[popularrecluse]

I never stopped developing. After getting laid off in April 2023 after 13 years as first a full stack then mobile dev, I just started working on things that interested me. I did apply and interview a few times, but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC.

So I released my application to the App Store this month, and while savings are dwindling, things are starting to finally move into the other direction now.

[beryilma]

> but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC.

Well that's me. My theory is that it is not age that makes one unemployable in the software industry, but the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like.

[cmrdporcupine]

I'm the same age, and I'm pretty sure the industry has substantially changed, not just me.

EDIT: and by changed, I don't mean improved. I was a huge advocate of agile and eXtreme Programming early in my career, and I even worked in shops where it seemed to be really having good results. Now I see everyone using SCRUM and... it's garbage and I want to gouge my eyes out in the meetings.

I see a lot of talking but not a lot of code getting written. And where the code gets written, it's always a pile of ego-boosting needless complexity.

[tharkun__]

I think the issue with Scrum and agile is that it's become mainstream.

Anything that becomes mainstream is likely to get twisted and turned into whatever the "powers that be" want it to be.

So, while using XP or Scrum or Kanban for that matter properly in a sane environment is going to be great, if you work in an un-sane (sic) one, then the powers that be have turned whatever system you're using into theirs. This is how things like SAFe are born, that try to make "agile safe for the corporation" and of course they're nothing more than corporate BS under an agile name and that gives agile a bad name.

Just like Jira is getting a bad name because it's so configurable that corporations are able to use it to do what they do. You can also use it as nothing than an electronic place to house your "post-it notes on a wall". All up to you, your cow-orkers and company. Nobody can blame Atlassian / Jira for taking the money of these corporations. I know I would if I had had the idea of releasing a ticketing system that doesn't even know that you should use surrogate keys for all your entities instead of making an issue key that can change if you move issues between projects your "primary key" that is referenced everywhere and shit breaks :shrug:

[cmrdporcupine]

JIRA has always been terrible though :-)

I miss buganizer at Google. It didn't try to hoist a process. It was... "here's a ticket. go do it. or not. whatever" low clutter. right to signal to noise ratio. The bug tracker in Google's ill faited github competitor was similar. Really decent.

The problem with JIRA is it becomes a little fantasy code writing exercise for people who've stopped coding (managers). You get to pretend you're dispatching program for your robots^H^H^H^Hteam to execute. And write out a little maze for your rats to run through.

Also was just talking to a friend about this. The original agile folks, the XP people... were explicitly against using software to track tasks. It was yellow sticky notes on a whiteboard. ON PURPOSE.

[nobodyandproud]

Which in today’s days of remote work, management may actually like.

You may have hit on a carrot.

[cmrdporcupine]

Mentally making the move from writing code to management needs to be a shift in mentality from "I'm making software systems that solve problems" to "I'm building teams that solve problems".

Team building is people skills, and it's about finding well springs of motivation, soft skills, getting people talking to each other, making sure people aren't forgetting things.

Unfortunately people coming from an engineering/programming mindset can go the other way: management is about making lists, and getting people's names on those lists. Management is about making processes, and making people conform to those processes.

I'm not saying those aren't useful tools, but they need to be seen as that. Tools. Means to an end, not ends in themselves.

Most software developers want to do good work. They want to write code to make things happen, because that's what they were trained to do. Original agile was about trying to liberate that instinct from the crushing weight of corporate processes so that teams of developers could self-organize to do the things they generally naturally want to do.

I don't recognize that in SCRUM based teams today.

And as for your point, I do think that remote work makes things harder, and I've yet to see a remote team that fires on all cylinders. But for years I worked on hobby projects with people who I never met face to face and it was fine. So I dunno.

[dansiemens]

> This is how things like SAFe are born, that try to make "agile safe for the corporation" and of course they're nothing more than corporate BS under an agile name

SAFe was truly one of the worst things I encountered with consulting clients. Planning days were an unbelievable exercise in futility. Waterfall masquerading as agile, the absolute worst of both worlds.

[baud147258]

> SAFe was truly one of the worst things I encountered with consulting clients.

we've been using SAFe for a few years, I despise every minute of the planning process. Feel like a mix between using a crystal ball and forcing square pegs in round holes... Of course the additional disfunctionality at my company between sales, PO/PM/BO and engineering doesn't help, though it seems that I've avoided the worst SAFe train of the company.

[cmrdporcupine]

My last job was SAFe. When I started I was given Staff level title and had dreams of maybe moving into lead or management at some level. Once I saw the process I became completely unmotivated to go in that direction.

