Being a Developer After 40

https://medium.com/@akosma/being-a-developer-after-40-3c5dd112210c

by wallflower • 10 years ago

854 549 10 years ago

medium.com

guessbest• 10 years ago

I remember the AVR hype. It was supposed to "change everything" but is became a big nothing burger.

edwardmarriner• 10 years ago

Thanks for this! A super interesting and well written look into what a career in software development can look like!

ry_ry• 10 years ago

Warm fuzzy nostalgia aside, this article seems to amount to "Learn everything, read everything, do everything, don't bandwagon, Apple is pretty cool. The other stuff is OK too, if you like that sort of thing. Learn Node. PS. Don't harrass people".

It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever.

ramblerman2• 10 years ago

Yet, your sarcastic summary is a breath of fresh air in the HN comments...

smhg• 10 years ago

I wouldn't call it sarcasm. I had the same feeling while reading.

The OP contains a lot of opinions about a lot of different subjects. An amalgamation.

greenspot3• 10 years ago

It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever.

Very well summarized.

While I enjoyed this post somehow, maybe because I was thinking of the good old times, I didn't feel comfortable reading: I found his views having a touch of an ubiquitous negativity and slight frustration. I disagree with many of his points. And I miss one clear message.

RyanZAG2• 10 years ago

I guess the real message is: believe whatever the mainstream audience believes at the time. You can't really go wrong with always agreeing with whatever the current thought bubble agrees with - and be quick to change your opinions if the herd is moving. When the author saw the derision against Steve Ballmer, and the favor Apple was getting, he made the clear choice to jump ship. And because he was part of that popular herd jumping ship, it worked very well. Follow the wind.

It's actually a pretty good point and is a decent way to always remain relevant. You can't be left behind if you're always on top of the latest thought trends.

EDIT: A missing piece the author points out too: don't be an early adopter of a thought trend (Point 1: Forget the hype). Only jump in when it becomes mainstream. If you adopt something before it becomes mainstream, there's a chance it can fail. If you wait until it is mainstream, but get in just as it becomes mainstream, you get the benefit of being an early adopter and the benefit of never being on the unpopular viewpoint.

spacecowboy_lon4• 10 years ago

So your always going to be playing catch up - back in 94 when i had been playing with the www I volunteered to go to Edinburgh for a month to work on a cutting edge RAD/DSDM Project.

Basically I told my then boss see you after Christmas - If I have followed that advice I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes

koder2016• 10 years ago

He is talking about daring bets on technologies with a potential. Then insists you learn Node.js. If anything my bet is that JS is not worth learning at all because future is all about WebAssembly (and LLVM effectively - he is right about that).

x5n12• 10 years ago

Seems a bit bitter about the shit working conditions. And he's right. It's funny how the whole trade is shit.

tudorw2• 10 years ago

There certainly seems to be a lot of young 'genius' and '*10' types who are willing to sacrifice their youth on the altar of a unicorn in return for a 1 in 100 chance of getting rich, if it's taking you more than 8 hours a day to make a living, you're poor :(

x5n12• 10 years ago

Even if the unicorns win it really depends on where you entered for you to actually make out rich. These days even the employees of the winner are getting shafted. There seems to be no ideas of human dignity or work life balance in this trade. It's not a profession, it's a trade. It should probably be unionized, and it would be if not for the high wage.

naivepiano2• 10 years ago

Well said.

isxek• 10 years ago

Slightly disappointed about the post not being about how they became a developer at age 40, which was what I initially thought it was.

I started my career as a software developer at precisely 10am, on Monday October 6th, 1997... I had recently celebrated my 24th birthday.

eggy5• 10 years ago

I initially drew the same conclusion, but was nonetheless entertained by it.

groundCode• 10 years ago

This was a good read - I'm a dev over 40 and much of this rang true. I think there's a lot of great advice in there. One standout for me was "Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning. " - something that I think we should all aspire to.

febed• 10 years ago

I have seen developers threatened to have their work visas not renewed if they did not work faster

That was an eye-opener. For some reason I thought Switzerland was a worker's utopia with the relatively higher salaries.

ramblerman2• 10 years ago

I had the same initial reaction but if you think it through not having your visa renewed effectively comes down to being fired, i.e. the company terminating their dealings with you.

Doesn't make it better (at all), but it's essentially just the threat of firing albeit with more weight behind it for the visa workers. Not the company calling the visa office about you or holding on to your passport, etc...

Create5• 10 years ago

I have seen people threatened to have their work visas not renewed in Sweden.

bbv-if2• 10 years ago

Not for Gastarbeiter. You're supposed to work, pay all taxes and GTFO before you can legally claim any benefits, while still being despised by unemployed locals for "stealing" their jobs.

african_cheetah2• 10 years ago

It's not so different in the US either. My previous manager has indirectly referenced delaying my green card process if I didn't deliver on time.

NormlOverrated2• 10 years ago

It maybe is... but not if you aren't Swiss.

jbb555• 10 years ago

Most of this seems very negative.

tluyben27• 10 years ago

I'm 41 and a dev (and manager and bunch of other roles when needed, but most my days are spent with software/hardware dev) and sure, it's all true what this article says, but there is no real personal advice there besides, as others said, just 'don't do everything, but do everything'.

So some unasked advice from a 40+ then which I wish I was told when I was 17 or something: a) believe in yourself; learn from others, but if you have strong opinions or think something is wrong then voice it even though others (are supposed to) have more experience b) fast typing and making long hours are irrelevant c) get out there and mingle with non coders a lot.

All of these 3 points (I learned them at different stages, in order of appearance above; c I only started doing 3 years ago) made me never having to need a job as such, always worked where/when I wanted, always made enough money and usually have enough spare time to do whatever while still performing.

soft_dev_person4• 10 years ago

It may be obvious (i.e. general networking effects), but what dynamic let c) give you work and freedom? Please elaborate.

As a coder who really dread interacting with people (especially non-technical people) in the context of work, I'd like to know how this advice would change my life.

niels_olson• 10 years ago

There's a lot of money out there that code hasn't touched yet. Biological sciences in particular are remarkably stuck in the 20th century. Don't talk to them about bioinformatics. Listen to the things they're doing. As though you were 12. And just ask questions.

ricksplat4• 10 years ago

I can't emphasise enough how important (c) is. Personally, I find programming to be emotionally challenging in that you have to put emotion, and your own thoughts aside when cutting your code. Add in to the mix the social dynamic of the workplace and the emotional workload doubles.

I always had a feeling this was important. I remember reading about NEDs (New Economy Depression syndrome) and identifying with that, but it wasn't until I went and did a diploma in psychology that the rationality behind it all crystalised.

Across all fields that study wellbeing it's fairly conclusive that social support is one of the most powerful mediating factors. In summary the more friends you have the happier and healthier you will be.

How does this relate to "non technical people"? As a friend once said to me once, when I was going through a particularly kafkaesque work episode, "you need to get outside of your head". You need to engage with people on a plane other than the one you work upon every day - to give those parts of your brain a rest and to help you to develop others.

People are hard though. In many ways more difficult than computers but the key thing to remember is that unlike with computers there isn't a right or wrong thing to do at all times. People have empathy, they can be sympathetic, they can meet you half way and they can help you to figure out what you're thinking.

Start off with something small, where you don't have to have too many interactions, but where you can be around people. I don't know why but for some reason communal drumming classes comes to mind. The key is to be around people where they will get to know your face and you theirs.

tluyben27• 10 years ago

Well I had the same thing; I liked to really stick with techies and went to coding events (as far as there were any here). I thought that was nice and it felt like doing it right. Somewhere after selling a company I went travelling and relaxing for an undetermined period of time. Until I really didn't like that anymore and I wanted to get back on the horse and start full time coding again (I'm not the best with self discipline).

A friend told me to go to a fintech event and because it was 'tech' I thought I would meet a lot of very technical people (so same as always). There were only business people instead; most of them had a (long forgotten) technical background but only few were practicing any tech at that moment. I met a lot of them and exchanged ideas, possibilities and contact info. It was in a friendly way as I didn't go there to get work/jobs/projects; I was there to see what this market was like.

I liked it so much I went to a lot of non-tech startup events and general events and talked to more and more people. After only maybe a month or two people started mailing with questions, projects, business proposals etc. One of them I am working on now full time and others I advice, have shares in or work with in some way as the tech adviser.

I dreaded the interacting part like you and I dreaded flying; I started doing both of them (as they are usually intertwined; I need to get to people obviously) a lot and now comes naturally and I sit talking to everyone; on the airport, in trains, in bars, wherever instead of staring into my phone or book. So when I got over this whole dreading sensation I expanded to a much larger circle of non work related friends as well as work related contacts & combinations of the above.

TL;DR the dynamic that gives me work and freedom is the fact that when knowing a lot of non tech people, acting and/or being 'senior' and being able to drop names of people/companies/projects they also know (hence the 'a lot' part) will put you in a position of adviser and tech-trusty. Which gives you opportunity and freedom as you do not need to prove yourself at all anymore.

bad_user• 10 years ago

Funny, but those of us not living in the Bay Area do mingle with non coders a lot. It's actually hard to find coders to mingle with. When I visited Palo Alto for example it felt weird. On one hand it seemed great at first, hearing discussion on databases or JavaScript on the street from total strangers. On the other hand it felt like a bubble, like an echo chamber. I actually heard this guy saying he liked some girl and wanting to ask her out with the pretext of raising money for his startup. I was like "on what planet am I?"

tluyben27• 10 years ago

My interactions were mostly with colleagues/employees I selected and hired myself; hardcore geeks. It gave me social-ish interaction without having to talk about scary non-coding things. I have always lived in Europe and outside my group of friends and/or colleagues I didn't really interact much. And my friends were obviously mostly techie.

Edit: it sounds a bit more negative than it was; I was always happy but now that I discovered this whole new thing I am more assured that the happiness will stay as I have a broader base now both emotionally and business wise if that makes sense

eloisant• 10 years ago

It's one of the reason why I left Silicon Valley. I love what I do, and I love to meet with other developers, but I was tired of only meeting people similar to me.

Now it feels good to be in a real city with many different people, doing different stuff. It's much more fulfilling than living in a bubble with clones of myself.

iorrus• 10 years ago

Age is an issue with software devlopment. Early forties is not old at all, realistically you will likely be working for another 20 years unless you've already made significant money. In many professions such as law you're only getting started at 40. If in software it's an achievement to reach that milestone than something is wrong.

tluyben27• 10 years ago

I haven't seen this much; I read about these stories on HN/Reddit, but don't encounter them in real life much.

kls• 10 years ago

As one of the few left of my peers that still develops I would say that it is a milestone. There is a lot of burn out and churn along the way. I knew guys that left software dev to become a worm farmer. Most take the elevator up to management which is what I did becoming a CTO but I always position myself at small but growing companies so I could keep myself hands on with technology. I have two friends left that started dev around the same time as me (92). For most it's just not a long term industry and burnout usually takes it's toll.

