Ask HN: What paths for a software engineer are age-resilient?
Management is the obvious answer, but I was curious what other paths people have found to be resilient to agism. Or even antifragile, i.e a little grey is a positive.
49 comments
I have a theory, that the reason older engineers are into embedded development, is that the scale of technology is similar to what they were using ~30 years prior. It's very different, of course, and there are many new things; but the kids these days consume terawatts of cloud compute to apply deep learning to cryptocurrencies, and it takes a very different mindset to "squeeze" code into 1MB flash and 256kB RAM. I'm happier down there, I'd rather twiddle bits than learn a new front-end framework every other month.
Another reason is that "embedded" roles encompass tools and products spanning all sorts of different fields, many which require extensive domain knowledge and experience. A new CS graduate might be fine at the software side of things, but they wouldn't have all of the non-CS expertise which other people might have picked up over the years.
Im down there with you and want to take a peek upstairs. Im tired of being stuck in 1985. You've banged one bit, you've banged a billion.
It's an ugly place. Immensely bloated libraries and frameworks, frequent churn of technologies based on what's the hot new buzzword of the moment, and everything feels like it's pretty much half-baked. "Memory efficiency? Need heard of it. What's that?" "CPU cycles? Just burn as much as you want because they're free!"
Change is good though, change is the only constant. Better to be in a state of flux than a static, dead-end field where time stands still.
Change for the sake of improvement (whether successful or not) is good. Change for the sake of change is just a waste of time and energy. I see far too much of the latter in the web world.
The key is balance between chaos and order. Too much change all the time and things are too chaotic for anything good to stick. Too little and nothing ever changes (orderly but pointless). Just right and things continually improve.
Like the difference between A.I. and I.
Fwiw, cryptocurrencies need that kind of engineering approach. They are resource-constrained in a different way than embedded systems.
In embedded systems the resource constraints are known more or less exactly, and you work within those constraints to fit in as much capability as possible.
With cryptocurrencies operating in a heterogenous open network, it's never clear exactly what resources are available, only that there's a tradeoff between resource consumption and security (eg, tamper resistance of the shared ledger/datastore).
The more resources consumed by the protocol/client, the fewer are the users with the hardware capable of running it, the more clients and miners migrate to data centers and larger professional operations. Centralization increases the odds that a single entity/cartel/attacker can disrupt the network.
Cryptocurrencies that are extremely efficient can run on a wider variety of hardware, resulting in greater inclusiveness, participation and tamper resistance via decentralization. A major area of research is how to reduce resource consumption in these systems and keep them decentralized and tamper resistant.
In embedded systems the resource constraints are known more or less exactly, and you work within those constraints to fit in as much capability as possible.
With cryptocurrencies operating in a heterogenous open network, it's never clear exactly what resources are available, only that there's a tradeoff between resource consumption and security (eg, tamper resistance of the shared ledger/datastore).
The more resources consumed by the protocol/client, the fewer are the users with the hardware capable of running it, the more clients and miners migrate to data centers and larger professional operations. Centralization increases the odds that a single entity/cartel/attacker can disrupt the network.
Cryptocurrencies that are extremely efficient can run on a wider variety of hardware, resulting in greater inclusiveness, participation and tamper resistance via decentralization. A major area of research is how to reduce resource consumption in these systems and keep them decentralized and tamper resistant.
I work at a company that does embedded development and our engineers are very age-diverse. The team I am on consists of people directly out of college, people with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and everywhere in between. The last few programmers that we hired were 55+, and they were able to breeze through our interview process and quickly become invaluable members to our team.
I think that older engineers definitely have an advantage when it comes to embedded and other low-level systems development. The Javascript framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete, but the experience you got writing kernel drivers 25 years ago is still very useful today.
I think that older engineers definitely have an advantage when it comes to embedded and other low-level systems development. The Javascript framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete, but the experience you got writing kernel drivers 25 years ago is still very useful today.
"The Javascript framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete"
to be replaced with
"The autosar framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete"
for automotive at least.
to be replaced with
"The autosar framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete"
for automotive at least.
> The Javascript framework that you worked on 5 years ago is now obsolete
This is only close truth for frontend (save for React).
