Hopeless feelings software development jobs

October 14, 2019 2:32 PM

My husband is a back-end software developer. He has seen a lot of ageism in this field, and is worried about how sustainable it is for him, especially as he is thinking longer term about his career and our life. I'm not in the field so I don't have perspective on this, and I'd really welcome others' thoughts. Separately but relatedly, he also struggles with depression and when this sort of work is very deadline-based with too much happening, he gets really stressed and anxious and can spiral pretty quickly from there. Are there programmer roles that are typically less stressful types of roles that folks would recommend he pursue?
posted by jenbo1 to Work & Money (18 answers total)

My husband has worked for the same Large Corporation for nearly 20 years now. He started as a low-level programmer and is now a senior manager. I wouldn't say the stress is lower but it's different stress, and it seems to be easier to manage. He took advantage of all the training and development the Corporation offered and it's been great.

He does, however, miss the day-to-day programming, so that's something to consider.

In short: I'd recommend your husband pursue a career where he can be developed. Without knowing where you are, it's hard to be more specific.
posted by cooker girl at 2:40 PM on October 14, 2019

I am a woman software developer and my spouse (cis male) is a software professional. We are both over 50. There is definitely tons of ageism, but there are also good companies that have much more of a diversity focus in their workforce and hiring practices. A few years ago I tried transitioning from development to another role in software teams, but I decided to go back to development because it suited me better. I also moved to a better company after I experienced job loss due to discrimination. My spouse is also currently experiencing job loss due to discrimination. I'd say that your spouse should not be disheartened if he wants to remain an individual contributor developer without starting his own business. There are companies out there that are better, but it might take a while to find them, and getting in touch with networks and asking around. If he is in Seattle, have him PM me and I'll tell him where I work now.
posted by matildaben at 2:44 PM on October 14, 2019

To piggyback on my answer, I'd suggest an established and/or large company that is not hip or flashy might have a slower work cycle and an older group of contributors. I'd stay away from startups. It also might be a few years behind the latest hotness in programming frameworks and languages, but that doesn't have to mean it's a dinosaur.
posted by matildaben at 2:45 PM on October 14, 2019

Hey, I'm a full-stack software developer and a woman in her 40s, and my job is not particularly deadline-driven or stressful. We have a bit of a crunch a few times a year but I rarely work more than 35-40 hours and weeks over 50 hours are basically nonexistent for me. It's at a small company (under 50 employees) but not a startup. Our stack is not the absolute hottest, newest thing around but it's not ancient or dead-end. Basically I agree that there are laid-back software jobs out there. They are usually not at high-growth startups, which is where a lot of the open jobs will be because, you know, they're growing fast.

I do worry a little about ageism/sexism (I don't feel it in my current job but I do worry a bit about how it would go if I were looking for a new job), but I also get paid sufficiently well that if I can make it through the next five years or so I could retire or downshift pretty comfortably.

It might be harder to find the laid-back companies because they're often not as aggressive at recruiting (some of them are just plain bad at it). Sometimes this is because they can afford not to be (e.g. they have low turnover and/or aren't growing quickly and don't have to recruit often). Sometimes they're just bad at it.

Also if he's new to software, if he can stick it out for a few years there is a huge deficit of senior developers/developer managers. It is really hard to hire seniors, and I think to some extent the tendency towards ageism can be counteracted by just sheer desperation for experienced engineers.
posted by mskyle at 3:03 PM on October 14, 2019

It can be a really interesting exercise to just search "developer" on Indeed or whatever and consider the diversity of positions not as a potential applicant (not at first) but more, eh, anthropologically: what kind of companies BESIDES official software development companies are hiring developers, what kind of skills are they looking for, what kind of career-path-growth do they offer?

I come from a world where a lot of my customers are not software companies but have developers in-house to deal with integration between various business systems, e-commerce, integration between accounting/fulfillment/warehouse systems, customization of third-party products, completely in-house bits and pieces for user operations, financial reporting and accounting. It is true that a lot of the ground-level coders are younger or offshore, but there's room for managerial/stakeholder positions (usually either under the umbrella of IT or Finance/Accounting or Operations) that are technical, architectural, and operational. (An MBA can be an asset in these kind of positions, which might be something he should consider. I'm creeping toward 50 and thinking about doing that myself since I'm clearly going to have to work another 30 at least.)

