Software Engineers Will Work One Day For English Majors

The title of this article is pure flamebait, but I am a 41 year old former English major, and I've founded several software companies and had several hundred software engineers work for me since I co-founded my first company in 1995. I'm a little bit of a unique case, since what got me started was being hired as a research assistant for a forward-thinking biology professor who wanted me not only collecting information, analyzing it, and writing (my core specialty) but also administering a Gopher server, which turned into a web server, which became a proficiency with 1993-era web design. When I co-founded my company in 1995, I was the only one of the co-founders that really knew anything about the web. I eventually settled into the head of product role, and I've been a jack-of-all-trades product executive ever since.<p>So not every English major is going to have a similar backstory. But I do know this: research, organization, and strong writing skills got me where I am. It helps also that I was an engineering school dropout and I share many of the proclivities of my engineering brethren. I just decided at some point in college that I liked writing as a way of making things, and switched to English.<p>As other commenters have noted, no forty year old is an English major anymore. The point worth making is that receiving a good education and being ambitious, hard-working, curious, and embracing new technology is a good recipe for success. And if you think you're going to get anywhere in this new world without strong written communication skills, you're fooling yourself.

How many English majors are still in "English" at age 40? Many of them will have exited the workforce , started their own business, changed careers, or leveled up high enough that their occupational classification the government uses changes.<p>Programmers do all these things, too.<p>I love programming. I didn't even make it to thirty as a "programmer"! (P.S. There exist lots of benefits to not calling yourself a programmer.)

Maybe this is why so much software these days looks like it was written by unsupervised youngsters.<p>I just wasted a day trying to get ListView's to work in Android only to find out that, well, they don't work, so you need to use something else. Then it took me a couple of hours to essentially duplicate the ListView functionality, except a working version.<p>The thing is developing a GUI framework isn't rocket science, its been done before and there are plenty of examples of reasonably well designed frameworks out there, Swing and Qt to name a couple.<p>Software is complex so it takes a while (years at least, probably decades) for a human brain to gain real perspective on what's important and what isn't in software development. A culture like the one we're living in that throws away those brains dooms itself to decline.

The article states: "A large technology company might typically pay new law-school graduates and MBAs salaries and compensation approaching double what they give new master’s degree grads in computer science. "<p>But, from what I've read, those high-paying law school jobs are very few, only for the elite of the elite, and requires the new employee to work insane hours. Same for those MBAs.<p>I'm pretty sure that, on average, a new master's degree grad in Computer Science outperforms a typical law school graduate, and should be close or better than an MBA.<p>Let's Google:<p><a href="http://www.nalp.org/classof2010_salpressrel" rel="nofollow">http://www.nalp.org/classof2010_salpressrel</a><p>Law graduates:<p>"The national median salary for the Class of 2010, based on those working full-time and reporting a salary, was $63,000"<p>and only because of those few outliers making $160,000.<p><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/06/paying.jobs.2011.grads.cb/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://edition.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/06/paying.jobs.2011.gr...</a><p>"Computer science -- Average annual salary offer to 2011 grads: $63,017"<p><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2009/bs20090928_592028.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/sep2009/bs20090...</a><p>"PayScale's average (for starting salary MBAs) clicks in at a much more modest $66,300"<p>So, basically, he's wrong.

&#62; Statistics show that most software developers are out of the field by age 40.<p>Really? What statistics? And where do these statistics show the developers going? People don't just dry up and blow away at 40. They move to managerial positions. They start their own companies. They stay in jobs longer, so while you might see fewer of them being hired, that doesn't mean they're not still working in the field.<p>And there are simply not many older developers to begin with. How much of this effect is the fact that there are simply many more qualified developers under 35 than there are over 40, as the field wasn't as big and not as many people were getting training 20 years ago?<p>This article is high on anecdotal doom and gloom and low on actual evidence. "Statistics show" is not a very convincing argument.

