[Asish_VK]

Originally Posted by SoumenD

45?50? Have you guys seen the condition of folks with 15 years experience already? They would be sub 40 and already struggling to get a call. I know quite a few folks around that experience level struggling to secure even a call post covid restructuring, let alone getting an offer..

I can totally relate. Even though I am not in pure IT field, I found it really hard to get a job after covid restructure.
I also have 15 years of experience and for some reason I wanted to change the job. It was way harder than I thought. got only couple of calls in 7 months of search which were also not fruitful.
It took 8 months for me to find a job new job.

Originally Posted by SoumenD

I am past mid-30s(15years exp now) and if another recession hits and I loose my current job, I really doubt getting a new job would be as simple as it was till I was in early 30s(10-12 years exp)..

100% agree. I too doubt, if I loose the current job for some reason, it will be a real struggle to find another job.

Originally Posted by SoumenD

Looking at this problem being faced by 40+ folks, I have realized the importance of "Financial Independence" like never before.

This, I realized during the above said job search period.
I was in a situation where I couldn't be without a job for even 1 week.
I am trying to close all my loans ASAP and be as independent as possible financially.

[adithya.kp]

This thread is an eye opener. Some great posts. This brings the question of what should one's strategy be?. Of course, the first priority is to be financially independent. But that alone is not enough. One might still want to work due to various reasons like social pressure, passion etc.
I can think of two options. ( This is primarily for individual contributors. But can be tweaked for other roles too)

1. Be relevant from a job market perspective. Brush up algorithms, data structures. Explore system design/scale etc. Keep applying/interviewing. (Despite knowing that it is very difficult to get interview calls, let alone a job.

2. Keep learning/exploring technologies. Try to build something on your own. ( These days its very easy since there are frameworks for almost everything and pay as you go kind of deployment models). And you wont care whether it will be successful or not. (Basically you should not expect any income from it. If it works, then it will be a bonus)

I would love to hear some expert opinions.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by motorpsycho

It is amazing how people think that older people are out of sync with current happenings. My US counterparts who are much more senior to me in exp and age, with who I work with closely, are aware on the on-goings, we discuss the latest Video Games, new cars and TV series, most of them are on reddit too.

I have also observed, they make excellent mentors, help youngsters navigate through their professional lives.

Originally Posted by ampere

With experience it is the vision, breadth of understanding and maturity that some one would like to hire for and not just the depth of technical skill alone.

Usually depth part will get saturated at some point in time (give 10-15 years) or can be complemented with a younger blood (under the guidance of a visionary). Hence its the experience, the amount of vision and leadership is what one looks for at higher levels of hiring.

Great points.

But the senior folks also need to understand that the higher you go, the lesser the number of positions. We cannot have a team of 10 people where everyone is an Architect( especially just because they all have coded for 15 years ).

I have seen it more than once where a guy with 10+ years of experience has the same output as a guy with 5+ years. But people want designations and salaries based on the number of years and not the contribution to the team/company.

[Artyom]

This post is really an eye opener for folks who are already in their 40's /50's or people who are in their 35s(Including Me) who in coming years will be in the same slot.
In my 12 years of IT career and being in the 7th company now i have observed few things which precedes any requirement for a position. These observations are in general and may or may not completely align to the specific topic in discussion.:-

1.Package plays a MAJOR role in hiring. Having a higher package as compared to the average for that role and experience acts as a negative. Irrespective hoe competent you are .I have seen people getting turned down after the Final round just because the initial package was higher. HOWEVER there is a caveat. This point stands true mostly for Service based companies as compared to Product based companies. Product companies are relatively more forgiving in that aspect.

2.Frequent job shifts is not a taboo now days at least if you are in not in management position. What matters is that the position should be filled by the right candidate.
This is more prominent for technical positions or positions in support.

3.Clearing out loans as soon as possible is the easiest way to ease out the burden off like others said. Having a 6 months corpus for your monthly expenses is a must in todays uncertain times.

4.Some Skills/Fields are more resilient to changes and more forgiving in general than others. For instance the Infrastructure domain(Servers Storage Virtualization Cloud) will always be in demand but has less skilled folks as compared to Programming field where the skilled workforce is more than the requirement. Additionally the pay scale for the programmers is more than the folks in Infra side.

5.In the Infra field i guess the age factor is less considered as compared to the management or other fields. Reason being the technical resource will also do the work of a manager while still being at a technical position.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by m8002?

But the senior folks also need to understand that the higher you go, the lesser the number of positions.

I agree. Thats why career planning is in one's own hands. (A good mentor always helps!) One cannot continue to perform the same task year on year. Learning new skills to do the same task better is not a career progress. That will only lead to saturation at some point in time. One will need to know how to grow in capacity to make difference in scale. That is growth in my opinion.

We cannot have a team of 10 people where everyone is an Architect( especially just because they all have coded for 15 years ).
I have seen it more than once where a guy with 10+ years of experience has the same output as a guy with 5+ years. But people want designations and salaries based on the number of years and not the contribution to the team/company.

If the 10 people are actually "architects" they really need to deliver as architects and not just code alone. That realisation they need to get or need to be shown.

