[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Most IT people are forced into management roles after 35 even if they love being hands-on. (let people stay technical if they want)

This is also the reason why IT has so many ineffective middle-managers. Since you "must" become a manager after x years of experience, lots of people who aren't suited for people management get shoe-horned into the role, or force themselves into that role because they think it is the only way to progress, and they usually become micromanagers to make up for that lack of management ability. That usually wrecks havoc in most teams they are assigned to. There's no training worth the name either provided in most IT companies for new managers.

Hopefully with more orgs 'cutting-the-flab' of middle management, this will stop becoming a default option.

[Romins]

Is High Quality Software Worth the Cost?

Martin Fowler has written a nice article on this topic.

Key points:

- At first glance, internal quality does not matter to customers
- Internal quality makes it easier to enhance software
- High quality software is cheaper to produce

[hamster]

Having been associated with few tech companies in my prime years of my career in the Silicon Valley capital of India, facing some dumb managers those times, used to tell my friends, I would never become a Manager.

Even one of the senior leadership told me to take over the team where I joined and worked for, within a couple of years . I was too naïve and was enjoying coding and getting the adrenaline rush out of finding and fixing the issues that I said, may be I not ready yet. Maybe he spotted the potential in me which I failed to realize at that point in time and continued doing hands on for a decade.

Due to family issues, I had to move out of the city to another one, and that too in a service company (a big paradigm shift for me in terms of culture, ways of working, mindset etc.)
While scouting for jobs through my known circle, my profile ended up directly in a client desk (without even getting hired by the service company). The client spoke with me and he was impressed with the conversation I had with him and forced the service company to hire me in for a pure technical role.
The service company on the other hand, expected me to do lot of management work without any proper guidance or direction. Ended my hating the manager, the team and the new org, but my family situation forced me to continue. I continued to contribute technically and on the way ended up solving other team's technical issues as well.

Within a couple of years, one such help landed me in a new role within the same org, where I had to setup a like minded technical team and lead them. The team was formed initially with 5 people, and unconsciously, the Manager in me was slowly getting into action and within a couple of years ended up leading 50 people.
This growth also internally made me shift from a hands-on technical person to Managing Delivery Aspects of a bigger team. Was lucky this time to have a wonderful mentor who guided me through this journey and made me excel in a lot of areas of stakeholder management, both internal and external.

Now, for the past 5 years I m completely out of my technical hands on role and there is the still itch to get back to technical role every now and then, with the backing of strong foundations (learnt Oracle V7,1 way back in '96). The thought of whom am I going to compete with - ~10-15 years exp folks who are more hands on than me, makes me step back.
But if I look at what I learnt in this last 5 years, learnt lot of things which I missed to learn along the way in the early years - especially, the maturity of handling multiple things, managing people - above and below, why things don't work in the way we think, and many more.

But will this sail this through till my retirement for another decade...?? Thats a question I am asking myself still

[Car-go-man]

In Indian IT industry, particularly in the IT Services industry, if you have grey hair and you're still coding, then you're stigmatized. You got to be either on top-most ladder on the techno-functional side OR you got to be in the senior management roles. As opposed to somewhere say in US where you can still be a "software developer" at the age of 60 and may even retire without becoming a manager ever.

I think, there are many factors at play here, but to list a few-

1. Salaries- the hiring manager would think that if I can get the same work done at half-the-price through someone half-the-age then why hire a veteran for it if the job doesn't demand so. This is true especially for companies who do only "staffing" for clients.

2. Flexibility to slog- junior developers are more likely to sacrifice/ignore work-life-balance than those who are seniors. While this is a bad practice, but in the Indian IT industry, slogging is a norm. If you do not answer your manager's call at 3 am in the night, then you're not responsible enough.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Car-go-man

...but in the Indian IT industry, slogging is a norm. If you do not answer your manager's call at 3 am in the night, then you're not responsible enough.

There's slogging which is basically looking busy, like the example you gave, late night calls, sending/replying to e-mails at odd hours. More to show everyone you are doing something, however little it actually contributes to actual results. Then there's working hard when required and planning better. Usually the more experienced folk can tell the difference and tend not to waste time on the former. Which also makes them less attractive to the kind of management that subscribes to the former culture! But that's put down to 'not willing to sacrifice'.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Car-go-man

You got to be either on top-most ladder on the techno-functional side OR you got to be in the senior management roles.

This is to be expected. With that level of experience, senior developers are expected to be saviours (Architect complex projects, Crack tech problems in pre-sales, foresight to know potential pitfalls, Introduce new tech etc.)

Only other option (quite common in US / EU) is to stay in the same role and expect minimal increase in salary over the years. Outside of IT services, this works in India as well.

[Neversaygbye]

While I completely agree with all the posts calling out the ageism prevalent in India, I think that this will change in the next few years, especially in the post-Covid IT industry.