This would be dead-on except for he misses a key point: programming is not about programming anymore.<p>"Programming" in the sense he uses it is a corporate cog working in some huge technology-producing machine. That job? Sure. It leans heavily towards younger workers. Why not? Have you seen the way they treat programmers?<p>But the general skill of programming is not practiced in that environment much anymore. Today programming is everywhere. It's more like the way cursive writing used to be -- you won't get far without knowing it. Programming is that skill you mix into some other skill to make the whole thing better.<p>Programming is quickly becoming more of a necessary add-on than an end-point in itself.

The title initially made me angry, but there's a lot of truth in this post. The sad fact is that once you cross 35, the salary growth slows considerably for most engineers and you have to jump to management roles to make more, even if your output translates to more dollars.<p>Contrary to the article, I think people in Law and Finance go through the same thing, but they get about 10 years more than us. My friends in Finance can stay in technical roles well into their 30s while still making double what even a typical Software Engineering Manager would make. When they finally have to go into more managerial roles, their kids might be getting out of the house and their personal responsibilities are lower, so they can take less stressful roles, or even go into consulting and start traveling if they want to be more hands on.

This is more about risk than it is intelligence. It's the case that as most people get older, their tolerance for risk gets less and less: they pick up things like "spouses," "mortgages" and "children" which make it so that they cannot afford to work for equity/cash combinations.<p>I suspect this is also why you see a trend of "I don't want to work 80 hour weeks" posts bubbling up these days as well (though that could be confirmation bias) -- the initial Web2.0 generation is getting to be that age.

I think some of the reason for this is that younger people are more likely to start their programming careers with the current "cool" tools/languages whereas the older programmers will have large amounts of experience and therefor be most valuable (and able to command better salaries) maintaining software that is becoming legacy.<p>Take myself for example, I started doing programming seriously around 2001 when PHP/MySQL was the hot technology. This meant that I got a lot of experience quickly in a field that was high in demand for new projects. This means of course that I now have several years of PHP experience and could get a PHP job relatively easily.<p>However very few new cool startups etc are being built using PHP but that is not a problem since there is still plenty of PHP around, however what happens in 10-20 years when all of the PHP codebases have been retired and everything is done in NodeJS or whatever.<p>I will be competing for jobs with recent graduates who "came up" using Node and who will be willing to work for lower salaries. I may have more experience than them in programming but probably not in something like Node. Sure I will be able to learn these skills on my own time to an extent but probably not with the sheer enthusiasm and vigor that an 18 year old who is dreaming of making his million dollar idea could muster.<p>Of course there are areas like algorithms etc that do not change so much over time, but the odds are that a bright college grad will be able to remember his CS classes much more clearly than an older developer would (unless the older dev had reason to exercise those skills often during his career).<p>The main thing an older developer would be able to offer is Wisdom, but this is largely something for which there is not a high value placed in modern software.

Umm.. The author is not objective. He (Norman Matloff) had long since been spouting off on H1-B and why its bad. He also found a way to work it in to the article, in the same way that he had used in the past so effectively, to scare the current programmer segment in to being worried for their jobs.<p>I am not saying that H1-B isnt abused, but his take on it is largely one sided, and against.

This whole idea that the wisdom of an older experienced programmer isn't somehow hugely useful mystifies me. I'm at the top of my CS class in the UC system and spending this summer interning at one of the biggest Intenet companies. I'm also very comfortable in C++, Objective-C, Java, and a host of "hot" web languages.<p>With that said, I'm aware I truly "don't know jack" despite being one of the best in my degree program. If given the choice of hiring a new CS grad at $75k a year or an experienced developer at $150k for a startup, I'd choose the experienced developer every time. Maybe it's a product of my self education supplementary to school, but someone who has done it before(even if using something as ancient as COBOL) is the person I want to be my superstar.

Wow, what hogwash. I still don't see where the article connects the dots -- why, exactly, would I end up working for an English major?<p>As for the balance of the article, most of the finger-pointing to dead-end oblivion for 40+ programmers is that they're priced out of the market. While that may be true in some cases, it's certainly not a trend I'm seeing -- rather, the opposite.<p>Mostly, this article was written by someone who has no idea what programmers/developers/architects/engineers do with their time, nor why companies value them in those endeavors.

