I'm old. I'm OK with it. I don't lay awake at night worrying about it. But I do understand quite well that I'm definitely old - at least, in a "...
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Hi Adam,
I'm almost 46 and I quote every single word of your article.
When I read "think outside the box" I elaborated on the metaphor and thought: "when we are young, it's easy to think outside the box because that box is small if ever exists."
As time goes by, the box grows and grows, we fill it with something called "experience" and thinking outside of it becomes harder because, well, we realize that a lot of things we need are already in the box.
But nobody seems interested because, well, it's in the box and we should "think outside the box".
I had my most important achievements after I turned 40 and that's because I never stopped exploring, learning, and realizing that the more I see the less I know.
That's the Dunning-Kruger effect that a lot of people ignore because... of it :-)
You can't please everybody but the very first person you have to please is yourself, so keep pushing, never stop learning, fill that box with experience, after all, it's your box, nobody can appreciate what's inside more than you.
Looking forward to reading more from you about the topic.
My best,
Alessandro
This is excellent. Unfortunately, it will probably make me far more annoyed the next time I hear someone saying, "think outside the box"...
This is gold -- "When I read "think outside the box" I elaborated on the metaphor and thought: "when we are young, it's easy to think outside the box because that box is small if ever exists."" 👍🙌
I really like the quote "fill that box with experience... after all, it's your box, nobody can appreciate what's inside more than you." Well said, from an Old :)
Thank you!
I am not-young-not-old (31) and I personally think you article feels less like reasons that old people struggle in tech, and more an indictment of the industry's flaws as a whole. I think you correctly identify that a lot of these problems stem from young people's eagerness and excitement to prove themselves, but unfortunately that leads to a lot of toxic expectations for the rest of us. Maybe I'm just older than I think, but it seems like a work culture/expectations problem rather than an age problem.
Hi Eric, I'm also 31 and I think in tech we are considered old, it is like you said because the young college grads love to take on anything it makes it toxic for everyone else.
What I've noted I used to work a lot of free-time for the company, at one stage got a serious relationship and decided to spend MY time rather on the relation.
Needless to say, the company was not amused when I told them I was working for free and never got compensation for these hours, nor did I receive the Porsche they promised me upon selling the company did they silence completely.
Wait to get to your fifties mate :) even listening to the sound of the wind becomes more important than an overtime commit.
Wise words, can't wait to settle down and not have to feel bad about ridiculous things
Its a industry that refuses to grow up. As you grow older you start to have enough of it. The same mistakes, the same attitude, nothing ever changes.
My solution was literally quitting the job and opening my own company.
I'm reaching that point. Instead of being unhappy in a job you hate, and you can't seem to find the job you love, maybe it's time to make your own job that you love instead of waiting for the perfect one.
Developer Hegemony was a really good read and I'd highly recommend it for anyone dealing with these issues
Agreed on all points. The underlying issues were always present - even when I was far younger. But the "issue" is that I'm now far less likely to just "put up" with them!
31 is a baby. You ARE young my friend, and at the beginning of your career.
You think you're old? Try being 60+ and female. Those two factors alone are guaranteed to whack 50 points off your IQ.
I think what you describe goes back to a conversation I had with a colleague post-conference in Washington, D.C. a few years ago. She informed me that once she hit 50 she discovered she was out of give-a-shit points. Fortunately, the older she gets, the less it bothers her.
I've been toying with the idea of forming a company that caters to us geezers and geezerettes. We view the world differently. We have little patience with BS. We have tons of experience and know what the eff we're doing. Whaddaya say? Who's with me?
I think you would call that company a fartup, but your idea doesn’t stink.
I'm 30 and I'm already doing that. I opened my company because I had enough with my 20s co-workers ignorance and willing to accept shit for breakfast.
Lets see how well experience/intelligence matches against brute-force/over-nights.
I turn 47 in a couple of weeks, and I 100% identify with your friends running out of give-a-shit-points
::RaisesHand::
count me in. I'll share my resume.
Sounds fabulous, where do I apply?
Don't burn bridges they say. But others say Burn them all, or don't leave.
One thing is for sure, if one returns to the same job, nothing will have changed short of a full manager purge. That rarely happens, and sometimes; the new regime is worse than the last.
meet the new boss, same as the old boss...One mistake I made early on was not understanding the pressure 1st line managers have. I always mistakenly thought their hovering was just to bug me personally. Now that's funny right there.
I personally think that, in software development, being a "1st line manager" is the absolute worst place to be. It's like you get the worst of both worlds.
100% in agreement. It's the number 1 political position requiring chameleon like color changes.
Wow adam really nice article, not sure if I'm old, but seeing the people I always work with I feel old.. (being in tech for 15 years now)
It does really resonate with me what you write about the pushy mentality of literally anyone and everyone...
Making sure they're problem (often a stupid promise) is going to be your problem. Here we go again, Bill made a stupid promise to a client, and has Adam convinced it will really make the client happy if we can just wing this little tiny fix in this sprint.
Now you can't manage this or other works doesn't get done, doesn't matter, it's always your fault...
Really frustrating indeed.
Another one, which I wanted to resonate with you is this one:
In the last 2 jobs, I got hired as a Senior Developer, much like you because I like to develop, and not particularly manage a big team...
I'm still ok, being a scrum leader and guide the new kids to success.
BUT, what really bugs me, is silent expectations..
Oh man, I had another chat with the CEO and Project manager the other day, because they "expected" a senior dev to find flaws in a design? or they expected me to create a full training session for the new kid?
Like I'm all ok if you tell me to do these things, but how must one know you expected these things?
Is this also something you encountered, the silent expectations due to your seniority?
Great questions. And some of these are probably best encapsulated in another article. But the short answer is, yes, I've definitely experienced this. There's a whole bunch of confusion out there around what is meant by senior developer, tech lead, architect, and/or dev manager. While it's nice, on many levels, to be "senior", you can also find yourself in these horrible, poorly-defined, unwritten, hybrid roles where management still wants to see you as (and treat you as) a "coder" - but they also want to lean on you to do many of the things one would normally expect from management.
Ah yes, the senior engineer/principal/architect/wizard-ruler-rocker role.
I am recently coming off a lead position (over 3 devs) where i had two more senior than I devs under me and the other a bright college grad. I often scratched my head at why senior engineer X didn't do Y, and every time I asked myself, well, did I ask them to do that?
The clearer expectations are, the clearer everything is! I'm still gonna be working on thwt on my new role for sure; both upwards, downwards, and horizontally.
I'm also about to enter my thirties, so tryin' to chill out. Got a baby now!
Yeah 100% not worth getting stressed out about, and I think as with many things communication is key, if you are a senior but none of your previous companies workers with Git (stupid example but it happens) are you then expected to use CI etc without ever being told.
Same for testing, Till this day it has never been a mark in any of the companies I work for, and I still feel comfortable being a senior without it.
Congrats!!
Awesome! Yeah resonates well, thanks for this write-up, I might also try an article towards this seniority expectations haha.
Wow. I relate to this almost 100%. I've been a professional developer for 25 years, and have been writing code for around 37 years. I've just started a new role and, at 44, I think I'm possibly the oldest there. My tolerance for BS has gotten fairly low over the years, and I'm really not afraid to speak up and tell people that things they're suggesting just simply won't work, are badly thought through, wildly optimistic, poorly implemented etc.
I've been there almost 3 months now, and I'm already getting the feeling I'm being sidelined as the 'grumpy bear' - and yet, people are increasingly coming to me (outside of meetings I appear to be being excluded from) to ask for my advice, and are following it.