The primary driver of that change will be the fact that most people below 30 who are in a job look at it now as a means to an end and nothing more. This has become even more pronounced post Covid, as many of us re-evaluated our priorities and a lot of the young workforce moved back to their home towns. Work-life balance is now sacrosanct and this was not the case earlier. As someone has mentioned in another post, we always used to think that youngsters would be more driven and willing to work extended hours in case of an emergency but that tribe is dwindling by the day.

In my recent experience some of the most dependable people have been the post 40+ group - there was a time when they were not hands on and weren't in touch with the latest hot tool on the market but even that is changing now. It helps that many of the tools like say a Chat GPT4 are themselves new so everyone has to learn it from scratch. This really levels the playing field. Once you add knowledge with dependability and sincerity and the ability to strategize and see the big picture, you get the perfect employee.

So, I think ageism will not be as big a problem in India as it is now in another five years' time.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Neversaygbye

The primary driver of that change will be the fact that...

As a friend of mine quipped recently when I was complaining about not beeing very motivated at work, "Take a home loan and have a child, you'll find the motivation to keep working!"

Originally Posted by Neversaygbye

In my recent experience some of the most dependable people have been the...

I think ideal would be for recruiters and hiring managers to avoid generalizing altogether. "Youngsters are like this, older folks are like this." There are enough differences between individuals in every demographic segment.

(Ideally, not going to happen soon!)

[Neversaygbye]

Originally Posted by am1m

As a friend of mine quipped recently when I was complaining about not beeing very motivated at work, "Take a home loan and have a child, you'll find the motivation to keep working!"

Truer words were never spoken. Many of us work because we have to, not because we want to.

Originally Posted by am1m

I think ideal would be for recruiters and hiring managers to avoid generalizing altogether. "Youngsters are like this, older folks are like this." There are enough differences between individuals in every demographic segment.

(Ideally, not going to happen soon!)

Yes, there are a lot of stereotypes at play and sometimes candidates are shut out or not considered based on perception rather than actual ability. However, now that many of the age related constructs are losing their relevance, I am hopeful that the generalization will also reduce with time.

[IAmGroot]

The conversation between Q and 007,

"Age is no guarantee of efficiency, and youth is no guarantee of innovation".

If you are in IT and over 40, the opportunities start to narrow down. A technical hands-on person in IT always has demand irrespective of age, just that (s)he should be in a role that has direct impact on company performance and growth. Lot of technical and non-technical folks in IT need to be gig workers and hustlers within their domain of work, apart from their 9-6 routine.

One aspect of white collar working that people miss out is their health. If you are in good health physically and mentally, there is no age number that will stop you from competing with others. There will be age discrimination, however, at the same time there are no lack of opportunities where if you can apply your mind, there won’t be lack of rewards.

If you think you are getting cast out, do not go into defensive mode. Stay sharp, stay focused and start using your knowledge and experience to make things around you work in your favour.

Last but not the least, your financial condition. If you think you have your finances sorted, stop worrying too much. I know lot of 40+ IT folks who diversified and took sabbaticals to try out new things and, in some cases, never looked back at IT. Some managed to setup their retail space, some went back to family businesses, some dabbled in stock market etc. Some people even manage to do both! With a parallel gig running you become more confident at primary work with nothing to lose attitude and it works in your favour.

[NiInJa]

I've experienced working with lot of people in their 40s and 50s, some were excellent while others were simply not able to cope up with new realities. So the idea that more age will always bring more usable experience for the company is not exactly applicable in IT. It is the right mindset of the individual and his willingness to stay sharp and learn new things that decide his career, and age hardly matters.

Back in the day, when cloud computing and VPNs were not around, people used to travel on-site just to support users with no real work that enriched their resume. I had a 3 month stint with British Telecom back in 2008 and some folks would go to the U.K. for exactly the same purpose. Their job: Monitor server's load and if it exceeded above certain limit, open task manager and kill some processes or install softwares which was just a matter of clicking few buttons ! Imagine doing this for a long period and suddenly you get replaced by automation, preinstalled software on cloud and secure VPN. Now, you don't have to go on-site or have to monitor services by yourself. You haven't learnt anything else, but your cost to company has kept on increasing. Many people have failed to see this, especially Indian folks.

The tech that I work in had a radical shift to cloud computing back in 2014, many 'oldies' stuck to their old jobs of handling legacy systems and enjoyed the perks of being in management roles. Microsoft ended support for most of these 'on-premise' systems last year. Middle level management has disappeared in our tech, if you cannot code in Python or develop a cloud app by yourself, no one considers your resume, I see many people in their 40s scrambling to stay relevant as technology evolves in our field. The smarter ones have gone ahead, learnt new coding languages, become developers and made millions setting up their new boutique firms while others are just matching up with juniors now who aren't asking the same amount of pay as the older ones but have better knowledge and learning ability than them.