Max career length depends on how the young engineer sets himself up. Early in your career you want to bootstrap yourself with some hot new technology to get your foot in the door. Once you are about 3-4 years in, you need to switch gears and focus on learning the things that change slowly. Such as:<p>1. How to work with people (technical/non-technical)<p>2. More about math and general concepts of your craft, not just new language X.<p>3. Measuring the business effects of your work.<p>People are more apt to deal with a 20 something nerd with a bad attitude because he's cheap and fits the stereotype. An expensive 40 something with the same attributes will be seen as a weirdo.

I get the odd feeling there is something personal going on for the author. There isn't anything in there to back up English or humanities majors taking more managerial positions in tech companies.<p>"If you choose a software-engineering career, just keep in mind that you could end up working for one of those lowly humanities majors someday."

Some programmers dodge this bullet, others don't.<p>I know a guy who worked for UNISYS his whole life writing Macro Assembler for 360 mainframes. A few years back the state of New York found that the official printer interface for IBM mainframes wasn't fast enough to print all of the paperwork New York State sends out, so he invented a whole new printer interface.<p>He just retired at age 60 and he's got enough $ to have a home in upstate NY and one in Hawaii.<p>The trouble you do have is that as you get older you will want to get a more senior job and those do get harder to find.

The author is a CS professor. Does he not enjoy CS or something? I'm not certain what his goal is with this article.<p>"Finally, those high programmer salaries are actually low, because the same talents (analytical and problem-solving ability, attention to detail) command much more money in other fields, such as law and finance."<p>This is a tricky one, because it really boils down to "it depends." I can't speak about the law sector, but my limited experience in the financial world speaks to sales guys making oodles more than the analysts or quants. Further, the high salaries come with many more hours, so the per-hour salary of a software engineer would actually be higher.<p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Financial-Analyst-l-New-York,-NY.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Financial-Analyst-l-New-York,...</a><p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+engineer&#38;l1=sunnyvale" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+engineer&#38;l1=sun...</a><p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=quant&#38;l1=new+york+city" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=quant&#38;l1=new+york+city</a> (note that a quant is typically a phd-only position and comes with <i>crazy</i> hours)<p><a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=fixed+income+sales&#38;l1=new+york+city" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=fixed+income+sales&#38;l1=ne...</a><p>According to this data I was mistaken about sales vs quants, but I wonder if this factors in bonuses (which would be significant for the latter two)?

Regarding the Facebook preference for hiring young people...<p>The "young" developers today are those who grew up with the sorts of stacks that start-ups today are being built on. The 1.0 release of ROR was late 2005. If you were hacking away at 12 years old in 2005 then you would be 19 today!<p>Learning the web dev stack is a lot of effort, especially if you throw Linux in with that. Most people generally don't want to put in the time / effort to do new things. That's even more true of people who have families and busy lives.<p>Also, it's the web dev stack that is bringing down the barriers to entry for starting new businesses. Things like dirt cheap server resources and cloud services are even more recent than Ruby 1.0.<p>No wonder it's all young people! It's the young people who grew up with this stuff and who don't have to be stuffed into the old molds of work and education. For example, I'm a U.S. citizen working from the Philippines just for a change of scenery. Perhaps I could have been able to do this 10 years ago, but probably not much earlier than that.<p>This train is moving fast. Quit reading these articles because nobody can predict where we are going. It's getting crazy.

So, I'm confused. What percentage of English majors are still in the "English" field by age 40? What is the English field? Outside of academia, it barely exists. Publishing? So, it's laudable to receive a general education which provides one with many opportunities in life? Great, I agree. Now, why shouldn't the same logic apply to a computer science degree? Aren't the ways CS majors learn to think easily transferred to other endeavors? Why is it not celebrated that CS degrees are so flexible that a high percentage of graduates ostensibly find ways to do what interests them, pays well etc.?

I completely failed to parse the title of this article. I thought it was about some union-like action in which some set of software engineers will donate their salaries to some set of, supposedly, poor English majors.<p>The more I read, the more confused I got since it never seemed to get to the point: <i>who are doing this</i>? Heh. English is not my native language, which I guess this served as a good reminder of.

I've found an easy answer to age discrimination. For the past seven+ years I have worked from home. Many of my clients and coworkers have little idea of my relatively advanced age.

