Yes - the article is not very good but I couldn't find anything decent (didn't search long though). Put this up mostly interested in what actual people might have to say.
Data point - in my 40s (doing DevOps atm). Truth is in my company (one of the big ones) I do not see a lot of older folks doing technical work (I might be the oldest in a team of about 40 people). So I'm wondering - where is everyone (and why am I not there too)?
To work is where I go (59). You won't meet a lot of people like me because when I started (1981) there were way fewer programmers than today plus some became obsolete, some became managers, and some got burned out. So the chances of meeting someone like me if you started in the past decade is not high. This of course makes it hard to decide how much age discrimination there is as it's hard to quantify, unlike gender for example. For me I got this job based on a manager from a previous job needing here what he already knew I could do.
The vast growth of the programmer population as a reason for why there aren't as many older programmers is a very compelling reason. I'm surprised I haven't seen it before.
I think there are 20 million or so programmers (not sure how you count this) today. I bet there were less than 1% of that back 35 years ago though of course no clue how to measure that either.
One way is to look at total revenue of IT/Software Industry at present and compare it with 1981. My guess is that even after adjusting for inflation it would be more than 100 times growth. Many of the present great companies were not even formed and some had just formed.
I started working in the mid 90s. Joined a company which had few 100 employees, when I left it had around 300 times more.
Yep, agreed. I'm 56 and an SRE at a YC alumni company where I work on platform and tools. I have very few peers my age and I agree dilution is responsible for a lot of that. I started in '87 and didn't really know anyone locally. All my professional relationships were formed on Compuserve and there were really very few of us compared to today.
42 here, started just before the Internet took off, when it hit, I jumped on full bore. Most of my peers that where a little older stuck with desktop and mainframe development. Most people don't realize how few of us where in the trade back then and even less made the jump to developing Internet technologies. So there is also a dividing like or epoch in programming where the entire discipline of development changed. In many ways the early days of Internet development was archaic if you where used to desktop development. It felt like a step backwards and development in handcuffs, so a lot of developers that had time in the industry just ignored it as there was still money to be made on the other side.
So if we look at 40 it really is a dividing line where of the few people that where doing development a small fragment of that group actually started developing in what would be somewhat relevant technologies today. Of that group, possibly only in the thousands, attrition has taken it's toll (the .com bust took a lot of them, which gets missed a lot in these discussions).
Now we have all had that bad interview, with a bad company that puts some kid fresh out of school in a lead role and he grills all new applicants on theory that is in no way relevant to what we actually do and anyone in the industry for a meaningful amount of time, has long purged that info from immediate recollection. But I don't see that as an age discrimination problem, I see it as a bad management problem, and a willful lack of understanding about technology and technologist on the part of business people (for those reading, first technical hire can make or break your company). Fortunately it has been my experience that most of those companies don't stick around for too long.
Yes, I do! I actually had pretty bad RSI almost 11 years ago (not in my wrists, but in my arms), which have made me use a break program, a split keyboard and a pen-mouse. These changes, especially the break program (using MacBreakZ now) have cured my RSI.
After starting to feel twinges in my wrist I switched to an Alphagrip[0] keyboard so that I wouldn't be tempted to rest my wrists on the desk or a pad. Haven't felt that twinge since... Alphagrips might be hard to find now, but definitely explore alternative keyboards.
The biggest difference maker for me in terms of alleviating repetitive strain was switching from a mouse to a trackball. Something about not having to tense my arm up and move the mouse all over anymore...
I never had pain on my right hand which I use for mousing. My mild pain is the left hand - two hypotheses: this hand is weaker, and too much alt-tabbing.
I suspect lifting weights already improves this generally, as I have periods of much less pain which coincide with being more active.
I had wonky, comes-and-goes knee pain which cleared up when I hit the gym and started doing squats.
If you have a body pain problem, "see if lifting doesn't help" is good advice, but you have to be careful, i.e., don't be a dumb gymbro and load on more weight than you know you can hamdle with good form.
Trackballs are amazing. The best one I ever used hasn't been made in years, and if you can find a Cordless Optical Trackman new in box it commands a pretty decent price.
