hired any notable number of engineers who didn't already have some post-college work experience under their belt.
Of course we function by having a relatively small number of good people, rather than a large number of mediocre people, so all that experience really does benefit our environment.
So I've hired a lot of older programmers, and a lot of older programmers are my best ones.
1) You can't fake management. I've fired far more managers than top technical guys. If you're not really into management, you're not going to make it. It's starting over in an entirely new skillset. Be a team lead for a few people if necessary or expected for your company.
2) Find a really tough area. It's probably not going to be the new cool language of the week. My top older programmers have been mainframe specialists, database architects, systems architects, data warehousing specialists. Whatever was really tough at the time. By focusing on really hard, complex problems you scare off the younger competition. It's ok, they want to work on the new shiny stuff anyway.
3) Learn to communicate. Those new young guys do, but they have their own style. Take advantage of your background and create your own style. You need to build partnerships with managers and customers so they have confidence in you. Make your experience valuable to the team doing peer reviews, designs, etc. Spend time mentoring new guys in the "right way" to build and maintain systems. Not being an old fogey/jerk -- just sharing the wealth with everyone new and old. My best old guys can reach across the org and get me access to data sources unreachable through the front door. Access to their "old guys network" and institutional knowledge is something they bring to the table. The young guys bring something else. I assign each to the jobs that are right for them.
4) Push the future from your perspective. The young guys are from an edgy and somewhat naïve perspective. You need to push the future from your perspective. If you keep your head down and keep programming, the young guys will win, one will get lucky and end up in management and potentially all hell will break loose. Even if you don't win, being part of the strategic planning process makes sure you stay in the game and the voice of experience and discipline is heard (and keeps middle aged guys like me in charge).
Some of my saddest days was guys retiring at 60+ or dying on the job. I can always hire new young guys -- it takes decades to get more experienced guys.
Age doesn't matter - I've had multiple rather old people on my team of software engineers. Age really doesn't matter.
However, as you get older and your knowledge and experience grows, you will get parasites. Instead of applying your knowledge and experience developing software like you used to, you will be answering all kinds of questions, performing little chores etc. because you happen to know how to because of your experience... to the point that you can no longer just be a software engineer. Research has shown that after each interruption it takes about 17 minutes to get back to the job. On average. For complex coding jobs, this time may be much longer and just a single question about something important but not directly related to your job may get you out of the flow for the rest of the day.
You may need to switch jobs to avoid this; once you start getting more than a handful of such requests that are not part of your coding job, run.
Also, consistently being an asshole may prevent this. But that's probably similarly detrimental to you career...
0x or or snor perron?!