That being said the web revolution happened in the early 90's and was a huge shift in development. There where a lot of older devs around at that time who where doing desktop and had no desire to make the jump so 40'ish is also kind of a demarcation line of where an epoch changed in development, so the fact that you see few over 40 devs could be a) that the web was small back then and there where only a handful of us doing it and b) The developers that where doing web in the early 90's where all young, therefore it is kind of origin of a new type of developer.

votr• 10 years ago

I'm 36 and really want to develop (c). I have decent social skills but I have no idea how to find non-coders to mingle with. Where does one start? Meetup groups? Cycling groups? Creating art and showing it?

fefifofu• 10 years ago

I find sports are the best for meeting people and actually building a relationship. In my experience, floor hockey, slow pitch, hiking and cycling were good. Oddly, running groups were not. Also better results if it is a mix of men and women.

I think bringing a friend is essential. It reduces the awkward times when you don't know anybody. In addition, it doubles the chance of meeting people because your friend meets people too. A wing men are helpful :)

Art is solitary.

When I go to planned meetups for drinks, it is just small talk or ulterior motives (ie. they are looking for work).

ricksplat4• 10 years ago

In 1997 I was finishing high school, and about to commence undergraduate studies. I was "interested" in computing and Linux had passed 2.0 and was well on its way to entering the main stream. I remember obtaining a copy of redhat from my local library and a few very significant threads of my career to date commenced.

Java is also a child of the nineties and 1.1 I believe was the first arguably "finished" implementation. I remember the computer magazines were going off on about it at the time and I got a free Java IDE off a cover disk and wrote my first 2D canvas app.

These were the two main "galaxies" I inhabited for the last 20 years with various holidays here and there. The benefit of inhabiting such relatively "open" galaxies is that they provide easily accessible conduits to other galaxies too.

Thanks for the 90s nostalgia - very nearly brought a tear to my eye.

salex89• 10 years ago

If it is really possible to learn one language each year, and read six books, I'm going to be very impressed with that. Especially considering side projects you actually start in some language, frameworks (which are not the same as languages, obviously), and conceptual things which are language-agnostic. And then comes family, home maintenance and, just sometimes, rest :-) .

unusximmortalis• 10 years ago

I had the same thought... maybe I am doing something wrong :) I will reflect on that

spacecowboy_lon4• 10 years ago

Why not? i learnt PL/1G in a week and was productive by the end of the second week.

I can easily go thorough 6 books in a month one of the advantages of commuting by train.

jonstewart• 10 years ago

I think it's possible to gain substantive exposure to one new programming language a year, to kick the tires and gain insight into some of the features and idioms that make it tick. However, I don't think it's really possible to become an expert in one new language per year. I think it is much more realistic to master one new language every 3–7 years (depending on the language). Playing with one new language per year might help one figure out which new language to master.

overcast• 10 years ago

Reading six books a year is really nothing, and I'm not even sure why the author makes a big deal about it. Especially those books he suggested, are very short, often lots of pictures and examples. Agreed on the new language though, your best course is to just start a fresh project with something new. That's how I learn new things. Just jump in head first.

shipintbrief• 10 years ago

Mentioning income gap at the end were very random. I wish author would mention it in the beginning, so I wouldn't waste time reading the whole thing.

eggy5• 10 years ago

I liked the post, and empathized with some truths in it. I saved up and bought a used Commodore PET in 1977 at age 13. I taught myself assembler, c, basic, and went on to buy a Vic-20, C-64, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Mac PowerPC, NCR 3125 (386 pen-based tablet in 1995 or 1996!), and then read up on AI in the 1980s - Neural Networks, GAs, GP, Expert systems, Fuzzy Systems, Chaos, Complexity, etc... I was using Minix on my Amiga before Linux on my PowerPC, and I have dual-booted since, but Windows is also in my repertoire. THEN, I gave it all up and became a welder at an animatronics company that made window displays, stayed in the entertainment field designing stage machinery, special effects, and so on. My last job was at a water show diving and fixing hydraulic and electrical systems as a senior manager and show manager (not in the US, since a senior manager would not be caught dead in the water!). I have now aged 51 years 11 months, getting heavily back into neural nets, livecoding graphics and music while living in East Java, Indonesia. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY as a contrast. All I can say, and what I bestow on my older two children (I just fathered a baby girl a year ago), is that I left the fast track to the huge salary to do what I wanted, and that always kept me happy, and busy in a good way. I read books until I don't understand them, and then go back and forth to others until I do, and I stayed physical, and avoided 'desk job' ailments of most people my age. I have grown to know it is time, time with family and friends that money buys you. And if you have food, a roof over your head and some toys, you don't need the other $25K to $100K per year, or what have you. No, there is nothing new under the sun, but I have miles to go before I sleep...

neotrinity• 10 years ago

I have miles to go before I sleep.. I like the reference to Stopping by woods on a snowy evening..

Great to see u made yourself a good life in east java.

My grandpa lived in Solo and my dad in Jakarta.

I tried so much to move there. But couldnt make it.

I am still stuck at the hamsters wheel in London. Hopefully i can get a fully remote job and then move to Indonesia. I can only dream !

/dream

eggy5• 10 years ago

The Robert Frost reference I played because I always feel like I can keep learning som much more, do so much more, as I think he tries to convey in his article. And I played it off the English translation of his Latin quote, 'Nil nove sul sole' ('Nothing new under the sun') to convey that too. You're never stuck; it's in your head. I grew up poor in Brooklyn, and I have taken lower paying jobs after higher paying ones for the experience and fun of it. You learn to live within your means. You don't need a remote job to move to Indonesia. I live on very little here. I spend more on luxuries like books and credit for Internet. I am far from any big stores or town, so the temptation to just spend is gone too. I am sure you can manage to save $10K USD in a year. I am spending the time studying, exercising, sleeping (I have slept an average of 6 hours or less per night for the past 30 years or so, and now I try and get 8 to 9 hours, sometimes more!). The old cliche 'Life is short' rings more loudly as you get older, and peers start dying around you. In our youth we rally to 'Seize the day', but we don't own it. As Joseph Campbell said and wrote, 'Follow your bliss'. The rest will take care of itself just like the feet and hands wash themselves in the process of showering or bathing. Semoga berhasil!

lgieron• 10 years ago

A question - you are looking for 'fun' in a job and, at the same time, consider programming fun - haven't you been able to find a programming job you like?

eggy5• 10 years ago

Not really. I code what I am interested in. Most jobs are broken down into small parts for many programmers to work on. I like doing one-liners, and code to solve a specific problem I am having in another discipline like engineering, or art.

toddkazakov4• 10 years ago

I am based in Bulgaria and I recently had my first experience with a potential Swiss employer. It was rather unpleasant. After I went through 5 interviews we discussed my rates (as a remote consultant). I received a low ball counter offer which was about the half of what I usually charge. This quickly became a racist rant and a senior manager at the company tried to persuade me by saying that with the money they offered I'll "live like a king" in Bulgaria. Needless to say I politely declined because I would much rather work with people that value my work. I was really surprised that such unprofessional attitude came from Swiss company, but apparently it's not so uncommon judging by the blog post.

naivepiano2• 10 years ago

Sad as it may be your being based on a low income country was probably one of the main reasons they approached you. And it is quite universal so I wouldn't attribute it to unprofessionalism. From company's point of view it makes perfect sense to outsource to the best quality/price ratio.

collyw3• 10 years ago

Maybe at double the price he would still be the best quality /price ratio.

toddkazakov4• 10 years ago

Actually, this wasn't the reason. I already knew the guy who approached me. They were developing a data analytics solution quite similar to others I have worked on/built in the past. They needed a developer with a real-world product experience in their domain. Unfortunately, it wasn't my acquaintance who was responsible for the hiring.

Luckily, the software development market is global and there are some really sane people out there.

eps• 10 years ago

The manager's rant part aside, the reason to outsource to the Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Russia is and has always been the rates.

qaq• 10 years ago

That's one part of the equation the other is availability of qualified people.

tribaal5• 10 years ago

That's very much untrue. EDIT: I stand corrected - this misses the point.

Sure, wages are lower than elsewhere (especially Switzerland), but the quality of engineers in eastern europe is very high.

Case in point: Google Switzerland employs lots of eastern europeans with Swiss-level wages. That wouldn't make any sense if the only reason was money.

EDIT: My math and electronics teachers (both women, data point) in my Swiss engineering school were Russian and Romanian. Their shared theory was that during communism teaching material was not written by teachers, but was written by topic experts (expert mathematicians were forced to write teaching books). It sucked for the experts (they were forced), but was great for students to have a book written by a master to study. Their point, not mine.

spacecowboy_lon4• 10 years ago

I think in contrast to the Uk and US - work relationships in a lot of European countries are much more rigid and hierarchical.

tudorw2• 10 years ago

Do not be surprised, I've interacted with hundreds of companies, many are run incompetently by people unqualified for the position and who have no integrity or morals. Maintain your composure and move on, if you're not being turned down now and again for being too expensive, you're too cheap...

greenspot3• 10 years ago

Saying 'you will live like a king' is not the smartest thing. He should have said:

'Please consider that your local living costs are much lower than in Switzerland. We incorporate those differences in our offered rate like every other company does. Thanks for your understanding.'

So the tone was—yes—unprofessional, the attitude not. And even if this attitude is debatable, you have to allow the other party to express reasons for a lower offer in a negotiation.

moron4hire2• 10 years ago

No, that would be just as bad. You pay for results, not for where the person lives.

rantanplan2• 10 years ago

Both phrases are quite presumptuous. As if I don't know what my cost of living is.

This is how much I charge. Thanks for your offer, it's way below of what I think I deserve for my services. Nah, I don't need a lecture from you on why I should find this generous. Nope, I don't care why you make me such a low offer. What does it matter if I can actually find people who pay the rates I charge?

The market will balance this out. Thanks for your time, have a nice day.

blub7• 10 years ago

I find it quite bizarre that remote workers living in a country with lower cost of living are expected to take lower pay than locals while doing the same work and offering the same value.

Otherwise yes, people are allowed to express silly things and one shouldn't prevent them from doing so, especially when they show their true colors.

Looks to me like they dodged a bullet.

albertojacini• 10 years ago

It wouldn't have been smart either. What one should charge is what one can charge. And it's unrelated to what the cost of living is in a given country.

tribaal5• 10 years ago

As a developer in Switzerland, I'm unfortunately not surprised.

Maybe Swiss firms have a real arrogance problem (not all, but many). If it makes you feel any "better", your country of origin is not the reason (I get comments like that while living in Switerland too).

They are mostly just clueless. Large Swiss firms even more so (Swisscom being the main offender).

EDIT: To clarify, I got lowball offers with some other bullshit reason like "but it'll help bootstrap your career". As if my multiple years (15+) of career in international companies doing a good job (as developer/architect/senior) was not enough for their position, somehow.

Create5• 10 years ago

Precarity at CERN, aka cheap disposable temp labour w/o healthcare:

http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevoise/suisse-prete-aider-e...

And a warning to non-western members:

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]

source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

ISBN: 9290831693 cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264

On top of the above, the usual package for prospective employees:

Resolution of the CERN Staff Council

- the Management does not propose to align the level of basic CERN salaries with those chosen as the basis for comparison;

- in the new career system a large fraction of the staff will have their advancement prospects, and consequently the level of their pension, reduced with respect to the current MARS system;

- the overall reduction of the advancement budget will have a negative impact on the contributions to the CERN Health Insurance System (CHIS);

http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/46/Staff%20Asso...

