I am not sure if it is an appropriate topic to talk about here. Please feel free to delete this post.
Especially for engineers or tech people: a lot of people say that, an engineer can not keep doing “coding or core technical work” with getting older as they used to do in their 20’s or 30’s. Many people suggest that, in early 40’s an engineer should shift to managing or leading the project instead working on tech content by themselves.
Is it just a myth or reality? What do you think based on your experience?
I’m either lucky and/ or Berlin is the exception to the sad rule: Developers of all ages are working here, with me as one of the oldest, and nobody cares, gives a f… etc…
As long as you are a good fit for the team and know your way around your code.
In the end it comes down to the individual, you can’t bind efficient coding to age alone. Plus think of the high life expectancy how fit people still are at 60.
Maybe we are an island here in the big city on the Spree and the situation is worse in general.
I have never met the people who say this, and I hope I never do because they are talking out of their asses.
There is a big of a known problem in terms of career progression and corporate culture wherin people who are very good engineers, senior on the team, etc are pushed or nudged toward management. This isn’t unique to technical roles - I hear the same complaint from people in other careers. There is a default assumption that everyone wants to become a manager and that is what career progression is supposed to be. As you become a more experienced developer you have to decide if it’s what you want and you might have to activiley keep reminding your bosses that you prefer to continue to grow your career as an engineer. I’ve known several developers who have taken a management role and then decided to leave it and go back to being an individual contributor. I’ve also known people who started as developers who have taken that opportunity and loved it.
Now, I will say that as you move forward in your career as an engineer, you will very often find that less and less of your job is writing code. Because of your expertise you’ll be asked to do things like
architecture and high-level planning
training and mentoring
representing your team in cross-team or cross-functional conversations
reviewing plans, designs, documents, and code contributions of other developers
being the go-to for technical questions and therefore spending a lot of time in conversations and meetings
Some developes are anti-social butterflies and they manage to avoid even a lot of that. The most revered expert at my last company arranged his schedule to barely overlap with the rest of us and spent his time with his head down and avoiding conversation. He was still the person whom we would ask if we needed some wizard-level insight into the code base, but that always felt a bit like a pilgramage to consult The Oracle. None of this is criticism. Danny was great. He knew what he wanted to do and he was really good at it.
Re “still being able to do the core work”, it’s not as if the core ideas have drastically changed in the last half-century or so, or that the core problems are super duper different. Experience generally trumps everything.
Leading on stuff is likely to happen naturally simply because people accrue experience. But that can’t be just based on age, it has to be based on experience, these aren’t the same thing. And many people don’t want to move. And there shouldn’t be any reason to shift if that’s the case
But say they move to lead. Then they get paid more. Then eventually they get to a position where they pick what they want to do, so people might retire or start a company or whatever.
“Shift to managing”. Yeah, some people want to do that and they’re suited to it. But if that’s a standard thing at a given company (ie the way you advance is to move to management), which isn’t uncommon, that seems to have really corrosive incentive effects.