| Really happy about 2 things: 1) we agree that (as you put it) you have to love it to do it for a lifetime and 2) You haven't had to put up with what most of us do. > in fact have productive colleges who are nearing 70 Yeah, its not like you turn 47 and your brain just turns to yogurt. The changes are real, but subtle; e.g. I'm better at foreseeing and avoiding risks. Here's the thing though: the things which didn't happen to you are, by and large, completely out of your control. I won't name any names (cough a south-american river cough) but some companies are notorious for throwing engineers into the thunder dome until they burn out, and are then summarily discarded. Whether you face age discrimination, or whether your code is thrown out, or whether you are thrown into a death march, but can't leave the company because your options haven't vested--those aren't things you do to yourself, its something other people who have control over your income do. There isn't some technique you can use, or some effort you can put in, to ensure you don't see age discrimination. Although I have had colleagues who color their hair and beard. But by and large, if you don't experience any of those, its just because you got lucky. Engineering management is hard, and not many people are good at it. Whether you get a good one or bad one matters. |
I have no illusions that the company at the macro level doesn’t value the individual specifically and my divsion’s mgmt could be forced into getting rid of people on a whim (ie not enough revenue per headcount, we changed the deal), despite them being genuine amazing humans as managers (a very rare thing)