I don't want to quit the role, but I don't want to 'tolerate' it either. I'm not sure on the best path forward
I've found that the best way to avoid feeling like this is to embrace change and give new technologies a try. Technology is made to make our lives easier, why not let it? I started coding in C++ and C# and resented JavaScript and Python for all the ways they can make our lives easier in the name of 'performance' or just being too prideful to use all the built in functions and features that make them easier to work in than C languages, but embracing change is necessary in this field. I've only just started my coding career and it's too early to get stuck in my ways, and I don't know if there ever truly is a time where you should. Just my $0.02!
Your reply is the exact reason why I wrote this article. Someone 40+ says/thinks "wow, this is some real BS" and some younger person, who really didn't pay any attention to the situation at hand, says, "You should just embrace change!!"
There's nothing in @jonrandy 's comment that indicates, in any way, that he's unwilling to embrace change. There's nothing in my original article indicating that I'm unwilling to embrace change. I try new technologies nearly every month. But any talk about embracing change or trying new technologies is completely and utterly missing the point.
Embracing technological change is very much not the issue
1789: Let them eat cake!
2020: You should embrace change and give new technologies a try!
Yet again, history repeats itself...
I feel for you. Seems like this describes my last several gigs. Good luck with that, cuz I'm never sure what the best path forward is either.
This applies totally to me, with the only exception that I became grumpy in my mid or early 30s. A note around fanboys. I am a fanboy, but I will never go and tell people to use this thing I love, I might being it up, share articles etc but no further. But currently there are too many fanboys in my current work and it's getting annoying. Everyone from management goes ..we need to use this (insert trend) language/framework, but it is clear and apparent that this language or that framework is the wrong choice for the task...but that what new people like and it's easier to hire.
I have also starting to see positions for non existing titles....which I am sure for some people it's a thing. i.e React Engineer
In terms of really liking a particular tech, sometimes to the point of thinking irrationally about it, I'd argue that everyone in tech is, at times, a fanboy. It's natural. There are some things out that, for whatever reason, you'll just really like. And those reasons aren't always empirically defensible. I do this. Everyone who's been in tech for long enough occasionally does this.
But I doubt you qualify under my definition of fanboy. Because one of my primary requirements for someone to be a fanboy is for them to lack self-awareness. Fanboys actually undermine their own cause (amongst who can think critically) because their wanton "fanning" makes it difficult to assess the true merits of their chosen tech.
Also, I chuckled a bit about "React Engineer". On numerous occasions, I've had a formal title of "Software Engineer". The first time I heard such a title, I remember thinking, "Wait... what?? How is a programmer an engineer??"
On the fanboy part ...I am a rust fanboy...but when people ask me what is the benefits of using rust....I give them completely the wrong reasons (important for me) like private modifiers don't apply to unit tests or worrying about linting is not a thing (applied automatically) or my best argument is that documentation is supported out of the box.
But bossiness don't consider them important
Lol see I am a rust fanboy because it deals with my personal pains and not because it's efficient 😝
I never found the engineer term weird ...because as some colleagues say about me.....did you he is an actual engineer??? and not a software developer?? (my degree is on Surveying engineering)
I always laugh at that. But I don't find it weird as most of my colleagues are actual (on degree) electrical engineers
Ahhh, well, that makes total sense if you're degreed as an actual engineer! I, on the other hand, never even went to college. So you can imagine how strange it felt the first time someone slapped the title of "Software Engineer" on me.
You have described some of the reasons older developers struggle and many of the reasons are because they less tolerant and don't work as well in a team. This is a choice because you could use the experience to smoothly navigate the issues you raise and help other developers.
I would add experienced people have less enthusiasm to spend time outside of work learning new technology, tools and this can lead them to using those new technologies less. There is a sunk cost fallacy to developers who have invested years of time become an expert in a language or software product and are relunctant to lose those skills and move to a new technology or software product. I have seen this happen, the IT environment changes and older developers choose not to adapt with it but stick to what they know.
I love that you've basically demonstrated most of my points from the article.
Your article explains why experienced developers find it harder, you nailed the part about lack of patience and not putting up with nonsense that people have to earlier in the career (because they have no choice).
I don't think you covered the part that senior developers are not good at evolving with technology changes because they have invested a lot of time, effort and experience in older technologies which become less popular. Experts in one area don't have the same incentive to take the opportunity of learning a new technology/language/software/system.
I would add that many senior developers move into positions that involve less coding and more managing but there are definitely some coders whom that career choice is not appearing (and there is a good case to be made that their should be a career path which doesn't involve management but it's not common)
Another area I would add is senior developers seem more inclined to not be told what to do by junior developers and the number of these grow each year they stay developing.
cookie cutter software is an evolution of the platforms we use and another example of senior developers not evolving with their environment. I would say these are tools to be used by software developers to build systems. Low code/no code solutions still need software developers with the discipline and experience to create a maintainable enterprise system. These are the direction of travel because these system create solution faster and easier (so they cost less). For the code puriests out there , I have seen many legacy/spaghetti code monsters to know that writing code doesn't make a better system. It makes a system that is more custom but the majority of developers don't have the knowledge, standards or discipline to create a maintainble system. Not to mention the cost of maintaining and extending a custom solution is vastly more expensive.
great article, full of excellent observations.
It really is a mixed bag. There are some older devs in high demand because they are the only ones who know what legacy languages are in some job descriptions. They also demand more salary than millennials which is not always in their favor, depending on the employer.
Then you have some 2020 startups that don't seem to care if you know the fundamentals of computing. All they desire is fluency in some cryptocurrency, new-age protocol that nobody over the age of 21 is even aware of. It's a jungle out there lol
Excellent and so true. As a programmer, the wrong side of, ehem... 59.9, this article is like therapy. I recognize the fanboys. When they criticize some tech just for being too old, I often say that I take it as a personal criticism. Often it is personal, because they don't like their Dads and they don't want to work with someone who reminds them of their Dad. It is an authority psychodrama that I am not interested in getting involved in. What gets worse as you get older is the ageism.
Love this article ( even though maybe split int two would be a bit more enjoable)
I am 44 yo, could not agree more. to any point you mentioned
but the one i liked most, i am still struggling at not being disruptive and confrontational during
I'm not sure if what I'm reading is due to age and experience, or just a realization that there's a lot of emotional unintelligence in the tech world. This is aside from the sexism and lack of diversity.
No one likes to be treated like an engine part, or ignored completely, yet the tech world or the business world seems to be fine with it.
I am in complete agreement with your assessment, Allison, in calling out a lack of emotional intelligence in the industry. The drivers are surely vast and numerable, though I would take this a step further, when you say: "This is aside from the sexism and lack of diversity." I can't help but wonder "maybe the sexism and lack of diversity are strong indicators of this lacking EQ"?
Bringing my own perspective into this discussion as a black man in his late thirties who is actually fortunate to be in a leadership position (granted, the hellscape that is "first line leadership"), I wont say redressing the problems of diversity and inclusion are the magic cure to this lack of emotional intelligence, but redressing the problems of diversity and inclusion along the familiar lines of race, gender and sexual orientation does make room for additional modes of thinking that can (I think) open more pathways for emotional intelligence that aren't presently utilized.
Curious what you think?
That's probably true. Increased training in emotional intelligence (EQ) -- seeing the humanity in our co-workers -- would probably have some spillover effects into some of these tougher issues.