Joke aside, I was mainly thinking about wrist problems. I think any normal sized, model-m layout or possibly split-layout keyboard with non-linear quality switches is ok.
If the finger joints hurts, I suppose a lower activation force might be good - I guess one might be Cherry MX Brown, but I don't personally like anything else than buckling spring...
The main message is that in my experience, laptops in your lap is the worst, and exercise helps.
1. use proper posture. Don't rest your wrists on the table as you type. Make sure your chair is an appropriate height (or your desk itself, if you're standing).
2. imo Dvorak is much more comfortable (it's not about typing speed).
3. Take up rock climbing. Seriously. It's the best exercise for your hands/wrists that I know of. Any time I've started to have hand/wrist pain I've made a point of going to a rock gym a few times and it helps fix the problem. I wish I kept up with it more.
> Don't rest your wrists on the table as you type.
As mentioned in my sibling comment, this was _THE_ most important thing in getting rid of wrist pain. Not even a pad helped, it still compressed on my wrists.
Get worker's compensation now--don't wait. Physical therapy can help a lot! You'll have to improve your posture and start taking regular breaks (I use MacBreakz software). A stand/sit desk (I use a Jarvis) will probably help as will a good chair (I got a DXRacer). There are various accessories. I prefer the Kinesis Advantage 2 (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/) and Apple's Magic Trackpad 2 (which fits in the center) of the Advantage.
The most important thing is not to wait to get treatment. Also, what works for you depends on how you have injured yourself so try out all the different things available and come up with your own setup. And if you're employed, getting on worker's comp has been a life saver (and probably saved me a few thousand dollars also, not to mention regular insurance maxes out after a small number of therapy visits). Some areas (bay area for example) have support groups. I haven't been but I hear they can help point you to good doctors / therapists. There's also a bunch of literature, books and websites out there with more detailed info than I can provide here (search for "repetitive stress injuries").
They become architects / development managers / product managers / pre-sales engineers / professional services consultants / founders of startups / project managers / security advisors / dev ops managers / tech recruiters / biz dev managers / even sales...
Some of the best product managers I have worked with are former programmers...they just get it. When I hire people in these roles, I often specify "technical" in the job title to attract these former programmers.
Programming develops the skills found in good program managers. I think it's because so many of us build things that don't exist constantly. So we build a natural intuition about what are valuable problems to solve and can do it in ways that people would never consider, even "domain experts".
A domain expert might try a naive or brute force approach to a very specific problem, while a programmer would see a graphing problem and instantly think of several different techniques to apply and be able to tell what outcome they'd produce.
At about 40, it does start to get more difficult to get hired. And by 50, it is all but hopeless.
And the salary offered begins to go down at 40 too. Sharply after 44 or so.
Where I am now, at 51, I have had to learn to get by on what I was making as a SysAdmin 20 mumble years ago. But at least I have a job. Before getting my current job I was having to learn to get by without a place to live too.
If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to hear more about your situation. I've seen salary plateau at certain career levels and ages (40s usually), but saying salary goes down at all (let alone sharply) is something that I expect is not a general truth about the market at large. My anecdotal data comes from ~20 years in recruiting engineers.
There are several reasons you could see a salary drop (stagnating skill set no longer in demand, move to company that pays less, move to industry that values programmers less, etc.), but age alone isn't likely to be one of them.
Would a significant gap in employment be that damaging?
I was severely burned in an automobile accident (60%, 3rd degree) on June 6, 2006 -- and was completely unable to work for a couple years. It took a little over 4 years total from the date of the accident till I got another job.
A four year gap in employment is a much more logical conclusion to a reduction in salary than your 44th birthday. Even if it was something like an accident (I'm glad you are better now BTW), candidates are sometimes reluctant to share medical issues on resumes/cover letters (and rightfully so in some instances) which can lead to the reader making all sorts of assumptions about why you haven't had a job in n years.
If you can explain it -- like you obviously can -- then no, not "that damaging". You've definitely gotten over the hump already (both in terms of recovering from such a disaster physically -- and in finding work afterwards).
So at this point, while a 4-year gap will still be a downward multiplier to some, the effect will be relatively mild.
