Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) | Hacker News Reader

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

improvingsoftware.com

4 pointstalonx3 comments

In 1998, many programmers around 40 were moving into middle or upper management. Not because they couldn't program, it's just that the huge growth in programming during the 80s meant that more and more programmers were required to move into management positions, rather than the 'coalface' programming areas where most of them probably would have preferred to be.

Programming growth has levelled off markedly in the quarter-century since that original 1998 survey. You'd probably that there would be lots more older programmers around in today's companies than back in 1998.

Let's see now, how old would Bill Gates, and his peers, have been back in 1998? How old are the founders of Google, Facebook, and Amazon in today's world?

I hope people take this to heart. Especially now that LLMs are a thing the rate of change in tech is going to speed up. CS graduates will need to work harder to keep up. Those that can't or won't will need a plan B,C,D... It's not going to get easier. I saw how hard my older colleagues had to work to keep up when I started my career. After 20+ years in the industry, things have not changed and now it's my turn to try to keep up. The industry chews people up and spits them out regularly. Nothing has changed.

You cannot imagine how much I have regretted it for choosing this path...I wish I had something like a time machine to go back and show my younger self my current state and convince me to follow a different major and job category, like handcraft or something alike.

Dealing with computers is nothing but a constant battle with time, only for you to realize you will never catch up, and that you will have to eventually accept the fact that you are getting older and your mind is not a sponge anymore to absorb a torrent of information, and you have to compete with younger generation(s) that just came out of universities and colleges with zeal to devour everything that gets in their hands.

On top of that, nowadays we have to compete with AI which leads to an emotional uncertainty of our future as professionals, and this makes you wonder: was it worth it from a professional perspective?

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