Hi.
I was in my 30s and holding a steady job as a programmer with big corporate. Then I decided to take a small sabbatical. Before I knew it, several years had passed and my savings were getting epleted. So I tried to get bck in the job market again, landed a job, but couldn't clear their probration then landed another job and also couldn't clear probation, then spent almost year without success looking for job. That's when I decided to start my own business. It's been almost a decade since then and I still haven't made any money, but it sure beats being jobless or unwanted at a steady job.
An engineer's career usually tapers off beyond a certain age. Risk taking therefore has to be reduced as your career options get narrower with seniority -- moral of the story.
I respectfully disagree. I believe being risk averse makes you age faster and helps you live up to the "old programmer" stereotype.
I'm 40, so one foot in the grave in the tech world, yet I have managed to keep myself marketable by not being afraid to jump in and learn new things when needed, just like a college kid, but with experience. Maybe I'm wasting my time spending hours learning Vue or Kubernetes for the future but if I had stayed "safe" developing WPF calendar apps and cursing the new stuff I'd be dead in the water. And taking on new positions and companies puts me out of my comfort zone and teaches me new things.
I agree, I’m in my early 30’s but I have no problem hiring people above 40’s. The key thing that I observe is indeed the ones who are still curious and always tinkering with new things, especially combined with their experience, are extremely powerful. Wouldn’t trade them for any young kid in the world. The instances where it doesn’t work out is when they have an inability to adapt or to change.
“engineer's career usually tapers off beyond a certain age.”
With the caveat that we’re talking about software, not most other kinds of engineers, I know that this is broadly true, but just now this made me think of how modelling careers or pop-singer careers taper off beyond a certain age. There’s a lot of diva-like behavior in those fields - which aren’t so much about skills acquired through hard work but rather one’s inborn gifts (and a bit of malnutrition to stay skinny). Many engineers, especially ones who bank primarily on their innate talent/intelligence as opposed to hard earned skills (in combination with natural talent) like the average non-software engineer also tend to be predisposed to diva-like or fratboy like behavior.
I’ve also noticed that many of the (s/w) engineers who’ve survived way past that certain age tend to be of a very different personality type than those who “retire early”, and their persona has more in common with the average non-software engineer of comparable experience. Of course the huge bias on the recruiting side, and the fact that a majority of apps are basic CRUD type stuff fuelled primarily by cheap VC cash, that have no real use for 20 years experience, exacerbates this situation. But I wonder as the industry matures, and the proportion of apps with serious scale possibly grows, if the need for engineers “past their prime” wouldn’t gradually rise.
> I was in my 30s and holding a steady job as a programmer with big corporate. Then I decided to take a small sabbatical. Before I knew it, several years had passed
Boy does that sound familiar. I’m fine financially, but mainly due to luck. Tried looking for work before family medical issues took higher priority, but if getting a new job had been as easy as I had expected before the sabbatical, I wouldn’t have been available to help the family.
I still don’t know how much of my problem was down to me vs how much was down to looking in Berlin when all of my previous work had been in the UK.
I suspect this scenario is unique to the high tech software/hradware/IT industry due to the pace at which workers are expected to work at in this industry. With age related decline in efficiency, the only option available to you is to look for more managerial or organizational roles which are at higher levels in the jobs pyramid and hence fewer in number. In other industries, which have been around a lot longer than the 40-50 year old IT industry, I suspect this is not as much of a problem because their pacing issues are far better resolved.
That's an interesting observation.
Let's take a sport.
Say tennis.
let's take competitive tennis, played by professionals.
At the world level, tennis is both a physical and mental game where you are trying to outguess your opponent in the context of a rally.
Roger Federer, who is now 36 is a rare exception in his ability to stay on top at his age.
The sport requires intense focus, both mental and physical.
This focus does goes down beyond a certain age.
You could argus that there is a difference between physical and mental focus ...
> You could argus that there is a difference between physical and mental focus ...
Not only that, developing software is generally a "slow" task, not constant decision making in spans of milliseconds like in a "fast" sport you mentioned. If you want to compare, try a "slow" sport like golf, does your observation still hold true?
In engineering tasks you also gain a lot of productivity (at least if your metrics aren't crap, might be often a problem here) from years and decades of building up experience and knowledge. Moreover this doesn't get lost to a huge degree if you pause 1-2 years, not like physical training which goes away quickly and is hard to build up again.
I think what could play a role here is that older people may often be less focused on the job because that focus shifts to other things in life like e.g. family.
I have to say I have more than just some experience here... Quick decision times decline VERY slowly; that is to say the amount of time it takes to make the correct decision as opposed to just reacting to a situation. You are confusing the amount of strength it takes to play at the top level and still have enough in the tank to not lose focus.
FWIW I'm not talking out of my hat here, I "played" a very thought intensive sport in my younger day and was one of the top guys in the US on any given day. I still have ridiculously quick decision times and the concentration of a Monk with ADD when I drive, But there's no way my bod could compete with a my former self of 20 years ago. I'm in pretty good shape now but I'm not a World class athlete anymore.
