[HN Gopher] A new career in software development: advice for non...
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A new career in software development: advice for non-youngsters
Author : jvilalta
Score : 79 points
Date : 2022-05-16 00:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (shape-of-code.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shape-of-code.com)
| lmc wrote:
| There aren't many jobs in Cobol or Fortran, and they tend to be
| powering things that aren't very junior-friendly.
|
| I would go for C#, Java, or (if you have a masochistic streak)
| C++. And SQL.
|
| Honestly Go seems to be over its honeymoon period and is probably
| a safe bet also (there's 500 Go vs 600 C# jobs on my regular UK
| job search site).
| mjevans wrote:
| I've done some personal projects in Go (golang?) and I respect
| it as a modern development language.
|
| Rust is on my TODO list to dabble in; at least at a glance the
| language has a solid conception, a clean syntax for
| portability, and the language syntax appears to lean towards
| clarifying much of the undefined behavior optimization other
| languages get humans into trouble over.
|
| I'd even take mono / C# over Java; but that's just because of
| the real world enterprise nightmares I've seen... all the
| fossilized versions of vulnerable libraries everywhere.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > Honestly Go seems to be over its honeymoon period and is
| probably a safe bet also
|
| This. Go is an established technology by now. Plus, it is
| really, really easy to learn and get productive in...I mean,
| being accessible even to beginners was one of the design goals
| of the language. One can literally get to grips with its basics
| over a long weekend.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes. I was comfortable in Go in about a week. It lets you do
| most of the things you really need to do in a web backend
| without too much bother. The language is generally well
| behaved. There's no framework-of-the-week problem.
|
| JavaScript/TypeScript/Node/React/etc is a treadmill.
| timoteostewart wrote:
| Is Java unfashionable yet, I wonder.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| Every enterprise uses Java and will continue to do so for the
| foreseeable future. Enterprises pay higher wages than smaller
| shops.
| habibur wrote:
| Java is unfashionable since when Ruby on Rails came out. Early
| 2000.
| [deleted]
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Hasn't Ruby been unfashionable for a while now?
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| Ruby is more fashionable than Java web development. PHP is
| more fashionable than Ruby. Go is miles more fashionable than
| PHP. Python is more fashionable than GO. These change as Ruby
| was way more fashionable than PHP 10 years ago. Golang was
| way more fashionable over Python 2 years ago. PHP was more
| fashionable to Python 15 years ago.
|
| Java is still fashionable because of android development.
| pubby wrote:
| I figure Java has been unfashionable for 10+ years. The applet
| boom was a long time ago.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wonder if the accelerated pace of features will invert that
| trend.
| ldayley wrote:
| Are you asking if Java is unfashionable enough for it to be
| seen as a legacy niche- like COBOL or 4GL? Just because it's
| out of fashion doesn't mean isn't crowded...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> new technology (fashion is about the new) often experiences a
| period of rapid change, and keeping up with change requires time
| and effort. Does somebody with a family, or outside interests,
| really want to spend time keeping up with constant change at
| work? I suspect no
|
| BS.
|
| I'm not one for terse responses but I cannot think of any better
| way to say it. This author evidently has never worked with anyone
| outside their graduating class. Without "outside interests" or
| "family" I predict they will burn out within five years.
| Peach_blue wrote:
| How come most people say software devs are in demand and then
| there is this comment saying he receives 4000+ applications on a
| job and nobody in Europe should consider this career?
|
| Can perspectives on reality be this far apart, or is he trolling?
| py_or_dy wrote:
| Stuff is screwed up. I applied at over 80 companies last year,
| got interviews with about 60 of them, did about 110 individual
| phone screens/interviews. Got no offers. It seems the
| management paradigm right now for small shops or startups is to
| dedicate $350k or so per year for developer salaries. A single
| principle or staff engineer is hired. Takes $150k per year. And
| they in turn try to shove 4 juniors into the remaining $200k.
| I'm 40 years old with no lead experience and I'm not a junior.
| So I fit none of these roles.
| pc86 wrote:
| Have you been a developer the whole time? ~16-18 YOE with no
| lead experience could be [incorrectly] taken as a red flag.
|
| I will say we've been trying to hire two seniors for the
| better part of 6 months and most of the people we end up on
| the phone with either end up going somewhere (presumably for
| more $ but it's rare to get a reason), or they do so poorly
| on the technical screen it makes you wonder if they just used
| someone else's resume. Nothing in between the two - I've been
| in my current EM role for probably 3 months, have done maybe
| 20-25 interviews, and we've extended 4 offers. One accepted
| then took a different job two days before his start date, one
| accepted, two declined.
