One of the newsletters (emails) I subscribe to recently had an entry about the issue ‘Is Software Engineering Dead?’ – by Steve Jones. This is so true…
Let me ‘copy’ the editorial here:
Is Software Engineering dead? It’s a premise that’s in this article from Bloomberg. It calls the job a career dead end where job prospects decline after one reaches 35 years of age. I think that’s a naive view of the industry, despite the quotes from Craig Barrett and Mark Zuckerberg. While the best of the best might peak in their careers at the same age as many athletes, that doesn’t imply that the career choice is a poor one.
There’s a discussion on Slashdot as well, and I was struck by a few of the comments, which seem to suggest that if you are still just a “software engineer” at age 40, you aren’t very good at your job. It seems that some people seem to think that everyone in this business is constantly looking to move to a new job and advance into management or they aren’t successful . I saw analogies with other industries thinking that same thing, that experienced people would not still be doing the same job after 20 years.
That seems crazy to me. So many people in various industries continue to improve at their jobs, and do the same work for decades. Carpenters, doctors, accountants, all continue to improve their skills over time, and while some may more into management or open their own firms, many will continue to do their same jobs until they retire. And they’ll enjoy their careers.
I don’t deny that ageism exists, and that older programmers often can’t, or won’t, work as many hours as younger ones, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth their salaries. Good, experienced programmers produce better code, with fewer bugs. Once managers learn that working more hours doesn’t equal better code, or even more code, the entire industry will start producing better applications.
Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com
Well now, without giving away my age too easily.. (cough cough) I’m afraid I’m this piece is very relevant to me too. I’ve been in the software/development/computer/IT industry for many many years (~16+ year) and I still enjoy the basics of software development – but I’ll admit I’m not doing as much as I use to and definitely not as many different things, including new stuff all the time. So is it possible to go on as a ‘software engineer for ages over (say) 35? The perception out there seems to be you have to move into ‘management’ or so in order to ‘progress’ in your career. Trouble is I’m not a ‘peoples’ person and I don’t like managing them either. Is that wrong? Should I be forced to do something I don’t like and probably won’t be good at? Flip-side – Is it wrong to stay with something you like for your whole career? Certainly the market don’t appreciate you – since it doesn’t count how many years experience you have, at a certain point you just don’t get paid any more than before. Personally I think that is an insult and that ‘we’ are worth more not just because of the years of good experiences we have but also the bad things we learned ‘not to’ do. Perhaps there is a place for a more ‘mentoring’ role – which is different from managing a person.
I must admit that lately in my ‘day job’ I’ve been more into ‘administrating’ (BizTalk) than actually developing. This too is sort of just another part of software engineering as it requires me to find clever and original ideas to do my job as other ‘developers’ keep on finding interesting ways of breaking the things I have to administrate. In my personal time in non working hours I still work on ‘pet’ projects mostly around genealogy projects. Some things in life do get better with age – like red wine…
Lets drink to that… (responsibly of course) 😉
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