Ask HN: What happens to programmers after 40? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What happens to programmers after 40?

10 pointssamfisher8312 comments

You see all these startups, most people are pretty young, what happens to the programmers who are closer to 40, but aren't managers? Would you want to hire someone older than yourself?

View on HN

You know this age thing is a relatively new phenomenon, I am approaching 40 and back in the day, like say around 92-95 when the internet was starting to leak out of the universities by those of us graduating, when we went into the corporate world there where a lot of grey beards, and they where well respected, it was not looked at as a failure to choose a life long career of programming.

This new focus on age concerns me, because it is the exact problem that is wrong with outsourcing to India. The difference is in India it is in hyper-drive because everyone wants to be a manager or people ASAP. The number of people that report to you is a status symbol and everyone is playing the game to jump to the management ladder. It seems that that mentality is slowly infecting the US, but there is an age limit on ours but if that age limit starts to creep down to the point where people are looking to jump as soon as they have secured a development job, expect to see the quality of US software diminish with that creep.

I'm a U.S. citizen living in the Philippines. The culture in the Philippines has many of the same weird status quirks as that of India and you will never see this in the U.S.

I think any age issues in programming in the U.S. might be more practical than status issues.

Big corps are more rigid than scrappy start ups. Perhaps this causes issues that you might not see elsewhere. For example, everyone wants to make more money (probably through raises.) A 40 year old programmer who has been programming for 20+ years has probably maxed out on experience, possibly has maxed out on time on the job and eventually gets to a point where the position just can't offer any more money. The value of the position might even be less than the money paid to the programmer. At this point, the company would probably rather hire a fresh developer who can do the same job (which probably doesn't require all that experience anyways) for less money. So, if that programmer wants to make more money, then he / she probably needs to move on.

The bottom line is that programmers need to always be looking at ways to move up the value chain (or at least demonstrate that he or she is worth that current salary.) The best way to do that is different in every situation. In some cases you might just hit that ceiling and you might need to move on. The only case where someone is going to start looking at age is that situation where he / she is getting too comfortable and too afraid to make big moves.

We cut our hair. Cut our hair real close so you can't see the gray.

Seriously, 40 is the new 30. I still have the chops and a lot more wisdom to boot.

I see it going the other way: 40 is the new 50. ;-) A 40-year-old used to be considered mid-level, not senior or particularly wise; certainly not a graybeard.

Totally disagree! I'd also say 30 is the new 20 - especially for me, I'm nearly 28 and have more enthusiasm for things like education and my career than I've ever had.

If they are good, yes I want to hire them regardless of age. Experience is a valuable asset as well.

What happens to the programmers who are closer to 40, but aren't managers? They have a choice: a) continue earning a living doing what they do with ever-diminishing returns, regular holidays, time with the kids, or b) go it alone, and risk a hell of a lot more than the young. I read somewhere that YC tends to steer away from engaging with generally older people who's risks/dependencies are obviously an issue.

Would you want to hire someone older than yourself? Absolutely. But only for the job that suits both me and them. I may want someone who really has the experience to do a specific task with authority, and that is more often than not a greybeard, or enthusiastic experienced (40+) peer.

I would say not much, but then I'm a sysadmin, and there's a lot of older folks there. I think more than half my coworkers are at least 40, and most of the rest are over 30. There's very few 20 somethings.

They start to worry about how their age is defining them... and thus their age starts to define them. As someone who recently turned thirty and works in "start ups" I must say it's their own baggage.

I am 44 and going stronger than ever. And having fun helping young developers out of the holes they more often than not dig for themselves :-)

Some of our best programmers are well over 40. They're too smart to join ramen startups.

that's the great thing about a tech interview. If you know your stuff you pass.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com