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Comment by candost | Hacker News Reader

I am the author and I am very much aware of my privileges. I also know that I am writing these things not to everyone out there but to people like me.

That said, I am also aware of my privileged situation can change anytime. That’s why I am focusing on what I can do to cover myself if I lose these privileges while I still have them. Most probably, I don’t know and not aware of a lot of things as well and I am willing to figure out on the way, lose something, earn something else, but never give up.

> I don't even really want to be doing it now.

This sentence is what exactly I want to avoid in my life.

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How do you see our profession evolving until and past your retirement age? Are you not worried that, besides the LLM revolution (and whatever comes next), ageism will cause you to be out of a job at say 60 at the latest?

>ageism will cause you to be out of a job at say 60 at the latest?

Do you feel like you'll be much less productive at 60? Why would you work for a company that thinks that way? Can you no longer solve business problems by that age? We have 80 year old politicians, so I'd hope not.

From what I observe of 80+ year old politicians, I find that to be more an argument in favor of ageism rather than against it.

It doesnt matter what you feel. It matters what your employer or customers feel.

Unless you are super lucky to have own company and own product(s).

It’s hard to overstate how much I want to see this topic the same way as you do. I think, so far, I’ve only become more productive, and I don’t feel the cynicism that many seem to acquire past a certain age (“all frameworks are just the same”, “wheel is reinvented all the time” etc - I have a more nuanced view on this). I’m not really worried about my productivity at 60, but that the market will favor cheaper, superficially quicker-minded folks, who tend to be young.

No the reason why they want young people is not speed.

Managers hate mature people because they are a lot harder to command. You also run into the problem of someone being more qualified than their superior. I work in healthcare and seeing a child manager clash with a 60 year old nurse never stops being hilarious.

> We have 80 year old politicians,

are they any good? or do we pray for their passing so that more progressive policies can be considered?

No true Scotsman - Joe Biden is old, but plenty of young conservatives are far, far less likely to enact any progressive legislation. People age in lots of different ways, some people will face dementia in their 60s, others will be lucid into their 90s and beyond.

I'll be 60 in a couple of weeks time (I hate typing that - get off my lawn etc!). I know I'm not less productive now than I was 10, 20, 30 years ago. Maybe a bit more cynical - but then I can hide that with humour.

The one think I do feel strongly is that my current FTE job is my last one. Ageism is a real issue, when it comes to finding a job in tech when you're in your 50s; running the recruitment race in my 60s is not something I want to face. Which means I feel like I've lost the chance to walk away from my current job if anything goes wrong.

I get my pension in 7 years time: I'm looking forward to it already!

I have first hand experience with this.I am late 50s and still at top of my game in my area of expertise. It was time to move on from last job last year and had zero interest from anyone. All through my network so no cold calls either. I know for a fact those positions were filled with late 30s mid 40s people.

So my answer was luckily i retired. The interesting thing is after being in tech for 35-40 years i have no interest in any of it now. Hell after 3 weeks of retirement i didnt. I have a small farm now and play with tractors and such all day.

If the 'LLM revolution' proves to be as effective and scary as you imply, a motivated 85 year old coder could easily hide their identity behind whatever deepfaked voice/video/photo/text identity they choose and never be revealed to be aged

We can safely say that nobody can predict how our profession will evolve. I don't want to assume I will stay in this profession forever. I currently love my profession and am trying my best to do it well and learn the fields close to my field (like psychology or philosophy). On the other hand, I'm doing other things I enjoy (like writing on my blog), although they don't bring any income. However, writing is a skill I can learn, grow, and become an income in the future (if I enjoy doing it professionally).

I'm worried that not only ageism but also a sudden accident or any other sickness can put me out of a job. That's exactly what I meant by "have enough savings to cover detours during the journey." That's why I used to "only" word in, "Instead of relying only on forty years of commitment to retirement schemes, ..." I still have retirement and government support to cover my problems up to a certain point. However, it's up to me to make the journey safer by investing according to my goal.

Ageism is not death. Just a bump in the road.

I am well past 60. For the first 30 odd years I was an individual contributor in both programming and system administration and manager of the same.

When one of the financial crises and ageism ended my management career, I went back to school and switched fields. After a few years I got the chance to teach new computer support professionals in vocational program. I have been doing that for 15 years.

As a side note for ageism "victims" our school is growing and is struggling to find enough competent teachers (Window/Linux Admin, Database, Scripting, Networking, VMs, Cloud, Mobile devices...).

Check out your local vocational programs. You can find permanent or bridge work teaching at this level. Usually industry experience is more important for these jobs than a teaching degree.

Fair enough, it sounds like perhaps I misjudged your intent and I'm sorry to have implied any ignorance on your part. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts. It’s good to hear other’s challenges on my words so I can reflect on how my sentences sound on other people’s minds.

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