A job title has an expectation and one should be able to honour it to be worthy of earning it. Its easy to say this, but I do believe in that statement. This makes a huge difference especially at higher levels. And thats one reason why hiring at higher levels is not easy.


Today many folks create additional titles to showcase progress to an employee. They use it as a tool to keep employee morale high to illustrate/celebrate his/her progress. But my earlier comment about one doing justice to the title really makes sense at higher levels (or cases where you define levels clearly) where usually one wont find such additional titles being introduced.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by m8002?

The senior guy's prior experience in C, VB, or whatever is not of much use.

I humbly disagree with this viewpoint.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Senior programmers usually have domain knowledge that takes many years to develop. If they don't have domain knowledge because they kept switching domains, then there is no reason to pay them higher than juniors. This generally happens in services industry.

The young programmers start coding in interpreted languages like python or in languages like C# or Java, which has their run time, memory management, and all such safety valves. What I have seen is, they don't care about performance or memory usage, or being 'frugal' on the usage of system resources to achieve something - this is when you compare them to those who grew up coding in C or C++.

The ability to think about solutions and most importantly, to visualize the proper design & architecture - you know this is easy when you have a senior guy onboard.

Nowadays, service companies want to recruit anyone with an AWS solutions architect certification - even 2 or 3 years experienced guys are taking that certification and are suddenly becoming 'hot properties' in the job arena. I think everyone will start to realize slowly that certification is just a certification and one's core experience matters a lot. A colleague says he has a couple of guys in the 2-3 years of experience category in his team and they have AWS certifications (architect!). But they can't solutionize anything without consulting - why? Because they haven't seen or been involved deeply in the game of software design from scratch. They aren't conditioned enough to think about the best solution, yet.

So, experience is experience. A guy with 3-4 years in the industry with a plethora of certifications isn't any match for a 15 year or 20-years experienced principal software developer. Not even close. There could be exceptions, but they are a rarity.

I am in my mid-forties, and I head the engineering side of a product in my company, and I still code too. There is one C++ component in our product, and guess what, I am maintaining that since the juniors are either scared to touch it or if some are allowed to touch it, the maintainability will go for a toss.

[CJP]

Originally Posted by clevermax

The young programmers start coding in interpreted languages like python or in languages like C# or Java, which has their run time, memory management, and all such safety valves. What I have seen is, they don't care about performance or memory usage, or being 'frugal' on the usage of system resources to achieve something - this is when you compare them to those who grew up coding in C or C++.

I think the key thing is most of our younger job seekers are focused on programming which IMHO is not 'engineering' - subcontracting in a manner of speaking, core engineering responsibilities to support functions e.g. test, build & deploy, infra design, app support etc.. And IT Services companies (including where am currently employed) are very focused on getting the client spec for skills filled out and made billable - revenue and EBITDA are y strong drivers for IT services companies.

The holistic experience of tenured engineers who have seen all aspects of software engineering is lost due in large part to these trends.

[selfdrive]

With the extended work from home situation, many organisations are trying to move key roles to offshore centres. This has caused a sudden spurt in the job market, resulting in absurd salary offers to even average or below average performers. As a domino effect, organizations are jumping to retain existing resources by offering them hikes/ promotions/ onsite "carrots".
In the medium to long run this is not sustainable because eventually it will be found that moving key roles offshore to save money will only impact quality. Why? Because there is little continuity and a lot of change management required.

And all those who got bigger pay packages or promotions will eventually find themselves gasping to retain their positions once reality grips. Juniors are just jumping for bigger pay packages even with obscure offers. Maybe some have a bigger risk appetite.

With the lack of efforts put in, it will be like a club level cricketer being asked to play test cricket and eventually being found out in terms of knowledge, expertise, techniques..
Make hay while the sun shines. But before winter comes, I hope everyone accumulates enough.

In fact I would say people in their 40s would be better prepared in terms of their obligations. Maybe their mortgages are nearing closure, next gen is finishing their education and their own retirement kitty is in place. I feel bad for junior to mid level people who would have taken bigger home/ car loans and have to struggle for the worse part of the next 2 decades

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by ampere

A job title has an expectation and one should be able to honour it to be worthy of earning it. Its easy to say this, but I do believe in that statement. This makes a huge difference especially at higher levels. And thats one reason why hiring at higher levels is not easy.

Very well said. The point I was trying to make was that many people feel they are entitled to that "job title" based on the number of years of experience and not expertise.

Originally Posted by clevermax

Nowadays, service companies want to recruit anyone with an AWS solutions architect certification - even 2 or 3 years experienced guys are taking that certification and are suddenly becoming 'hot properties' in the job arena. I think everyone will start to realize slowly that certification is just a certification and one's core experience matters a lot. A colleague says he has a couple of guys in the 2-3 years of experience category in his team and they have AWS certifications (architect!). But they can't solutionize anything without consulting - why? Because they haven't seen or been involved deeply in the game of software design from scratch. They aren't conditioned enough to think about the best solution, yet.

I think you are missing the point. What I wanted to tell was that sometimes experience in unrelated areas is not of much value and people should be realistic when they switching lines to the new hottest segment.