Of course, there's a gendered or diversity-related component to everything. There should be a specific focus on these areas if the goal is to increase awareness and overcome inherent bias. It's both/and, not one or the other.
Hmmm.. after reading this, I won't blame senior developers to want to jump out of the industry when they reach your age.
How would you impart advise to someone younger to prepare for this eventual move towards becoming what you hate?
The trite answer to this is that, if I had those answers, I wouldn't be writing this article in the first place. But even though I struggle with some of the "issues" outlined in this article, I do believe there's value in continually trying to solve for a better solution. So with the full caveat that I don't properly know how to advise someone younger on these problems, here's my best stab at it for the time being:
The older I get, the more importance I see in the "fit" that you have with your employer / team / job title / etc. When I was younger, I didn't much care about these things. Work was work. Didn't much matter if I was working for a massive corporate retailer or a small startup in healthcare or a government contractor. But I've only recently started to (finally) become leery about jumping to an opportunity with any employer / team / etc. that just doesn't "feel" right.
You've gotta be honest - really honest - with yourself about your own personality "quirks". It can be really tempting to jump to that new opportunity that's offering $10k/year more. But if, for example, you don't thrive in big corporate bureaucracies, and this latest offer comes from a big corporate bureaucracy, well... you can imagine how that plays out.
If you have even a shred of risk-tolerance / entrepreneurship about you, I think it's always a good idea to keep working on side projects. One "solution" to the problems I've outlined in this article is to not work for anyone at all. To be clear, I'm not working for myself right now. And I haven't for a number of years. But I keep thinking about new things I could build that would get me out of those political arenas.
Do not isolate. Meaning: don't ever hunker down in a technology / environment just for the sake of hunkering down and being stubborn. As soon as you get pigeonholed into a specific tech stack, your aging rate (to potential employers) immediately triples. Sometimes it can feel painful to adopt a new tech if you don't honestly see any benefits in it (for me, TypeScript would fall into this category), but it can be far more painful to find, in a couple of years, that all the plum jobs are now featuring that tech stack that you so stubbornly have avoided.
I'm sure there are many, many other tips that I could come up with if I sat down and thought about it for hours. But these are some of the first ones that popped into my head.
I'm tired of the constant technology churn as well.
I don't think most of the new frameworks are really making web programming (both front end as well as back end) better. With some minor exceptions I don't feel like we can do a lot more now than we could do 10 years ago or maybe even 20 years ago.
It's just different and uses different techniques.
What I do find though, is that much of the new stuff is missing important things that were discovered 20 years ago.. and a lot of it has thrown away learnings along the way.
That's frustrating. And it seems to be mainly motivated by an impulse to "own the tech stack" than any technical merit.
I really think that this constant churn is harming the industry. Creating unnecessary instability.
I no longer get so excited about some new library... it's just more of the same.
I do however, find that the practices of software engineering have advanced and welcome those. I think that is in ways more exciting than the tech itself.
While writing this comment, 2 new javascript frameworks have been created.
dev.to/bytebodger/announcing-wheel...
Yeah, I'm very keen to constantly look at new packages / libraries / tech / etc. But it's extremely rare when I actually recommend that we adopt those shiny new things. I guess you can say I've become a tech window shopper. I can easily browse through dozens of new tech solutions without ever feeling the need to "buy" one of them and take it home.
For me, it always comes down to one simple question:
Soooo many times, when I look at new solutions, the answer to this question is just... crickets. Often, the "answer" is just that the new approach is somehow awesome and the old approach supposedly sucks - which I almost never agree with. Sometimes the problem solved by the new approach is something that doesn't even apply to our environment.
To me it always comes down to:
Sadly these are important considerations, because if it's losing popularity then soon it will have no support and then it will become costly.
But none of these considerations are technical considerations. It's mostly a popularity contest. We don't have the luxury of using the best tech that is no longer supported or soon to die.
Though some considerations could also be load time, how heavy the library is, etc..
Oh, I totally agree. And at the risk of being semantic, I will say that my original question (about which problem it's solving) could, in fact, be the "problem" of support / popularity / etc. Those are not illegitimate considerations. But even under those scenarios, I'd have to be convinced that our Current Established Tech is truly going the way of the dodo bird before I'd wistfully embraced Hot New Tech. It wasn't that long ago that people were convinced that they had to embrace Ruby on Rails to address the "problems" of support / popularity / etc. And we saw how that played out...
While I've been in the startup game for over 5 years now (as "employee #1," co-founder, etc., not random growth hire), I'm really diving in lately. As I binge the Startups For the Rest of Us podcast, host Rob Walling (ex Drip, current TinySeed) keeps referring to himself with a term that resonates with me more and more: "Unemployable," for all of the reasons you mention, especially the politicking, doublespeak, and knowing my worth.
My last go at a hiring process lasted a month and a half, went from hiring for one department to another, several interviews (several repeated due to the switch of departments), and finally an attempt to negotiate conversion salary down (this was your typical staffing firm CTH scenario, with a just as typical crappy client, because I usually just don't have the time to apply directly) before waiting another several days to extend a formal offer, then a "HURRY UP" when I had an emergency to deal with while waiting on them. I told them to go F themselves (really) and doubled down on my startup and partnerships.
Unemployable indeed.
This definitely wins the award for Comment That Made Me Think The Most Today. (Don't you feel honored??)
The "unemployable" thing gnaws at me. On one hand, I think I enjoy the pure act of coding now more than I ever have. And I know that my overall coding prowess is stronger than it's ever been.
On the other hand, it feels to me like some of that ancillary political stuff keeps getting amplified in my gigs. To the point where some might say that I'm "unemployable" - even though I can code now better than I ever have.
I've come to realize this about myself: I'm far less averse to the risks inherent in early stage startups than I am to the BS which has inherent potential in all companies, but which only grows exponentially with company size.
I think I've written this article, in my mind, about ten times a month, for the last several years.
I was late to get into software. It was probably my fifth or sixth career. It was easy to get work, so I kept doing it.
Now, at almost fifty, I run into these issues often. The only thing that seems to work out for me is self-employment. I had a slowdown during the pandemic, and took a full-time position. This lasted for about 3 months. I was underpaid, and the solutions used to solve simple problems were overly complex, brittle, and poorly documented. Of course, the agency had underbid to get the work, and couldn't afford any learning curve. So, if you didn't already know whatever, obscure, undocumented thing, or weren't willing to do it overnight, without billing for it, you were costing them money.
Additionally, they weren't used to remote work, so when we all had to go remote, a 10 minute response time to a Jira ticket comment, Slack comment, Figma comment, email, text...was just unacceptable.
Needless to say, I didn't last long. I'm back to self-employment, and much happier. My clients appreciate me, and allow me to make pragmatic decisions. Let's face it, the end user doesn't care about Svelte V3 (I think it's cool, but users couldn't care less). My clients want something that solves their problems. That's it.
Soooooo much "yep" in this reply. For some strange reason, there's this small part of me that still wishes that I could find The Magical Employer. The one that would be a "perfect fit". (You know... like naïve kids who fantasize about their "one true love".) But the more ways I turn it around, the more it keeps smacking me in the face that these "issues" will just continue to haunt me (or even get worse) the longer I delay going back into business for myself...
I found this to be an incredibly well written and insightful blog post. I wish I could like it more times.
Unrelated, I just noticed that the date associated with my reply is Nov 27th but I'm in California and the date is actually still Nov 26th. Found a bug!
Could be a UTC date would that still count as a bug.
Date is actually a fuzzier concept than the speed of light.