For them I understood some of the motivation. Hardware & equipment manufacturer, which involves scheduling complicated industrial processes for months/years out. So you need some semi-coherent vision of where things will be, so having a multiquarter waterfall-esque plan was going to be needed.

Not that any of that actually seemed to work.

[GrumpyYoungMan]

The issue with scrum and agile is that it became a managerial and reporting process to force teams to hit a management imposed deadline instead of what it was intended to be: a tool for engineers to self-manage and self-evaluate their progress to provide a realistic completion date.

[tpurves]

At the risk of taking this thread further OT, I am a product manager / consulting CPO but a whole heartedly agree with you. I like the way you phrase it. A tool to evaluate progress and provide realistic completion dates. That is how I always push companies to use agile pointing and estimating. Use it to identify unrealistic roadmap expectations as early as possible, force hard conversations on priorities and staff allocation... before committing on plans to customers or stakeholders. Or when taking a risk on a delivery date, be doing that knowingly from the beginning, with contingency plans and management owning that risk and consequences otherwise.

[whattheheckheck]

Is there any antidote to needless complexity? How can people effectively classify it without experience?

[Clubber]

Steps:

  1. Get the change to work
  2. Refine the change to make it cleaner, less complex.

Most devs stop at #1. Trying to eke out every hour of developer productivity via Scrum is antithetical to #2 though.

One other anecdote, me and a buddy were responsible for cleaning up a fairly sophisticated DSS scheduling system. The original dev left and a poseur came in and wrecked the codebase for over a year. Hospitals were cancelling contracts left and right and our cash flow was ... uh, short a lot. Our rule was if we ran across some bad code while working on our tickets: a bug, janky code, disorganized code, shit variable names, whatever, we fix it on the spot. We were able to do this because we had 3 month cycles and nobody breathing down our necks asking, "what did you do yesterday?" "why aren't all your tickets done this sprint?" Well it worked and we ended up with a clean scheduling system that was really nice after a few years and the company exited with a decent sale. I couldn't imagine a culture like this today.

[cmrdporcupine]

I think you're missing that devs these days are often taught a step "0":

0. Compose a new abstraction to describe the change.

And then at #2, the abstraction starts to get in the way.

[cmrdporcupine]

There are many sources of complexity, and avoiding it is the hardest problem in software engineering.

I recommend the first half of the Out Of The Tarpit paper.

https://curtclifton.net/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pdf

[popularrecluse]

At my last gig someone that my team unanimously rejected as unqualified showed up one day the following year as our new technical lead and boss. It went about how you'd expect.

Much later I told my skip boss about the kind of feeling of disregard that may have fostered as he pushed me for insights. And he remarked that it sounded like I had a chip on my shoulder. All I could come up with was 'guess I was born with it.'

Yeah cynical. And much happier working on my own things that are meaningful and interesting.

[aqueueaqueue]

The culture spoke to them and they didn't listen. How foolish.

[cutemonster]

> Much later

I wonder if the new technical lead and boss still work there, at that much later time?

[nyarlathotep_]

That's true too, sure.

But this industry is also, in my eyes and experience, madness at times.

"experience" seems to mean between nothing and everything depending on the previous company, the whims of the "hiring market", who/whatever reviews your resume and other nebulous forces subject to change at any time.

I've worked with people with loads of "experience" that are not particularly good that have managed to string together a career well-enough, and I know folks too with fancy resumes and experience that matches roles identically that can't get interviews for identical positions with referrals.

At any given time, what any party responsible for hiring "values" seems to change on a whim.

It's infuriating.

I don't have a "premium" resume, but when I can exceed all the expectations for a several job listings and I have a few years experience at a "fancy" company, you'd think I could at least get some calls back somewhere, right?

This makes the prospect of investing in any software skills for the purposes of employment a total contradiction.

(and yes, I understand the market is an has been very "bad" for a few years, but this kind of thing has existed since I've been doing this for the better part of a decade)

[numba888]

> the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like

You haven't seen the shit written by 50++ senior and principal 'developers'. Imagine local variables names 20-40 chars long. Then they are passed into function call, like 15-20 of them. While actually these are just 3 structures. I.e. 'gurus' unroll them into individual elements and pass. Long names to make the code what they call 'self-documented'. No comments at all. And all this is in a big project with other devs working on it for years. It's absurdly slow for the project of this size and resources. But with almost no competitors this can last for decades and it actually does.

[smackeyacky]

Unwillingness to put up with bullshit agile ceremonies? Yes. Will never again apply for a job that advertises agile? Yes

[fm2606]

I switched into software dev full time at 50 and took a new software job at 52. I'll be 55 y/o this year and I highly doubt I will switch jobs again, I like the org and the work.