This is only close truth for frontend (save for React).
Doing good work and staying in touch with people who know you do good work.
I think ageism is awful, but it really hurts when I read blog posts of people in their 50s and 60s blasting out resumes with no response.
If you're good at what you do and have decades of work under your belt, there should be someone ASKING you to work with them, if not recommending you to their colleagues.
I think ageism is awful, but it really hurts when I read blog posts of people in their 50s and 60s blasting out resumes with no response.
If you're good at what you do and have decades of work under your belt, there should be someone ASKING you to work with them, if not recommending you to their colleagues.
This. Network and stick together.
Keep in touch with peers and do similar stuff, be around! Even better have a company together and aim productized consulting.
Keep in touch with peers and do similar stuff, be around! Even better have a company together and aim productized consulting.
Do we have any stats on ageism? Are there not lots of older engineers happily employed and well compensated?
I've worked with some brilliant older minds and I've also worked with some older people who truly have become useless and grumpy and harmful to the team. Is there not possibly some bias because the employed ones aren't making blog posts about it?
Maybe I'm completely wrong. I've only worked with a room full of older engineers in total.
I've worked with some brilliant older minds and I've also worked with some older people who truly have become useless and grumpy and harmful to the team. Is there not possibly some bias because the employed ones aren't making blog posts about it?
Maybe I'm completely wrong. I've only worked with a room full of older engineers in total.
This. Experienced systems engineers who can reliably build, maintain and admin non-trivial backend systems are valuable. Let the spring chickens handle the UI/UX and strategy for a market of their contemporaries, which they know well.
I have been researching this topic for some time, mostly to prepare for life after 50. For the below, consider holding all other equivalent variables equal for simplicity:
+ Learning how to sell is the most important skill to develop, whether you are selling as part of an organization or for your own gig. Ultimately software is about business results, and selling rewards experience built over time.
+ Learn how to influence: customers, vendors, direct reports. As you get older you will need to increasingly be effective through your relationships with other people.
+ Working for yourself beats working for someone else as you get older, particularly if you can foster multi-year relationships with a range of customers where no individual customer represents more than 30% of your revenue.
+ Building recurring revenue into those contracts so you do not need to always drum up new business helps as you pass from 50 to 60.
+ Learning how to sell is the most important skill to develop, whether you are selling as part of an organization or for your own gig. Ultimately software is about business results, and selling rewards experience built over time.
+ Learn how to influence: customers, vendors, direct reports. As you get older you will need to increasingly be effective through your relationships with other people.
+ Working for yourself beats working for someone else as you get older, particularly if you can foster multi-year relationships with a range of customers where no individual customer represents more than 30% of your revenue.
+ Building recurring revenue into those contracts so you do not need to always drum up new business helps as you pass from 50 to 60.
Software as a Service. Build your own product and grow it until it replaces your day job income. Then optimise it down to where it only takes up a few hours a week to run.
In my years of doing this, nobody has ever asked my age before purchasing a subscription, nor have they declined to do so because of “culture fit”.
Consulting also works nicely. In all my years of parachuting in to broken teams to ship their products, none of them have ever held my lack of inexperience against me.
The cool part is that you can use the proceeds of consulting to build the SaaS business. And you can keep taking consulting gigs after the product business is already paying you a full time salary. You can dial work up and down as you feel, either traveling while it all runs in the background, or socking away more into savings.
In my years of doing this, nobody has ever asked my age before purchasing a subscription, nor have they declined to do so because of “culture fit”.
Consulting also works nicely. In all my years of parachuting in to broken teams to ship their products, none of them have ever held my lack of inexperience against me.
The cool part is that you can use the proceeds of consulting to build the SaaS business. And you can keep taking consulting gigs after the product business is already paying you a full time salary. You can dial work up and down as you feel, either traveling while it all runs in the background, or socking away more into savings.
Save 25X your annual spending and you can retire. If you invest to earn 7%/yr (on avg), you can withdraw 4% forever.
Read the book The Simple Path to Wealth, or the basics in this blog post.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
Read the book The Simple Path to Wealth, or the basics in this blog post.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
This 4% rule is based off the Trinity study, but you are making a common mistake in interpreting the results.