I briefly entertained the possibility that dev.to was intentionally using UTC dates, before discounting it. Forcing everyone to use UTC (especially without any indication in the UI that that was happening) would just be poor design. I don't think DEV would do that.
In this case, I suspect it was a DST issue on the server. I created an issue in the dev GitHub repo.
I see this issue often and I assume (but don't know - I haven't gone so far as to inspect the code) that this is caused by saving values in UTC - but forgetting to convert them to local time on the display end. There are many ways to handle internationalization, but the standard approach I've always seen is: Store everything in UTC (i.e., in the database). Then transform it on the display end according to the user's locale. But this approach (if that is indeed what they're doing) often leads to these kinda little bugs where someone wrote some code that just grabs the raw date value and doesn't bother to localize it.
Of course, maybe something entirely different is going on... ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you!
Damn, I guess I am old. Running my 40s out to the end now.
As I have read through more and more of this article, I think you are suffering from burnout Adam. None of these problems have anything to do with age, but they are related to your mental heath.
I'm not judging you or diagnosing you either. Obviously I don't know you. If you had a positive outlook, this article might be "Ways to better the workplace for developers" offering solutions over complaints. I've felt parts of what you describe at times, but in the end it was MY problem, not theirs.
You can share opinions and even tell someone their idea is "batshit crazy" in a constructive way. I have personally never worked in a place where people honored processes and were called a "difficult person to work with". Now, I have had people say "no" both as an asshole and with healthy boundaries. Yeah, the ass is difficult, the other guy isn't.
Even things like "the churn". This is an exciting time in software development. I've never seen it evolve so rapidly. While I think Facebook's recoil.js is a rehash of hookstate.js because an ego developer there can't make an open-source project better so he has got to make it own... yeah, that is churn and is a waste because junior developers jump on Facebook hype. Still, with that, it's better than that shit Redux. If you have been coding as long as I have, state engines are nothing new. And all my rant there... pointless. Who cares what others are doing. My team and I can pick the tools we like, enjoy the learnings from others, and create cool shit. I will still complain, but partly because I find it a little fun and I like to challenge myself and my team to make decisions based on thought and research.
And yet, with that all, why get worked up? Just contribute. Teach your team what is good and bad about this new hotness. Explain what was built in the past and how that used to work. Contribute to the open-source project if your company will allow it. All this wisdom can be applied in a way that makes the environment better. People bitching about tabs/spaces, use a code formatter, and make it an automation thing. I keep asking my developer to not work overtime. If they do, I'll ask them to take comp hours off. I actively work against the "kill yourself" culture. At the same time, I'm still guilty of it myself. Hell, I took a break coding a new tool for my team over the holidays to read and reply to your article.
When you say "cynicism," I think that sums it up nicely. Maybe you are burned out. Maybe you just never learned great people skills. Not to judge, I personally took a workshop years ago for people skills as I know I have ADHD and maybe even a little spectrum tendency. Most software developers are too, from what I've read. I'm not a natural empath, and I still honestly stuck at people skills in general. However, I have learned enough that the interactions with my team, my management, my clients, and even myself are far more healthy.
Your very last statement is a direct reflection of how you view the world: "Because some of the stupidity I deal with daily can occasionally get me very depressed"
That's your emotional stuff to deal with. I would suggest that you look into that, for your own health and happiness. Sometimes others don't know things. Sometimes others manipulate because they have their own needs or stresses. Sometimes others are having a hard time and they are cynical too. That's is their shit do deal with, not you. Be the best person you can be on the planet. Be the person you want to be. If you've traveled around the sun as many times as I have, use that wisdom in a constructive way. And if all that shit is getting you depressed, you might just look into yourself and find the real core of those feelings.
I appreciate your article. I feel it has a lot of true points, even if it is from a negative viewpoint. I am sure that others have or are having similar thoughts and feelings as yourself. There are a lot of systemic problems in our modern culture as a whole that I don't think people notice, but then come out in issues like you mentioned. But that is another topic. I wish you the best in finding your groove in life again, and for all the others who are feeling the same way.
I sincerely appreciate your feedback. And I also appreciate the fact that you spent so much time to lay out your thoughts. There are elements of your reply that I wholeheartedly agree with - and others where I think you've kinda missed the point. (But that's OK. I'm the author. It's not your job to read my mind. It's my job to convey my thoughts as clearly as possible.)
There most certainly are aspects of my job/career that, at times, make me feel burnt out. I wouldn't deny that for a second. On the other hand, you seem to have taken most of my points and assumed/read that the issues all stem from me. But part of the inspiration for me writing the piece was to point out that there are a lotta "older" devs who may be experiencing the same thing - and the problem isn't always that they're old, or that their skills are slipping, or that they can no longer "fit in". Rather, there are systemic issues in dev that exist for all of us - but it becomes harder for self-respecting types to deal with them as they get older, and they've had to deal with the same issue over and over and over again and they know where that path leads.
The "problems" I point out didn't arise in tech over the last 7-or-so years (I'm 47 now). But my willingness to just ignore them has diminished over the last 7-or-so years.
I've also been struck by the sheer volume of views, likes, and comments that I've gotten on this piece. It's quickly become one of the most popular articles that I've ever written. Granted, that does nothing to indicate that I'm "right". But it does seem to indicate that I've struck a nerve with a lot of people who are in similar situations with similar feelings. Take that for whatever it's worth.
I'm glad you haven't. I certainly have.
I tried to specifically spell out that I do not resist change for the sake of resisting change. Heck, five years ago I'd barely heard of React. Now, it's what I want to be writing in all day. But I do resist change when change is presented for change's sake. I saw this scenario play out with class-vs-functional components in React, which has eventually led to Hooks.
If I were recalcitrant, I'd still be angrily cranking out my class-based components and flipping the bird to any of those whippersnappers who want me to do otherwise. But the fact is that all of my development these days is with Hooks and functional components. And I'm fine with that.
My "problem" with Hooks is that, to this day, I've yet to hear anyone give me any sorta reasoned, empirical argument for why class-based components are "bad" and Hooks are "good". I hear all sorts of people hollering that Hooks are great - but when you try to get any reasoned responses out of them, most of their justifications fall into dogma or personal preference.
Honestly, that whole paragraph comes off as a bit condescending. I contribute every single day. I absolutely dive into what is good and bad about the new hotness. I talk about these things with my team. I'm no curmudgeon. And I don't think that my team members see me as one.
I will say that, partially as a result of this blog, there are more people "out there" who get this impression that I really get "worked up". They read my "voice" and they think that I'm just telling everyone every day that their way of doing things is stupid and they should just listen to me, with all my wisdom and experience. But I don't honestly believe this describes me in any way at all.
I sleep exceedingly well at night. My partner (of 8 years) tells me that I'm one of the most laid-back guys she's ever met. I laugh a lot. I fish. I paint. I write. I enjoy the hell outta coding. Do I ever get "worked up"? Sure. Occasionally. But don't take these blog posts to mean that I spend my days yelling and launching spittle at all who dare to cross my path.
A commenter on another blog summed this up nicely when they called me an "iconoclast". I like that word. I absolutely enjoy questioning authority and challenging norms. But I'm not undermining my own peace of mind to do it. I just want to point out the things that, far too often, seem to be ignored.
Yeah. As a writer, I know exactly what that word implies and I chose it purposely. I didn't mean "critic". I meant "cynic".
Of course, I realize that "cynic" can often be a synonym for "pessimist" or "crusty old jerk". But that's not how I meant it. I meant it as someone who's seen this movie. I know how it ends. And no matter how many times I try to express that to others - and no matter how carefully I try to couch the message - they still insist on watching the movie till the end. And they still insist on being shocked that the flick didn't somehow end on a better note this time.