| py_or_dy wrote:
| I've been doing some form of development since the age of
| 28. I look young for my age so I could probably pass for
| 35. I've made sure nothing giving my true age away is
| online or on my resume. I think the biggest issue is I have
| mostly been in the Perl ecosystem and most of those
| companies are self hosted, not using docker, etc. I do have
| requirements of only being remote, this worked fine in the
| perl world. But those jobs are mostly non-existent now and
| plus I was tired of the mindset that perl software stacks
| seem to harbor (never updating software, why use a
| framework when you can cowboy code your own, etc). Spent 2
| years playing around with Django, figured it would be an
| easy transition. Hard to say why I don't get hired. I even
| did 7 interviews with one company. Several occasions I even
| celebrated early (buying stuff I didn't need with my
| dwindling savings account, going out to eat at fancy places
| with the family, etc) because I had 2 or 3 interviews
| ongoing and they were going so good and I was such a good
| match that I just knew I'd get an offer from one. But no...
| Slowly went from asking $130k per year to $120k, $110k,
| $90k.. That didn't help, the companies got crappier, the
| interviews just got longer and harder (the opposite of what
| I was wanting because I was so burned out by this time).
| Had a couple of perl companies reach out to me, but they
| are old legacy code and part time 1099. I can barely make
| myself put in over 15 hours combined per week with them
| though. Just feels like I am poisoning myself by going with
| them and want to do more interviewing but then the voice
| telling me it is pointless comes back so I just end up
| sitting in my home office for 12+ hours a day staring out
| the window.
| eatonphil wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear about your experience! It's really
| shitty to have applied so many times in a year and gotten
| nowhere. I can't help you out but for to encourage you
| that interviewing is always a numbers game. I find it
| depressing and have to apply to tons of companies and I'm
| not your age. My only trick is to take breaks when I need
| them and keep trying.
| soneca wrote:
| What kind of companies did you apply to?
|
| I'll share my personal experience, in case it helps. I
| only apply to small startups (less than 50 employees, but
| I usually get hired in places with <10 people). These
| have much more straightforward and short hiring
| processes. I find those companies solely from HN Who is
| Hiring thread or AngelList. I never got anything from a
| job post on Linkedin (much less Indeed and etc). I am a
| frontend developer, but I do see a lot of Python
| positions.
|
| If you filter for companies based in the US only, the pay
| is pretty good.
|
| There is a lot of luck involved in getting hired
| (especially after going through an interview, since from
| there the process is very subjective). It sucks, but you
| just have to keep trying. One day you will be the lucky
| one. Good luck!
| passingmagic wrote:
| Is the TC at these small companies (particularly taking
| into account the risk of any stock options) comparable to
| the TC at Big Tech (notwithstanding the recent sell-off
| on Wall Street)?
|
| Or do you give up some TC for the other benefits of
| working at these small startups?
| triyambakam wrote:
| Are you able to share where you're hiring?
| pc86 wrote:
| I don't think it violates any rules here, so sure. The
| company is called ServicePower, we run a handful of apps
| in the field service, insurance, and warranty industries.
| My teams are NodeJS, AWS, Kafka, but there are other
| teams (some with open recs as well) that do C++ or Java
| if that's more your thing. All teams are remote-first and
| all teams are US or UK. I added my email to my profile if
| you (or anyone else) is interested in discussing more.
| bitexploder wrote:
| They almost always mean "talented/experienced" people are in
| demand. Not some random who did a bootcamp and watched a few YT
| videos and can barely copy and paste from stack overflow.
| mouzogu wrote:
| Issue is that many jobs are getting 100s of applicants, and
| even if you're "talented" you can easily still get lost in
| the system.
|
| That's without considering the related huge levels of
| gatekeeping now happening in hiring. Some experienced people
| are just too jaded to deal with it.
| bin_bash wrote:
| If you actually are talented, and reasonably right for the
| role: figure out who the hiring manager is and message them
| on LinkedIn. You don't have to make sure it's the right HM,
| as long as you're close they'll point you in the right
| direction.
|
| I've done this many times (before working in big tech) and
| I have always received a response. There is only 1 company
| that I've failed to get through for at least some kind of a
| screen: MSFT. They seem to want nothing to do with me.
| bluGill wrote:
| I is frustrating from our side too. My boss just sent me a
| half dozen resumes: they all look the same to me: someone
| fresh out of a CS degree looking for a job (this is an
| entry level position so that is what we want). I really
| don't want to interview 6 people for one position, so who
| do we call in?
