[tgamba]

At 49 I am still coding and still learning. I architected and implemented node.js services this year and have done lots of interesting modern web development. I am well respected within my organization and in fact have been poached from one team for another.

Ageist hiring practices are a reality, but not all companies are so biased. And you could not pay me enough to go into management. I want to make things. Perhaps that is why I am still viable.

[hashkb]

You could definitely pay me enough. Great managers help more things get built than great engineers. They do it in a different way, but as long as they don't suck, they are critical. Good managers are much harder to find than competent engineers.

[saiya-jin]

I think he meant he doesn't want to do the management job. Ie moving from abstractly creative work to endless series of meetings, conf calls, creating powerpoints excels and whatnot. Yes they are necessary, but it doesn't make it a cool job that brings fulfillment and happiness.

Most devs move there over time, and then complain how cool coding actually was, but they are already in money/debt trap

[tgamba]

Yes-- that is exactly what I mean. If I found myself in an organization where management looked appealing I would make the switch. It has never happened.

[Grishnakh]

No thanks. Management requires too many things I'm just not good at, or would be miserable spending my time doing: talking to people all day long, sitting in meetings, doing powerpoint stuff, attempting to mentor people, playing politics with upper management, doing performance reviews, etc. There's nothing there I derive any enjoyment from.

What I do wish I could do is find a job where I travel around a lot and debug problems for customers on-site. I like traveling and don't mind spending time in hotels (as long as they're nice ones), and like being able to do different things instead of the same thing day after day, month after month. I also like problem-solving and debugging (esp. when I'm not the one to blame for the bug!), and have been very good at this kind of work in past jobs.