Desafinado

I don't think any of us can answer these questions for you. It sounds like you've done enough real development to consider yourself integrated into the field, so there's hope I think. If I were in your shoes the main thing I'd be considering is how you want to spend the rest of your career. Do you genuinely enjoy software development? If so then get your thinking cap on and figure out how to make it work. If you don't like it that much then this might be a good time to jump ship.

Remote roles are also difficult to land for junior developers because there is an assumption that those working remotely are going to be independent (it's harder to support someone when you can't sit at the keyboard with them). So that might be one of the reasons you aren't finding remote roles, and one could argue that at this stage of your career you maybe shouldn't be looking for one.

Also bear in mind that in the U.S. market we're in a situation now where even incredibly skilled developers are having trouble finding work. I worked with a guy about a decade ago who mentored me and taught me a lot, he was one of those savant programmers who'd been doing it his whole life. He got laid off last year and has been out of work since. So it's also the market, not just you.

All of this being said I think there is a place in the IT industry for people like you to find work in companies who have a harder time getting bodies into seats, unattractive companies with boring tech stacks and cultures. That might not sound appealing to you, but it's been my experience that companies like this tend to come with less stress and a slower pace. Basically you need to look at it from the cost/benefit perspective of the employer. If they have a hard time hiring and paying an excessive salary, they're more likely to hire inexperienced people. Whereas if you're gunning for high paid remote roles you're just too far down experience line.

Once you build up your experience and skill-level, that's when you can aim for remote roles.

It's good to have solid hands on experience in a variety of languages and platforms, ideally either from college or a handful of different jobs. Without that it's harder to learn on your own time, and you'll be better served by spending time building things (if you have the time).

If you're already a solid developer with a breadth of experience then read widely. Just keep reading, take notes, save your notes. Studying software architecture over the long-haul will offer the most return of any topic.

Having a family or co-working space available helps.

There is a lot of generalization in this thread. Most of us have very limited experience that's only applicable to a small region, and likely doesn't apply everywhere.

In general, not only in the software industry, people just like younger people more. They're better looking, and they have more energy and enthusiasm. It's a cognitive bias that isn't unlike racism and sexism, it's going to weight the odds in the favour of young people in every industry.

And that's setting aside the fact that older people are closer to retirement and unlikely to spend a long time at the company in question.

I've done some research on this previously and have heard that 'Typetastic' is very good. Haven't tried it yet, though, as my kids are still too young.

I'll stop with this comment but I will say that there are a few fallacies in your comment. In short, you're overestimating the level of freedom many entrepreneurs actually have.

Can they choose anywhere on the work / life continuum? Maybe sometimes. Can they just go do something else? It's not always that simple.

Try retiring at age 45 and see how that goes.

As I'm trying to re-iterate, work-life balance. Others in this thread are making the assumption that work is always bad. People like working, without work we have no purpose. But finding work that offers work life balance offers both - purpose and leisure time. Not an excess of one or the other,

When we have an excess of work and money we have no leisure time, when we have an excess of leisure time we have no purpose. This isn't that controversial of a point, read up on any number of uber-wealthy people that attempted to retire early.

Sure they were financially free, but in practice they were beholden to the work they chose.

Yes, he has to work because he would have too much free time, and he still needs his businesses to survive, just as I need employment to survive. It's the same situation, but I work less hours and have a more pleasant life.

If his businesses fail he has no other options, if I lose my job I go find another one doing the same thing, making the same amount of money.

Is this really that hard to believe?

See my comment above. It's not that simple. Yes he could retire, but then he'd be sitting around, doing nothing. As many entrepreneurs have discovered that's not actually an appealing life. So the work that he does have to do just happens to be stressful and time consuming.

Basically, a business owner can find themselves in a theoretical situation where they have a boat load of money but are also overwhelmed with work and have no other options.

Granted, he probably will retire earlier than me, but in my scenario many of my co-workers actually choose not to retire, because they like the work.

Because then he risks the businesses failing and losing his livelihood.

On the second point, still nope. He took on the businesses for lack of a better option. It's true that it was a conscious choice, but my career path was actually harder to obtain, and more deliberate.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a business owner, but hopefully I'm making the point clear that there is more to the life equation than the quantity of money you make.

What you're not understanding is that he doesn't have the choice either. He could retire in theory, but his businesses are how he spends his time. If he retired he would have too much free time. So in practice he's in the same situation as me, he has to work. But I work much less under less stressful conditions. As I said, work life balance. He doesn't have that.

Nope. He is still dependent on his businesses to survive. It's a job for him just like it is for me. I have a boss, his businesses are his boss.

The difference is that I work far fewer, less stressful hours, and have much more time to myself.

That's not to say that all businesses turn our like that, but the point is that having more money doesn't necessarily mean you have a better lifestyle.

I can count a number of people who have more money than me but who have awful, stressful or tedious jobs.

Nope, he has no choice but to work as well, but he works 7 days a week and 10 hour days to keep his businesses afloat.

If he retired.. then what? I'm also going to retire, but in the interim I experience no stress, have plenty of free time, and enjoy what I do.