Aging and tennis (and sports in general) reflects real, physical deteriorations that aren't in play -- at least not in the same domain -- with mental processes.
With any decline in focus it is important to see a therapist and find out if you are really suffering from depression. It is stunningly common for people to mistake the symptoms of depression for the symptoms of aging.
That's a double edged sword because the therapist you choose has a singificant role to play in your understanding of focus and it's level correlation with age. Your therapist's a bility to diagnose is stringly correlated with your ability to communicate the nature of your work. Every other thepaists you go with with your query will give you a different answer. In other words, it's a very subjective process and hence double edged. It's not cut and dried or objective like analysis, which as an engineer, you are likely good at.
Mid 20's SE here. I've known so many colleagues past 40, and they would mop the floor with me technically. The experience of being in the industry for 20 years is gold.
The only advantage we (younger people) have is energy and fewer responsibilities (take care of kids, grandsons, medical issues). But we are still reckless and have many unknowns unknowns compared to the older folk.
I appreciate your specific experience. But, I have a question regarding your statement regarding risk taking.
Did you mean, if you want to stay an engineer as you age, then you have to take less risks because it will be difficult to get that next job as an engineer? Do you also mean, that it actually becomes more likely that you will be forced to start a business if you fall out of the engineering career due to age / circumstance, because it is difficult to be hired as one?
I'm curious because, it seems like the older you get but are still capable of working, if you are unemployed, the higher the likelihood that you will be forced to take more risks than less to find the employment or make a business.
I have heard that you are more likely to be successful starting a business if you are older, not younger [1] [2] [3]. I'm sure it's not true for everyone, but that might make sense if you are unable to work in the normal job market but have experience and ability.
That's a question with many corollaries so my answer will be a bit lengthy.
The reason you need to take less risks is because your ability to execute a task that you were used to executing before is reduced due to the ageing process. For example, you need to take longer breaks and sooner. In other words, your full speed to work goes down. So to compensate, you have to be more careful with the work you undertake. For example, it's easier to supervise someone else on a task you are familiar with instead of doing yourself at your lower efficiency.
In a sense, your conclusion about needing to take more risks is true. But the risk is being taken by your oerganization in betting on you to be able to execute on the task you have set out to do. What I am talking about is personal risk, that you take in your choice of what you will do. That choice needs to get a little more conservative as a you age so as to give some margin for error that you probably didn't need as much before.
The second part of your question regarding how things will turn out regarding whetehr you work for an org or yourself is more circumstantial than anything else.
The third observation seems to make sense regarding success of business as a function of age of founder. As you age, you choose your work better because you have more experience.
> your ability to execute a task that you were used to executing before is reduced due to the ageing process
> your full speed to work goes down
> your lower efficiency
Do you have sources on this? On its surface, it sounds like fairly ageist thinking. I'm not young, but I don't feel like I've slowed down at all. In fact, my experience keeps me from making as many mistakes as when I was younger.
I know folks, considerably older than I, who are faster still at the things with which they have experience, and quick to pick up new things, too.
The reason you need to take less risks is because your ability to execute a task that you were used to executing before is reduced due to the ageing process.
I don't think this is true. It might be more true if the task involves learning a lot of completely new stuff, but there's very little completely new stuff - experience helps in learning most of what comes out these days.
Execution is sped up more by doing the right thing than doing things quickly. Just like typing speed is not normally the limiting factor, speed qua speed isn't what makes things slow. I've seen younger devs work very fast in the wrong direction especially when they are lacking in code design and debugging skills.
Interesting that you mention breaks. Breaks are opportunities to get your head up. Taking fewer breaks will increase the probability of spending too much time on the wrong road.
I hire freelancers frequently. I never ask them what their age is, I ask for their portfolio and what they are skilled in. Maybe you should look into contracting.
At my age, being able to move around is limited and being able to stay in one place and work is preferred as it assists in keeping a more stable lifestyle which helps with foucs that tends todecay with age. Since contracting typically is for short terms, and requires frequent changes in job location, it's not as attractive as it would have been at an earlier stage in life.
Ideally, find a contracting role / freelance locally, but work remotely. Doing it "locally" will help build up your network and reputation and lead to more opportunities down the road. Maybe meet 1-2 times every 1/2 weeks and work remotely. More frequent communication should be limited to agile-like questions that come up and should be able to completed over email if you pick your clients well.
Needing to find clients towards the end of each project takes it's toll on the worry related centers of your mind and should ideally be avoided . This helps you maintain continuity with what you are doing and helps you with your output efficiency. The having to find a new contract every once in a while throws a spanner in this wrench.
I don't know where you live or what you do, but as a front-end dev in the UK, I get approached 2 or 3 times a week by recruiters offering me new contract roles (usually 3 - 6 months), just by having a linkedin profile with my work history.
That said, this also works for permanent jobs, so if you're struggling to find those then maybe you are out of luck.
That's honestly the question when it comes to this type of thing, there are so many different skillsets and not everyone can find contracts as easily as they'd hope; or it's not as reliable as they need for their life.
An engineer's career usually tapers off beyond a certain age. Risk taking therefore has to be reduced as your career options get narrower with seniority -- moral of the story.