Lets take your AWS example. You have this 2-3 years experience guy with AWS certification. You also have a 15 years experienced VB developer with a Architect title and AWS certification and 5 times the salary. Will you take the 15 years guy as an AWS Architect because he was an expert in writing some VB code? You will spend the similar time handholding the senior guy in the AWS areas. The senior guy will be a little more matured in handling the stakeholders but you will not see a huge difference in the output. I am assuming all other things like enthusiasm to learn, problem solving capabilities are the same.

Like Samurai mentioned earlier, if he has the domain expertise, its a different matter. If someone was a GCP/Azure architect, I will gladly give him the AWS position.

The point I am trying to make is that people with 15 years experience want to move to the new "hot and happening" areas but want the companies to consider all their old experience in unrelated domains. There are definitely some who will fit the bill, but the majority dont.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by m8002?

I think you are missing the point. What I wanted to tell was that sometimes experience in unrelated areas is not of much value and people should be realistic when they switching lines to the new hottest segment.

Lets take your AWS example. You have this 2-3 years experience guy with AWS certification. You also have a 15 years experienced VB developer with a Architect title and AWS certification and 5 times the salary. Will you take the 15 years guy as an AWS Architect because he was an expert in writing some VB code?

I get your point - that a guy with 15 years of experience who specialized in VB coding or C coding alone is not a profile of choice for your new-age solutionizing needs. Agreed.

Let me define my experienced guy - A true software engineer who doesn't want to be known as a VB developer or as a C++ developer or even as a Python developer. That would be too narrow a description of who they are and what they are capable of doing. I meant software engineers who can solve problems by designing/architecting systems and subsystems, by mentoring and guiding juniors into solution thinking, and who can review work items very effectively.

And for any successful project or product, such guys are an absolute necessity. A non-technical project manager and a bunch of 5-year-olds alone cannot cut it. I would prefer experienced generalists to run the show technically. I don't want specialists who prefer to wear their horse-blinkers all the time, stress is on the latter part.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Lets take your AWS example. You have this 2-3 years experience guy with AWS certification. You also have a 15 years experienced VB developer with a Architect title and AWS certification and 5 times the salary. Will you take the 15 years guy as an AWS Architect because he was an expert in writing some VB code? You will spend the similar time handholding the senior guy in the AWS areas.

Aren't you comparing two different things? IMHO, AWS Architect is a misleading title created by Amazon. They are not developers or application designers. They design and deploy cloud infrastructure. Why compare them with senior programmers, who can design application architectures?

I have seen how mistitling of Architects by certification has caused major problems. Management often thinks AWS Architect can design the solution architecture, while that certification only trains him/her to design the deployment architecture.

[Spaced Out]

Fascinating thread. Reminded me of a New York Times article from 2015 which exposed how Disney fired its software developers but only after they trained their Indian replacements. Disney found paying its American and often older employees too expensive.

Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements.

[CarJunki]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I have seen how mistitling of Architects by certification has caused major problems. Management often thinks AWS Architect can design the solution architecture, while that certification only trains him/her to design the deployment architecture.

All the AWS architect certifications are consumer paid sales training programs. If a college student is willing to put some hours, they will be able to get the certification. An Architect without any practical experience will not even be able to keep the system running, leave aside designing and implementing a new solution. Company specific certifications are not some magic wand that creates architects out of freshman (or freshwoman if you so prefer). This starts becoming even more evident with Databases. One can figure out the difference between experience and certification at the first instance of blow up.

[apachelongbow]

The only reason for ageism is money. As long as the idiot bean counters try and run companies on Excel sheets, one will focus only on costs. The current zeal in almost all industries is more on cost management rather than revenue generation.
The problem with IT industry is rather unique, from the late 1990s it's been some kind of thumb rule that the longer you last the higher is your pay. Some perverse equations like 1.5/2 times your experience is your CTC keep floating around. What people fail to understand is that the gravy train cannot be infinite. If you have 20 years of experience, you can't expect 40/50 lakh pay, it's simply unaffordable to most bread and butter skill-sets, unless you are specialized into some area or are a business growth driver.
The internal thumb rule to employment is: can you generate 5/10 times your CTC as a revenue? If not, expect to be retrenched sooner than later

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

The problem with IT industry is rather unique
...
If you have 20 years of experience, you can't expect 40/50 lakh pay, it's simply unaffordable to most bread and butter skill-sets, unless you are specialized into some area or are a business growth driver.
The internal thumb rule to employment is: can you generate 5/10 times your CTC as a revenue? If not, expect to be retrenched sooner than later

Yes, IT industry is unique as most of the revenue/clients are still coming from abroad. Let me take the US as an example. A fresh software engineer in the US gets paid about $50k (INR 37 lakhs). Now paying 45-50 lakhs to someone in India with 20 years of experience doesn't sound that absurd does it? The point is not about salary at all, just the mindset of both the people and the companies/HR in India. I have colleagues in the US who are close to retirement and still happily work as software engineers and code. But, here everyone from your manager to the neighborhood aunty expects that your goal is to become a people manager and go up the ladder Things are changing, but slowly.