>...The 4% refers to the portion of the portfolio withdrawn during the first year; it is assumed that the portion withdrawn in subsequent years will increase with the consumer price index (CPI) to keep pace with the cost of living. The withdrawals may exceed the income earned by the portfolio, and the total value of the portfolio may well shrink during periods when the stock market performs poorly. It is assumed that the portfolio needs to last thirty years.
The important part is that there is absolutely no guarantee that "you can withdraw 4% forever." They found that in the different time periods they studied that taking 4% would mean the portfolio would last 30 years before being exhausted. That might be fine if the person works to 65, but might not work out very well if they retire much earlier. (The paper also allowed for increasing the amount taken due to inflation, so if you can survive on the 4% the portfolio should last longer.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study
>...The 4% refers to the portion of the portfolio withdrawn during the first year; it is assumed that the portion withdrawn in subsequent years will increase with the consumer price index (CPI) to keep pace with the cost of living. The withdrawals may exceed the income earned by the portfolio, and the total value of the portfolio may well shrink during periods when the stock market performs poorly. It is assumed that the portfolio needs to last thirty years.
The important part is that there is absolutely no guarantee that "you can withdraw 4% forever." They found that in the different time periods they studied that taking 4% would mean the portfolio would last 30 years before being exhausted. That might be fine if the person works to 65, but might not work out very well if they retire much earlier. (The paper also allowed for increasing the amount taken due to inflation, so if you can survive on the 4% the portfolio should last longer.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study
Is there a consistent, low risk way of getting 7%/yr. I invested in a few ETFs and am down 1% since 2018. How does one go about doing this reliably?
If you want low risk, go with a CD. For anything above a couple percent, you need to invest for a longer period of time: at least 10 years...
I've been getting a consistent 10% from eREITs for several years now.
Do you invest in those using a self directed IRA? And is the 10% coming from interest income rather than NAV appreciation?
I've been looking into several private REITs in the past, and their return is indeed in the 10% ballpark (usually 10% is the ceiling), mostly distributed as interest income. The problem with that is that if you don't hold them in a tax sheltered account, your 10% will easily become 5% after taxes, since interest income is taxed at your marginal rate, so if you're at the peak of your earning career in a coastal city, 50%+ marginal tax rate is not at all uncommon.
In comparison, broad cap index funds are much much more tax efficient via qualified dividends and long term capital gains, so to get 5% after tax from those you need much less than 10% returns.
I decided to give up on investing in private REITs, I don't like the idea of taking a substantial amount of risk just to then send all the premium to Uncle Sam, and being a traditional W2 employee, access to self directed IRA is not worth the trouble.
Many people (not saying it's you) like to boast about their pre-tax return: the only thing that counts is how much you're keeping after taxes.
I've been looking into several private REITs in the past, and their return is indeed in the 10% ballpark (usually 10% is the ceiling), mostly distributed as interest income. The problem with that is that if you don't hold them in a tax sheltered account, your 10% will easily become 5% after taxes, since interest income is taxed at your marginal rate, so if you're at the peak of your earning career in a coastal city, 50%+ marginal tax rate is not at all uncommon.
In comparison, broad cap index funds are much much more tax efficient via qualified dividends and long term capital gains, so to get 5% after tax from those you need much less than 10% returns.
I decided to give up on investing in private REITs, I don't like the idea of taking a substantial amount of risk just to then send all the premium to Uncle Sam, and being a traditional W2 employee, access to self directed IRA is not worth the trouble.
Many people (not saying it's you) like to boast about their pre-tax return: the only thing that counts is how much you're keeping after taxes.
What eREITs are you investing in?
I use fundraise.com, iirc the fund was for some apartment buildings in Brooklyn
Are these traded on an exchange?
Don't just quit when you are becoming older. It is getting harder to find a new job and you are in risk of earning less.
1. Identifying problems, rather than just solving problems, makes you immensely more useful as an employee (https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/10/10/beyond-senior-softwa...)
2. Don't have a huge number of datapoints, but it seems that organizations with ties to academia suffer less from age discrimination (e.g. founded by people from academia).