Many years ago when I took my current role I made a conscious decision to choose something that would grant me a good work-life balance. I wanted to check out at 4PM, not have to think about work after that, and do whatever I wanted.

Since making this decision I've become an expert in a number of hobbies, gotten married, had kids, and am now living a quite pleasant life. The financial freedom people aim for in retirement, the time, I have that already. I'm already living a care-free life, largely doing what I want.

I have a family member who is a multi-millionaire and who owns multiple businesses. He has more money now than I'll have in my lifetime. But I have something that he doesn't have - time. In my estimation time is a much more valuable commodity to obtain than money. If you can work your career so you have enough money, but also time, that's a more valuable goal than simply 'being rich'.

Money with no free time and boat load of stress is a shit life.

In an ideal world we'd be able to switch careers and do different things over the course of our lives, but money reigns supreme.

I think what you're experiencing is normal. An entire lifetime doing the same thing for almost all of your time is going to get tedious eventually. I'm about there myself, I realize I'm in the best possible world but my passion has fizzled out.

- writing thoroughly tested code that works and has minimal defects - being someone who is pleasant to work with and who shows interest in others - digging down into requirements and rooting out the real problem that needs a solution, actually solving that problem - individual 'tech skills' are just things you can look up on Google or read about in a book. I suspect the above are more important.

You don't need books on how to think. You already know how to think. What you need is raw material (knowledge) to think with. This means reading books, lots of books, in a variety of fields. It also means shutting off your smartphone and reading.

It's a rolodex of professional contacts for me. I connect to people I like but who I don't want to reveal my personal life to. I follow people I'm interested in who don't fit the above description.

That makes sense. In this situation it was a bit tricky as I didn't actually know the developer at all (different team), but I should have picked up on it.

Thank you!

That's a good point, thank you.

I agree, but I do wonder about the balance of delegating autonomy vs micro-managing. I've seen some developers never really grow or progress because there was always someone holding their hand, telling them what to do, and not letting them experience the viscera of failure or fear. That's not to say you aren't on the money, but I ponder.

I should have worded the question a bit differently as it wasn't completely obvious to me that production was going to break. I let the developer own their change, but my spidey sense was tingling a bit.

I'm not bullish on humanoid robots because people are biological organisms who like moving their bodies and interacting with other people.

The manufacture of robots that do tasks for us is grade school logic, the same type of thinking that tried to bring us VR headsets the year after everybody spent two years in isolation, not talking to anyone. Have these decision makers ever read a book? Are they getting their business ideas from sci-fi, and not a tangible understanding of reality?

They're trying to upend millions of years of physiology so we can sit on a couch while we let an ugly robot into our home so it can dust. Beyond a joke.

You're making fair points although I'll just add that I didn't claim that success was easy, I just described the minimum requirements for success. It's always going to be a gamble.

Fair, but you seemed to miss the part where I described intelligence as nearly important as motivation. It's just that I'd give motivation a greater importance. You need to be smart enough to run a business, but more importantly you need the drive.

It's been my experience that business success is less about intelligence, and more about the right combination of intelligence and motivation. Succeeding as an entrepreneur takes an extreme amount of work and fortitude that has to come along with your intelligence.

And motivation counts for more than intelligence. A genius who doesn't want to do anything but read and collect a secure pay-cheque isn't cut out to be an entrepreneur. Where someone who has the pure motivation to build a business, but less brute force intelligence, is much more likely to actually do so.

Basically the upper limit of our earning potential is limited by how much work and stress we're willing to take on, not how smart we are. And this explanation also doesn't dive into the equally important requisite of social skill.

It can be done, but my take is that until your kid is through puberty their job is to learn how to navigate the real world, how to talk to people in person, and so on. You can give them technology but it has very minimal benefit compared to the alternative, that is if your home is full of books and you're reading to them regularly.

All that being said we're somewhat liberal with TV, and we'll introduce them to a PC in time. But for now the MO is real world skills and intelligence.

Jonathan Haidt also pointed to evidence that technology during the adolescence phase can wreak havoc. Particularly handhelds and social media.

I've got a brother who did this. His son is about to graduate med school in the 98th percentile.

More seriously, it's not beyond the pale to introduce them to the internet. The more important thing is to put off handhelds for as long as possible.

I agree with this. At some point you need to work on a hard project, with minimal support, for an extended period of time. The skills you'll learn will be indispensable. Open source can help, but it's hard to replicate being immersed in a difficult role for 40 hours per week.

The more important thing is that you have a genuine interest in the field, which should take you where you need to go. But without at least a small amount of hard software experience you'll be stuck at an intermediate level.

A good start is to avoid giving them a smartphone until they're in high school. And once they have a smartphone require them to get permission from you before installing any social media apps, with consequences if they don't follow the rules (take the phone away). Make the consequences known up front, rather than reactive so they know the guidelines regarding their phone use.

And whatever you do DO NOT give your child a handheld device (tablet or smartphone) before they're in high school. My wife and I are seeing parents give their two year olds a tablet which is absolutely detrimental to their development.