Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

+ A company that gives me a good work/life balance + Regular WFH or preferably be fully remote + Interesting tasks, in a relatively stable environment

Most of my peers seem to want the same thing as well. While I've done the crazy workweek startup thing before, it burns you out and it's simply not sustainable. I don't have a single peer who still works in startup land.

I think that's the problem. Young, fresh, idealistic programmers straight out of college are willing to give their whole body, life, and soul to a job; if a recruiter was charismatic enough (and if it wasn't for student loans), he or she could practically convince them to pay the company for the privilege of giving them programming to do. They don't know any better.

You, on the other hand, are old and tired enough - and more importantly, have enough other priorities in your life - that you simply can't be convinced to work 12 hours a day or make your free-time hobby also be coding for your employer.

Coming up on 50 in a few short months.

Been there done it all, from humble beginnings to the upper echelons of big five corporates.

Had the whole house in the burbs with the three car garage and five cars, the dance music studio in the basement.

Stock options and pay up the wazoo.

The money wasn't the problem, the environment was.

The cash just wasn't enough

More importantly my mental health was suffering.

Specifically I wanted to continue being a professional developer with a private space, a shared space and above all work with extremely talented people on serious projects.

My colleagues and myself didn't need break out rooms and enumerable meetings to get stuff done, because creation just happened.

So my wife and I gave it all up and started doing start-ups. She's from a similar background and couldn't stand the facade of modern corporate culture either.

Emotionally draining and ultimately unproductive. You get tired seeing a team of a hundred doing work that can be done with a team of ten or less.

Checked out of corporate and went for a walk in the metaphorical desert.

Came back from it rediscovered the joy of programming, dispersed all my assets and started again.

Now we do things on our own terms and with a low impact that we believe in.

Somehow great people, young and old appear out of nowhere and want to help. That's awesome, and we learn from each other.

Hopefully soon our current project will be released and maybe even useful.

The main thing is you don't need a lot honestly in this business. Patience and just wanting to do the right things goes an awful long way.

I say screw corporate culture, at least SV culture. It's nothing a mirage designed for churn and burn and cares less for actual humans

I mean just look how FAANGM create actual cities around their campus to suck you in.

I'm sorry but that isn't normal. It may be convenient, it may be fun when you are young, but it isnt natural and it creates echo chambers and bubbles that are not sustainable.

My hat is off to anyone who does this job, young or old, it's tough.

But please do it for the right reasons, know that you have to be in it for the long game and the game gets bigger every single day.

Good luck people.

And by the way..

It's worth it

(1) That process isn't always what you think it is. Sure, some companies will copy the superficial aspects of that process, asking puzzle questions or looking down their nose at you because you don't know some trivia about a language that has existed less time than you've been programming. They're idiots. However, there are also more people than you might think who have actually been trained in such interview techniques, who almost couldn't care less about your solution because they're looking at how you solved it, how you communicated about solving it, how you reacted when surprised or confronted, and so on. That's really important stuff, and I for one don't mind being measured on it.

(2) If you're clear about expectations, you might be surprised what kind of deal you can get. For example, this company is notoriously averse to letting people work from home full time. I'm one of only a few dozen (out of thousands) apparently. Why? Because I told them right at the start that it was an immutable requirement and if they weren't willing to make that deal then we might as well not waste our time. Mentioning that kind of thing post-offer wouldn't have worked. Not a chance.

So yes, I think people like you and me can get through that kind of recruiting process and get the kinds of jobs we want. I hope that helps.

I think I could get you a job "in a grey box on a plain chair and table", though mostly my employer does drywall. There are several chair and desk/table choices.

You get money and various extras like health coverage, 401K, etc. Your preference to "do a great and professional job" "in a chair and table at an office" is fine. There are a few silly trinkets, easy to ignore.

You can "leave early for example to pick up the kids" or for no reason at all. You just need maintain a long-term average of 40 hours per week, and even that can be negotiated if you are really good or have a temporary situation. Some people keep early hours, some people keep late hours, and some people work hours that are pretty random. I take decently full advantage of this, typically showing up in the afternoon. It really makes a quality-of-life difference to be able to go do stuff in the middle of the day without begging for permission.

Believing in the mission of the company is a funny thing in my case. It's almost the same as patriotism. If you would have positive feelings about a huge American flag in the cafeteria, maybe it is the right environment for you. If that makes you uncomfortable, you'd best NOPE NOPE NOPE out of this one.

I'll try to remember to put a proper job description in the next "Who is Hiring?" thread, but FYI: It's the sort of job for people who like writing boot loaders, kernels, emulators, decompilers, hypervisors, JIT engines, and similar stuff. You can email me at users.sf.net, with account name albert.

It’s a shame. I love programming and am good at it. I do it at home as a hobby because it’s awesome. But there is no career path up. My decade+ of experience is not going to earn me much more than the 20 year old bundle of raw energy sitting in the next cube over, besides the word “senior” in my title.

Certain job categories seem to be really unusually exploitable in this way. Where people are working just as hard or harder as in other fields, but instead of compensating this with actual pay or job benefits, it is compensated with having the work be interesting, something the worker can be truly passionate about. People do work for much less than they're really worth because they're deriving some personal value simply from doing the work itself.

Those fields all employ some pretty significant protectionism to keep the applicant pool thin.

I'd spend some time learning technologies you think will be big a few years out. The industry moves on to new best practices pretty slowly (unless javascript) so you're still way ahead of the curve by learning, say, go or functional programming.

I woke up a few years back (around 34) no longer able to sit comfortably for really any period of time. 4 years later after establishing a yoga practice and learning to stand comfortably I can get through the day, but I'll never have a 19-year-old spine again. Wish I had started counter stretching way earlier.

But I like your attitude and I think you'll be OK.

Unless you're highly specialized then you run out of options as you become an older programmer. The market size of "specialized programmers" is not even close enough to being the size needed to absorb programmers as they age.

I see things a lot differently now that I did 10 or 15 years ago. I no longer believe that a decade of experience in programming carries much value (as seen by an employer).

The aha moment for me was when I worked with a 26 yo trombone major who took a 3 month coding bootcamp who was showing nearly the same level of programming proficiency as me. And I wasn't a schmuck programmer.

Well, part of his premise is that we may, but we cost a lot more. I know I cost a lot more than I did when I was 24, even after adjusting for inflation. I do worry about pricing myself out of the job market - but I also worry about missing out on potential salary now while I'm still young _enough_ to be employable.