Bingo. Couldn't agree more. The "issue" IMHO is that I've been through a rather long list of employers in the last half-decade-or-so, and no matter where I land, it feels that I'm constantly running headfirst into crappy culture.
And please, please, please believe me when I say that, through a certain lens, that last sentence can sound rather "suspect". It's suspect because, if you've dated 10 people, and you've come to the conclusion that all 10 of them were jerks, then maybe, just possibly, the problem is with you, and not with those people you dated. And trust me, I get that. I've been re-evaluating myself, almost constantly, for the last several years. And I know that all of my "issues" are not someone else's problem. I certainly play a role in all of my interactions. And I certainly bear a great deal of responsibility for the manner in which I fit in (or not) with any particular culture.
But in my own self-analysis, I've also come to realize that many of the things that now bother me were always there. It's not that the dev world has really changed that drastically. It still has most of the same rewards and headaches it had two decades ago. But two decades ago, I was much more likely to just grin and move on. Or, in many cases, I simply didn't acknowledge the headaches for what they were. Now that I'm more of a "grown-ass man", I'm much less likely to grin and move on.
Again, I'd like to say that, overall, I deeply appreciate the time you took to give such excellent feedback. But I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't feel a bit like, "The problem is just you. So learn to get over it." I know that's not exactly how you said it or meant it. But considering that this was precisely the point I was trying to rail against in the piece, I can't help but feel a little bit like that.
Thanks for the thoughtful counter reply.
Yeah, I started off by saying I don't know you. And my ignorance is huge in that regard. I don't mean to offend or imply anything. I was sharing opinions based on what I heard (and even that is suspect as I am not best best empath myself!)
I think I hear, basically, all this shit has existed and now you've done it enough times, you don't want to deal with it. I totally agree with you. I did the opposite, instead of sliding back into developer-only, I moved to a company where I could be in charge to make the change. I still make many mistakes and probably cause some of the issues you mentioned, but I'm trying :)
For me, I'm living life with the analogy that we all walk on our side of the road, even if we are going the same direction. I'm responsible for my side, you are responsible for yours. We can't make others do better, we can't make them not have a crappy culture. All we can do is represent the culture we want.
So, again, I don't know you, and your counter-responses are well articulated. So I'll just reflect that from an outsider, it read a bit like a "bitch session" :)
And speaking of bitch sessions. I totally agree with you on hooks. Functional components could be faster in some benchmarks (Maybe?). At least I thought I remembered that. But, I suspect that early on, "Pure" functional components didn't have all that hook state management code in there.
The ONLY argument about functional components and hooks that I have heard of is "you don't have to deal with the 'this' keyword". Now we have useEffect, useMemo, useState, useContext, blah, blah, blah... Not only that, but front end developers are starting to put more and more app-wide state into their hooks or API calls that don't cancel out properly. So I guess Facebook thought to abstract it all away was better? I can see some of the arguments... but now there are new problems. So now Facebook has to create Recoil.js (basically Hookstate.js... sigh) to offer better performance as useContext sort of sucks at scale. I personally keep wondering why we just don't make Observables part of the ecma standard so we can use libs like RxJs even more efficiently. I mean, RxJs can make a state engine in a few lines of code and has way better operators for events.
I can definitely bitch and complain :) Next week I have a big tech talk on why GraphQL is leading us back into building monoliths (which is fine if you intended that) and the problems that will impose at the enterprise scale. It is so true developers keep repeating the mistakes instead of learning from the past.
If you're ever bored and wanna read more longwinded stuff, check out some of my other articles. I've written a lot about JS's class hatred - and its fascination with all things functional.
And to your point, I will never quite understand the irrational fear that many devs have over the
thiskeyword. When I first started using anonymous functions and arrow functions, I found those constructs to be far more counterintuitive than any problems associated withthis. But I've heard from numerous JS devs who, for whatever, seem to have some kinda mental block when it comes tothis.It isn't just him. He is just being honest in standing up and saying it. Most older devs fear speaking up because they will be labelled as 'has-been's or 'cannot keep up with change'. That is pure ageism most of the time. The truth is that the industry is simply not kind on older devs, irrelevant of what they do or don't do. That is because not only of the reasons he stated, but also a huge dollop of real ageism mixed in.
Hi Adam,
As an old developper myself, your whole article made me remember my whole career.
When someone wants to make me do something silly, now i first remind them why ,as the more experienced guy in the room, they are paying me. I remind them i'm here to prevent them doing mistakes when i recognize one. And they listen.
Indeed, like you, i made a step into management for almost 6 years and got back into development.
But now i went back as a freelance. It's a completly different experience, even in Big tech companies. Nobody feels threatened by your talent, your performance, thinking you want to take their job. Everybody values your input more seriously. I'm a senior consultant, tech lead, architect... depends on the mission. But i'm always out of the political nonsense now.
Oh mannn, that's a great idea. Maybe one that I should explore...
I totally see how freelancers could possibly have the "best of both worlds" - being able to concentrate "just" on coding, but not being drawn into the political BS of the "regular" employees.
I am 18+ years a freelancer and another 3 years before that as a junior developer but I can relate to the politics inside a big company as you describe them. You can get into these kind of situations with clients or other stakeholders. The major difference is that they can more easily abandon the whole project (or just you from the project) if you get into a strong argument about the validity of their ideas or if you seem unwilling to do something. It helps if you have a good reputation and people want you to work for them and have come to you because they value your expertise then they will more easily listen to you.
So just a warning for anyone who is seriously considering to jump. Freelancers don't concentrate just on programming. There is a lot of politics and negotiating going on, perhaps even more than a regular mid/senior developer in a big company. We do get to choose mostly our work hours and sometimes the tech stack but everything else I believe is not as rosy as it seems.
These are great points, and part of why I've resisted going back to work for myself lately. Freelancing - or having your own business - can be awesome. But they're not a magical fix-all. Freelancers have "bosses" and all of the political headaches that come with them. Business owners have "bosses" as well. But freelancers and entrepreneurs tend to call those bosses clients.
Up to the point. I am 61 and have been trying to find a job for 2 years. Have had time to learn new technologies and enjoyed it but when I was interviewed by men in their 30th lights go off:) in their heads.
Good article. Once you are over 50 they just assume your skills are outdated. Even if they are not.
I'm a baby at 25 with an entire year of professional developer work behind me! Rest of my time has been in infrastructure work and getting my software engineering degree.
I'm about to start a job and a junior SRE for a well established software company that's looking to radically expand and I have no idea what to expect.
This post is an awesome insight into some of the things I should expect out there! Thanks for sharing!
Looking forward to following your future posts!
Glad to hear it! And I hope I haven't written anything here that's too negative for you. There's much to love about this vocation. There are just some things that never seem to get better. And when they don't you can get kinda tired of them after 20+ years... But I'd recommend this life for nearly anyone who has the aptitude!
Oh don't worry! You haven't scared me off!
If anything, it's refreshing to hear that it isn't all sunshine and rainbows like the world of IT is sometimes portrayed. To me, this post has just highlighted a lot of things I've already heard a bit about but in more detail, and means that I won't get my hopes up and will at least be aware of some of these issues.
At least now I have a good baseline to compare any of my future companies with and will hopefully be able to tell when I've got it good!
I am 38 year old, start learn coding at 33 year. Learning by doing I sell digital product wordpress theme on themeforest on 4 years, I don't know how to say, but I love coding, learn php, js an python etc.