There's also a place for developer-technical resources in software implementation, like business system implementation and customization. I have worked for these kinds of companies most of my adult career, and there is always this wishful thinking among top management that they can just hire college grads and tell them how to be consultants and they'll be super cheap and just as good as us demanding old grouchos with 10-15-20+ years of systems and consulting and just going-to-work-with-other-people experience...but that doesn't actually work and customers do not feel comforted by that either. There's still ageism in my field, but a) it's really different to my experience in mainline tech industry b) our customers skew older so it's different c) experience has a lot of value as long as you don't get TOO grouchy in your older years.

Memail me and I'll link you to my company's careers page and describe more specifically what I do.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:09 PM on October 14, 2019

I'm coming up on 30 years in IT as a developer, managing developers, or having a groups of developers as part of my portfolio. I have acquaintances my age who are still working software engineers. The ageism is real, but is also appears to vary a lot shop by shop, at least in my metro.

If I was looking to future proof my career as an engineer, I would steer away from companies where the software is the product (or the service), and the business is focused on innovating and shipping new features all of the time. Those are going to be the shops that will have a death march culture with crazy hours and middle-of-the night deployments. Those are also the shops that are going to want to embrace the newest technologies and frameworks, which generates a lot of homework for an engineer staying on top of that stuff.

I would steer towards companies/industries with large, legacy systems that have a business impact for being down or defects (think certain parts of the financial industry, insurance, parts of transportation/logistics). Think old code bases with a lot of technical debt. Those shops will (sometimes) have more process, be more structured about planning and doing the work, and put a premium on domain knowledge and ability to work on the code base which may be implemented in a not-very-fashionable-anymore technology stack.
posted by kovacs at 3:11 PM on October 14, 2019

I have some experience in this area; I've been everything from a backend software developer to managing a few hundred people. There's absolutely agism in the industry but is is VERY unevenly distributed. Some companies are great, some are awful. I think matildaben has a good perspective on it, and some other answers above are great as well. If you're in NY or Chicago I can give you more specific advice, feel free to memail me.
posted by true at 3:15 PM on October 14, 2019

I'm 42 and I've been working as a software developer since I was about 19.

I think ageism definitely exists, however IME it seems like places generally tend to hire people (*for better or worse) that are "like" the people who work there.

So when I was 20 I looked around and saw 20 year olds only and kind of paniced and thought, where will I work when I'm 30? But the next job I got mostly hired people with a few more years of experience than my first job, and the next mostly hired people in late 20s early 30s etc. The place I work now is mostly guys in their 40s and 50s. Most of these guys are "senior developers" - I mean sure a lot of devs move into management as they get older, but a lot don't. Personally I have a leadership role (I'm a "team lead") but I still work day to day as a programmer, I just have some extra meeting load and paperwork.

(* the downside is that most places also seem to hire people like them in gender and race)
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:32 PM on October 14, 2019

All good advice here.

One thing I would add is that management is not an all or nothing proposition. A developer who can manage two or three other developers has real utility. And the one thing you never hear said about managers (at least at any place you want to work) is that the company is desperate to find them right out of school.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:06 PM on October 14, 2019

My last (before retirement) job was with a company with about 50 employees. I was the programmer, basically the only one writing code. They even called me the CIO when it served their purpose. It was not particularly high pressure, and I got to make all the technical decisions.

For most of my career, I worked in languages and environments that were way back from the bleeding edge, and I worked a lot of legacy systems and legacy code. I decided about the year 2000 that I wasn't going to write internet apps. I did a little of it, so I knew what was required, but I'd never be the best at it, and there was, and probably still is, a ton of client-server stuff still running.

Finally, one asset of older employees is that they have more business knowledge. Managers like employees that dont have to have every little thing explained.

So, small company, legacy systems and/or a business he knows well.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:12 PM on October 14, 2019

I'm in my mid-50s and did web development from 1995 until this year. It took me five months to find my last web development job, and I definitely felt that ageism was part of it.