Above are real life examples and I've seen people messing up their careers big time.
Times are changing though, the people who are in their 40s today have seen a different world than the people in 50s, when I will join the 40s club (which will soon happen) I and the people around me will have a different mindset. Our organization never discriminates people based on their age, the filtering process is not handled by HR but by us on a case to case basis. Personally, I feel older folks are fun to be with, they may or may not have the relevant work experience but they do have some great life stories to tell

[SoumenD]

About to hit 40 in a year from now I read this thread with horror everytime it pops up.

Personally have switched from pure dev to architect role couple of years ago & tried to stay updated with latest happening in my area (SAP-BTP). Planning to get a certification done just for the unforeseen bad times. Personally certifications never helped me(Have a SAP certification already), but I’m hoping if things go south a certification in latest tech would help atleast secure a call.

Other than that closed all my loans, have been investing aggressively since last 3-4 years and hoping to hit FI before the rainy day arrives. Hope it(rainy day) doesn’t but best to be prepared for the worst.

[V.Narayan]

Several great posts above on the causes behind IT companies and their HR departments failing to comprehend the value, albeit selective, that older individual contributors can make.

Some random thoughts. My career has straddled the aviation and healthcare industries. In both, there has evolved over the decades a well established system of training - exams - certifications for individual contributors who wish to stay the course without contaminating their careers as people or project managers - think doctors and pilots. Both communities have only a tiny portion who after a stage in life are eager to move into management. Most say 'not on your life' - and when you see the sparkle in the eyes of a surgeon after he/she has completed a long and complex surgery or a pilot who has negotiated a difficult cross wind landing you can fully understand their inner drive. And honestly having been an employer of both categories of highly skilled professionals the vast majority are to meant, by aptitude, to be leaders.

The Indian IT industry having been built on a sweat shop outsourced model {nothing wrong with that} has therefore built this junior serfs, senior serfs, supervisors, managers, super managers, very senior managers etc. The economic richness driven by the USD-INR PPP lends an aura of success to what remains a per piece, per hour labour arbitrage shop business model identical to the export garment or Nike shoes vendors in Bangladesh, Vietnam, India etc.

In my time I served on the Board of directors of two large traditional IT companies. One of which I am still serving my term. In both my observation has been that the HR departments in both were typically procurement agencies with limited real HR skills and no industrial relations management talent. Coming from the brick & mortar world industrial relations, unions {now mainly very weak in India albeit}, myriad rules, Factories Act, motivation etc were par for the course. Not here.

My advice, unsolicited, is that just like China's low cost world factory model is at risk from other emerging nations similarly India's low cost world software factory model is at grave risk from IT automation. One of my kids chose to go into IT. My advice to him has been not to assume the next 40 years will be a variation of the last 40. This is a different film on the screen now. At a theoretical level the large IT companies in India understand this but at a practical level they don't have an answer other than the respond to each disruptive technology that comes along.

[Samurai]

I shall quote my favorite philosopher: I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

That is the main difference between a valuable oldie vs not-so-valuable oldie. If you have spent your decades jumping between too many things, which have no connection to each other, then you will have very little domain knowledge. That's like learning new kicks every month. You will be a jack of all trades, but master of none. There is nothing wrong in being jack of all, but you have to be master of some. Ensure that your core skills need decades of experience to build. Then you need not fear the younglings.

I can barely code in Python. Few years ago, I decided to learn Python, and gave up after an hour. It was too easy, which means I can easily delegate such tasks to someone much junior. So I stick to tasks that take extensive experience rather than just intensive experience. Of course, make sure you stay relevant in that area. Avoid technologies that are tied to a company. Then your career is dependent on the fortunes/whims of that company. If they discontinue that technology, what are you going to do?

[low_rider]

What I have seen is that majority of IT recruitment focusses on the task at hand and not on creating a long term pool of talent. (The job hoppers can also be blamed for contributing to this mindset). The recruitment indent comes from project teams who give specific KRAs to look for in a CV. These are again very specific to the task at hand.

Secondly, the recruiter looks for what the candidate "Has done" rather than evaluating what he "Can do" if hired.

Lastly, it boils down to getting someone who can do the task at hand at the lowest cost.

Let's take an example of any new age technology like Blockchain. Commercially, this technology is around 5 years old. A fresher who started his first project in Blockchain has now 5 years of "relevant" experience, while a senior guy (15+ exp) who has moved from older technologies to Blockchain also has 5 years of "relevant" experience (since the technology itself is 5 years old).
Now, both resources are equivalent in the eyes of the recruiter. So, why pay more for extra 10 years of experience to senior guy? He might bring more maturity, methods, and experience of overall project and client management, but then these concepts are too hard for a typical IT recruiter to understand.