| joebob42 wrote:
| The "fair" and probably also reasonable imo thing to do
| is just pick randomly if you have a bunch of equally good
| people and can't interview them all.
|
| Or make them do leetcode stuff, I think this situation is
| basically what that whole part of the process is for.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> he receives 4000+ applications on a job and nobody in Europe
| should consider this career_
|
| Why would you assume he's trolling? In some EU countries the
| market is insanely competitive due to great free schools
| churning out coders like crazy due to the tech hype, plus tons
| of skilled immigrants from developing nations trying to break
| into the market, so companies are very picky since they get
| bombarded with applications, so people with little experience
| or failing the culture fit or whatever arbitrary metrics are
| used, can easily fall through the cracks and not find a job
| despite being talented.
|
| The high demand you hear is true, but only for experienced
| seniors and, since nobody wants to take in juniors and train
| them this creates a bottleneck of artificial scarcity despite
| the high supply of less experienced devs.
| habibur wrote:
| Guess developers are in high demand in US/UK. And not at all in
| rest of the world. Reading the comments on the original post, I
| assume this picture.
| lmc wrote:
| > Behind your "software development job" are 100 Chinese and
| Indian applicants lined up and they are willed to do your job
| it for a handful of rice.
|
| A troll, or very isolated individual (perhaps both).
| tluyben2 wrote:
| > handful of rice
|
| Maybe 20 years ago.
| kharak wrote:
| I have a hard time believing that comment. I know people who
| graduated recently with a software developer degree. Some in
| their late 20ties and the degree is not from a university. They
| got instant job offers. If you have a degree and can actually
| write code, you're in.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Maybe in hot markets like US or UK, but some of EU is pretty
| bleak.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Your inbox can literally have that many applications in it, but
| by far most of them are junk. A lot of them seem like they're
| sent to intentionally not get seen, like they're part of some
| requirement to apply for jobs or something like that, eg people
| with no appropriate skill listed, or anything at all similar to
| what was advertised.
|
| Then there's also complete dreamers. I hear football clubs
| often get guys who've played Champ Manager sending in an
| application on a whim.
| armitron wrote:
| Skilled developers are in demand, but the market is _flooded_
| not only with low-barrier-to-entry applicants that can't even
| do the basics but also beginner programmers with constructed
| work histories that can masquerade a lot better and as a result
| require more time to see through and filter. This state of
| affairs is also rapidly getting worse..
|
| If someone entering the field now has nothing (e.g. CS degree
| from a good university, high-quality projects), to help him
| raise above this noise, it's a fool's gamble.
| tarentel wrote:
| This has been happening to me so much lately. Half the
| applicants I receive look great on paper and then I realize
| their only "work" experience are a bunch of "companies" they
| made up for some side projects. The other half of the people
| I am not even sure why they are applying as they literally
| have no idea how to code. I can't imagine what the recruiters
| are receiving if I am getting the filtered version.
| Peach_blue wrote:
| Thanks for that nuanced insight.
|
| I'm currently trying out whether frontend development could
| be for me in my mid thirties. I knew that bootcamp marketing
| and YouTubers were exaggerating when it came to the jobs and
| their requirements. But I didn't think there would be so much
| 'noise' indeed.
|
| I guess that means to only go through with it if you are
| really, really good and actually enjoy doing it. Not because
| it promises money and job stability.
| armitron wrote:
| I'm in my early 50s with a career spanning three decades,
| worked in fintech, worked in various FAANGs, lived in SV
| for close to 10 years, lived in NYC for half as long, now
| semi-retired.
|
| For someone young (early to mid 20s), I agree with what you
| wrote. Being really, really good and actually enjoying
| doing it, should be a must.
|
| For someone of your age or older, I see a lot more risk. If
| you start from zero, it will take you at least 5 years to
| build up ammunition (a degree from a good university and
| some demonstrable experience) that's going to open the
| doors that you need open and give you a shot at passing the
| entrance tests. And then the "being really, really good"
| part comes in except you're now 5 years older facing fierce
| competition and there's no guarantee that you will succeed
| (who knows what the market will be in 5-10 years, the
| trajectory doesn't look promising).
|
| Personally, I wouldn't do it. The skills needed to offset
| the risk are hard to acquire in the timespans we're talking
| about, unless you're truly exceptional. But offseting the
| risk for me means living in the US and working at one of
| the FAANGs (job security and very high total compensation).
| Others see it differently.