This guy is so off the radar it is a wonder why he is allowed to publish this stuff.<p>I will just add two points.<p>1) Facebook, Google, and other silicon valley companies are far from the norm of software development jobs. There are far more jobs in finance, retail, and travel for engineers than the type of position he is describing.<p>2) Most directors, executive directors and VPs I have worked for started their careers as software engineers as a matter of fact engineering is how they developed the business knowledge to become executives.

Many software engineers will one day work for English Majors. Most English majors without a strong support network will one day work for Burger King. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Frankly, if you didn't work for Burger King at all before college, it might be worthwhile for you to work for them for a little while after, though some other gig in the food service industry is probably a better call.

This article touched a nerve for me.<p>I haven't always been in computer science. I actually minored in English in college, and now I'm finishing up a MS program in CS (though I've always tinkered and programmed computers).<p>I have a tendency, for better or worse, to constantly think about the future. I'm 26 now, and about to graduate and go to work for a well known tech company. Originally I was much more interested in starting my own company, but I spent so much time catching up in CS that I never had enough time to network at school (which I think is crucial for startup success). I could have taken a job with an existing startup, but I never found one that really clicked for me (which I also think is crucial for working at a startup). So I went with the big tech company. It helped that they offered a lot of money. But it also makes me worry.<p>I'm not really worried about being unemployable, like the article suggests, because I doubt I'll ever be substantially worse of a programmer than I am now. But I do worry that I've hit some sort of ceiling. I'm pretty sharp now -- will I ever be twice or three times as sharp as I am now? Probably not. Assuming my pay tracks my ability (is this a valid assumption?), my current salary at 26 may be 75% or more of my lifetime max salary. In other words, I've already peaked.<p>Admittedly, some people may enjoy the comfort in this, but I don't. I feel a bit like the proverbial "shark" in that if I don't keep moving, I die. I am happiest with a destination I am moving toward, and if jobs like this one turn out to feel stagnant, I'll have to quit.<p>But if/when that time comes, will I still be able to break into the startup scene? Will I suffer from an age bias? Will I have too many other commitments, wife/kids, mortgage, etc., so that I won't be able to risk quitting my job?<p>And what really scares me: is it true that after 35 your programming mettle starts to leave you?

One would think, with the story coming from Bloomberg, that they might mention that finance almost exclusively hires older programmers. Hedge funds, trading firms, and even the banks place a significant premium on expertise and are generally staffed by a much older crowd than what you'd find in Tech. (For many of the reasons you'd expect...)

Sure, many software engineers are over their creative prime by the time they hit 40 and move into management, training, recruiting, etc. With 15-20 years experience in the complexities of software engineering under the belt, they are probably pretty good at it. What does that have to do with English majors?

<i>Statistics show that most software developers are out of the field by age 40.</i><p>If this is really true then where do they all go? There's only so many seats for managers and architects.

I guess Crockford better pack his bags and send himself to a retirement home.<p>There are always going to be under qualified and over qualified candidates. Some people simply loose interest in their field after 20 years. What a load of over generalized garbage.

I hate it when places like Bloomberg purport to tell me what is going to happen with the rest of my career. I will be 32 at the end of this week, and you know what? I am not stopping this programming thing anytime soon. This article is written for the people that would get into our craft based on the fact that Software Engineer was just named the top job. If you love to build, if you love to create, if you love to program then you will be fine. You set the expiration date of that, not your age.

To extend the author's logic a bit, I will change one word in a quote from the article: "Even if the 45-year-old manager making $120,000 has the right skills, 'companies would rather hire the younger workers.'"<p>I've worked long enough to see many middle-aged middle managers who end up unemployed for extended periods, one I know now sells real estate after being VP at a large software company. Meanwhile, I'm in my mid-forties and had a company pay to move me cross-country for my technical skills. The fact is, there are only so many management jobs and a company can just as easily put a 35-year-old in the job as a 45 or 55-year old. Also, companies are continually trying to flatten the traditional org-chart, eliminating management positions permanently and using technical talent as the first layer of management. It's getting hard out there for an English major.<p>I'm not trying to diminish the real bias there is against older workers. I really believe this comes from how the US health care system works. Older workers - even those who ask a lower salary - are seen as bringing up the cost of insurance for the company's group and are seen as a higher risk for long term disability. That's a reality that's skill-set agnostic and something all of us who reach 50 years of age will have to face.