I was originally an English major and my tech knowledge is mostly self-taught, so I also was tired of competing with people in their 20s with computer science degrees. I'm a pretty good programmer, but slow compared to them.

I got a public sector job as a Systems Analyst, which lets me leverage my experience to find solutions for people's technical needs, and I still get to do some coding.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:44 PM on October 14, 2019

Have him look at larger, more established companies.

I have 20 years experience and for the last 6 I've worked at everyone's favorite fruit company.

I'm 39, my recently re-org'ed boss was 42, my new boss is 50ish. My coworkers are 30, 35, 42, 35ish and 45ish.

My org typically looks for more "senior" engineers, so kids right out of school don't have enough seasoning.

We'd probably have more people in the 50's in my larger team except all those guys/girls were around to come up with and build the music and App Store, so they retired instead.

My father does navigation systems for Raytheon, and he practically gets teary eyed anytime someone in mid 30's or younger joins his team. Average age for his stuff is prob mid 40's. He works with dudes who come back as contractors way into their 70's.
posted by sideshow at 5:31 PM on October 14, 2019

The management track is certainly a common way to age gracefully as a software developer but it's not the only one. Increasingly even small-to-midsize companies are creating individual contributor seniority/development tracks, ie. senior, principal, staff engineer titles. In my experience, the best way to advance is to go deep in a particular technical niche that has long-term viability and market yourself accordingly.
posted by signalnine at 5:33 PM on October 14, 2019

Yeah, what kovacs says jibes with what I've been experiencing. Media companies, retail companies, other large or medium 20-year-plus companies who rely a lot on technology. That's been pretty much the entirety of my career for the last 15 years.
posted by matildaben at 5:37 PM on October 14, 2019

Yeah technical tracks are great and I hope that becomes more common. Instead of going into middle management you can become a team lead or an architect or a subject matter expert etc.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:38 PM on October 14, 2019

I'm a 58 y/o senior director of engineering. I've been in management since my late 20's and the last time I wrote production code was around 30 years ago. Having been in the job market the past several years (while employed, just not always happily) I would point out that there are 3-10 engineers for every first level manager and 2-6 first level managers for every director. If your husband can stay technically relevant and likes being an individual contributor (and there are a lot of good suggestions up thread) then I would suggest staying with that. Managers have different kinds of crunch time, and a lot of interpersonal stress. Management is a different ball game -- you are responsible for the output of your team, but you cannot make anyone do anything so you have to find ways to influence, motivate, inspire, etc... your developers. I like doing that, but it is not for everyone. Plus laying people off, implementing directives you disagree with, etc... are also, unfortunately, sometimes part of the job.
posted by elmay at 6:12 PM on October 14, 2019

Legacy systems is one way to go to avoid ageism. My cohort is now in their 50s and early 60s, all of them are still working. Many of them are doing maintenance and feature enhancement on custom-made software that was written 20-30 years ago. They are sitting in the catbird seat because no one else knows how that stuff works. Young hotshots don't want to do this stuff because they like to work on the sexiest futureware. The caveat is that you must pick a company that's going to be around for the timeframe.

Regarding going into management - tread very carefully. That is an entirely different job. It can be even more stressful than development. Now you are dealing with people issues, you are responsible for delivering software but you are relying on your team to deliver. In the best case, when you have good people working under decent deadlines it's grand. In the worst case, it is a total nightmare (e.g. unsupportive upper management, demotivated/dysfunctional or unqualified team members)
posted by storybored at 9:49 AM on October 16, 2019

I just came across this blog post from yesterday about how someone progressed their developer career without going into management, which might be interesting to your husband:

The management path isn’t the only way to be a technical leader. I don’t wish to become a manager; I tried it briefly (73 days to be exact, I counted) and decided managing other people wasn’t where my passion lies. I like being an engineer. In particular, I flourish in a strategic technical leadership role.

My solution to remaining a (full-stack-ish) web developer for 20+ years has been to be a freelancer (and gradually working less, to be honest) but that has its own challenges, as well as its upsides.
posted by fabius at 2:47 AM on October 17, 2019