Pensions which will be applicable to new recruits as of 1 January 2012; the Management and CERN Council adopted without any concertation and decided in June 2011 to adopt very unfavourable mesures for new recruits. http://www.gac-epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin...

Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel.

YeGoblynQueenne6• 10 years ago

Yeah, that's supposed to be good business sense: you pay less money for the same amount of work. In truth though, you get what you pay for, always. Software works the same regardless of who writes it, where they live, or how much you pay them, so if you pay less for a piece of software you'll just get a piece of software that's worth less money.

It's exactly for this reason that big corporate software is generally shite: because they try to get it at a discount by paying low wages to consultants whom they think they can afford to underpay because they live in a poor part of the world (hint: India). Then they end up with horrible messes of software that nobody wants to work with, at which point they have to pay more money anyway to convince anyone to fix the mess.

It's just people thinking they're so smart when in fact they're short-termist and dumb.

MrBuddyCasino• 10 years ago

If what you were saying was true, you'd be getting better quality developers if you only hired guys that were born in your high-wage country. Thats not how it works.

I've met a lot of very bad german developers that command a decent wage, simply because there is a scarcity of talent, and I've seen lots of eastern european guys do a fantastic job earning much less, because thats how their local market is like.

I agree that it is never a good idea to pay less than the local average, though.

flexie6• 10 years ago

The device you used to type in your opinion was likely produced in Asia. This enabled you to pay less without getting less.

You can in fact get a Bulgarian developer which is just as good or even better than many Western European or American developers (I have hired a few) and for a fraction of the price.

Meanwhile they may still be paid very decent amount of money that allows for them to have a standard of living exceeding the one they would have had if they had been employed in Switzerland with Swiss salary, and Swiss living cost.

You don't always get what you pay for with developers or any other services or products. Sometimes, but not always.

megablast2• 10 years ago

In truth though, you get what you pay for, always

This is completely wrong, but it sounds nice.

bwanab• 10 years ago

The Swiss also have a real ageism issue. When I worked there, I had a good friend who was Swiss that got fired. He was in his 50s at the time and the attitude was that nobody that age should be coding. He was a very good developer, but couldn't get hired because of his age. He started a web development company. The key to his success was that when he met with clients he presented himself as "the boss" with his crew of young developers. Back at the office, he was that crew of young developers. He told me that if his clients thought he was the one developing the code, they'd never have hired him.

justinlardinois3• 10 years ago

As an American I've heard this is a major issue in our software industry as well. But I'm young and I don't know any significantly older developers so I can't really verify.

beachstartup• 10 years ago

as you get older, looking for a job isn't called "looking for a job", it's called "sales". and you can "look for a job" for other people, too.

known2• 10 years ago

Excellent tips; However in globalization you need to be a highly skilled wage slave

iLoch• 10 years ago

Companies want you to shut up about that, so that women are paid 70% of what men are paid.

Stopped reading here because I assumed the rest would be equally as well informed. Shame too, I was enjoying the perspective.

Edit: Decided to give the author the benefit of the doubt and continued reading for the opportunity to have my perspective changed. With that said, I'm also not very fond of the anti-white male narrative quoted below, and I'll elaborate on why

If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion.

I don't think the real problem here is with being white, male or privileged. (Though, obviously our industry has a problem with diversity.) Programmers, for better or worse, typically aren't very sociable people, and thus become abrasive to dissenting opinions. (I'll be the first to admit that I do this, and will continue to do it as I try to improve and reduce this behaviour.) Whether that opinion comes from a transexual black 10x-er or a straight white female who recently graduated from college, or even a seasoned veteran with 25 years experience. Quite often, a difference of opinion for programmers defaults to "they're wrong because they don't think like me." I experience this daily, and I'm a straight white 21 year old male from an affluent community. So to the authors point, yes if we could stop being assholes to each other that would be great. However I absolutely disagree that the behaviour of my peers is racially motivated, and I resent the implication.

And I'm supposed to "send the elevator down" just to those who I assume to be the most slighted minority? How do you suppose that works? Should I just assume that all women need my help and support because they're women? What indicators would one even use to determine such a qualification, other than being systematically sexist and racist? Here's a thought: help everyone, as often as possible! Don't motivate your behaviour based on peoples' identities!

But yes, I do agree with the underlying sentiment that follows, I just wish it wasn't prefaced with unnecessary garbage.

Do not critisize or make fun of the technology choices of your peers; for other people will have their own reasons to choose them, and they must be respected. Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning.

Perfect. Why did we need the intro?

a_c• 10 years ago

3. Learn About Software History

I was reading about zeromq. From zeromq, I linked to iMatrix, OpenAMQP, GSL, and then Pieter Hintjens and Protocol of Dying. Indeed, history of software, including the people behind it, is no less interesting than the software itself.

zelos• 10 years ago

My new todo list: 1) Invent time machine 2) Go back in time and make my 24-year-old self read this article.

s3nnyy4• 10 years ago

"Say 'I won’t do what you tell me' and change jobs. There are fantastic workplaces out there; not a lot, but they exist. [...] Do not let a bad job kill your enthusiasm. It is not worth it. Disobey and move on."

Especially Europeans have problems thinking like this. I always advise engineers to keep on looking for better offers / jobs the moment they take a new job. Instead many hibernate in a job for 3-5 years without thinking of their careers and hence miss opportunities.

Disclaimer: To help engineers finding jobs / working on their careers and support IT-firms to find people, I recently started a small headhunting agency.

So mail me, if you look for a tech-job in Zurich. Salaries here after [!] taxes start at 7000 CHF / month. Find my e-mail address in my hn-handle or check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...

adaml_623• 10 years ago

That article could use a followup. Regarding the immigration cap in particular.

s3nnyy4• 10 years ago

Actually, I think I do mention the immigration cap in my article.

That is even more incentive to come over now rather than in 1-2 years, when the immigration cap for EU citizens will be implemented as planned.

mahyarm3• 10 years ago

Compensation wise it's still a better idea to move to the USA to work at google & co then. A typical goofacesoft sr engineer gets +$250k/yr total compensation + paid for health insurance with a %30-%40 total income tax rate as a sr engineer.

Also to start a corporation, you have no capitalization requirements and it's easy-ish to hire canadians, australians and people work who work in a foreign office for +1 yr on a L visa. The waiting times for citizenship in the USA are surprisingly less than switzerland if you're not chinese or indian, which is pretty bad when the USA beats you in citizenship waiting time.

And most important of all, there is a shit ton of VC cash to get investment dollars from.

s3nnyy4• 10 years ago

I think you confuse many things here. For canadians US is the better choice but for people from the EU who are not top 5% of the engineers, Switzerland is the best choice.

Being in the top 30% of engineers or even mediocre means you will make a decent or very decent living in Switzerland. I am not sure, if this is true for the US.

sickbeard• 10 years ago

Why is it a thing to change jobs every 3-5 years. Seems like only a software developer thing

duderific• 10 years ago

3-5 years? Try 1-2. The reason is that there are a lot of opportunities, and it gets boring to work on the same thing for a long time. Also you can learn more different things and fill out your resume by changing jobs more often.

That said, I personally prefer to stay at a job for at least three years, given the opportunity.

crpatino3• 10 years ago

Yes, it is a software development thing. Labour market is crazy.

Employers are obsessed with "acquiring talent". If you can show "growth potential" (as in, being able and willing to learn and extend your expertise), they will overpay you for the first 2 years or so. After that, they will feel entitled to recover their investment in you, so you will continue to grow, but your salary will stagnate.

Meaning, 3-5 years is the sweet spot for getting another income boost from the next talent acquirer willing to pay you to learn even more.

barnacs• 10 years ago

"forget the hype, make sure to learn node and start building bots"

That aside, a lot of the more generic points make sense.

arc_of_descent• 10 years ago

Nice post. A bit nostalgic but we all need a meme to get readers interested. In the OP's case its "I'm getting older, but I still love what I'm doing. Come join me!".

What I do when a new tech hype comes along, is allocate myself some time to it. Ok, Webpack? Let me give myself three days (around 20 hours) to check it out. If I don't understand it at first, keep pushing. If after 20 hours, I still don't get it, abandon it and move on.

Of course, 20 hours is just an estimate. If after a day, I feel like some magic has taken place (like what Backbone.js did to me), I'm hooked.

And yes, definitely gravitate towards a galaxy. Sometimes galaxies do merge and you will reap the benefits :)

I'm 38, programming for 15 years. And I still love coding and doing systems stuff.

yosefk• 10 years ago

"That means that you she or he gets 100 KCHF per year, but she or he are actually creating a value worth over a million francs. And of course, they get the bonuses at the end of the fiscal year, because, you know, capitalism. Know your worth. Read Karl Marx and Thomas Piketty. Enough said."

While neither Karl Marx nor Thomas Piketty have a great track record when it comes to economic policy prescriptions (Dean Baker's opinion on this might be interesting for people who share much of their world view with all three of these economists), will they teach me to better negotiate based on my "knowledge of my worth"? I rather doubt that they will, given that the punchline of much of their writing is that worker compensation necessarily trends towards the subsistence level over time, r>g, etc. etc. Certainly if the point is to "know your worth" in the sense of being able to negotiate a better compensation, a better source ought to be available.

Separately, it's an interesting turn of events that fairly politicized economists' writings are now recommended reading for computer programmers. The next logical step is a recommendation to join a political party (certainly joing the political party would help one's career in the USSR where Marx was required reading for people entering the professions.)

lintiness• 10 years ago

a nice piece on understanding self and the pursuit of a rewarding life in tech or code or whatever (with real examples from said life) diverged in a wood of political lecturing garbage.

batat• 10 years ago

Do not worry about hype. Keep doing your thing, keep learning what you were learning, and move on.

Thanks, Adrian. Now I have an official excuse for not writing a single app with Angular/React in 2016.

jgrahamc• 10 years ago

In an email exchange I had with C.A.R. Hoare a couple of years back he said:

Paradoxically, I have been working on shared variable concurrency, using a partially ordered trace semantics. Until I retired, I was too frightened to tackle anything so difficult.

Definitely life after 40, 50, 60, 70, ...

buserror• 10 years ago

I think that misses one big point here; and a point that I live by: Don't waste your neurons and time.

Time is the most precious thing you have, so don't waste it learning stuff you won't need. Even if it's shinny. Resist, and for the things you do need, don't become an 'expert' -- pick the things you NEED and scope it well. Then hop along on the new tech that came around...

I always see any new thing I take on as an investment, and I try to make it pay down the line...

I didn't use to do that, and I'm an expert in a few tech that I had fun learning, but have absolutely zero relevance today. See, I can write Altivec code without the scalar version for example. That was useful for about 2 years...

justinhj• 10 years ago

This is where luck comes in. If you wait until something is super popular then you lose the advantage of being one of the first people that understand the technology when it goes into production. Also sometimes you may learn something that never pays off but later it feeds into something that does. I spent a lot of time learning Common Lisp and could never apply that knowledge at work until functional programming became more mainstream and Scala/Clojure became acceptable languages for production.

stevetrewick• 10 years ago

Ignore the hype - but learn everything. Think for yourself - but go with the crowd. And don't forget the sunscreen.