I feel old when met other people, but I feel young when I code😂😂.
Wow, so... I'm also an Adam who has had all of these thoughts and (in many cases) the same reactions, and I can also attest to my ex-coworkers not liking me very much. Especially when I refused to work unpaid overtime - it's like people get jealous that I have the guts to use my non-work time properly while they sit doing poorly planned tasks.
Altogether, I wonder if I'm looking at the future -- except I don't have a job and you're successful! So there's hope for me!
Seriously, I'm thrilled to know that I'm not just crazy about this stuff. But rather than commiserate, I'm wondering if you might give me some advice out of your wealth of experience. I have a background in tech, but never as an employed programmer. However, I'd like to be... an employed programmer. How can I take my variety of self-taught skills and turn them into a job? How did you do it when you were trying to break in?
I wrote a whole article on this subject: dev.to/bytebodger/one-crazy-trick-...
Well said, my friend. I'm not only an older dev, but I have also excelled into and voluntarily out of management in the game dev business. Take your comments about the OT culture and youth movement of fanboys and multiply by 10. At first, I was also a bit bitter about working with as you call them "fanboys" who didn't understand the tech they used.
Most devs under 30 these days can't do the math to build their own render engine little own explain how the game engine they use works. But, I've found this leads to new opportunities.
I find more and more I can use my experience and patience as a teaching tool. It gives me an opportunity to help some realize that what was old wasn't all bad, what's new isn't all great, and that OT culture is bad management planning. It's not that younger devs can't, they just haven't lived some of the older/better ways.
If you can find that position where part or all of your role is that of the educator, you learn and you can help the next generation do and understand more. You can also teach them how to be better professionals, to recruit and retain the best talent -- not the youngest / best grades / most prestigious university / best looking / most popular. I believe that is the next evolution of the profession, and that as the older devs who have scars and war stories it's up to us to find the fanboys with potential, those who are willing to listen and teach them. We'll all be better for it.
The more I read your posts, the more I want to work with and for you, Adam.
"In fact, it's amazing to see some of the stunned looks on peoples' faces any time I tell them, in a professional and unemotional tone, 'No. I won't be doing that.'"
This article really spoke to me. I'm 52 and last year I quit a very successful senior director post at a very well known dot com so I could become an individual contributor again. I find myself doing and saying many if not all of the things you've called out in this article. Management should appreciate the bonus ability of senior (literal) developers who can quickly divine if a given direction is a good or bad way to go. I wonder how long I'll last at my current position. At least it's a remote position and I can keep my mouth shut easier than in an office environment!
Oh, dang. What a nice compliment!
I will admit that this definitely does help! While getting dragged into a meeting face-to-face it can be much harder to conceal the bubbling emotions.
That was a great read. I'd guess that my CV is a similar age and length to yours.
Two things come to mind.
You know a lot of these attributes are considered assets over here in Europe. People here are much more direct generally speaking, and expect you to be assertive with dissent. Maybe consider a second career on this side of the Atlantic :)
Oh, man... I'd absolutely love to be in Europe! And not just for vacation. Me-and-mine have been trying to figure out the best way to get the heck out of the US for a little while.
What a great post! So much in here resonates with me. I too am much more discerning with my efforts, and NewSpeak makes me come out in spots.
I've had younger developers explaining event-sourcing to me like it was so damn innovative, ignorant of the fact that I was doing transaction-log db recoveries when they were breastfeeding. Or being gung-ho about about meeting that totally artificial deadline imposed by some manager. Or rolling their eyes when I suggest we use a good ol' relational DB instead of the latest real-time, iot hotness. Hey-ho.
Ooooh, I love that relational DB example! I've heard some people talk about relational DBs like they're a deprecated symbol of a bygone era.
I just turned 60 this year. I'm at your state. I've done management. I've done politics. I'm through with them all.
While I'm not a programmer by profession, it is part of my skill set where I work. Your observations are not just happening in technology but it happens in many corporations and large businesses. I nodded my head on many of your anecdotes.
I think one of the things that gets me as I've grown older is that my BS meter sensitivity keeps increasing. I can spot BS far easier now than I use to, and I don't have any flowery words for those spreading it either.
Good read, sir.
I expected to hate the article, but no. Truth was found here.
I've been at this 20 years now. It is very frustrating how many times you see the same ideas being recreated every couple of years. Fresh branding, maybe even different to code, but the fundamental trade-offs are only marginally different. Which will lead to its eventual replacement by the next one.
And things that make truly different trade-offs, most people do not want to try because it is too different from what they are used to. :)
Could also be seen as: we like playing with legos, not necessarily building things. As I get older I'd rather just build things.
I'm near 30 and I feel like you in some thinks, specially about corporate political games and political fatigue, I just want to work on a pragmatic way and put my hands on a company where my experience and opinion worth something, avoiding this sh*t out of the equation that only makes our job harder. Sometimes I feel a bit lost about that and don't really know what to expect or what to do to get rid into this environments that harm my mental health, just to work as well as I can and enjoy the process tbh. Any advice from an older would be appreciated
I'm female, 55+. I do QA. Much of this article resonates with me. My spouse is a developer and their comment was "yes to all of that, and sounds like some exposure to U.S. government or DoD security framework".
Because I'm QA, I have not been tagged with "difficult to work with" for refusing out-of-band assignments. I've been able to say "my manager has to approve that" or "I don't have the bandwidth to take that to product owner/manager to get clearance from them, but they can ping me for my input."
I do worry about the ageism. I've been laid off twice in the last 2.5 years, and was the oldest person in the layoff from the startup, and the oldest at my location from the big company (there were folks older than me at other locations). My network of relationships with past co-workers and people I've interacted with at meetups has definitely helped me land jobs - I've been in the same geographic area for 20+ years.
I'm currently working for a government contractor... 😲
I have to say that many of your points hit home with me, but right now I'm on something of a "downside" when it comes to my career. Or maybe I'm just moving sideways with it? I dunno at this point. A little background:
I was let go from my last position as an SWE from a small shop back at the end of February. No problem I thought, I've got savings - let's take a week to gather thoughts, then hit up my recruiter. Did that, got some leads, a few interviews lined up...and then...pandemic hit. All of that dried up.
Ok - I can handle this...
June came around, and I turned...let's see...ah, yes - 47 years old. Sigh. Still nothing from my recruiters at this point (I enlisted a second that I had used in the past). Seems things were barren, but I wasn't certain, so at the end of June I decided to strike out on my own, first with LinkedIn, then Indeed, and see what was around.
Found a few things - posted out my resume - but interviews were hit or miss - mostly miss. A very few went very well...got to the third round on a couple...but both fizzled out at the last moment. One said they wanted to keep my resume on tap, and they'd call me if anything turned up (interestingly, they did call me at the beginning of November...but I haven't heard anything since...sigh).
Part of this I know is just due to the times were in...but the last two interviews went so far south on me, coupled with a failure on trying out HackerRank to some end of "improving my skills" - that I kinda went full sabbatical. I'm not sure whether I'll get back into it or not. I haven't interviewed or applied for anything in a couple of months now. But savings won't last forever, and UI runs out in a month...
So what happened? Well - I'm not really sure, but I kinda feel stupid all the same - almost like "imposter syndrome". I don't have anything more than an associates degree from a long defunct, out-of-business, probably-being-sued, VoTech school. I might as well not have a degree, for all it's worth. But I do have close to 30 years of SWE experience. I thought that was worth something. But maybe not? I have the drive to learn new tech, and I can do it fast. But I've never been a project lead. I'm not sure how I got to be 47 years old, and not be more than a programmer...but that's what has happened.