-- "Although the very term “coding” evokes an image of tedium"<p>This is ridiculous.

Well why is this surprising?<p>A lot of people working in factories, plants and other shops undergo the same treatment with time. The issue isn't exactly with software professionals but with any job. Young blood is preferred, because they push longer for lesser money. They don't have families, they can take failure gracefully, they have tons of time to fail and recover.<p>As we age, we get families, we have kids, we need insurances for ourselves and family. We need to pay college fees, We need a home to settle in, we have mortgages, And then of course we always have bills to pay, food and clothes to buy. All this means everyone tries to settle down at some time. Instead of running a marathon at the speed of a sprint, we just like to push things as they are. This means we get held back, we play safe, we like to have permanent jobs.<p>This is what millions of people go though. They hit dead ends by 40. Because the expenses keep rising, and the corporate pay structures seem to reward only promotions on managerial levels. And if you don't get to be a manager you are basically done for! That's with every one, not just software professionals. And what remains after that is struggling to be employed based on skills which are very commonly available else where especially in a pool of people who are younger.<p>Clever people make their financial planning while they in 20-30. Get themselves enough cash to give themselves enough freedom to not worry about getting fired, non getting employed, being replaced, old age or never ever going to work again.<p>Get yourself enough money to not worry about money. Regardless of what ever profession you are in.

This article is very short sighted and tries to address an issue that cannot be solved by the tools he has.<p>Let's start with the title. "Software Engineers Will Work One Day for English Majors".<p>How about "Software Engineers Will Work One Day for someone" because those two options are basically the same except that one is flame bait.<p>You have two pills you can choose from: Red pill is entrepreneurship; Blue pill is salary/contract. The red pill is the only way for above title to not be true. Blue Pill means you'll be working for someone. Either pill is fine it comes down to personal preference.<p>Ignoring entrepreneurship (because this article isn't the place for it); the article states that by age X, we will price ourselves out of a job because the newer model is the shinier model. So you shouldn't or be aware that there is a glass ceiling when becoming an engineer.<p>I'm going out on a limb here but, that is the wrong way to think. You are out of a job at age X because you've been sitting on your degree for 10+ years! Go F'n learn something and demonstrate that you are better and deserve that role + salary increase. You work for that "English Major/Human/H1-B Visa" person because they worked harder than you and stole your lunch.<p>Here is a real solution: Create/Find/Get a master’s degree in leadership &#38; management for people with a technical background. These technical people need the soft skills it takes to make it to the next level. Getting rid of a H1-B visa program doesn’t solve the problem; it is just a stop gap.<p>In the end, you just need to update and learn new valuable skills.

More hacker news, less flamebait submissions and flame comments, please.

There's also another thing to bear in mind. I've spent most of my career in the games industry. The games industry as a whole is only about 30 years old. It's only now we're seeing programmers/artists in their 40s+. This is almost certainly true for most tech companies. Lets see how this holds in 30 years from now.

There seems to be a ton of washed-up ex-IT sorts from America and Australia in China teaching English. The bosses are Chinese teachers of English, themselves English grads, so I guess the post title is quite accurate.

In 20 years we'll see how right he is. My guess is he's dead wrong. If you look at the software development industry it's relatively new (mid 90s really) and expanding rapidly into every industry. That's producing a lot of heavy demand for software developers and if you think about it on a meta level it makes sense with so many things becoming digitized. With all this demand building up for a job that requires a certain mindset (hindering supply) I don't see this becoming a problem so long as the workforce keeps up its marketability.

"This page is not available for mobile viewing at this time."<p>Are you kidding me?

As a software engineer who is a theater major, I just have two points.<p>1) College degrees are not vocational degrees and are not job guarantees. 2) When you talk about not being hired because you're not on top of "fad languages", what I hear is you're not being hired because you're not staying up to date in your field. I'm sure there are blogs by petroleum engineers who say they're being discriminated against because they're not up on this "fracking fad".