Oh, and XML was totally a buzzword in '97.

dfox3• 10 years ago

XML started to be really meaningful buzzword in '98 or '99. (with first really useful implementations in like 2000)

gdubs• 10 years ago

Came here to post "And don't forget the sunscreen", but did a quick command-f to see if anyone else had already. :)

Which, in fact, was released in 1997!

ManlyBread5• 10 years ago

The article was pretty good until this part.

If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion.

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement and I find myself surprised that no one is calling out the author on it.

It is your duty to send the elevator down.

No, it's not. Just like women don't have any duty to ensure that there's an arbitrary number of men working as models and just like black NBA players have no obligation to ensure that there's enough white guys on the team I have no obligation to worry about some arbitrary quotas.

vanderZwan3• 10 years ago

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich

Then the comment does not apply to you.

I don't think you quite understand how deep the rabbit hole of this form of "whiteness" goes; as a social construct it implies people from Western Europe or North America. Surely you have experienced how there are people from there who treat Eastern Europe people as less "civilized? Similarly for, say, Mediterranean ethnicities.

White male privilege might not (fully) extend to you, but that does not disprove its existence.

ManlyBread5• 10 years ago

> I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich
Then the comment does not apply to you.

It does, I'm white. The author specifically mentions "white male".

shrewduser8• 10 years ago

you, my friend, are a crazy person.

privelage is more a factor of socio economics than race when did we start this ridiculous fight against merit and this arbitrary oppression quota system.

rjzzleep• 10 years ago

This sort of response is typical for someone from NY(yes, this is also racist).

I'm white in the US. There is so much ignorance and illiteracy in the way white male racism is portrayed in the USA. It's a beautiful display of how you preach openness and then completely disregard all nuanced world views. You may not have known them then, but you sure as hell don't listen when someone is trying to explain it aaron.

A huge portion of people that are on the receiving end of racist systems are white male by your definition.

The thing that's so offensive about your kind and the authors kind of attitude is very similar to when some spoiled american female brat who's parents can just easily lash out tens of thousands a year for an ivy league school tells me how would i know anything about discrimination because i'm too white.

Theres even a funny 1974s movie about the miserable life of an italian immigrant in switzerland? Pane e cioccolata. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Chocolate

But if you really care how about you take a look at interview invites in Germany/Central Europe.

ra1n85• 10 years ago

This must be satire. Color of skin as a proxy for some form of "cultural original sin" is bad enough. Now we have the self-anointed determining degree of whiteness.

What happened to just trying to be a decent human being and helping out those in need of a hand, regardless of race?

wernercd• 10 years ago

"White Power"/"White Pride" is racist and "Black power"/"Black Pride" isn't... Minorities can't be racist and everything white people does is automatically racist.

"White privilege"... Brought to you by "Black Privilege".

criddell• 10 years ago

Then the comment does not apply to you.

It might. It's possible that even though the path for him was difficult, it may still have been more difficult if he were black.

dracht• 10 years ago

Indeed. Getting rather tired of these American-centric, white guilt/saviour bloggers that feel the need to inject their social agenda into everything. I don't browse HN to read about how it's my "duty" to repent myself of the eternal sin that is my race. Asians are over-represented in academia and the tech industry, yet this is never brought up as a problem that needs solving (as it shouldn't). This social justice movement is toxic, contradictory and insidious.

interpol_p13• 10 years ago

The author is not assuming you, personally, got an easy ride. Nor is the author dismissing any and all hardships faced by white males during their lifetimes. It is disappointing that you took his comment that way.

Acknowledging that it is easier to make it in the tech industry if you are a white male does not mean that it wasn't hard for you. It just means, for example, that it probably would have been even harder if you were an Eastern European woman who grew up in a poor family.

You don't call out the author on such comments because you don't need to read such comments as a personal attack. I worked hard as hell to get into this industry. I came from a poor family. I slept in my car for a long time just to afford to get my first product out. But I had the advantage of being a white male who grew up in a culture where those things gave me an advantage from birth.

From the cartoons I watched as a child (far more male heroes than female) to the politicians in my country (mostly white and male), to most of my role models in my field of choice (also white, male). In addition to a million other invisible benefits. I was able to go into technology with confidence and social support that many other groups will not have.

No, it's not. Just like women don't have any duty to ensure that there's an arbitrary number of men working as models and just like black NBA players have no obligation to ensure that there's enough white guys on the team I have no obligation to worry about some arbitrary quotas.

I think that's a sad way to look at things. We are not trying to ensure there is an "arbitrary number" of certain types of people working in our field. We are simply acknowledging that there are unnecessary hurdles faced by many groups who may otherwise already be working in our field. It is a wonderful thing to have the power and voice to "send the elevator down" to help those people up.

jedrek• 10 years ago

It just means, for example, that it probably would have been even harder if you were an Eastern European woman who grew up in a poor family.

Spot on. If the previous poster went to a technical institute in Eastern Europe, I am willing to bet that his classes were at least 90% male.

exstudent25• 10 years ago

I was able to go into technology with confidence and social support that many other groups will not have.

Where I grew up (in 1980s US), white males were almost universally derided for being into technology. It wasn't until the 2000s that it became "cool". There was no privilege associated with being a geek. It was something many of us did despite the social stigma. That's why it's humorous to see people claim there was some sort of privilege associated with those who where early in tech. Yes it turned out to be economically viable but there was huge social pressure against participating.

belorn2• 10 years ago

From the cartoons I watched as a child, (far more male villains than female), to the narrowed defined male acceptable professions, to most of role models in other professions (all female), In addition to a million other invisible punishments for not following the cultural rules. I, like most of people with my gender went to a profession that was cultural accepted for that gender, and most people of the other gender went to cultural accepted professions for their gender.

How privileged they must be!

j4kp0711• 10 years ago

It just means, for example, that it probably would have been even harder if you were an Eastern European woman who grew up in a poor family.

That is an absurd, subjective, abstract theory with no research to back it. The same thing can be said of any sex, race or creed in virtually any instance of life. Get over yourself and quit acting like this is exclusive to white people.

White people did not invent sexism. Neither is it exclusive to them.

White people did not invent racism. Neither is it exclusive to them.

White people did not invent religion. Neither is it exclusive to them.

ManlyBread5• 10 years ago

It just means, for example, that it probably would have been even harder if you were an Eastern European woman who grew up in a poor family.

Women here get hired easier (because US companies have the same policy for quotas, Intel is notorious for this), I know women who got an internship purely because they were women, there are free bootcamps and classes targeting women... not to mention all these special programs EU has for women who want to start their own company (and yes, these programs are for women exclusively). I have yet to see a program or class targeted specifically for men.

So exactly what disadvantages are you talking about?

almostApatriot1• 10 years ago

Eastern European Whites are notoriously racist. Are you really trying to say you don't have it easier than a Romani or a Central Asian, let alone a black person who happens to be living in Ukraine?

lbebber3• 10 years ago

It's not that white males have it easy, but certainly easier than someone born in the same circumstances who also has to fight racism, sexism or other prejudices.

JohnBooty27• 10 years ago

    I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was 
    rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get
    into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply
    because I'm white is a pretty racist statement

I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard you still got to avoid certain challenges that non-whites face" response.

But you know what? This just isn't working.

We need better language.

I'm a firm believer in the existence of this thing we currently call "white privilege." I understand the meaning and intent of this concept and it's 100% correct; it's absolutely vital that we understand that basic rights we take for granted (for example, walking into a store and not being treated as a potential thief, or having prospective interviewers assume we're professional/literate/presentable) are actually privileges that many people or color don't have.

But if the people we're trying to reach hear the term "white privilege" and immediately misunderstand the term in such spectacular ways... you know what? We're doing it wrong.

obstacle12• 10 years ago

We need better language.

No, 'we' don't need that. You want better language so that you can better advocate for your pet cause. There is a big difference between need and want, and also between "everyone" and "this interest group that I identify with".

mhurron2• 10 years ago

basic rights we take for granted (for example, walking into a store and not being treated as a potential thief, or having prospective interviewers assume we're professional/literate/presentable) are actually privileges that many people or color don't have.

You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? You know that 'White Privilege' you talk about is really just for those of Germanic origin, right?

Because I'd hate for you to look like an idiot telling someone who could have faced all those issues when they moved to Western Europe, the US or Canada that it's all wine and roses for them.

White Privilege should just be called White Devil. It jsut paints such a simplistic view of the world, not a real one, but one that is useful for rhetoric.

AlexC04• 10 years ago

Sorry, but try being Romani (colloquially: gypsy) anywhere in the UK and tell me it is "white" that makes the difference.

kelukelugames8• 10 years ago

I don't like the term privilege either. Switching to a more digestible word will help. For example, corporations now refer to sensitivity training as unconscious bias training. On the other hand, some people will be offended no matter what we call it.

JoeAltmaier5• 10 years ago

Agreed. The term is just too loaded, designed to irritate. For instance the 'privilege' part. A word loaded to mean 'undeserved advantage'. The advantages are supposed to accrue to everyone; being white means being a whole person. Being black means having less than that. But the differences aren't undeserved; they are owed to everybody.

So the term seems to call out white people for stealing stuff they aren't entitled to. Instead of just having what everybody should have.

I detest the term; I bridle every time I hear it. And annoying the hell out of the people apparently in power, people able to do something about the problem, is a very crappy start to a conversation about race.

gedy2• 10 years ago

you know what? We're doing it wrong.

How about you just call it "privilege" and leave it at that? This skin color labelling is pointless in the context of real privilege.

A "woman of color" who grew up with servants in her birth country, went to private schools, top colleges, etc has a better chance at the C-suite than a Eastern European "white guy" who grew up poor and went to state schools etc.

AudaIbuTayi3• 10 years ago

misunderstand the term in such spectacular ways

Who could have guessed that identifying and singling out a particular race for correction and self-abasement would entail some push-back? [1]

This just isn't working.

Actually, I think it is working as intended. A thriving industry has arisen around the elimination of "white privilege". The term has served that industry well as marketing.

I'm a firm believer in the existence of this thing we currently call "white privilege."

Are you a firm believer of "Han privilege" in China? Are you a firm believer of "Japanese privilege" in Japan? Are you a firm believer in "Jewish privilege" in Israel? If so, that might assist you in your search for better language.

basic rights we take for granted

We have hundreds of years of high-quality race-neutral rights language to pick from. Why was that language eschewed?

[1] I'm trying to cut down on snark in my diet but failed. Mea culpa.

james1071• 10 years ago

Was he privileged when he was in Eastern Europe or only when he arrived in the US?

logfromblammo4• 10 years ago

Just call it "tribal privilege". That pretty much covers all the "soft" prejudicial discrimination that happens everywhere around the world.

If the tribe currently in power in your locale believes you are a member, your life is easier than it otherwise would be. If it believes you are a xeno, or even an enemy of the tribe, then it will be more difficult, whether it is by intentional impediment or by withholding assistance.

This is why Jews are privileged in modern Israel, but unprivileged in Tsarist Russia. It is why Mexico had a disgustingly detailed race hierarchy imposed by Spain. It is why Rwandans massacred each other after Germany and Belgium explicitly favored one subtribe over another. It is why Shi'ite Muslims find it easier to live in Iran than in Saudi Arabia. It is why Chicago city government is corrupt to the core. Skin color is not the only possible tribal indicator.