| Peach_blue wrote:
| I appreciate your comment and the honesty.
|
| Funny thing is, I considered coding because I didn't see
| my natural talent as a copywriter (not in english) to be
| recession proof enough. Then everyone talked about how
| coders are in such demand etc.
|
| I never stopped to think that tech is an industry like
| any other. And that when the economy tanks all those
| start-ups and companies who are willing to gamble on an
| inexperienced junior dev will behave very differently.
|
| Doesn't speak for my problem solving skills, actually.
| Lol.
|
| I will surely re-evaluate my motivations.
| michaelbrave wrote:
| It's been my life experience that none of what you hear is "in
| demand" actually is, what it instead translates to is "not
| willing to pay or hire or train enough".
|
| My friends who work in nursing tell me it's not that there
| isn't a talent pool, it's that they are short staffed due to
| hiring limitations more than lack of interest, which then feels
| like being short staffed because everyone is putting in more
| time, which makes the environment suck, which does make people
| quit, especially exaserbated with covid and conspiracy
| theorists treating them poorly. But until the underlying issues
| are solved, it's not a real shortage as there are qualified
| people looking for work but not being hired.
|
| Teacher shortage is similar, not willing to pay them
| enough(even when school funding is high, teacher pay stays
| low), and the amount of bullshit they have to put up with seems
| to go up every year, which is unrelated to amount of people
| with teaching credentials.
|
| Programming has a similar problem, every company wants senior
| roles but very few are willing to train, so it's a bottleneck
| more than a shortage.
| ldayley wrote:
| This comment proves the author's thesis, which is "The culture
| is ageist so you probably won't stand out using the same skills
| as the newer devs or companies. Find an obscure, unsexy,
| perhaps almost obsolete niche and specialize because the kids
| or mid-career engineers don't even bother with those jobs."
|
| Now if only there was a way to monetize a COBOL or ABAP channel
| on Youtube, hmmm...
|
| *Edited for clarity
| starwind wrote:
| Tangential to this piece: if you're worried about ageism,
| consider going into to defense and aerospace. Lots of older
| developers because of the clearance requirement
| corrral wrote:
| Shit, they probably have trouble hiring & retaining people
| under 40, thanks to the clearance requirement. Big overlap
| between the millennial-and-younger tech crowd and folks who are
| fairly big fans of federally-illegal drugs. At least cannabis,
| if nothing else.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Not in my experience. There's plenty of people under 40 in
| the defense industry. Every big defense contractor has
| internship programs to feed people in fresh out of
| university. And once you're in, it can be difficult to get
| out, since the pay is above average for the regions (and the
| benefits are glorious), but the workload is so light. It's
| not unusual to be on a project that's going nowhere for four
| months, so you get to come in and do busy work.
|
| Hiring is tough right now, but it's tough for everyone. But
| that has lead to a huge increase in wages. Every one of my
| friends in the industry has seen promotions and 40% pay
| raises.
| Animats wrote:
| There are more jobs appearing in that area. We're going to need
| more guns to contain Russia's attempt to reconquer the former
| Soviet Union.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| If you already have a clearance, sure. Otherwise, it's usually
| _more_ ageist, at least ever since the OPM hack caused the SSBI
| process to span out so long. Since you go back the lesser of
| either 10 years or when a candidate turned 18, it pays to hire
| people younger than 28 since their investigations won 't have
| to go back as far and can thus be completed faster.
| wilsonfiifi wrote:
| Coldfusion might be a good tech stack to learn. I'm sure there
| are a multitude of legacy apps/sites that still use it.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Anyone have (a link to) equivalent advice for transitioning into
| product management?
| ozim wrote:
| Well not only QA not only niche languages.
|
| If you get semi-technical there are loads of product
| owner/business analysts roles to fill in.
|
| Let alone if you just want any job there is first line support /
| second line support.
|
| There are plenty configuration roles which don't require
| knowledge of coding but ability to learn configuration settings,
| operating browser, operating software on different angle than
| just using it - but being able to congfigure it for others to
| use.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Umm, excuse me, what?
|
| The author is telling people to pick up Cobol/Basic/Pascal/MUMPS
| (and not Go or another modern language) as their first language
| in 2022? To make themselves more employable? How did this make it
| to the front page? I get that some people will like the old-man
| grumpiness in the post but put that aside and focus on the actual
| advice they're giving - it's just outright harmful career advice.
|
| And also, think about it from first principles - why would people
| starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most
| people need to pick different tools? It makes no sense at all.