Better to focus on the the sheer inner strength it must take (which I, and almost all these people summarily rejecting you, can only begin to imagine) to pull off a recovery like that, and how that makes a much more solid person overall -- and hence, a way better hire.
It does get substantially more difficult, but (judging by data points I've gather in RL and from around here), only to a certain degree. Which is to say -- age discrimination is very real, and (other skill factors being equal) will definitely start to bite you by a certain downward multiplier (and undoubtedly far more so in extreme hiring markets like SV).
But again -- only to a certain degree. And more so: there a different ways of looking at it, and more importantly, certain things you can do about it -- such that if you groom your skills carefully, and pick the roles you apply for carefully, also -- you can turn your age into an upward multiplier, rather than a downward one.
That's my quick take. The main thing is, please don't give up hope -- there's still a lot one can get out of the very substantial skill investments one has made by that age, provided we don't fall into certain traps (perhaps the most insidious being: believing all the crap that SV and a good chunk of the industry believes about the magical advantages that very young hires have over older ones).
Am swamped for time at the moment, but perchance, may get back to this topic in a couple of hours.
I think average salary does go down, but mainly because the "growth track" keeps getting narrower. Seriously, in their twenties just about anyone can keep getting healthy salary increases year after year. It's normal and expected at that stage. By 35, maybe half have been pushed off the fast track, either onto other non-technical tracks or onto a lower technical track. By 40 it's three quarters, and so on. At my age (51) it seems like 90-95% of my cohort have changed roles or been pushed to the fringes where pay stagnates or declines.
Note that it's all based on perceived value, which is only partly based on actual value, which is only partly based on skill. I'm not trying to brag or put anyone down here. A lot of it has to do with what I said in another comment about specialization. Nobody wants to pay a thirty-year veteran's salary for a job where they don't already have deep expertise. People who can find jobs closely aligned with their skills and specialties often continue to do OK. People who can't - and it's usually more to do with shifts in the market than in them - get left out.
The sad fact is that many older programmers' skills and instincts often do apply outside their area of obvious expertise. Recognizing code smells or knowing how to test code properly are valuable skills in any specialty. So is communication, or scheduling, or being able to recognize and mentor up-and-coming young developers. Most older programmers - not just the few lucky ones - are well able to justify their salaries but never get the chance. That's a "soft" kind of ageism, but it's ageism nonetheless.
Mid 40s here. architecting/engineering Java monstrosities by day (although it's not too bad lately - fat jars/docker etc), hacking on some personal pet projects with newer tech (been getting into Elm and some Haskell lately) by night.
They take up farming, of course. Having explored the most 'modern' parts of society they're ready for a new challenge. Also, having dealt with virtuality for so long it is time for a dose of reality.
Me, I bought a farm in Sweden. Harvest is in, manure has been spread, looking to grow my first 'beer crop' (barley and hops) within a few years. The forest needs some attention but that is what winter is for.
What comes around, goes around. Programmers (and developers and architects and others of similar ilk) turn to the land while farmers are surrounding themselves with technology. GPS-controlled tractors, milk robots, ID-based cow feeders, etc. Horticulture is being robotised. Forestry will go that route soon enough, with clear-cut harvest being replaced by individual tree harvesting.
While not ready for retirement I'm getting up there and I am buying a house soon with between 1/4-1/2 acre piece of land attached. Its a reward and opportunity for me to experiment with a large "garden" for myself and my family and maybe enough for friends or to can/jar.
I get this impulse but I'm still plugged in enough to want to automate things. I'm looking at farmbot on kickstarter and thinking how I could build my own, program or automate various systems and sensors. I'm extremely excited about having one foot in both worlds.
I'm not retired, by no means - I'm 51. I'll keep on hacking for as long as I feel the urge and find some need. I do concentrate on trying to make our (way of) life less dependent on a steady income stream - in other words, I use time and some money to make us less dependent on future money. A farm with enough land to support a family is a good start, especially one which has both arable land as well as productive forest. Hence my choice, although the fact that I studied forestry at an agricultural university might have something to do with it as well.
Funny enough, I also went farming route: bought vineyards four years ago. I am curently thinking about getting into aeroponics herbs/lettuce production with all the automation.
Funny. I had my start in freelancing after a software developer left to start farming. I inherited his old application (which was VB front-end & Access DB) and converted it to an internal web-app.
