The fate of old programmers

Programmers who have been engaged in programming and development activities for a long time all hope to reach a high enough position in their 50s, or to retire smoothly.

But what I am discussing here may be a question you haven’t thought about yet: What if you are unemployed by then?

50Your career will become a problem when you are older. If you have good skills and someone hires you, you will have a high title, or you are an expert, or have good interpersonal relationships, you may find a new position.

Otherwise, you will go from having no worries about food and clothing to becoming homeless. This is real. I'm 55 years old, my resume will make you feel very good, 10 years ago I was making as much as $1 million. Now I'm a homeless person. I am not in good health, have no medical insurance, and do not have a dentist. The only jobs I could find were manual labor that required little skill, and I couldn't do it.

I'm trying to be a tutor. However, this amount of money is basically not enough to pay the gas bill. The boss of an administrative assistant company rejected me because they only wanted experienced candidates.

Two people considered me taking care of their older relatives, but I didn’t. One of my duties when I go there is to wait on people who poop and pee.

I don’t want you to become like me. What I can give you are some of my suggestions:

1. Climb up in the workplace, don’t stop.

2. Become an expert in something – although it’s also important to keep your technical skills broad enough so you don’t get left behind.

3. Build a network of people. Expand it.

4. Diversify your investments.

5. You must have medical insurance when you are working, don’t have any problems in this regard. If you lose your job, your money, and your health insurance, this becomes a serious problem.

6. Be kind to others. But don't be stupid. Most people you help will not repay you.

Regarding becoming an expert in something, I did some recruiting work in 2011, and I’m sure the market didn’t really like generalist/generalist technicians.

Technically I have been an all-rounder for 35 years. My job requires me to do this. I can do most any project that comes my way, including any kind of programming development. When the dot-com bubble hit and the company ran out of money, I took on all the technical roles; IT, website, development, tech support, documentation, etc. I know a little bit of everything.

Later, these experiences did not bring any changes to me. There are very few job postings that say “we need someone who knows a little bit about everything.” When the dot-com bubble burst in 2003, I made $1 million from holdings. After that, most of them were lost, and I had to go back to the job market to find a job. Only then did I realize that recruiting units did not have much demand for older technical generalists.

As far as my personal situation is concerned, some things are different from yours. This is another story, I will talk about it next time. But if you are a technical generalist and you are unemployed in middle age, you are likely to encounter a situation like this:

"With such experience, you should be a CTO? Why don't you even have a job?"

They will ask you algorithm questions - questions you haven't thought about in 30 years. Or require you to take a coding exam - under such unfavorable circumstances, you will not be able to use your skills at all.

Plan ahead. Nine times out of ten, life is unsatisfactory.

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