| SassyGrapefruit wrote:
| >why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years
| later than most people need to pick different tools? It makes
| no sense at all.
|
| *One low barries to entry* Companies like Vanguard are
| desperate for Cobol engineers. They'll train just about anyone.
| I know quite a few financial analysts of all ages that made the
| leap to maintain their legacy systems and are doing quite well
| for themselves. There is little competition for this sort of
| job
|
| *It might work out well for everyone* Not everyone is looking
| to do the latest, most marketable work. Imagine someone that is
| 57 and plans to retire in 5-10 years. This works out great for
| both them and the employer. The employer gets coverage on their
| legacy systems, springs free folks earlier in their career to
| build that sexy, next gen replacement, the employee gets a
| nice, cushy ride into the sunset. If its planned well the
| replacement system arrives right around retirement time.
| Migrate and move to Florida
|
| *Some folks are not looking to ride the dragon* Some folks love
| the idea of a system that is completely understood and battle
| tested. Some of these legacy systems benefit from 30-40 years
| of hardening. Adding enhancements and such have clear, uniform
| processes honed over decades with very little in the way of
| surprises. For many folks the idea of come in at 9 and leave at
| 5 with little volatility is very appealing.
|
| To each their own.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > There is little competition for this sort of job
|
| On both sides of the market. There's like 75 times as many
| javascript job listing as there are cobol ones on popular job
| boards.
|
| You can get all of those things without leaning on a tech
| stack with such a small job pool. Most development jobs,
| especially at large companies, are maintenance-oriented
| development.
|
| Java is the ecosystem to learn if the three points you listed
| are important to someone. There are gobs of Java jobs out
| there, many are battle-tested systems built long ago running
| in established companies. Another benefit is that there's an
| actual job market for Java developers, which should be a huge
| consideration for everyone, because having a stable job isn't
| the same as having a stable job feel good going to every day.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And also, think about it from first principles - why would
| people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than
| most people need to pick different tools?
|
| Because the people hiring people that are relatively
| inexperienced but not practicing undercover age discrimination
| tend to be very much not representative of the industry, or
| opportunities for new programmers, at large; people starting
| their career late need to specifically target that market
| segment, not the more general one.
|
| Note: I am not convinced of the specific advice, particularly
| in language focus, that the author here gives, but it is still
| less wrong than your suggestion that there is no difference
| between the optimum approaches for (by age) late- and early-
| entrants to programming.
| eatonphil wrote:
| > Because the people hiring people that are relatively
| inexperienced but not practicing undercover age
| discrimination tend to be very much not representative of the
| industry, or opportunities for new programmers, at large;
| people starting their career late need to specifically target
| that market segment, not the more general one.
|
| The other place that doesn't practice age discrimination as
| much in my experience is local companies. They have a hard
| time attracting anyone in the first place so it's the easiest
| to get started if you just show you're reliable and willing
| to learn/work.
| [deleted]
| bluGill wrote:
| > the people hiring people that are relatively inexperienced
| but not practicing undercover age discrimination tend to be
| very much not representative of the industry
|
| That is our gain. I've interviewed some great talent for
| entry level positions who have 20 year experience in weird
| non-programming things. They lack the technical skills to be
| worth more than entry level pay, but their resume shows more
| passion than many of the fresh out of CS (or boot camp) they
| are competing against. They also have enough background that
| if their skills develop as expected they will move up the
| ladder quickly.
| soneca wrote:
| I agree with GP. The article's author is completely wrong
| IMO. If there is a difference in the approach of a twenty-
| something and a forty years old to start a software
| development career is _not_ in the language choice. I think
| both should consider the same things regarding their choice.
| Namely: what they feel they like more and what has the most
| jobs.
|
| The difference is more likely to be in the interview skills.
| How they can make an effort to relate more with the
| interviewer (since they won't "naturally" connect through
| popular videogame tastes, memes, slangs, or whatever).
| eatonphil wrote:
| My dad has a few decades experience with MUMPS and he has a hard
| time finding a job every time he's had to go looking. There are
| few jobs and they seem competitive.
|
| I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to learn it now for a
| job.
| wooly_bully wrote:
| Not sure if I agree with some of the specifics of this, but the
| overall sentiment is still valuable. There's a lot of work out
| there for non-youngsters looking to get into software
| development. Lots of hiring companies will value your experience
| even if it's not directly related to coding.
|
| Wrote these just after I switch careers ~4 years ago:
|
| 1. https://zmsy.co/blog/career-switch/ 2.
| https://zmsy.co/blog/switching-careers-to-software-engineeri...