I would guess that the ruling tribe in the U.S. has not imputed membership to strangers based on their skin color for a long, long time--at least since Irish, Italians, Greeks, Iberians, Ashkenazi Jews, and Eastern Europeans were not considered members. Non-whites may see it as "white privilege", but that is only because the tribe in power is so incredibly bigoted that they have multiple, ranked categories of xeno, such that if you were on fire, they would have to ask you what you looked like before ignition in order to decide whether they would spit on you, piss on you, or just let you burn.

I recall entering a Walgreens in New Orleans. As I watched, someone walked in with a backpack, indiscriminately shoveled several items from a shelf into it, and walked right back out. I glanced to the checkout, where an employee who had also seen the same thing shrugged at me. Tribal privilege. The clerk chose to favor the people of her city/neighborhood over her corporate employer. And you know what? Neither Walgreens nor the NOPD are in my tribe, either, so I shrugged right back. I wouldn't exactly let that guy into my house, but I'm not about to flip him to the cops over one measly bag of deodorant sticks, either. I am too well aware of how certain cities treat their poor people to wish one of them into a jail cell.

mc325• 10 years ago

It's not working because this phenomenon is not the privilege of a race of people. Go to China and you will find a "privileged class" (urbanites), go to Nigeria and you will find privileged people, Go to Japan and you will find privileged people (those lucky enough to go to the right universities) same with France and go to India and you find "privileged" people. So the problem people have is that it's framed as a "white disease" when most countries which have economies which cause a "sorting out" i.e. Not everyone is in the same subsistence mode, have this phenomenon, but it's used as a tool in an attempt to bring other people up by making other people feel (in this case whites) as if they are uniquely and artificially in a position where they are automatically parasitic. Basically it treats success as a zero-sum issue. It pits one class against another and both can feel aggrieved. Which probably is not the best way to engage people and get them onboard with ideas.

alistproducer2• 10 years ago

I agree. I support most, if not all, the racial justice initiatives of the last 10 years, but the left is in need of better intellectuals and leaders. The language and tenor of much of the discussion is unhelpful in gaining supporters. I rant all the time that it's really a shame that BLM never seems to protest or take issue with police shooting of non-black folks. If the goal was to win, and not just to make a point, we should come up with better language and strategy.

ManlyBread5• 10 years ago

We need better language.

No, you need better arguments, you can start with the ones where there's no assumption that racism towards certain groups is okay.

Keepo• 10 years ago

Newspeak version of racism.

- it is not racism as long as you are being racist to white people

- only white people can be racist

It is quite simple

collyw3• 10 years ago

Which is indeed quite racist in itself.

DoofusOfDeath3• 10 years ago

If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion.

I've heard this assertion made many times in recent years, but I don't recall any reasoned arguments for why the listener should accept it as a moral imperative.

Since the assertion clearly isn't something we'll all automatically accept, the author may wish to offer a reasoned argument for it.

And if he's unable to offer a good one, he should probably reconsider making the assertion.

vox_mollis• 10 years ago

This is actually the biggest issue I have with the intersection of social justice and the technology industry. The concepts of "white privilege" and "stereotype threat" are borne of the non-falsifiable, non-reproducibility "science" of sociology departments everywhere.

Here on HN, where people ostensibly require the weight of evidence to accept a concept, I would expect nearly 100% of people to reject this evidence-free, baseless emotional concept immediately out of hand. Yet somehow, this community of rationalists buy into handwaving without any critical thought.

We nerds appear to be just as dogmatically religious as those whose ideas we reject on the basis of lack of evidence. A little saddening.

beat2• 10 years ago

The "reasonable argument" for privilege isn't that you grew up rich or whatever, but rather that there are negative assumptions made about others that are not made about you. For example, one of my best friends is a doctor, who moved into hospital administration, and from there into financial advising and investing. He's very wealthy and successful. And if he's pulled over by the cops, he has to worry that they'll assume he stole his nice car. He has to deal with people crossing the street to avoid walking by him, or clutching their bags with fear in their eyes. Why? Because he's black.

Not having people assume you're a violent thug because of the color of your skin is privilege.

My wife is a high-level expert in e-commerce, and has been a professional analyst in the field for 15 years. I've watched men carefully explain to her how credit card processing works as if she was an idiot, gently correcting her when she disagrees or contradicts them.

Not getting mansplained about your own area of expertise is privilege.

Does this help?

mnglkhn2• 10 years ago

The reason I agree with you OP is because, as you, I am also from Eastern Europe and I can recognize the same traits in the current "white privilege" arguments to those that plagued Europe mid-century. Like now, during those times there were people arguing that the Jews are taking all the jobs, the good jobs (doctors, engineers, bankers, etc - basically every profession). And the solution was not to advocate for equality but for reverse discrimination, which basically translates into: now you guys leave everything behind, profession, property and translocate somewhere of our choosing.

Today is the same path: you guys should feel guilty for being in a white collar job. You are in this job not because of your work but because of your race/skin. The implication is that you should step back and get out.

For all the talk about white privilege, I never hear the solutions to it. What is OP supposed to do: not get the job? Not feed his family? How is he supposed to prove that he is aware of his "white privilege"?

splintercell2• 10 years ago

For all the talk about white privilege, I never hear the solutions to it. What is OP supposed to do: not get the job? Not feed his family? How is he supposed to prove that he is aware of his "white privilege"?

The world is divided among two groups of people: people who live for themselves, and people who live for the validation of others.

The latter group believes that changing 'language' results in changing reality. If you want to lose weight, then get a funny mirror which shows you that you're skinny and that would result in you somehow working towards it and becoming skinny. That reality is merely a 'social construct' so modification of the social construct is all what you need to permeate those changes into other parts of the 'reality'.

It's this group of people who believe that minorities aren't succeeding because they don't get enough validation from others. This confuses most of the other people who never cared for this validation.

So people like you or OP says, "But I never needed other people's validation", and these people respond "Oh because you always got the validation, that's why you don't think anyone needs validation".

To answer your question, these people want you to 'validate' minorities. Make it look like that they're successful and apparently that will make them successful.

If you ask me, that just results in creation of pathetic individuals who will never achieve anything real in life.

hox2• 10 years ago

For all the talk about white privilege, I never hear the solutions to it. What is OP supposed to do: not get the job? Not feed his family? How is he supposed to prove that he is aware of his "white privilege"?

Of course he should take the job. The point of this discussion isn't to punish one group in favor of another; its to raise awareness that there is an underlying disadvantage for some types of people that has impacted their ability to get as far as you have.

The goal is to change your frame of mind ever so slightly, so that when you are faced with two identical resumes, one from a 25 year old white male and one from a 35-year old black woman, you don't immediately choose the white male due to "culture fit." You may take the time to stop your colleagues from belittling a marginalized employee rather than ignoring it. You may actively push to create programs that bring underprivileged groups into your organization rather than scare them away.

It's about using the position that you gained through your own hard work to help others who through no fault of their own have to work harder for the same success.

erroneousfunk• 10 years ago

Like now, during those times there were people arguing that the Jews are taking all the jobs

Are you really comparing Internet essays about 'white privilege' to the Nazi movement?

JustSomeNobody3• 10 years ago

Well, the idea of "white male privilege" is that no matter how hard you may have had it as a white male, it was always easier than had you been a non white male.

It doesn't matter how hard you worked or work, your accomplishments will always have the stank of "white male privilege" in the eyes of everyone non white male.

reefoctopus4• 10 years ago

it was always easier than had you been a non white male.

Really? You don't think there are advantages to being a woman? That my URM neighbor who got into Harvard law with a 164 LSAT would have had things easier if he were white? Your statement is incredibly racist.

osweiller3• 10 years ago

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry.

I grew up in a small, very blue collar town (the sort that most people never escape). We lived on social assistance, at least until my mother killed herself and I went to live in foster homes. Eventually my father -- who later died from asbestos related cancer from his job -- let me move into a spare bedroom at his girlfriend's house.

"White male privilege".

I "made it", so to speak, purely on the backs of a couple of teachers who tried really hard, and the luck of having interests and aptitudes perfect for the time in a burgeoning, lucrative industry. But I certainly did not have a privileged upbringing.

snowwrestler5• 10 years ago

Do you think that no women or minorities grew up in a small blue collar town, lived on social assistance, lost their parents, lived in a foster home?

The concept of privilege does not mean "you did not earn what you have." It means "other people with circumstances like yours were prevented from earning what you have, because of their gender or ethnicity."

It's not about tearing anyone down. It's about recognizing that people with success can help those who are being denied success, unfairly.

crpatino3• 10 years ago

Privilege is multifactorial. There are such things as white privilege, and male privilege; but those are not the only (nor arguably, the most significant) privileges there are.

Being "blue collar" and "from a small town" probably set you back in at least 3 or 4 different kinds of priviledges (as in economic, well learned, and urban/cosmopolitan). So, if you compare yourself to black women that had all advantages, yes, your life more often than not will turn to have been harder.

If, on the other hand, you genuinely want to understand what "white male privilege" is all about, you should look at how women of racial minorities fared in your home town, or other similar towns. And even greater insight can be gained by observing how people treats other white men from the same town who are otherwise disadvantaged: guys with physical or cognitive disabilities, gay men, men with "foreign" accents (specially if their speech ressembles that from a not-so-far rival town), or for the matter old folks. Even if they are treated "fairly", the small indignities they have to endure on a daily basis may build up to something significant.

kelukelugames8• 10 years ago

Hear hear! My grandparents fight the Nazis and never owned any slaves and now all of the sudden I'm a racist for saying all lives matter?

elbear2• 10 years ago

What rubs me the wrong way are the two phrases: "it's your responsibility" and "it's your duty".

I would prefer if he didn't tell me what my duties were. Instead he could try to motivate me in a positive way to think of these people who need help. Please use positive motivation, not negative one.

cheez• 10 years ago

White privilege is reduced sentencing for white people, as compared to people of colour and things like that.

My personal opinion is not that you should bring yourself down and suffer for people of colour, but just know that you have benefited from these little effects throughout your entire life. As Warren Buffet said, these "snowball" into a pretty comfortable life.

I was a 17 year old non-white guy, minding my own business, and I was detained for matching a description. Who? Why? Nope, just matching a description. I was in the system now. Every time I have to deal with the system, I fight to make sure there are no traces. And every few years, I have to do so. Meanwhile, my white friends who work in the financial industry transport drugs across state lines and never have any issues, even if they are pulled over. I know, because I travelled with them once and I was the only one who was questioned for any length of time.

What the actual fuck?

I mean, it was a nice trip, but seriously? I don't even know where to buy drugs.

This is what life is like for someone who isn't white. Over and over, day in and day out. It honestly gets really tiring.

I'm not complaining, it just makes my success that much sweeter.

a-saleh2• 10 years ago

Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement and I find myself surprised that no one is calling out the author on it.

I wouldn't say you got an easy ride, just that your ride was easier than some others had it?

It might be a cultural thing, but I know that some of my neighbours wouldn't consider me white. Probably because I didn't have the time to shave and I really like my keffiyeh arround my neck and suddenly I might get these looks of "What does this stinking arab do on my street?"

Based on this, I think I agree with the notion that it is my responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. And I don't mean in "we need more quotas" sense, more in "when you see BS, call on it".