Possibly worth noting, in view of the article's use of "English majors" to mean nontechnical managerial types: Jamie Zawinski was an English major.

This doesn't have to be true. Goethe managed to stay fresh his entire life - even the poetry he wrote in his late years was seen as expanding the art form; if the mind ossifies over the years it's probably because one has grown complacent and stopped expanding, rejuvenating, overcoming oneself. A categorical statement about age is just an excuse, IMHO.

There's plenty to take offense to in this article, but perhaps it would be wise to take one implication to heart: as you progress, don't forget to improve your soft skills just as you improve your technical skills. Whatever you make of this, it would be folly to argue with the assertion that managing other people requires strong communication skills.

I'm a 25 year-old former Marine who thought he could take a shot at being a programmer when he exited the military. I never had any background in programming other than being interested in UNIX and Linux at a young age, so CS seemed like the logical choice for someone who had a GI bill to burn.<p>2 years and a lot of classes later, I'm realizing I'm too old to compete at this gig, and I should have started when I was <i>12</i>, if I wanted to be taken seriously. The only thing I have any skill in is various computer related things, but not one thing in particular. I've developed a very basic knowledge of C++, but that's laughable really. So I'm stuck, unsure of what it is I should really be doing. I could get a dead-end part time job and continue my schooling, but it seems almost futile at this point. I was denied to the University of Florida, yes the school that recently killed-off their CS department in favor of Football funding. It was the top school in the state, but they wouldn't accept my transfer because I'm only now up to the Calculus 1 and Physics level (rightfully so I guess, that was my mistake). Being that I could only take those classes now, it would probably be another year at least, to get to where I could actually transfer to a real university. The only reason I've been able to do this is because of the GI bill that's been granted to me because of my time in the service, but that's running out and I don't have anything to show for it. Other than a General AA, which probably wasn't worth my time - despite planning ahead.<p>I keep reading stories and anecdotes about how this field is going, and I'm starting to become very unsure if it's something I need to stick with to prevail, or whether it's already too late. I can't find anyone that will tell me the truth - just those that placate with notions of "you can do anything you're just not trying hard enough," despite my 15 hour course-load. From my perspective it seems like CS is an unattainable feat unless you're fresh out of high school at the age of 17 with several dual-enrolled college courses under your belt. The competition is outrageous. Don't you think I want skills that are worth someone's money?<p>I read about how people with experience with Java, C++, C, C# and so fourth, at least having the ability to put multiple languages on their resume, can't find employment because they haven't done a formal project or haven't been a part of, and accepted, within the OSS community. This frightens me because my skill level is nowhere near where it needs to be to do this, and I highly doubt how much I can persevere with the time that I have left.<p>I used to open up my IDE with the prospect of learning new things and freshness being able to develop a more solid understanding of what I thought I could do for a living. While I finish out the courses I'm still in, it would appear now, as I reflect, that I'm only doing it to pass the course now, as my delusions of grandeur have faded.<p>Edit: Wow. Thanks for all your input. This will give me a better objective view to reassess my path. Again, thanks.

Why would I work for one day for somebody with an English degree? Or did he mean to say "Software Engineers Will One Day Work for English Majors"?<p>Not that I'm worried either way. I'm a Software Engineer with a degree in International Relations and Chinese Language, which will probably be more valuable than an English degree.

I don't see the big deal if it's just for one day. (The title was obviously NOT written by an English Major).

I couldn't agree more: as a self-employed software engineer with degrees in literature and psychology, I am living proof that now (not one day, right now) programmers are working for liberal arts "managers" ;-)

Looking at his personal website it seems like he might have other motivations <a href="http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/matloff.html" rel="nofollow">http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/matloff.html</a>

"Worst article ever!"<p>At what point, in that repetitive myth that keeps getting recycled, do the english majors start taking over? They don't. And they won't. And I want my time back.

&#62; the very term “coding” evokes an image of tedium,<p>Wow, really? Is that what non-coders think coding is? Do people really think "coding" is non creative?

Besides abstract reasoning, the most important skill for a software engineer is the ability to learn quickly.<p>I'm not sure the OP understands that fact.