| stblack wrote:
| Maintaining and extending legacy code is, in many ways,
| orthogonal to its underlying language.
|
| You can make a 2x2 matrix with "legacy code quality" on one axis,
| and "language percieved desireability" on the other axis.
|
| You can make truckloads of money, earn much respect, with nearly
| zero negative ageism, in at least one of those quadrants.
|
| "Building new" versus "maintaining existing" are different
| mindsets, and often a choice.
|
| For older people just getting started, "maintaining existing" is
| often the wiser first decision. From there, the particular mix of
| language and tech stack count, and often the more obscure the
| better.
|
| Find a good niche.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Do you have any real world examples of this?
| s_dev wrote:
| COBOL Devs probably earn more than React Devs.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Every time I've gone looking for COBOL jobs on job sites
| out of curiosity I always see them paying pretty poorly.
|
| On Glassdoor for Cobol [0] the standard range is $54k to
| $179k (presumably in NYC metro where I am) with a reported
| maximum of $306k. The standard range for React [1] is $49k
| to $257k with a reported maximum of $550k.
|
| I'm not saying Glassdoor is perfect but better to have
| these discussions based on some measured data than just
| common mantra that legacy is boring but pays better.
|
| [0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/cobol-programmer-
| salary-S...
|
| [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/react-developer-
| salary-SR...
| pc86 wrote:
| How many of those React jobs include RSUs from privately
| owned companies? I would venture that approximately 100%
| of the COBOL jobs that's all cash compensation/salary.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Privately owned companies don't give RSUs normally they
| do stock options or revenue sharing but yes your point is
| good.
|
| Startups and public companies both seem to pay better
| base salary for modern tech developers and also give you
| equity or profit sharing. Whereas the government or
| government contractor companies that often stick with old
| tech (it seems) you'll only get cash.
|
| Banks may be an exception since many do give stock or
| good bonuses. But I don't often see bank positions
| looking for COBOL developers.
| pc86 wrote:
| > _Startups and public companies both seem to pay better
| base salary for modern tech developers and also give you
| equity or profit sharing._
|
| I've worked for a couple public companies, none of which
| gave any stock or any profit sharing to the engineering
| staff. I've also worked for private companies that had
| some profit sharing but it was never discussed other than
| "there is profit sharing" even when it was a substantial
| percentage (one place I consistently got 6-8% of my
| salary as profit sharing).
|
| More popular lately seems to be the pseudo-bonus-pseudo-
| profit-share thing where you have a set percentage of
| your salary as "bonus" but it requires the company
| overall hitting specific revenue and profit numbers, so
| it's essentially profit sharing with a cap.
|
| I think my point is comp structures are all over the
| place, but "large public company giving base, bonus, and
| stock" is a small minority, while "private company giving
| base, and _maybe_ a bonus sometimes " is the most common.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Why is that a bad thing to offer all cash? Equity from
| private companies is statistically worthless. I wouldn't
| even count it as part of my compensation.
| pc86 wrote:
| I don't think it's a bad thing (quite the opposite) but
| it's common to take high SV salaries that include hard-
| to-hit discretionary bonuses and hundreds of thousands in
| stock, and compare that TC number to the $175k offered by
| the private company that's also hiring. It's an apples to
| hammers comparison.
| scarface74 wrote:
| All of the public tech companies that I know about
| basically guarantee you cash + stock and a known vesting
| schedule over at least two years. Of course, we are
| living through the first era where BigTech stocks are
| tanking left and right.
|
| I just left working at "normal companies" most of my
| career to work at BigTech two years ago at 46. My base
| pay was about the same. But my stock/prorated signing
| bonus brought my total compensation up by around 25%. I
| can (and do) sell my stock as soon as it vests.
|
| I'm on the low end of BigTech compensation. I work
| remotely and did a slight career pivot from software
| engineering.
|
| Yes, I know about the dot com bust. Those weren't large
| _profitable_ tech companies and they didn't have the head
| count that companies have now
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Every time I've gone looking for COBOL jobs on job
| sites out of curiosity I always see them paying pretty
| poorly
|
| Sure, but the places known for paying well in the
| industry are also fairly overtly hostile to late-entrants
| and non-traditional career paths unless those people have
| already built a successful business and are getting
| acquihired.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Then more reason not to suggest people go into COBOL I
| guess (not saying you suggested they should, just
| responding about this thread overall).
| Juliate wrote:
| (seen from France)
|
| Those are only public bids, and not everything goes
| through public channels.