I think this is why he mentions "I am making 135 KCHF per year. That was my current salary. How about you? And you? The more we speak out, the less inequality there will be." Based on this, I think I can empathise.

kelukelugames8• 10 years ago

Quotas are bad! So is harassment. No reason we can't speak out against both.

ManlyBread5• 10 years ago

I wouldn't say you got an easy ride, just that your ride was easier than some others had it?

You're talking to a guy who lives in a country where people who work minimal wage jobs earn about 3900$ per year. As a Junior programmer I earn about 7500$ per year and I'm considered to be "lucky"... except the cost of living is still about 35% of my salary. A programmer with a lot of experience under his belt can expect to be paid between 15k-45k per year.

While food is relatively cheap, I still have to share an apartment with two other people whom I don't even know (renting a flat on my own would cost at least 50% of my income), I have to save for a few months to buy a car or a computer (not even new ones, if I want anything decent I have to buy used things). Buying a place for myself would mean I'd have to pay for a mortgage for the next 20 years.

If I would like to work abroad I have to keep in mind that people think very little of us and that the only thing we've got going for us is that we either take the jobs no one else wants or that we can be paid less than the native citizens.

But please, do tell me my ride is easier than getting free money and being hired because you're not white.

frostymarvelous3• 10 years ago

You won't understand because you fall in that category. But trust when it's said. You avoid certain challenges because of your race and sex and that is a given.

That said, that doesn't mean that you sailed through life on a magic carpet with things handed to you.

dradtke• 10 years ago

that doesn't mean that you sailed through life on a magic carpet with things handed to you.

See, this is why people get frustrated when people tell them to check their privilege. White men are told all the time that they have life so easy, but almost never have their own frustrations or life experiences validated. I'm very grateful for everything I've had relatively easy in life (loving parents who never divorced and not worrying about having dinner each night, among others), but life still isn't easy, and it's frustrating feeling like there's nothing to complain about because of how you were born.

ausjke• 10 years ago

The whole story is a decent read. I actually read from top to the bottom. As long as the whole idea makes sense, no need to pick a few sentences and enforce political correctness on them, that just missed the point in my opinion.

He is not a politician and is speaking for himself, and he has the right to say that I guess. Overall, a great write!

skywhopper• 10 years ago

You had it easier than someone with your original circumstances who was a minority or a woman, is the point. You are highly unlikely to be sexually harassed or threatened on a regular basis. You are highly unlikely to be insulted, questioned, or dismissed because of the color of your skin. Other people aren't so lucky. If you feel upset about this extremely mild general statement about white men, try multiplying that by 10, add it to every part of your life, and you might start to experience what people who don't look like you live with.

It's not about arbitrary quotas. An industry overwhelmingly populated by white men is missing out on 90% of the talent in the world. Programming ain't the NBA.

StargazyPi• 10 years ago

I respectfully disagree; even though the (often inaccurate) generalisation of white male privilege does not necessarily apply to you, the tech world has an inclusion problem along many different lines: education level, affluence, race, gender to name but a few. I tend to think that those of us who've made it into the industry, whilst pushing against one or more of those biases, (including you in this, because of your socio-economic background) should be helping others from similar situations enter the field.

Just because we, personally, have made it, doesn't mean we shouldn't make the path easier for others.

naasking3• 10 years ago

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry.

"White privilege" is simply the (mostly reasonable) claim that your journey probably would have been even tougher if you were a black person from your exact same background.

rayvd• 10 years ago

Well said. Thank you.

blisspigeon• 10 years ago

Listen, when I went to high school, there were only a couple of "computer classes" available and I took all of them. When I graduated and went to college, my parents were lower-middle-class and I was a white male, so I didn't get any kind of scholarships or grants or whatever. But my parents had put aside some money and I worked really hard to get through as fast as I could, so I graduated without any debt. Then I got a good job, worked harder, and eventually went back to school. I worked full-time to pay for my masters and phd, and when I graduated I jumped back into another job. The whole time I was putting aside 10-20% of my salary and the result is that now I'm semi-retired. I get to choose what I work on.

There ain't no privlege here. Nobody ever sat me down and said "this is what you need to do". Hell, nobody ever cared about that, just whether or not I could get stuff done. I never had any big friends throwing me tips and jobs like that guy at Sea World training the seals to play horns. I never begged some "angel" to give me money. When I hit a wall, I banged my head against it until I got through. When everyone else was going to "conferences" and "training classes" on the company dollar, I was back at my desk, pounding out code and reading the f'ing manual. And when somebody says I have a duty to make somebody's life easier, I want to ask them where they were when I was sweatting blood?

You want a new "language" for "privlege"? How about spelling it L-A-Z-Y? Anyone could do what I did. It isn't hard. You just have to put in the work and for Goddess's sake stop whining.

softawre• 10 years ago

I agree with you for the most part. I'd just like to point out, since I also consider my family lower-middle class, that most lower-middle class families have no money whatsoever for college.

Most of us in that situation took loans. And if we did OK, we paid them off. No big deal, just another minor obstacle.

stegosaurus• 10 years ago

I think the issue with 'white privilege' as a term is that people forget that the vast majority of people are not 'alright Jack'. It feels like an attack, like saying 'you have too much, give me some'.

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates might have won the game. Someone with $5M might have.

But your average 'privileged white male'? Even if we restrict it to the middle class, there's not that much to give up, you know? It's not as if we're all paid up on the mortgage with the retirement fund sorted and now we're just drilling away for more hookers and blow.

I have real issues with the rhetoric that seems to be cropping up as of late as it seems to push the focus away from the capitalist elite that own everything, and on to those who are in the same order of magnitude of wealth, battling away to keep their lives together.

We are friends, not enemies.

kailuowang• 10 years ago

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich

Yes, you earned your success, but being from a poor Eastern Europe family doesn't say anything about whether or not you experienced a "white privilege". Try imagine yourself being a colored female from a poor Eastern Europe family might help a bit.

donohoe• 10 years ago

I really just want to echo what johnBooty (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11571398) said and add my 2 cents.

Short version: I'm Irish, former illegal immigrant, naturalized citizen, pay my taxes, have a family, and consider myself a moderate success etc.

I worked very, very hard to get to here I am now, but I guarantee you that that fact that I am white (and spoke English as a first language helped too) played its part too.

It exists, it is a thing, and we're obligated to do our best to make things better for everyone along thew way.

odonnellryan• 10 years ago

I don't understand this mentality. I see it all the time.

You're a part of a community. You've taken advantage of the community in the past: there is always an obligation to contribute positively back to the community.

The author is saying they think diversity is positive to the community. You can argue against that point, but you aren't: you're saying contributing is bad.

morgante• 10 years ago

That statement, along with the clueless repetition that "women are paid 70% of what men are paid" really turned me off from the piece.

I agree that racism and sexism are problems. I definitely try to not be racist and sexist myself. I even try to actively correct for my own unconscious bias.

But it's not my responsibility to fix sexism in the tech industry. I'd rather focus on some other problems which I think are more serious—global extreme poverty, for example—and that shouldn't be a moral failing on my part.

njharman• 10 years ago

Are there lots of females in the industry where you are? I wouldn't be surprised if there were way more than in west. It seems (from my limited outsider view) that communism/socialism was much more egalitarian regarding gender and some of that carries over post USSR.

Are there lots of ethnic minorities in the industry where you are?

Being a white male doesn't mean it was easy for you or you auto-success. It means it was easier for you compared to non-ethic majority, non-males.

source: I am 45 yr old white male

grifter2000• 10 years ago

agreed. getting tired of seeing this self-loathing nonsense and unabashed racism towards whites that's made it from tumblr vogue to mainstream media. it was no easy ride being poor and white in a black neighbourhood, either.

ljw1001• 10 years ago

I found the advice to be quite a mixed bag, but um, having just turned 42, the OP knows very little about being a developer after 40. The article is about what he learned as an under-40 developer.

fecklessyouth• 10 years ago

The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole

This is from the Old Testament.

http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm

patwolf• 10 years ago

Learn all you can about LLVM

While I'm sure LLVM is an important technology, I don't feel it's everyone's job to learn and know everything there is to know about it. There will perhaps be a niche group of developers making cool things with LLVM, most developers can get along just fine without knowing anything about it.

avoutthere• 10 years ago

"Forget the Hype" followed by LLVM hype.

philbarr• 10 years ago

A British roundabout with 6 intersections...

There's one of those in Hemel Hempstead. And surprisingly it works really well...

On a related note, if you have the chance to go to Hemel Hempstead, don't.

walshemj• 10 years ago

I think its only 5 now - and the fun thing about the magic roundabout is you can go either way round.

I must admit I used to when riding a bike round there chicken out and use the under pass.

known2• 10 years ago

Within in the context of H1B it's a different game altogether.

programminggeek• 10 years ago

It is not our duty to do anything. If you want to do something fine. But honestly, I work my butt off to get what I've got and I'm perfectly happy to help others that do the same.

I refuse to help someone just because they are female or a minority just because they are female or a minority. I also refuse to help people who won't help themselves.

Those who want to be great, I will help them every way I can. It doesn't matter gender or ethnicity. It's about work ethic.

manishsharan• 10 years ago

As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm. As someone with a family , I can't put in those hours every day and every weekend. Single programmers who can put in those kind of hours are rewarded and those who cant are singled out for ridicule or "performance concern chats with manager". Projects have gone agile and they have not accounted for the unexpected shit that happens, low level functional designs seem to have fallen out of fashion and the deliverable deadlines have become ultra aggressive.

And the mangers' attitude is that "they can shake any tree and it rains qualified programmer resumes". Here in Toronto, there is a company called Allegis and all major employers post their developer job here. The headhunters are plugged into Allegis and they call you based on keyword match. Have you ever seen poor people huddled outside HomeDepot, hoping to be picked up? Thats what it like to be a developer searching for a job in my town. Most enterprise dev jobs are focused on a very narrow set of skills; so it doesn't matter how good you are with designing solutions or algorithms you know -- what matters is do you know java/c#/angular(new) ? And thats all that matters for Allegis keyword match. You are probably thinking I can learn more technologies ; what I am pointing out is that enterprise s/w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.

pc867• 10 years ago

This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but only a very small subset of developers need to design algorithms or even know any of them by heart.

Disregarding a few years that was mostly WordPress consulting, my experience is largely enterprise C#. Lots of line of business applications, glorified CRUD apps, and some client work. Zero need for any ability to write a BST or radix sort.

If you're working for SpaceX, or Twitter, or a Big 4, of course you should know those things. But most developers don't work for one of those companies. The vast majority of programming is done to further a business other than programming.

GrumpyYoungMan• 10 years ago

I'd agree with that. My impression is that the profession is bifurcating into two categories:

1) Programmers, who have solid coding skills that primarily work on building systems using existing modules and libraries. 2) Software engineers, who have algorithmic and systems level expertise along with advanced coding skills, and are capable of working on complex software such as operating systems, compilers, and other libraries / components used by others.

Let me hasten to add that that isn't to say one is better than the other. Both are needed, just like both regular doctors (in greater quantity) and neurosurgeons are needed (in lesser quantity) are also needed and all are highly skilled professionals.

dfox3• 10 years ago

Vast majority of developers would benefit from at least passing knowledge of algorithms and data structures.

