Ask YC: Programming career exit strategies? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Programming career exit strategies?

7 pointsiron_ball7 comments

a) Pure ageism in the programming job market to begin with. Young programmers have a better chance of knowing the hot new languages, they work for less, and they're more likely to accept long hours and weekend crunches. Meanwhile, older programmers are seen as dinosaurs with out-of-date skills.

b) A skilled developer's salary tops out at, what, $150,000 in the best case, most expensive market? And let's not forget that comment Giles Bowkett quoted recently: "You're a programmer ... that makes you a tool to be used by people much smarter than yourself." We want to think we're genius intellects, but the truth is that there's some crushing-handshake jock at the other end of the table whose daughter's 16th birthday party cost more than you'll make in your career.

Conclusion: Software development is great fun, and satisfying, and I will always keep doing it as a hobby, but it is not what I want to be trying to do at 50. What do you see as the career path, short of a 100% career switch?

"Meanwhile, older programmers are seen as dinosaurs with out-of-date skills."

So here's the thing: which languages are "hot"? C and C++ are still in the TIOBE top 10, but there's Java, VB, PHP... all languages with very low barriers to entry. So we are seeing a misleading picture of the market right now. If (and admittedly this is a complete unknown) the industry shifts in favour of languages with a higher barrier to entry then the game changes radically. Without wanting to step on anyone's toes, a (good) C++ programmer can probably hold their own in any language with a little lead time to get up to speed. A VB or PHP type might never get enough of a grasp on C++ to make it as a professional.

There was another article on HN recently about how hard it is to hire parallel programmers. See where I'm going with this...?

C++? Linus Torvalds wouldn't agree:

"C++ is a horrible language. It’s made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it’s much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do nothing but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C."

Go freelance maybe. Then you are in control. As a business, you also won't be making statements like "young programmers have a better chance of knowing the hot new languages" but rather "my business needs to keep on top of new technologies to survive." It is a different mind set.

I'm not sure your observations reflect reality though. I think you are over generalizing.

Everyone is a tool.

Making $150K per year is good pretty much anywhere.

The owner might actually be making less than you.

There is always a "top" when trading dollars for hours.

There is nothing wrong with programming at 50. I know lots of web developers (I am a web developer as well) around that age. I actually look up to them.

There is always a "top" when trading dollars for hours.

I think this is the key thing. As much as I dislike Steve Pavlina, he understands this. See #1 here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-shou...

I don't mean to be glib but isn't the answer, given the context of this site, sort of obvious?

Developer -> Entrepreneur

It seems standard for cube-dwellers to move from programming to project management.

Not that I think the grass is at all greener there; but who knows what tickles your pickle.

Go work for yourself.

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