|
| Companies working with COBOL (or things like AS400) do so
| because they've been using it for some time already.
|
| So they mostly already know the networks of professionals
| they will hire for the job, and that's often their own
| past employees who went freelance, or keep contracting
| after legal retirement kicks in. Professionals who also
| act as hiring agents for their replacements.
| eatonphil wrote:
| That's good to know. But for the purposes of people
| considering a new career wouldn't their position be
| basically the same as what you see publicly reported on
| Glassdoor? (assuming there's not some bias like people
| who use COBOL are less likely to also use Glassdoor and
| enter salaries there)
|
| If you're starting a new career you wouldn't have a
| network.
| Juliate wrote:
| If you're starting a new career, I'm not sure the info
| you will find on Glassdoor will speak much to you either
| (or, not as much as when you already have had one or two
| positions - because then you know how to interpret some
| signals companies broadcast through their ads, or their
| employees reports).
|
| And looking after COBOL (or an old tech, without having
| been introduced to it before) as an entry job is a bit
| peculiar.
|
| Better looking after the companies that still need it,
| understanding why, and then going through them for
| specific jobs, linked or not to COBOL.
|
| I understand the appeal of getting into it for the
| technology or the money, but getting into it for the
| problems and how to solve them first will open many more
| paths (and as much if not more money).
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| Honestly, I really doubt it. This COBOL meme, is just that,
| a meme. Highest paid devs (>400k) generally work with brand
| new technology
| mywittyname wrote:
| COBOL devs have been at their same job for 10+ years. So
| take whatever the average dev wage was 10 years ago, and
| add 3% raises.
|
| Zip Recruiter puts average salaries at around $88k/yr with
| the top 10% making over $110k. Payscale puts salaries a
| little lower than that.
|
| The of the few job postings I see, none have salary
| information listed -- in my experience, that tends to mean
| the salaries are low or average. And if you're a COBOL
| engineer, jobs opportunities are slim, even in a region
| with a large number of older banks and insurance companies
| (read: prime COBOL industries). There's like one job each
| in areas like Omaha, NE; Alpharetta, GA; Montgomery County,
| AL; Chattanooga, TN; Milan, IL; Feather South, FL; etc. In
| other words, a bunch of places nobody has ever heard of.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The places that need to replace COBOL devs aging out of
| the work force with apps still running are among the
| places least likely to practice age discrimination to
| start with (and even if they were inclined to, there's
| not a pipeline of fresh out of college/bootcamp COBOL
| devs.)
|
| (C#/Java have lots more opportunities at the same type of
| workplaces, so aren't bad choices but also lots more
| competition at all experience levels and from more
| traditional career paths; still, late-entrants with
| relative domain expertise can be quite competitive with
| pure programmers.)
| askonomm wrote:
| I don't want to toot my own horn, but I wrote a blog post
| about being a niche programmer that you may or may not find
| useful: https://ano.ee/blog/the-niche-programmer
| [deleted]
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| It's too crazy to be satire.
| soneca wrote:
| From my personal experience, I disagree completely with the
| advice that "non-youngsters" switching careers to software
| development should aim for "non-fashionable" tech.
|
| I started to learn software development at 37 years old (shoutout
| to freeCodeCamp.org!). That was in 2017. I went the frontend
| route, so I naturally started with html, css, and javascript.
| Then, since React was already the most popular framework then, I
| started to learn it and build projects solely on React. I skipped
| Jquery, pre-ES5 javascript, and things like that. I focused on
| what was fashionable.
|
| It turned out great for me! I am a very happy and successful (in
| financial terms compared to what I earned early or expected to
| earn these days) web developer.
|
| Funny enough, my first job was using Ember. But six months in,
| the company decided to migrate to React, since it was getting
| harder and harder to hire people that wanted to work with Ember.
| Then a couple of React jobs. And now I started a job using Vue.
| So still learning fashionable things.
|
| Btw, I never noticed ageism against me. I worked on a big
| Brazilian startup and then on three small American startups. Of
| course, plenty of the jobs that I applied for and didn't get
| could be because of ageism, I'll never know, but I consider
| myself to be successful in getting jobs, so at least I think it
| is not something that affected the general outcome of my career.
| armitron wrote:
| Startups are not typically picky about hiring, in fact they
| have a major financial incentive to be anti-ageist. The problem
| is.. when the market tanks and startups go bust, it doesn't
| look so rosy anymore.
|
| Which is why the most coveted positions in this field are in a
| few corporations that pay top dollar. Getting hired there is a
| different story in terms of barrier to entry and competition
| you will face including ageism which is unfortunately very much
| present.