But he definitely seemed pretty happy. :)
I remember sitting at my desk writing code at a client's one day. It was pissing down with rain - and I could see someone mowing the lawns outside. And at that moment (I wasn't particularly enjoying the work) I wished we could swap places. He looked happy.
For me this is becoming eerily true. Software dev for 15 years. I planted a grape vine behind my house 6 years ago. It now produces enough grapes for 60+ bottles of wine per year. I have room on the south side of my house for 4 more new grape vines...planted them and soon I'll have much more wine production...maybe 300 bottles per year?
I'm right now looking for some nice sunny land to buy and massively ramp things up.
I'm 66, started programming 40 years ago, and I'm not going anywhere!
Seriously, I love what I do and will continue programming as long as possible. I'm addicted to learning and the satisfaction of good, clean, simple code that gets the job done.
The part of the article that really rings true for me is the part about specialization. Certainly a lot move into management of one sort of another (line, product, project). Some move into "architect" roles or CTO offices where they apply their wisdom (and biases) to affecting technical direction other than by actually coding. However, many still remain in coding roles, but the coding tends to be more specialized:
* Outside of tech companies, in other orgs with their own specific tech needs (e.g. financial or scientific).
* More infrastructure, less user-facing.
* More "old school" like embedded/OS work.
I'm 51, and I specialize in storage. Consistent with this pattern, I've had many colleagues and collaborators in their 40s and 50s (after that it really does get pretty thin). We might be less visible than people doing the mobile/VR/ML kinds of stuff that are en vogue in the Silicon Valley VC/YC ecosystem, but many of us are still in high demand. There are even headhunters who specialize in facilitating such hires. They don't focus explicitly on age, but their focus on specific domains often results in a greyer-than-average contact list. You just have to know where to look.
I'm 55 this year, still programming. And I still love it ... well, I love trying new things.
One of my friends that I started my first job with is now at the CTO level, while I keep turning down opportunities to "advance" into management. Another friend of mine quit after the Senior Director level because he started hating his life, and went back to programming/embedded engineering for the fun of it.
Age does make you wonder if you were turned down for an offer because of subconscious ageism, but I am not aware of rampant problems with it.
You do have to be careful to give everybody's proposals a chance, instead of just pattern-matching to something awful in your past.
Keeping an open mind is a discipline.
Having kids helps you rediscover what you once loved, helps you recover from jaded oldsterism.
Once in a while, I get to help my college age daughter learn "R" programming. That's a pretty interesting language, which she probably knows better than I do now. (at least operational knowledge of the library, but not all the Computer Science aspects)
Conversely, it's interesting that my adult child is now having to deal with a bout of "imposter syndrome" :-)
Many of us still work. I am in my 60s and I still work about 20 hours a week. I love designing and writing code, and I also do software maintenance and devops, and I write about one computer science book a year (working on two right now: one on Haskell and one on Cognitive Science).
I don't earn the very high salary that I used to earn, but that is OK because I am doing what I want to do.
At 49 I am still coding and still learning. I architected and implemented node.js services this year and have done lots of interesting modern web development. I am well respected within my organization and in fact have been poached from one team for another.
Ageist hiring practices are a reality, but not all companies are so biased. And you could not pay me enough to go into management. I want to make things. Perhaps that is why I am still viable.
You could definitely pay me enough. Great managers help more things get built than great engineers. They do it in a different way, but as long as they don't suck, they are critical. Good managers are much harder to find than competent engineers.
I think he meant he doesn't want to do the management job. Ie moving from abstractly creative work to endless series of meetings, conf calls, creating powerpoints excels and whatnot. Yes they are necessary, but it doesn't make it a cool job that brings fulfillment and happiness.
Most devs move there over time, and then complain how cool coding actually was, but they are already in money/debt trap
Yes-- that is exactly what I mean. If I found myself in an organization where management looked appealing I would make the switch. It has never happened.
No thanks. Management requires too many things I'm just not good at, or would be miserable spending my time doing: talking to people all day long, sitting in meetings, doing powerpoint stuff, attempting to mentor people, playing politics with upper management, doing performance reviews, etc. There's nothing there I derive any enjoyment from.