In this case you cannot really look at current practices and predict the future. For many of us in the "new programmer" category now, we will see an exponentially increasing lifespan as well as several other improved aspects of health and intelligence. In the limit, this may lead to age having almost no meaning.<p>Besides, English Majors?! I dare say that english shouldn't even be a major. A great academic in any field should be articulate in expressing ideas, in at least one language.

I am a 31 year old programmer. I fear the day I start becoming discriminated against because of my age.

Peace out guys - this is awesome for existing SEs (but maybe not good for the economy)

I wonder how the software devs feel about this at Bloomberg?

Linkbait title and vapid article.

what an discouraging article...fuck yea!!

He seems to have missed making the point in the title. Why would software engineers work for english majors? He thinks that a 20 something english major is a better manager for a software engineer than a 40 something software engineer?<p>Plus he seems to completely miss a separate alternative for software engineers over 35-- start their own businesses.<p>I think the perception that 40 year olds are not up to date on technology is laughable-- just look at how resistant 20-sometings are to erlang. This resistance or letting skills get old can come from two sources: First, some people just are kinda blub programmers who never want to learn something new. The second is that its possible to be pigeonholed. I was that way- forced to write windows software for years (several companies who had mac apps who hired me with the promise of working on the mac app then switched me to windows because I had windows experience) until I seriously de-emphasized that experience on my resume, and started outright refusing.<p>The reason companies hire people right out of college is really simple: They want engineers who are going to accept being over worked due to bad management practices. They think it is easier and cheaper to just hire out of college than to fix their broken processes. I've seen this everywhere - from Microsoft where the managers have some technical back ground but the company culture is broken- to Amazon where the managers are DMV rejects <i>and</i> the company culture is broken. (notable exceptions exist in both cases, of course.)<p>It is cheaper to hire someone right out of college than to hire someone with 10 years experience... the problem is, "professional" management thinks both are equally productive. In my experience this is not the case.<p>I had to laugh when, in 2007, Zuckerberg was on the stage at Startup Weekend claiming that 20 year olds were more productive-- at the time he was too young to even know the difference! Standard issue youthful hubris, that.

There's a persistent myth that needs to be put down:<p>It doesn't get at all harder to learn new technologies when you get older. In fact, it gets a whole lot easier.<p>There's an old saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks", and this is true, to the extent that any cliche can be, when referring to people becoming set in their ways. For many professions, where the technology doesn't' change, this is true. For programmers "set in your ways" simply describes the method by which we pick up new technology since that's what the profession is all about. (I prefer books to youtube videos, for instance.)<p>Learning new languages and new technologies and new platforms is a whole lot easier now than it was 20 years ago, in part because the technology for delivering information is a lot more available (hell the internet alone is a huge impact) but also because, having learned a dozen languages the next language is a lot easier to pick up.

The element of truth in this article is that wisdom is not only not valued by many companies' management, it is actively despised. What they want from a software developer is a cog in a machine, not someone who has enough wisdom to to see how things would be much better if over the long term fundamental changes were made.<p>After years of doing the same stupid things year after year without ever thinking very deeply (due to such thinking being of no value in that environment), the cog gets burned out, slow, and stupid, and is then easily replaced with a younger cog.

Either that or programmers will have to play catch up and become fully literate.

This seems like a very bad assessment of software engineering forgetting the cursial reason why older programmer have trouble finding job. The fact is that computer science is only really been a legitament profession for maybe 40-30 years. When it first was taught no one could of predicted the speed at which software engineering would become a dominate force in the world's economy nor seen how fast technology changes. So in the begginning computer science was viewed like math, physics, or any science it was taught so that you learned the basic first then you learned the newer and more innovative things. This is no longer the case. Yes most programmer will experience c/c++, some may even lean x86 and MIPS, but we now know that computer science require a constant change. It is no longer acceptable to just know c/c++ you must learn new languages all the time. Whether you decide to learn node,js, ruby, scala, or what ever cutting edge languages we are not groom to pick up languages in 2 weeks if needed to. Most great programmer are taught to teach themselves the newer technologies to stay relevant. Something I see my professor in college never really learned.