For past few years I work (not full-time) on what is essentially a prototype of trivial line of business application: stock-keeping system. It is 3 layer and blahblah, with me implementing most of the server side. Amount of various hacks in the server to accommodate requirements of the "It is impossible to linearize a tree in C# without having local SQL database" kind is truly ridiculous (most of these involve few lines of generator-and-list-comprehensions-heavy python code on server).

Somehow there is whole large class of so called "developers", that can only directly transform input to output and anything that requires building some kind of data structure is impossible/unfeasible/whatever for them.

sklogic2• 10 years ago

You're designing algorithms even when you're coding a FizzBuzz or a "Hello, world". And most of the business logic is by far more complex than FizzBuzz.

CuriouslyC• 10 years ago

Need to know? Sure.

But being able to adapt, apply and even create algorithms is a big part of what separates crappy CRUD/UI implementation dev jobs from real engineering and research roles. I don't imagine anyone wants to be stuck writing CRUD apps their entire career.

mbrodersen• 10 years ago

If you are just a CRUD developer then yeah you don't need much to do average work.

mkozlows• 10 years ago

If you're working for employers who think it's easy to find good developers, you're working for employers who hire lots of terrible developers.

lsc• 10 years ago

As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm.

my experience is that this isn't the case, at least not where I am. Last place I was at, the guy who came in weekends was the first of us to be let go. (granted, the first guy to get promoted to direct-hire status also worked more hours than average, but he didn't come in weekends, and he certainly put in way fewer hours in the office than the guy who was let go first.)

There is quite often a correlation between my perception of a person not being very effective and staying super late.

what I am pointing out is that enterprise s/w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.

Eh, that's kind of the space I am in right now, only I'm more ops than dev (nearly every job is a mixture of both, most are tilted one way or the other.I am maybe 1/3rd dev, 2/3rds operations, my title is 'SysAdmin' at the moment)

The thing is about the corporate keyword jobs? You are right that they are looking for replaceable cogs, and it usually pays better than startup work, but it is very 'easy come, easy go' - expectations of contractors are super low, and contractor interviews are super short, so while you are very replaceable, so are they.

Where I am, in silicon valley, direct hire jobs at the places where you'd get those easy contractor gigs are kind of a different animal. They pay even more, really by quite a lot, and getting them is a combination of passing a bunch of IQ-test like puzzles and complex social signaling. Now, most of the people I know with those jobs are actually pretty good, so maybe the sorting process is better than I think? My problem is that first, I barely qualify, IQ wise, at least for the best of those companies, and then I am, well, I kind of am a capitalist, and part of the complex social signaling is pretending that you really want to be part of that advertising collective, which is super difficult for me, personally. I mean, I don't mind selling my sword to an advertising collective, but I am not the sort to 'drink the kool-aid' - Advertising is not making the world a better place, and I know that them hiring me is a transactional sort of thing. I'm not joining a collective, and I have difficulty pretending it's a collective.

b3n• 10 years ago

A recent (UK-centric) study[1] shows that working fathers get a 21% 'wage bonus' on average over their childless counterparts. Is this situation reversed for engineers?

[1] https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Pay_and_Parenthoo...

daxfohl• 10 years ago

This had nothing to do with being a developer after 40.

tldr: Banal, overconfident advice on the subject of a software career, devolving into political rants at times.

dhogan• 10 years ago

help a younger developer by becoming their mentor (do not do this before the age of 30, though.)

Why the age of 30? Just curious.

AnimalMuppet• 10 years ago

Because before then, you don't know enough to be an effective mentor. ("30" here is a proxy for a level of experience.)

hartator• 10 years ago

"Nil nove sul sole" means nothing new under the sun.

nucleardonuts5• 10 years ago

I grow weary of hearing about "white privilege". I likewise grow weary of any of today's politically correct messages: women in combat, bathroom bills, work quotas, transvestite rights. It's all BS.

I grew up a military brat. We didn't have a lot of money. I wore hand-me-downs, had iron-on patches on my knees. My family could not afford to send me to college, so I served in the military to get the GI Bill and worked my own way through college.

I'm over 40, in IT and no one ever gave me hand out in relation to any job or education.

Like an earlier poster said, I'm under no obligation to do anything. I believe in hard work. No one should be given a free ride because they are black, homosexual, female, whatever. Work your ass off to get where you want to be. Full stop. No one is under a moral or other obligation to get you in the door or ensure fair play. I'm not an asshole to people, but everyone has the same opportunities. I realize the military is not for everyone, but young men especially can really benefit. You can do a four-year hitch and have your college paid for. If you like it, you could re-up as an officer and the sky is the limit.

The problem with people today is they have a sense of entitlement that is misplaced. No one owes anyone anything other than moral decency: please, thank you, that kind of thing. Work hard, play hard. Life is better without handouts. You have a sense of fulfillment when you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

african_cheetah2• 10 years ago

everyone has the same opportunities.

Not really. That's what it means. Being white makes it slightly easier to get some opportunities.

CamperZero3• 10 years ago

Two people of the same socioeconomic standing but of different races. One has a lower bar to entry into college because of affirmative action and a easier time getting a high paying job because of diversity needs. Who has the privilege here?

ElComradio3• 10 years ago

Being smart makes it much easier to get some opportunities.

cname2• 10 years ago

No one should be given a free ride because they are [X, Y, or Z] ...

Is that stated in the article somewhere? I'm pretty sure it's not. It also doesn't say anything about "handouts". It only says that certain people have an obligation to recognize their advantages and to make some attempt at improving things. That's quite a bit different than suggesting anyone should get a free ride.

magni-3• 10 years ago

Your whole argument is a strawman. "I didn't grow up a millionaire" doesn't mean that your life would have been the same had you been black, all else equal.

Take a step back and don't be so defensive: "white privilege" isn't a personal attack. It's only meant to raise awareness, awareness that you clearly need, based on your post.

nucleardonuts5• 10 years ago

I don't need awareness. I'm keenly aware of what's happening here in America and abroad. I got where I am because I worked hard. I've received no handouts. I paid for my education through my military service. I earned my 3.98 GPA in CompSci because I put forth the effort. I currently work with some blacks who have done the same thing, and they were poorer than me growing up. It's about attitude and what you want. Real men don't want handouts. They don't want a check given to them for doing nothing.

Hell, now there are people talking about a basic income for doing nothing. I agree with scripture, work or don't eat. Granted, society has people who cannot work through no fault of their own. Take care of our less fortunate brothers and sisters, by all means. If you are an able-bodied adult, get off your ass and work for a living. Start of down low like everyone else and make something of yourself. This is where the military shines. A poor guy can rise to the top in the military. Get his college paid for. Make something of himself. Nothing stops these people. There is no such thing as will power. It's want power. How bad do you want to be better, different, not poor, educated. How bad do you want to work to ensure your children live a better life than you? My parents were not perfect, but damn if they didn't raise me right. I work for what's mine and want no handouts from others.

Lawtonfogle4• 10 years ago

It's only meant to raise awareness, awareness that you clearly need, based on your post.

And yet, awareness of other issues and even the opposite side of the same issue seem to not be as needed.

"white privilege" isn't a personal attack.

Academically not, but it ends up being used either as one or as ammunition for one.

awareness that you clearly need

Case in point.

mindcrime2• 10 years ago

Being a 40+ developer myself, I find myself largely agreeing with this post. I guess I could quibble over some small details, but by and large, I think the author is spot on.

The one thing I'll add to this, is to say that, for devs like us, things like Coursera, Udacity, EdX, etc. are really valuable. When you're a mid-career professional who already has strong technical chops in at least one area, "on demand education" like this is super valuable in multiple regards:

1. It's much more accessible since you don't have to go sit in class, on campus, every day, etc. You can fit it around your existing life much more easily.

2. It can serve as a nice way to start "bridging" to a new area. For example, if you're already, say, a skilled Java developer and you want to start moving into Data Science, MOOCs offer a nice way to pick up some additional credentials to help that transition. People argue about the value of certificates from Coursera and the like, and that's fair. I think you don't want something like that to be the only credential you have, if possible. But taken as a complement to your existing credentials, experience and skills, I believe these things can be very useful.

3. Related to (2) above, but MOOCs can be a nice way to add complementary education outside of tech altogether. If you're a developer who aspires to eventually move into management or whatever, consider taking business classes from Coursera/EdX/Udacity as well. There are some really nice offerings out there, including a complete (accredited) MBA program that you can do (partly) through Coursera in conjunction with the University of Illinois. Or maybe you're a Java developer (just an example, I don't mean to pick on Java people, as "I is one") who thinks that something to do with synthetic biology is going to be "the next big thing", but doesn't want to go back to school for a biology degree... great, there's a ton of life sciences / biology / chemistry /etc. stuff that you can take online if you want to start positioning yourself for something like that.

Let me also add this: I totally agree that you don't need to go "all in" on every new tech that comes out, and try to ride the hype wave for everything new. But, I think it's smart to at least explore (many|most|some|??) of the trendy new stuff, to a limited depth... at least dip your toes in the water, do the "Hello world of XXXX" where XXXX is Swift, or R, or Rust, or Scala, or Node, or Go or whatever. At least give yourself a fair chance to evaluate the new stuff, decide if you feel like it's worth investing more in based on direct experience, and at least get a feel for the toolchain and what-not. From there, you can kind of monitor what's going on around you and decide if/when to go deeper with new technology XXXX. Yes, doing all this requires an investment of some time, but that's part of the cost of keeping your value up.

Of course, the truth is, most of this goes equally for the "under 40" crowd as well. But the whole "keep learning new stuff" thing probably becomes a little more important as you get older. There might be exceptions like the whole "COBOL programmer who gets paid big bucks because nobody new is learning COBOL anymore" but I'd consider those situations to be exceptions.

dfox3• 10 years ago

For tech things I would say that just reading the documentation (or source if there isn't any useful documentation) is preferable to any online courses.

On my first meaningfully paid job, first actually useful thing I did was that I went into corporate archives and found documentation for Oracle 7i and Microstation 95 which I was supposed to be using. Somehow nobody else there even thought of reading the docs. (the fact that I somehow automated myself away in this job is another thing)

mindcrime2• 10 years ago

For tech things I would say that just reading the documentation (or source if there isn't any useful documentation) is preferable to any online courses.

I'm a big fan of the "teach yourself by reading the docs" thing and I've done a lot of that in my career. But since I started doing a lot of these online courses, I've found that they can be very beneficial. Having a little bit of structure around the learning process, having "classmates" to discuss with, etc. have helped me as I've been (for example) learning R. Now, could I learn R by just reading books, tutorials, and experimenting on my own? Sure, of course. But the courses are pretty cheap, add a little bit of rigor to the process, and come with a minor credential from a well known / highly regarded university (Johns Hopkins, specifically). All in all, I've found that this approach works really well.

Just to share an example of one regard in which the online classes have had value above and beyond me simply doing it entirely on my own... The "R ecosystem" has a LOT of stuff in it. If I just started playing around with R, I'd have little clue which libraries and other tools to try out. But the courses I've done so far have guided me towards learning things like ggplot, dplyr, knitr, etc. Knitr in particular turns out to be really cool, and I'm glad I discovered it... but I don't think it's something I would have gone looking for on my own. Maybe I would still have found it eventually anyway, but as it stands, I feel like the course approach guided me in some useful directions early on.