Prior to that, starting at 45 y/o I was a part time dev and full time firefighter-paramedic (14 years total). Covid scared me to becoming a FT dev.

[nyarlathotep_]

Curious how you made that pivot? Did you have an "in" somewhere? What's your background (whatever you mind sharing).

[fm2606]

I have a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering and from 1999 - 2006 I was job jumping quite a bit because I was miserable. All the jobs were boring.

I took a EMT Basic night class because my wife and I were getting into scuba diving and I wanted to be a dive master on boats during the weekend. I enjoyed EMT so much that I signed up for Paramedic class, not knowing what I was going to do with it, just did it. It was relatively cheap at the time and we were kid free at that time as well when I started. School was 15 months long.

As we were about ready to graduate PM school the county fire dept (FD) came in and said they would hire paramedics but you had to cross train to be a fire fighter as well. I was 36 y/o, we just had our 1st kid and I figured if I didn't do it then I'd never would and probably regret it so I got hired as a PM and then FD trained me for FF. This was 2006, hence the username FM2606 for fire-medic Feb 6, 2006 my hire date.

It didn't take long to see a bunch of firefighter's getting hurt, specifically back issues due to working and mainly from lifting stretchers with patients on them. I also have a chronic health issues and I figured if either or both of these issues became a problem and I couldn't work as a FF/PM we'd be screwed, so I decided to do an online master's degree in comp sci. Comp sci being my initial major out of highschool before I dropped out.

Fast foward to 2015, I finished my master's, had 2 kids and started working part time as a dev.

Fast forward again to 2020, I was about to turn 50 y/o, Covid hit and I was taken out of the field due to my health issues. I started applying for full time dev jobs. Landed one and then two years later switched to a bigger org.

No regrets on any of it. Becoming a FF/PM was one of the best career decisions of my life. I loved it (for the most part) but it was time to go.

I didn't have an "in". I think persistence paid off and plus I feel like I interview pretty good.

Feel free to ask me anything else.

[wallflower]

Not sure you will see this. Congrats on your journey into full time dev! I stumbled upon the podcast below a couple years ago, and I found it fascinating. It defines "Mission Critical" as teams that need to make decisions in a couple minutes that impact life-and-death situations. You might find it interesting given your background.

Mission Critical Team Institute (MCTI) Teamcast Exploring the questions vexing the most elite teams in the world

https://teamcast.missioncti.com/

[mattbrewsbytes]

Sounds like you just worked your ass off. Nice job!

You also have a different background that would perk up interview potential (at least to me). Diversity (aerospace eng, firefighter, emt, paramedic) can help bring different perspectives and ways of thinking through problems that will ultimately help an organization.

Organizations that mostly hire people with CS degrees from top universities that can fly through leet coding tests and ace system design problems I think end up with not much diversity in thought when it comes to problem solving.

[fm2606]

Thank you.

Luckily for me my current manager didn't have a code test. I received a timed coding test for another position within the same org but a different manager and bombed the hell out of it.

[robertlagrant]

Well done. That's a great career, and lots of brave and sensible decisions along the way. I don't have experience of firefighters much, but having worked with military folks a little bit, which I think is similar in terms of communication and team building training, I'm not surprised you interview well. Those intangibles really add up.

[fm2606]

Thank you

[selimthegrim]

Did you ever see any way you could use your dev skills to help the other job?

[fm2606]

I did actually. I created a custom dashboard with basic stats of type of calls ran, how many calls were run by each station, how many were EMS and how many were fire calls.

Then I started doing some more automation stuff. Nothing super interesting and mostly bespoke stats gathering.

[selimthegrim]

Well, if you’re ever still interested in the intersection of the two, give me a buzz - my email is my HN handle at Gmail. I might have something for you.

[fm2606]

Email sent

[nobodyandproud]

This is a good time to link something encouraging: https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/the-investor-b...

Most successful businesses and ventures tend to be at our age, and even someone like myself have experienced why.

[Fruitmaniac]

I dunno. I'm 56 and got hired last year as an Android dev. But then, I'm not very cynical.

[drumdance]

I'm 56. Please teach me your ways. I took a break from dev work from 2017 to 2023 and want to get back into it. I learned more recent stuff like React and have built a couple of open source projects and a mobile app using React Native, but I can't even get an interview.

[popularrecluse]

Yeah I don't doubt there are roles out there if I really grind for one. I'm just happier now.

[jamesrr39]

I have heard this a few times from different people/places, but why is it the case that at 50+ it is harder to find work? Assuming a regular retirement age, there are still many more years left in the career than a typical tech employment lasts.

[menaerus]

> but why is it the case that at 50+ it is harder to find work?