And because of my lack of schooling - no real "computer science" learning to speak of, everything self taught (I grew up on 8-bit computers that plugged into a TV) - I don't know things. You ask me a big-O notation question, at best I can only guess at the answer. You ask me something about a particular way to do something involving a particular kind data structure or algorithm any more complex than a link-list sorted by basic sorting algorithm, or maybe a binary tree structure on a good day - you'll get a virtual blank stare from me.
It isn't that I haven't heard of these things. It isn't that I don't know that they are fundamental things in computing. It's that, number one, I have never, ever, had to regularly use either or any of that, for what I have done in software development. It isn't like I was writing the latest database engine, or search algorithms, or some new language compiler. Certainly, in those areas and others, it's needed.
But for your regular CRUD style applications written in common programming languages and such? Nope - nothing there. If there's a problem along the way, something tearing thru resources, we'll take a look at it then. Let's get the steak on the grill first, we can worry about sizzle later...
Or maybe I just got lucky or something, and never had such problems thrown my way in nearly 30 years? I'm not sure any more. And honestly, I'm beginning not to care. Except for the fact that I do, because bills and mortgage. And - what else can I do with my life? Remember - I don't have a degree. I'm almost 50, and changing careers at this point is...well...probably on the side of impossible, unless it's being a greeter at Walmart. Oh wait...that's gone now, too.
There's no way I could ever even think about trying to learn, at this late stage, everything I'd need to know about data structures, algorithms, sorting, etc - all that low-level comp-sci stuff...that for some reason, I'm finding myself being interviewed about (well, at least a couple of times).
My cynical side is saying to me, and I don't know how much to trust it, "Psst...They are interviewing with these questions as a proxy for age discrimination."
A sign of the times? Weed out the olds and those who've forgotten over time, long since graduation at least, to get in the young-n-dumb 20-somethings who are cheaper on the payroll and insurance rates? Especially in this time of Covid-19? Seems plausible, but it might just be my paranoia talking.
So...in the meantime...I'm re-inventing myself as a Youtube Vlogger. I figure that if there are tons of people watching other people do the dumbest stuff on the planet (a TikTok for mixing paint!? WTH?) - and making money at it...well, why can't I?
Worst case scenario, I think, will be that I market myself as a "Youtube Video Editor for Hire", or something of that nature. Maybe in the meantime the world will get back to some semblance of "normal". Then again, perhaps it's moved on without me...a gaping 10-month hole (and growing) in my resume seems to be a strong indicator of that possibility, too.
Did I mention that I don't really have the means to retire - ever? Sigh...wish I had a way to go speak to my 20 year old self and knock some sense into him...
Wow. Lots to unpack here. And I won't even try to respond to everything you've written - although I genuinely appreciate your predicament.
On one level, it seems like you haven't really been interviewing "enough". I'm not saying that's your fault. I haven't been in the job market since right before the COVID stuff hit, so I may not have the best perspective. But I know that when I'm really searching for something new, I can often get some kinda interview nearly every day.
But if I read through the lines in your narrative, it sounds like maybe you're not really hammering the interview trail cuz your hearts not in it. You've got doubts about whether you really wanna be doing this at all? And if that's the case, then, I feel for you. But I don't really know what to say. Even if there a 1,000 surgeon jobs out there and you've been doing surgery for 20 years, none of that matters if you aren't really excited about doing surgery anymore.
I will say that the problems you've run into in your interviews are real. But it feels to me like they're getting blown out of proportion - because you haven't had enough interviews to allow you to put them all into context.
I've experienced many of the same things. In fact, I've written several articles on Dev.to about this stuff. I too have nothing but an associates degree (in Electronics, no less). I too can blank when you ask about a lot of that theory stuff - because, as you've pointed out, much of it has no use in "real" applications.
I do not think that asking college-kinda theory questions is a way to weed out the Olds. I think it's a way to weed out the non-degree holders. There are some shops where everyone has a 4-year computer science degree - either because they require it, or because it just happened that way. When you interview for a job in one of those shops, you're gonna get a lotta college-kinda theory questions. Cuz, in their frame of reference, that is a way to judge the basic knowledge level of candidates - cuz they had to learn that stuff when they were being trained.
The interview thing is very hit-or-miss - even if you have a ton of experience. To this day, I can go on an interview and completely bomb it - because I don't align with what their people think a dev should say / do / know. And then I can turn around and ace the next interview. Just depends on the interviewers. And you have no control over it. That's why the only real "solution" is to try to line up as many interviews as possible. I've also had many interviews where no one ever asks me a single question about Big O notation or binary trees or any of that other crap.
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. And I wish you luck!
I've been programming for over 20 years now. And I found this article and the discussion in the comments very interesting.
One overlooked issue here is the idea of hiring for "fit". A very wise man once told me that you can get into a romantic relationship with just about anybody. However, the effort to keep that relationship going will be inversely proportional to how good of a "fit" it is. The better the "fit" the less effort required.
I think it's a mistake to think that your relationships with your co-workers and supervisors would be any different.
That same wise man also told me that there's someone out there for almost everyone. You just have to figure out what you actually want/need and then go find it.
Again, the same is true about jobs. I've heard of shops that specialize in hiring people with autism and shops that are pulling old Cobol programmers out of retirement to work on old mainframe apps during the pandemic. And everything in between.
The right job for you now almost certainly won't be the right job for you 20 years ago. But the right job (or at least a job that's a better fit) is likely out there.
Is there any chance that your current job just isn't the right job for you, Adam?
What we need are more devs who grow up to start businesses that uphold values that, in turn, stop these trends.
Also important are devs who grow up who know how to champion these ideas and manage up.
grow up = advance career and take on more responsibility
In my opinion, it's a more generic issue, regarding the adaptability of older people to new situations and learning new things.
Personally, I attribute it more to a lack of willingness to change their views of the world and challenge their beliefs. Younger people usually know that they know nothing and that they have a lot to learn, so they are more open to new information. Older people, on the other hand, learned a few things that proved to be efficient at some point in their life and they are not easily willing to reevaluate them and test if they are still relevant.
In my opinion, the fewer certainties you have, the easier it is to learn new things. And younger people tend to have fewer certainties in their lives compared to older ones, that's why they learn easier.
Apart from that, some people view the learning process as something that you do once in your life (school/university), acquire the knowledge that you need, and walk with it for the rest of your life. Others, on the other hand, realize that education never ends and that learning is a part of their everyday life. The latter should be able to adapt easier to change and they probably enjoy the learning process, the same process that makes the former category feel uneasy.
I'm 40 but I never felt that learning something new becomes harder as time passes, and I attribute it to the fact that I actually enjoy the learning process. Doing the same thing for a long time might make my job easier, as I can do it faster and more efficiently, but at the same time bores me to death and after a while, I want to learn something new to extend my knowledge. Not always for practical reasons, but sometimes just for the fun of it.
In fact, I feel that I learn faster now than when I was in my 20s, because now I have the experience to easier identify the garbage from what seems to have some real value and potential. In discussions with people of my age, I often see a pattern where they seem to be afraid of the changes in technologies, and they get frustrated and even scared when a technology that they use and rely on seems to become obsolete. The idea that in 5-10 years they might do something entirely different than the thing that they do now, seems to terrify some of them. I, on the other hand, still find the very same idea fascinating. I don't rule out that someday I will get tired of it and change my views, but I hope that this day will not come too soon.