What I do wish I could do is find a job where I travel around a lot and debug problems for customers on-site. I like traveling and don't mind spending time in hotels (as long as they're nice ones), and like being able to do different things instead of the same thing day after day, month after month. I also like problem-solving and debugging (esp. when I'm not the one to blame for the bug!), and have been very good at this kind of work in past jobs.
Exactly. I'm older than you by a few years and I don't even waste my time considering my age.
Too much to do to worry about this nonsense. This constant rumination about age discrimination in the industry is the only thing getting old from my perspective.
Worked in the SE of England as a programmer for 20 years, moved to being a tester ( had 20 years experience of how things could go wrong) then moved away from the rat race commute of London to low-cost of living Michigan and couldn't be happier.
Currently learning how to program mobile apps so that I can test them better
They find companies that value their experience and don't just hire those who already know how to use all the shiny things. They do independent consulting after spending years building their reputation as someone who delivered for past co-workers and managers. They go to mature mid-market or large companies where those in management and hiring are perhaps a few years older as well. Sometimes they need to retool
Anyone thrust into the job market for the first time in several years (say 10+) might find it somewhat unrecognizable. Job search has changed significantly in the ~20 years I've been in recruiting.
I've developed a bit of a niche business in helping older programmers (I'm 44) "rehabilitate" themselves and prepare to enter a job search (writing/reviewing resumes, consult on job search strategy, etc.). It's mostly people who don't want to go into management and still want to stay in the code.
I can only think of a few people that left the industry entirely, out of thousands (I also ran a Java Users Group for 15 years, which has a large contingent of older programmers).
I work in a place where I'm in the low end of the age spectrum at 30. The company is in the Financial industry and was founded in the 70s. It has a long history of using technology so many engineers started 10-20+ years ago. The company offers great benefits and salary are above average which is what I think many of the engineers here optimized for when coming to work here. That's also what I felt led a lot of the engineers I worked with in my previous job for one of the big tech companies to leave after 5 years or so. Most of them ended up taking jobs with companies which seemed to offer better work life balance and benefits.
A lot of them also ended up in management. Some because it was the only path available for advancement. Many orgs just don't have (or make) space for distinguished engineers and the career path for SE ends at the senior level to which most can attend in less then 5-10 years. After that there is nowhere to go for them but management. Another issue is the demand for distinguished engineers is lower since you need less of them then junior and senior devs so it's a limited pool of jobs.
102 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadI want to see the data of where they go and determine from that.
Data point - in my 40s (doing DevOps atm). Truth is in my company (one of the big ones) I do not see a lot of older folks doing technical work (I might be the oldest in a team of about 40 people). So I'm wondering - where is everyone (and why am I not there too)?
I was a consultant dev for most of the last 16 years and just started as an FTE with my most recent client.
I started working in the mid 90s. Joined a company which had few 100 employees, when I left it had around 300 times more.
So if we look at 40 it really is a dividing line where of the few people that where doing development a small fragment of that group actually started developing in what would be somewhat relevant technologies today. Of that group, possibly only in the thousands, attrition has taken it's toll (the .com bust took a lot of them, which gets missed a lot in these discussions).
Now we have all had that bad interview, with a bad company that puts some kid fresh out of school in a lead role and he grills all new applicants on theory that is in no way relevant to what we actually do and anyone in the industry for a meaningful amount of time, has long purged that info from immediate recollection. But I don't see that as an age discrimination problem, I see it as a bad management problem, and a willful lack of understanding about technology and technologist on the part of business people (for those reading, first technical hire can make or break your company). Fortunately it has been my experience that most of those companies don't stick around for too long.
More details here: https://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/
[0]: http://www.alphagrips.com/
I suspect lifting weights already improves this generally, as I have periods of much less pain which coincide with being more active.
If you have a body pain problem, "see if lifting doesn't help" is good advice, but you have to be careful, i.e., don't be a dumb gymbro and load on more weight than you know you can hamdle with good form.
Do some heavy lifting now and again, so that the hands are used for real stuff.
Joke aside, I was mainly thinking about wrist problems. I think any normal sized, model-m layout or possibly split-layout keyboard with non-linear quality switches is ok.