|
| So for someone non-young who looks at his future 10-20 years
| and tries to calculate risk, startups should not be taken into
| account. If one can't get a job at the top corps, one shouldn't
| enter the field. The risk is just too much.
| soneca wrote:
| > _" If one can 't get a job at the top corps, one shouldn't
| enter the field. The risk is just too much"_
|
| What?? I think I never read anything in HN that I disagree
| more with.
|
| I got fired December 1st last year because the company I
| worked was heading to an IPO and decided that they didn't
| want to work with full time contractors from outside the USA
| anymore. I got paid the whole December month. I started in a
| new job in January 18th.
|
| Being a good frontend developer is what minimizes the risk of
| my career, not working on companies that will exist in 20
| years. I doubt a lot that I will be working in the same
| company that I am now in 10 years.
| bin_bash wrote:
| So there is FAANG and there are startups? I think you left
| out a few companies.
| tragictrash wrote:
| First off, I wouldn't work for "one of the top corps", being
| FAANG companies. The work life balance is terrible. Find a
| company that does it's own business and wants to hire their
| own developers.
|
| How do you expect to get into the field, not just graduating
| college with a CS degree? Your advice is like a self
| fulfilling prophecy. Go work at a startup. You'll learn tons.
| Sure, job security won't be as good as an established
| company, but the barrier to entry isn't either.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Your mileage can certainly vary with work-life-balance in
| FAANGs - I've been at Alphabet for almost 7 years and I've
| had great WLB. It's something you have to do deliberately,
| though; especially with distributed teams, there's always
| going to be emails coming in, chats to read, documents and
| CLs to review, etc. If you're someone who tends towards
| workaholism you may need to set some boundaries in your
| life.
|
| I'm not saying this is universally true at Alphabet, as
| there are definitely groups that don't do a good job of
| this, but it's very doable.
| armitron wrote:
| That may still work when someone is in his 20s. For someone
| in mid-30s/early 40s, it's too much of a gamble, especially
| if one has a family to support.
|
| One starting from zero doesn't gain deep expertise in
| anything in a startup in the span of a few years. As long
| as the market is breaking one record after another and
| money is raining from the skies, this is not a problem. But
| it's an illusion and like all illusions, eventually will
| collapse. And when it does, you're at the bottom of the
| totem pole and as expendable as one can be. And this
| doesn't even take into account technological progress that
| is rapidly obsoleting many of these low-barrier-to-entry
| jobs.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You don't manage risk in your career by worrying about the
| company. You manage risk by making sure you have a marketable
| skillset, an updated resume, an updated "career document",
| and having savings.
|
| If you count on your company to never lay you off, you end up
| like old IBMers who got complacent, found they didn't have a
| marketable skillset and when they got laid off and couldn't
| find a job, they complained about "ageism".
|
| I'm 48 for what it is worth.
| triyambakam wrote:
| Very useful advice, something I wish I would have kept in
| mind sooner!
| mouzogu wrote:
| I'm a front end developer for 15 years, same age as you. I'm
| looking to leave the industry, so I kind of agree with the
| author. It's a matter of perspective I guess.
|
| I just feel this field has become incredibly over saturated and
| it's now a race to the bottom.
| scsilver wrote:
| Which field hasn't in your opinion?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Medicine. There's never gonna be a short supply of old and
| sick people needing care. Doctors enjoy a job stability
| second to none.
| bumby wrote:
| Isn't the trend in the industry to rely more heavily on
| nurse practitioners and physician assistants instead of
| MDs as primary care providers?
|
| I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but from
| one perspective it seems to put downward pressure on the
| salary of primary care providers.
| passingmagic wrote:
| The "shortage" of medical professionals - esp. doctors -
| I believe is a manufactured one. The medical associations
| and societies that control approvals operate in a manner
| similar to OPEC. They keep supply down to keep prices
| high. This is almost a scam, given the lengthy wait times
| for doc appointments in many urban areas.
| askonomm wrote:
| I felt the same way, but then I learnt a niche programming
| language (Clojure), and get to do front-end work for double
| the salary, with far less competition, and I quite enjoy
| programming again. Not saying it will work for you, but worth
| a thought!
| soneca wrote:
| I am not sure what the metric of "bottom" you are using, but
| I am earning 14x the salary of my first job as a junior
| developer in 2017.
|
| About 6x the salary of the job I had before changing careers
| (I took a pay cut when I started as a junior).
|
| Definitely a race up for me.
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