[gfs78]

Not an easy problem to solve. And this is why, given the odds, a career in tech is probably a bad decision.

To avoid ageism while being an IC you need to find a job in a niche where the domain is CS and/or ENG based (as in embedded, aerospace, or even relational database engines) and these jobs are far and in between.

Beware: jobs like Facebook seem to be CS based but they aren´t (that´s why their programmer average age is 27). The CS problems they have are due to arbitrary complexity and they are short term. Companies like these are media companies.

[joshuamorton]

None of your conclusions follow from your premise.

I could just as easily claim that coders who refuse to develop new skills and keep up with a changing environment will eventually find themselves sidelined, due to their inability to adapt to changing needs. Since most of those middle aged people started programming 30 years ago now, they then move into environments where the technologies also haven't evolved in 20-30 years: embedded, aerospace, and dated DB work.

This doesn't preclude people who can evolve from keeping up as mostly-just-coders in a changing world. Calling the complexity inherent in something like facebook "arbitrary" as opposed to the complexity in embedded work as innate just implies that you don't understand the "CS" problems that Facebook (or similar) deal with, and I can imagine that a company like Facebook might not want to hire someone who, for whatever reason, is unable to accurately analyze the complexity of their problem space, especially at a more senior level.

[gfs78]

I find the wording of your last paragraph a little insulting.

Please answer: do you think aerospace, embedded and relational DB engines is dated work that has not evolved?

[joshuamorton]

> I find the wording of your last paragraph a little insulting.

And calling modern app development's probelms " due to arbitrary complexity and they are short term" isn't?

I do think that much of the aerospace technology industry uses dated methods. Same with much of the embedded field. There are certainly places that, for example apply modern best practices to embedded work, but most of those places are the exact same things that you're writing off: Google, Facebook, etc. Have embedded projects that follow best practices.

Focusing on aerospace specifically, I know of plenty of people who work in aerospace and don't use version control. That's plainly unacceptable. And I'd argue that the problems encountered there are much more self-imposed than at a Facebook.

Db engines again depend. There's a number of really cool modern relational database work, but the places where it happens (postgres, Google, cockroach labs) aren't places where someone who isn't interested in self growth are going to succeed.

The tl;dr here is that the impression I get from your comment is that you're describing a developer who let their skills stagnate because they learning things one way and don't want to keep up with changing processes. The fields you mentioned are fields that have such a stigma attached to them, and not unjustly. It doesn't apply to every person or project in those fields, but the people it doesn't apply to would succeed anywhere anyway.

[scarface74]

What’s wrong with as the parent poster said “develop[ing] an age appropriate resume (increasingly strategic contributions while remaining current with latest industry tools and practices)”?

I’m 45, still an IC mostly but my next role whenever I decide to leave my current job, will probably be working for a consulting company. Currently, I am “more equal than others” and have more influence based solely on my “relationship and expert” power.

[itronitron]

the problem with an age appropriate resume is that it signals your age, and most companies aren't interested in any 'relationship and expert' power that candidates can bring since they have already filled those positions.

[scarface74]

I’m not seeing that. What I’m seeing is that a lot of companies are hiring cheap (relatively speaking) junior or outsourced developers and a few “architects”.

In the cloud consulting space or the generic “digital transformation” space, you have a few customer facing consultants and lots of low paid people doing the grunt work.

I am not seeing any shortage of openings for either “principal software engineers”, or architects. Of course, I’m staying away from the west coast. The major cloud providers and their partners are hiring in most major cities as long as you’re close to a major airport. I happen to live near the world’s busiest airport.

[smnrchrds]

Do these jobs pay as well as typical tech jobs?

[blueboo]

The point being claimed is that they pay better after a certain point, say, 40.