If the finger joints hurts, I suppose a lower activation force might be good - I guess one might be Cherry MX Brown, but I don't personally like anything else than buckling spring...
The main message is that in my experience, laptops in your lap is the worst, and exercise helps.
1. use proper posture. Don't rest your wrists on the table as you type. Make sure your chair is an appropriate height (or your desk itself, if you're standing).
2. imo Dvorak is much more comfortable (it's not about typing speed).
3. Take up rock climbing. Seriously. It's the best exercise for your hands/wrists that I know of. Any time I've started to have hand/wrist pain I've made a point of going to a rock gym a few times and it helps fix the problem. I wish I kept up with it more.
As mentioned in my sibling comment, this was _THE_ most important thing in getting rid of wrist pain. Not even a pad helped, it still compressed on my wrists.
The most important thing is not to wait to get treatment. Also, what works for you depends on how you have injured yourself so try out all the different things available and come up with your own setup. And if you're employed, getting on worker's comp has been a life saver (and probably saved me a few thousand dollars also, not to mention regular insurance maxes out after a small number of therapy visits). Some areas (bay area for example) have support groups. I haven't been but I hear they can help point you to good doctors / therapists. There's also a bunch of literature, books and websites out there with more detailed info than I can provide here (search for "repetitive stress injuries").
They go to the elephant graveyards of IT, banks.
A domain expert might try a naive or brute force approach to a very specific problem, while a programmer would see a graphing problem and instantly think of several different techniques to apply and be able to tell what outcome they'd produce.
And the salary offered begins to go down at 40 too. Sharply after 44 or so.
Where I am now, at 51, I have had to learn to get by on what I was making as a SysAdmin 20 mumble years ago. But at least I have a job. Before getting my current job I was having to learn to get by without a place to live too.
There are several reasons you could see a salary drop (stagnating skill set no longer in demand, move to company that pays less, move to industry that values programmers less, etc.), but age alone isn't likely to be one of them.
I was severely burned in an automobile accident (60%, 3rd degree) on June 6, 2006 -- and was completely unable to work for a couple years. It took a little over 4 years total from the date of the accident till I got another job.
Every job since then has been with a startup.
So at this point, while a 4-year gap will still be a downward multiplier to some, the effect will be relatively mild.
Better to focus on the the sheer inner strength it must take (which I, and almost all these people summarily rejecting you, can only begin to imagine) to pull off a recovery like that, and how that makes a much more solid person overall -- and hence, a way better hire.
But again -- only to a certain degree. And more so: there a different ways of looking at it, and more importantly, certain things you can do about it -- such that if you groom your skills carefully, and pick the roles you apply for carefully, also -- you can turn your age into an upward multiplier, rather than a downward one.
That's my quick take. The main thing is, please don't give up hope -- there's still a lot one can get out of the very substantial skill investments one has made by that age, provided we don't fall into certain traps (perhaps the most insidious being: believing all the crap that SV and a good chunk of the industry believes about the magical advantages that very young hires have over older ones).
Am swamped for time at the moment, but perchance, may get back to this topic in a couple of hours.
Note that it's all based on perceived value, which is only partly based on actual value, which is only partly based on skill. I'm not trying to brag or put anyone down here. A lot of it has to do with what I said in another comment about specialization. Nobody wants to pay a thirty-year veteran's salary for a job where they don't already have deep expertise. People who can find jobs closely aligned with their skills and specialties often continue to do OK. People who can't - and it's usually more to do with shifts in the market than in them - get left out.
The sad fact is that many older programmers' skills and instincts often do apply outside their area of obvious expertise. Recognizing code smells or knowing how to test code properly are valuable skills in any specialty. So is communication, or scheduling, or being able to recognize and mentor up-and-coming young developers. Most older programmers - not just the few lucky ones - are well able to justify their salaries but never get the chance. That's a "soft" kind of ageism, but it's ageism nonetheless.
Me, I bought a farm in Sweden. Harvest is in, manure has been spread, looking to grow my first 'beer crop' (barley and hops) within a few years. The forest needs some attention but that is what winter is for.