I am 'old' (51) and new (learning to code for 12 months). Background in health and social care. Many parallels to be drawn with your experience albeit in a different industry. Chances are the experience is mirrored to varying degrees across many disciplines. Acquiescence to 'prescribed' innovation becomes a self cancelling condition. The requirement to nod and agree is a lurch towards learned helplessness.
Your observations have helped consolidate some ideas I had about what it might be like to have a 'programming job'. Quite illuminating. Not disappointed, more so glad to be way 'too old' for all of that.
I do though like the idea of spending more time coding. Thinking a way for me is to code up the means to deal with some processes I encounter at work. Currently working on a couple of ideas. Keep heading in that direction seems to be the thing to do.
Great points. At times, I find myself falling into the easy fallacy that all of these issues are somehow limited to tech/programming. But I'm sure that much of this is universal.
But you're right - the time spent actually coding is still incredibly enjoyable. It's definitely the best part of my working life.
I got to meet a guy who had just retired from development and he was so glad to be done with churn. Hopefully I can ride out my career with only a handful of language/framework changes as I would prefer to master software design than be chasing the latest and greatest for the next 20-30 years.
I believe that a healthy approach to churn is to always be observing and, on some superficial level, experimenting with new tech. Whenever you can spare the time, it's extremely healthy to peruse the "latest and greatest" languages / libraries / packages / techniques / etc. While perusing those technologies, you'll expand your own understanding and you'll often be able to appropriate some of the features of that tech into your old-fashioned, aging solutions.
But there should be a massive gulf between choosing to evaluate tech versus adopting it. It's like window shopping. Go ahead. Gaze on all the fancy new goods for sale this season. But if you feel compelled to buy all those goods as fast as you can, you'll go broke.
If someone wants to show me a new JS library that would, theoretically, replace React, then I'm all for it! Demonstrate it for me. Lemme play around with it. "Sell" me on it! I'm always interested to hear about new approaches.
But if you seriously expect me to adopt your new tech (which, on some level, means abandoning the legacy tech), well... It's certainly possible. But it's extremely unlikely. You'll have to do a whole lot more than just demonstrate a few features. And if you're trying to sell the new tech based on the generic idea that it's cool and the old tech is just dumb, then you can save your breath.
With reference to "Rejecting the Churn", it sometimes feels like a techno-political power/ego issue.
If a person starts learning a technology or framework that is 15 years old then there are people with 1, 2, 3 ... 15 years more experience in it than them. Maybe that's an unpleasant "bottom of the heap" feeling, but they can eliminate it by learning and promoting, or even inventing, something completely new. Now they're the expert! Even if the new technology is maybe a little under baked still.
That's a great point - and one I hadn't really thought of before. Also, whenever you're promoting something new, you can always counter and detractors by claiming that those detractors are just close-minded and set in their ways.
I remember very clearly that day when i was in early 20ties dumbfounded by 90-something grandfather of my mother's best friend, who was programming his whole security camera/alarm/gate opening system in assembly. Hell, he was a dinosaur and yet a thousand times more knowledgeable in microprocessors and the stuff i consider too difficult to this day. I didn't even think he knew what a computer was, let alone had a decent ine in the garage... 😆
So...
There is value in experience, it's just being overlooked in our industry i think.
I'm pretty old-enough (near of 50th). And have to say, It mean just it's the time to go out of the game. the life has no any sense in general, if you don't bring it into by yourself.
Sometimes we lost this sense. And no point to say there if you don't feel that still can be useful for your team or/and whole project.
You have to transform all your irritation to something useful and helpful for your team. If no, there is no sense to continue. It'll just hurts you more and more and will become uncomfortable for everyone. So...
Good luck!
Very relatable. I think it does support the idea of making programming a more professional profession. More politics like an agreed code of ethics to support programming as a profession. We can't just "do what we're told" and it's a dangerous thing for new programmers to feel they need to do when it could be ethically flawed. Reaching the 40's now and I'll be damned if I'll give up any of my family or free time to wear myself out on any software work that isn't super urgent and preventing other employees from doing their work.
Good read !! I think some aspects about not doing extra work just because management want is and waste time working overtime still apply to the 20s devs.
btw, super cool writing I am sure following you from now on !
Thank you for the feedback! And yeah, I actually believe that nearly all of the points in this article apply to any devs - regardless of age. But most of the younger devs I know don't allow these things to bother them as much. Heck - when I was younger, I didn't allow them to bother me as much. It's just a question of values and priorities. IMHO, many of these values/priorities change as we get older - and sometimes they change in a way that makes it more difficult to fit into a "typical" professional environment.
Cheers!
True that !! One thing that really connected some dots while reading this is that when I first started working as a dev (I am in my 20s), some older devs always told me "I can see in your enthusiasm that you are new... let it pass some years". I bugged me because I thought they are just grumpy.
Still, I can see that enthusiasm dies if you let it die :)). I will be interested if you write something about job-hopping too, as some recent events got me reading about this. Sure thing that I will be keeping an eye over the new posts :D
Haha, yes, great article.
The hardest part really is how to tell your own brain to just shut up and build it the way they want it :D
Looking forward to your next one!
Lovely article.
I suggest 3 more points:
I am 49 and as an ex top star Flash developer I do enjoy a double stigma :D the best way to go forward to me has been establishing my own consulting firm, where my experience and my ability to foresee from a broad point of view are powerful selling points, and just don't deal with corporate or freelance bidding crap.
Great points! And while I never did Flash development specifically, there was a brief period where I was completely in love with Flex. To this day, I feel that Flex was an excellent, and often overlooked, platform.
I laughed and smiled noddingly throughout this entire post. Many similarities with my experiences, and gives a clear explanation as to why I went 'rogue' and work alone. I have all the management/technical expertise I need, so I build projects from the ground, management involved.
And, posts like these are the only reason why I stayed on this site. Kudos to you, sir.
Your article is very long and winded, and I get most of it, thought didn't read through all of it. One thing that reads loud and clear for me is this idea that "new" tech is on the table for one reason and one reason only, because it's there. These kids want to advance it, of course, because they know it and the old people don't. What could be more plain than that? What better way to flush out the old geezers than to introduce some new thing they don't know, and then dispense of them because they don't have that "skill"? It is age discrimination personified in a whole new way. And there's no way to combat against it. You can't say they got rid of you because "you're 60". But they can say you "don't know Python", and that is one of the requirements, so you don't fit the bill. What these young fools don't get is that what goes around comes around. One of these days THEY will be in THEIR fifties or sixties, and some "new technology" that they weren't educated or trained in will be the "new thing", and they will be foregoing their retirement income trying to pay the bills when they're 63-years old, just three years of THEIR retirement. If I'm in heaven or hell or wherever I am, I won't shed a tear for them, because they made their bed, now let them lie in it!
Might be me...
I felt a little triggered at first, but this article is as much a torch on issues in tech as it is a problem with anyone in particular.
Great post, as always, Adam 🔥
Excellent advice on all points. Thank you!
Nodding head...
Hey, I'm 41 and... Please, get out of my mind!
Man, that hit home, I'm just 30 and I feel that, having worked for 15years
Great article, I look forward to reading some of the specific stories. Thanks!
Your experience and perspective are so valuable. Thank you for sharing
As a 46-year-old who also ditched management as a career path, I just want to say that all this is so true.
Excellent article; enjoyed it thoroughly!
Emotionally Added (Family, Financial, Spouse, Kids, Elderly Parents)