What happens to programmers when they get old? I'm under the impression that they usually tend to remove themselves from actual coding by going into entrepreneurship or into management of some larger companies. What happens to the rest of them? What's the likelihood of a 50 year old programmer getting employed after his previous company goes down under?
>>54408350
They get put out to pasture.
We get stuck in our ways. Never willing to change, like most old people. Will use C and Assembly till death.
Programming is sort of a creative job. Do programmers get exhausted from programming as the time goes on? Like lose inspiration...
>>54408601
>>54408822
But who's willing to employ an old programmer when there are thousands of kids versed in the hot frameworks of the year. I can imagine that system-related stuff ages better than, say, web development, but it still looks rather worrying.
This is my biggest fear and why I'm trying to start my own devshop (not an hype-based startup). Hopefully by the time I'm old and unemployable as a programmer I'll either have enough project management experience to get a job or still have my own company.
>>54408877
Same reason people prefer Doctors that are old (And logically have experience) than little squeaky kids straight out of med school to operate on them.
>>54408350
>What happens to the rest of them? What's the likelihood of a 50 year old programmer getting employed after his previous company goes down under?
Contractors/consultants
>>54408350
>I'm under the impression that they usually tend to remove themselves from actual coding by going into entrepreneurship or into management of some larger companies
It often happens. But I've seen developers remain in developer position by choice, although they usually become team lead and architects.
>>54408601
For some yes. There is still a market for C programmer so there isn't really a reason to switch language.
>>54408877
Often you want a more senior developer working with all your juniors. They know less about the "hot new tech" but a lot more about how to actually ship a project and manage risks.
They take them out and shoot them.
>>54408350
The answer is, we don't know. It's a new profession, we haven't figured out the playbook for this yet.
>>54408350
The become socialist parasites.
Worked in Intel ireland for an internship and there was an old fella on our team that was over 50. We was scrum leader so not quite manager and also mentored and directed the team. I'd imagine he was on a quite a bit of money as he said he could retire whenever he wanted he just enjoyed working and having money to go on holiday with his wife 3-4 times a year. He was unreal craic
He taught me so much about loonigs and C++. I miss him
>>54408350
The company I work for regularly hire 50+ devs. The intern and I are the only people under 30 in the research and development branch.
Most young people can't into embedded systems, so that's where old devs shine. Get them working on a web development project and it's a total fucking disaster though.
>>54408877
Older programmers have families and stable home lives usually. They aren't going to work for you for a year and then quit. They have a lot of practical experience and knowledge.
>>54408350
The normal programmer career path is either up into middle management or software architecting. They may get bored/burned out and go do something else. Software development is mentally tiring--20 years of coming in 5 days a week and turning on the concentration necessary to put in a good 8 hours of coding... I was happy as a sysadmin because I could make up excuses to go take a walk and bounce between projects as I wanted.
>>54408877
>But who's willing to employ an old programmer when there are thousands of kids versed in the hot frameworks of the year
The vast majority of companies hire programmers to maintain old systems, not to build new ones.
Older programmers are almost always in demand because they need people who can maintain old COBOL, FORTRAN, and C systems that were written in the late 70s to early 90s.
That's about 10% of the market, and it's the highest paying.
Then you have companies hiring Java programmers to maintain systems written from the early 90s to today.
That's ~80% of the market, and pays very well.
The remaining market is for new systems. A good chunk of it is still Java, but companies are moving towards C#.
>>54409106
This.
Programming is like a military career. Once you're all out of juice you sit around and yell at the young and vibrant until they become old and bitter like you. Then you die.
