Answer to Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement? | Hacker News Reader

Answer to Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

quora.com

8 pointsSumitmic8 comments

> Senior employees are not only expensive, they also are not coachable to learn new skills/technology, technically not hands on and aren't pliant to do the bidding of the management

Of course we're expensive. We value our time, because we know it's limited. We're not young anymore, and we were never immortal. Every minute we spend making you richer is a minute we could spend on more important things. It's only natural that we should demand as high a wage as possible.

Of course we aren't "pliant". We've been burned by management too often. Blame yourself, and blame our previous bosses. If they had treated us like human beings, we might not be so quick to regard you as a necessary evil.

Nevertheless, how dare the author assume developers like me are unwilling to learn new technologies? That's only half true. Of course I'm going to look askance at a new tech stack that's just a buggier and more complex way to do work I already know how to do, but if it's a genuine improvement I will dive in as if I were a wet-behind-the-ears CS grad.

Furthermore, what the hell is this bullshit about us oldsters not being hands-on? I'm still elbows-deep in this shit because I have no intention of letting myself get demoted to management even if it does seem to pay better and get a little more respect.

I laughed at the idea of all young engineers being more coachable. Any reasonable person has figured out that they have plenty of room to learn and grow from others.

I think the author's real agenda comes through when they talk about younger workers being more pliant. He doesn't want workers who stand up for themselves (or their fellow workers).

The respondent demonstrates that he has never worked with senior developers, setting aside the false premise of the question.

How did this steaming pile of ignorant generalizations make it so high on HN?

This is largely how I think about the future of my career. I'm old enough to have skill sets that are completely irrelevant now. I've also seen how I compare to interns at learning completely new stuff: many of them kick my ass!

If you don't make good bets early in your career and learn stuff that can carry you through large portions of your career, then you can find yourself stuck. Also, taking the wrong job can be a major career stumbling block.

I'm not planning on early retirement, but I'm absolutely planning for a demotion come age 45 or so. I'm just hoping that there will be something I can do circa 2030.

I am not entirely convinced this is true.

From who I know, programmers can and do work well to average retirement age. Albeit, those skills are specialized in database architecture and older languages like Fortran.

Software engineers are one of the professions that make it possible to retire early, due to a higher than average household income. The majority of people today have to work until their bodies stop or their pensions kick in.

Yes, what he's talking about does happen to many engineers, but not all. Also, not all Jr engineers are more coachable, or compliant. I have 50+yo co-workers that are eager to learn from me. Many older employees have learned that it doesn't pay to argue with managers too much, whereas young engineers can be idealistic and uncompromising; they also expect to make a difference immediately, regardless of experience.

Yes, ageism is a pernicious in many industries.

The key is to evaluate individuals fairly including what they bring to the team. Maybe they don't type 80 WPM or know every single cool tool but maybe they can find subtle bugs and write less code? That's valuable.

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