What comes around, goes around. Programmers (and developers and architects and others of similar ilk) turn to the land while farmers are surrounding themselves with technology. GPS-controlled tractors, milk robots, ID-based cow feeders, etc. Horticulture is being robotised. Forestry will go that route soon enough, with clear-cut harvest being replaced by individual tree harvesting.
I get this impulse but I'm still plugged in enough to want to automate things. I'm looking at farmbot on kickstarter and thinking how I could build my own, program or automate various systems and sensors. I'm extremely excited about having one foot in both worlds.
Are you doing organic farming? Just asking out of interest.
But he definitely seemed pretty happy. :)
I remember sitting at my desk writing code at a client's one day. It was pissing down with rain - and I could see someone mowing the lawns outside. And at that moment (I wasn't particularly enjoying the work) I wished we could swap places. He looked happy.
Good luck with your farming!
I'm right now looking for some nice sunny land to buy and massively ramp things up.
Seriously, I love what I do and will continue programming as long as possible. I'm addicted to learning and the satisfaction of good, clean, simple code that gets the job done.
* Outside of tech companies, in other orgs with their own specific tech needs (e.g. financial or scientific).
* More infrastructure, less user-facing.
* More "old school" like embedded/OS work.
I'm 51, and I specialize in storage. Consistent with this pattern, I've had many colleagues and collaborators in their 40s and 50s (after that it really does get pretty thin). We might be less visible than people doing the mobile/VR/ML kinds of stuff that are en vogue in the Silicon Valley VC/YC ecosystem, but many of us are still in high demand. There are even headhunters who specialize in facilitating such hires. They don't focus explicitly on age, but their focus on specific domains often results in a greyer-than-average contact list. You just have to know where to look.
One of my friends that I started my first job with is now at the CTO level, while I keep turning down opportunities to "advance" into management. Another friend of mine quit after the Senior Director level because he started hating his life, and went back to programming/embedded engineering for the fun of it.
Age does make you wonder if you were turned down for an offer because of subconscious ageism, but I am not aware of rampant problems with it.
You do have to be careful to give everybody's proposals a chance, instead of just pattern-matching to something awful in your past.
Keeping an open mind is a discipline.
Having kids helps you rediscover what you once loved, helps you recover from jaded oldsterism.
Conversely, it's interesting that my adult child is now having to deal with a bout of "imposter syndrome" :-)
I don't earn the very high salary that I used to earn, but that is OK because I am doing what I want to do.
Ageist hiring practices are a reality, but not all companies are so biased. And you could not pay me enough to go into management. I want to make things. Perhaps that is why I am still viable.
Most devs move there over time, and then complain how cool coding actually was, but they are already in money/debt trap
What I do wish I could do is find a job where I travel around a lot and debug problems for customers on-site. I like traveling and don't mind spending time in hotels (as long as they're nice ones), and like being able to do different things instead of the same thing day after day, month after month. I also like problem-solving and debugging (esp. when I'm not the one to blame for the bug!), and have been very good at this kind of work in past jobs.
Too much to do to worry about this nonsense. This constant rumination about age discrimination in the industry is the only thing getting old from my perspective.
Worked in the SE of England as a programmer for 20 years, moved to being a tester ( had 20 years experience of how things could go wrong) then moved away from the rat race commute of London to low-cost of living Michigan and couldn't be happier.
Currently learning how to program mobile apps so that I can test them better
Anyone thrust into the job market for the first time in several years (say 10+) might find it somewhat unrecognizable. Job search has changed significantly in the ~20 years I've been in recruiting.
I've developed a bit of a niche business in helping older programmers (I'm 44) "rehabilitate" themselves and prepare to enter a job search (writing/reviewing resumes, consult on job search strategy, etc.). It's mostly people who don't want to go into management and still want to stay in the code.
I can only think of a few people that left the industry entirely, out of thousands (I also ran a Java Users Group for 15 years, which has a large contingent of older programmers).
A lot of them also ended up in management. Some because it was the only path available for advancement. Many orgs just don't have (or make) space for distinguished engineers and the career path for SE ends at the senior level to which most can attend in less then 5-10 years. After that there is nowhere to go for them but management. Another issue is the demand for distinguished engineers is lower since you need less of them then junior and senior devs so it's a limited pool of jobs.