YMMV, of course.

vinceguidry• 10 years ago

"Ok, let's make a rails app" "Oh, I need rails first" "Oh, I need rbenv first" "Oh I need brew" "Oh I need xcode tools"

As a Rails dev, this made me chuckle, yes, I've put a lot of hours into troubleshooting dev setups. But this is the wrong example. All of these are installed with one line on the terminal. And really, there are far simpler web stacks to pick up without even having to leave Ruby. Sinatra on system Ruby works just fine. All you do is 'gem install sinatra', open up a text editor and go.

Really, the complexity you have to watch out for is the complexity you impose yourself. Choosing the wrong tools for the job or the wrong abstractions. For many applications, Rails is overkill.

danielweber• 10 years ago

That involves knowing the one line on the terminal, and when you google "rails set up" you will get a bunch of out-of-date tutorials, and not knowing rails you won't know which is out-of-date.

On the other hand, 30 year old C code will often compile right out of the box, because the people maintaining them weren't chasing the New Flashy every year.

The modern systems suck in terms of maintainability.

nickthemagicman• 10 years ago

Lol as opposed to PHP where you just drop the folder into Apache folder and you're done.

emodendroket• 10 years ago

The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole.

This is actually originally from Ecclesiastes, not the Romans.

EdiX• 10 years ago

as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole

They didn't say that.

sanpan• 10 years ago

I just want to say thanks for introducing me to ponysay. My terminal was dull until you all shared its magic with me.

mooreds• 10 years ago

I enjoyed this. Could have just as easily been called "Being an experienced developer" because age doesn't factor in to his message that much.

okreallywtf2• 10 years ago

Did I just stumble on slashdot? I much prefer the discourse on HN but the reaction to "PC culture" and "White privilege" is basically the same everywhere.

It has never been supposed to mean anything about an individual, and yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken. We (as white and or males) can't help but see things from our individual perspective and take offense at the implication we ever had anything easier than anyone else.

I agree with others in the thread, we just need to throw away the word white privilege and come up with something else because it has been totally poisoned. I'm not saying there aren't overzealous "social justice warriors" that haven't contributed to the misunderstanding of the word.

Just remember, when people use the word white privilege, THEY ARE NOT REFERRING TO YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Karunamon2• 10 years ago

yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken

This is a clue that perhaps your terminology is loaded, inflammatory, and should be changed.

I find that there's very little value in reasoning about race as a collective, since it's usually just a (overly) reductive variable for socioeconomic status, upbringing, or environment. If you mean those things, say those things. Attaching a racial modifier to a term and then expecting members of that race to not feel described or targeted by it makes no sense.

(And that goes double when that term is used, often, as an attack, not in the thoughtful way you describe, but that is a rant for another time.)

okreallywtf2• 10 years ago

You've actually hit on the exact point, there is no point in reasoning about race, but as much as we wish that people didn't see race, the fact is they do.

That is the entire point of the term. Because of your race, people do reason about your race, and do make assumptions about your socioeconomic status, upbringing, and environment. I'll grant you that there are (probably a very few) people who do get some satisfaction out of feeling like a victim but otherwise, nobody is more tired of reasoning about race in america than black americans (who are of course not the only discriminated against minority).

You seem to be implying that america is post racial and some of just won't let it go.

Lawtonfogle4• 10 years ago

Because privilege is based on looking at only a subset of the group. A subset that changes to push a narrative. For example, white privilege often involves some concept related to being given leniency in legal matters. Less likely to be stopped, less likely to be arrested if stopped, less likely to be charged if arrested, and less likely to be convicted if charged. And statistically, that is all good and fair. But then male privilege discussions almost never include that the reverse happens when you look at gender (and to a much greater degree than race).

Also, while perhaps not originally meant to be applied to an individual, that is the common experience with it. It is further compounded by picking only certain areas for privilege to matter and being very stereotyped. For example, one white privilege is going to a school where the majority of the student body was the same race. Except that isn't always true.

While the wording behind privilege is extremely toxic and needs to be done away with, much of the ideas behind it are what directly led to that toxicity to begin with.

THEY ARE NOT REFERRING TO YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Yeah, if you ignore all the other times.

aerovistae• 10 years ago

You could experience that right here in Switzerland.

lol

iLemming• 10 years ago

you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!

Kequc• 10 years ago

Don't put things into articles people are going to talk about that you don't want people to talk about. There are two topics in the article and the discussion here broaches both.

alexandercrohde• 10 years ago

---Disobey authority. Say “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” and change jobs.

Challenge authority, but don't be an ass about it. Simply try to help them understand that you are doing them a favor by challenging them. Perhaps say, "Do you mind if I weigh in on that?" If they aren't interested in your opinion still follow up with "I understand you've thought about this, but I've also given this a lot of thought and I also have a lot of experience around this and I've seen it be a problem before."

magni-3• 10 years ago

It's sad that the majority of the discussion from this post is people misunderstanding the term "white privilege" and getting so defensive about it.

Changing topics: that was a great read. The links were also great reads and rereads. What do people think of Joel's six mistakes from the "great software takes ten years", sixteen years later? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html

pasquinelli3• 10 years ago

"you were, are and will be a software developer, that is, a relatively expensive factory worker, whose tasks your managers would be happy to offshore no matter what they tell you."

this is exactly my experience. writing software really doesn't require any great creative mind or cleverness. i'm a pretty mediocre programmer. i got roped into programming as a kid by, first of all because i wanted to make video games, but then once i'd dipped my toe in i found learning new, exotic (seeming) ideas and making clever solutions to problems was a lot of fun in and of itself. but i can think of only one time i got paid to do anything that felt like that: working on a tetris game with bombliss, without the official tetris rules. the rules of tetris are surprisingly deep and refined, in case you didn't know, so that endeavor was utterly insane and disastrous, which was the general character of the company i was working for. but still, it was a lot of fun playing physicist from the tetris universe, trying to infer the rules through experimentation.

to write software, once you have the skill down, is really just about doing the work. it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software. no cares about the software at all. they have things they want to do, and the software, the making of it, is, if anything an impediment. so is the person making it.

themodelplumber• 10 years ago

While it probably confirms a lot of fears around here, this comment is pretty hyperbolic. That is to say, it captures the lowest lows (replaceable cog) and some of the highest highs (experimental physicist in Tetris universe). But most of us are not really suffering under those conditions, except (critically!) in an imagined way.

it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software.

This last statement is demonstrably false. Many people care about good software. Just like they care about good cars, good vacations, good hot dogs.

But still, grumpy developers will upvote this and believe in it. They then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They see threats that don't exist, then at some point they call out those threats and in doing so cash in their chips.

I've seen many smart developers miss great opportunities in doing this. They could be learning to make their own terms and push back, taking advantage of high demand. Instead they become a plumber, landscaper, or Ph.D., thinking the grass really is greener over there. Well, maybe so. But that mentality has not changed, so what are the real chances?

pasquinelli3• 10 years ago

"This last statement is demonstrably false. Many people care about good software. Just like they care about good cars, good vacations, good hot dogs."

i care about good software. i know plenty of people that do as well, so you're right that my statement was demonstrably false, but the point is people who pay don't care about quality software. that shouldn't be a controversial thing. obviously they care about their costs and the value they get out of the software, not the invisible quality of it. this is my experience, at least. like i said, i'm a mediocre developer. maybe my customers aren't as discerning, or they don't have very interesting problems to solve.

also, it's interesting that you characterize being a replaceable cog as the lowest of lows. let's be honest, that's life. of course i'm replaceable no matter what my position in a company. if i own a company, that company's replaceable. it's not a lowly thing to be replaceable, it's the nature of things. like they say, the cemetery's filled with indispensable men. that's not to make every living human being feel lowly, but to help keep perspective.

Chris20488• 10 years ago

This last statement is demonstrably false. Many people care about good software. Just like they care about good cars, good vacations, good hot dogs.

If allowing poor software means delivering on time, and thus being able to afford those cars, dogs and vacations, which do you think the people in charge of those things will choose?

Chris20488• 10 years ago

I feel "software dev" is too broad. And the ambiguity disguises choices that might harm you prospects.

I read this: http://quantjob.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-avoid-quantdevel...

And the description of being "sucked in" to a "housekeeping IT" rang scarily true. Match with this phenomenon: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B64WFyuCIAAjq3u.png

And you might realise there are shitty dev jobs with poor prospects out there, that bill themselves as more than they are. The whole "passionate about my job" thing then becomes a little sinister.

There are different classes of dev jobs. The bad ones pay little and lead to less, and will usually come painted with BS. The "passionate" dev will be happy with whatever they get, and they'll get very little to be passionate about - in-house housekeeping all the way.

But at least the market is good enough now that you can always realise this later and try to fix things. When the gravy train begins to wain, you might be stuck with what you have...

willtim2• 10 years ago

You're describing the lower tier jobs in an industry of disposable software. There are software jobs out there that do value experienced and skilled developers.

jaegerpicker• 10 years ago

I'm really sorry for you, there ARE better places to spend the majority of your life if you feel this way about your job. I'm a developer turned manager, I care deeply about the code we write. My Boss (Director of Engineering) and his Boss (CTO) care about the code we write. Hell even our CEO cares, though for different reasons. Good well designed code is not easy and it does take creativity. If you don't work for a place that allows you some measure of that, leave. It's not an easy skill to learn and there is a huge amount of demand, we do not have to deal with crappy environments.

I'm really sad this is the top comment here. It doesn't need to be this way. For reference I'm been a developer for over 15 years and I know why some developers feel this way but they shouldn't have to and don't have to.

pasquinelli3• 10 years ago

i feel a lot of bad ways about my work, it's true, but i really don't see it so much in my original comment. i was just elaborating on a comparison likening programmers to factory workers. i wouldn't necessarily say i'm a factory worker, but i think there is a comparison to be made. is that so awful? is it so awful to work in a factory?

for what it's worth, i'm not sorry for me. i don't like my job, but i've never been satisfied with a job. i don't want to work a job, i want to do my own work, but that's very, very rare to do full time. maybe someday, if i'm incredibly lucky. in the meantime, i have bills to pay. my current job's pretty cushy, affording me a bit of flexibility on time, and enough free time to make progress on my own stuff.

abc_lisper• 10 years ago

Absolutely love this guy!

Somehow I feel lonely when I say open-offices are an absolute evil. Thanks for raising that point!

ak39• 10 years ago

I'd only add one more point to this otherwise excellent list of advice for programmers doing it for the long haul:

13. Strive to become as proficient as you can in the business domain in which you ply your programming.

Such proficiency can be a crucial asset if you have plans to start your own consultancy or to produce specialised products and solutions for niche markets.

frostymarvelous3• 10 years ago

Software companies have become sweatshops where you are supposed to justify your absurdly high salary with insane hours and unreasonable expectations.

Sadly, I've felt this way for the past two months since I took my new job. I had to take a pay cut for it. Sadly, I think the new company thinks I'm being overpaid and the demands are crazy. All of a sudden, I understand so many of the WTFs on TDWTF!

Being a Developer After 40

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