I think this begins to be visible even sooner, 38 if you graduated at 23. The majority of the job market requires very very few 15+ years experienced engineers. 5 to 10 years of experience is a sweet spot - you will be easily hired. Everything below and beyond is a struggle, especially for the latter since very few companies need and are willing to pay for those skills.

And that's how you become unemployable with the irony of being at more or less what would be the peak of your technical capabilities. In years later on, people start to lose the drive.

[a_bonobo]

I feel like I'm hitting this now. Just turned 39.

I'm very good in my niche, but businesses just want 'answer to question'. I can provide 'answer to question while also making sure the answer-generating process is fully reproducible, data limitations are addressed and made visible, uncertainty has been calculated and is included in the answer'.

Not every question needs that!

Most people are willing to pay for Ikea furniture, not hand-crafted artisanal pieces. Ikea is good enough.

[menaerus]

I must say that I have never thought about that before but that's the reality of the tech market. Many people I talk to, who are outside the tech, can't comprehend this at all - they all assume the same - the more experience and knowledge you have, the more competitive and therefore highly sought out you become. Not true at all.

[joshuamcginnis]

I think landing (and keeping) a job in tech is challenging, whether you're a recent graduate or a seasoned professional with decades of experience. While the reasons for rejection may change with age, the key factors for getting hired remain the same: competency and collaboration. Demonstrating strong skills and being easy to work with will always be valuable—focus on these, and opportunities will follow. - a 40's something developer with 20+ years experience

[Fruitmaniac]

On the one hand, I was declined by Google multiple times but ended getting a $10k settlement in a age discrimination class-action suit.

On the other hand, I just got hired at 55 and it wasn't difficult.

[jongjong]

Because most founders who made it in the field, did so at a young age and so they are biased to view old people who didn't "make it" and are still coding as incompetent even though it has nothing to do with reality. Reality is that being good in the tech side does not correlate that mich with being good on the business side. They are almost independent factors aside from some low baseline requirement of competence...

The baseline requirement of technical competence for extreme financial success in tech is so low that most big tech companies don't even hire rank-and-file engineers whom don't meet that requirement half-way.

[torial]

There was a YC CEO that in a podcast basically asserted that innovation was pretty much done by people less than 30 years of age. I had been gearing to apply to that company until I saw that comment.

[em-bee]

the average age for successful founders is 40 years, and i believe that is first time founders. so i do not believe that founder bias against age is the issue.

[em-bee]

in austria/germany the problem is that cultural expectation is that people get paid by seniority, and also based on their experience and qualifications, regardless of the actual requirements for the job. it is also assumed that no one wants to do work that is below their qualifications.

that is, a 50 year old isn't even asked what their salary expectations are, it is simply assumed to be higher than what they want to pay, or rather, they can't bring themselves to pay someone like that less than they think is appropriate for their age. combine that with the perception that older people are less flexible and unwilling/unable to learn new stuff, and you end up with the belief that older people are expensive and useless or overqualified.

[bilbo-b-baggins]

One reason is there’s literally many times fewer roles for someone with 20+ years of experience.

And as time marches on, there’s more and more competition for those roles.

[marssaxman]

I wonder how that could be possible? There are proportionally so few of us old-timers around to begin with, given how much smaller the industry was and how rapidly it has grown over the last 20-30 years.

[apwell23]

i thought standard advice is to chop your resume to last 10 yrs

[ElCapitanMarkla]

I guess it depends on how many jobs you’ve had in the last 10 years. I’d only have 2 roles if I did that :)

[CoastalCoder]

Speaking only for myself:

- Minor health issues accumulate and become a distraction. Especially insomnia.

- Having worked on many projects and technologies that went nowhere, my enthusiasm for the work is diminished, making me less focused.

I decided to return to the last work that I found meaningful, which was as a software developer in the U.S. civil service.

I think this was the right move, although Trump and Musk are doing their very best to make me question that.

[popularrecluse]

I won't be rehired anywhere near what I was making if I do find something, that's fairly certain. So I've put the onus on myself to generate the income I'm looking for.

[fifilura]

What do you think about making your salary your top priority?

[popularrecluse]

I think at this point self-determination has eclipsed a great salary from someone else as a priority. Plus I'm fairly certain I can have it both ways.

[neofrommatrix]

Bias

[cschep]

Could be bias, could also be that we just can't fake it anymore?

[nextn]

Anyone up for starting a job site for 40+ devs only?

How about an angel investing firm for 40+ founders only?

[tenpoundhammer]

How can I find your app?

[denysvitali]

Link to your app?

[jbreckmckye]

What's your app?