2. Don't have a huge number of datapoints, but it seems that organizations with ties to academia suffer less from age discrimination (e.g. founded by people from academia).
I’m in my late forties. Just been coding for the past twenty-five years. I stay away from management by turning down management offers. I’m not a rockstar or anything. Just doing the work.
There are places that won’t hire me because of my age but I’ve never been unemployed. I’m not the oldest person in my department.
There are places that won’t hire me because of my age but I’ve never been unemployed. I’m not the oldest person in my department.
I remember one of my first jobs out of college, we had an engineer in his late 50s on our team. He was capable and had experience with mainframes as well as Java at the time. My manager at the time had a soft spot for him.
Now I am getting up in age, and I am wondering the same thing for myself.
Now I am getting up in age, and I am wondering the same thing for myself.
Consulting work if you have deep experience.
I consult/develop computer vision, computer graphics and sometimes whole products (UI included). One “trick” is to develop 30 years worth of friendships with your work colleagues.
Management or university are safe paths. You can also stick being a software developer: make sure you exercise frequently and get lucky in the genetic lottery of getting old without bad diseases that prevent you to do a job so intellectually demanding as software development.
To be honest, the best you can do is become a better seller as you age. I still suck at it, but when I compare to 20 year old kids(I just made 30). It is the most "antifragile" position to be in. Also save and invest as you age, that will bring at least some tranquility to your mind in regards to your future.
To be honest, the best you can do is become a better seller as you age. I still suck at it, but when I compare to 20 year old kids(I just made 30). It is the most "antifragile" position to be in. Also save and invest as you age, that will bring at least some tranquility to your mind in regards to your future.
Besides management, the other obvious answers are consulting (that one might be antifragile) and defense contractors. If you want a steady paycheck for software engineering, I suppose that last possibility is for you.
To put that in concrete terms, here is a "Who is hiring?" post for a place that has people at least into their 60s, maybe older: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19055183
To put that in concrete terms, here is a "Who is hiring?" post for a place that has people at least into their 60s, maybe older: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19055183
Domain knowledge and scientific acumen. Working as an engineer in a non-tech company won't pay as much, but ageism is much less of an issue, particularly in academia.
In general, look for niches where there are a proportionate (or better) concentration of grey-hairs. Not FAANGs or places like them (duh).
There's a lot to be said for being good at cleaning up messes. Lots of people design crappy systems and write crappy code (and do). Being able to fix stuff like that with minimal downtime is worthwhile, and most youngsters would rather not go there.
There's a lot to be said for being good at cleaning up messes. Lots of people design crappy systems and write crappy code (and do). Being able to fix stuff like that with minimal downtime is worthwhile, and most youngsters would rather not go there.
Not sure, but I imagine that colleges and universities and the non-profit sector are probably less prone to age discrimination.
I'm not sure if this is practical advice, but the Vi editor has lived on since 1976 in Vim (1991), NeoVim (2014), and even emacs (via Spacemacs, 2015).
I doubt anywhere would hire someone based on their Vi/Vim competency, but it's undeniable that it's a tool which has only grown in influence over time.
I doubt anywhere would hire someone based on their Vi/Vim competency, but it's undeniable that it's a tool which has only grown in influence over time.
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Statically typed functional programming. I see plenty of Haskell, PureScript, ocaml, Scala (used functionally), and other language engineers who appear to be over 40.
Also, low-level programming.
Also, low-level programming.
turning 51 this year, still rocking with angular2+, redux, core, azure, firebase, mongodb cloud, nativescript....etc!
should depend on the the developer, the company, the environment! today's youngsters still need to prove they "own" the technology & from what i see this side - they don't know squat, but they want the big-bucks....
should depend on the the developer, the company, the environment! today's youngsters still need to prove they "own" the technology & from what i see this side - they don't know squat, but they want the big-bucks....
two thoughts:
1) to echo another contributor, universities and other not-for-profits seem to be much friendlier to aging workforces - startups and even established companies are not
2) avoid going into product management; stay with coding and learn the latest frameworks; product management is brutally tough on aging workers
Just work in a bigger company that has been around for a long time instead of SF startups.