Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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
Work for a medium sized/large, established company, not a startup run by kids. The only place I've ever seen agism is at startups where everyone is in their early 20s. They all think that they're the bees knees, and that no one could possible know better than them, and because they never hire anyone older, they never find out that they're wrong. At larger shops, you'll find a lot more experienced people who know that age is a benefit, not a detriment.
My IT career didn't even *start* until I was 32 or 33, it's 20 years later now... and I'm doing just fine, thanks.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
We don't all do that you insensitive fucktard!
For "senior" technical people that actually are not good at it, that is certainly true. I have seen that as a consultant countless times. On the other hand, those that are senior and _are_ good engineers, typically welcome (competent) criticism as a chance to learn even more. So basically this is just another effect of hiring incompetent engineers.
Incidentally, that incompetence breeds incompetence is a very old effect. There is also the effect of people that want to make their life easy: "How, do you ensure underlings are loyal? One answer is to promote incompetents." And "If you promote people who deserve it, they will never be grateful." -- Machiavelli
While it sounds like and old, tired cliché, you only get technological excellence from people that have technological excellence as their primary goal in life.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I write software as a career. I don't do marathon coding sessions or any of the ridiculous self sacrificing stuff that some seem to think is the norm (and seems to be the cause of people burning out within a few years and switching career paths).
Maybe I have been fortunate finding a work that values optimal performance for the time worked over just tons of time, but I certainly feel you can have it both ways (software and work-life balance).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
As a middle aged coder with many years of experience under his belt, I can make the following generalizations based on my experiences:
The first five years after college are the hardest, many people only want to hire coders with experience. If this is where you are now, stick to it if you love it and things will work out. If you are a 'casual coder' who got into the field because you think that its easy money, quit now.
As the years pass, I am finding no end of people who want to hire senior coders that can work 'full stack' and can manage projects and small teams independently. The money is quite good, and the work almost comes to find you. You have to be willing to work to keep up with tech and keep your skills sharp. The only managers that are making twice what I make are going to be c-level, so I if you want to jump ship to management for better money you had better be really good at it. I can promise you these people are not doing half the work I do though. Pay is usually equitable to responsibility, and they have their fair share of that.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!