It seems like the article is based around the very flawed premises that what people enjoy doing can support them monetarily, and that such activities even can be carried on until death. It all sort of falls apart when you consider the passionate artist who isn't actually very good, or the skilled woodworker that develops arthritis.
It's no surprise that the author is a software developer, as we are the rare cases that are often well paid, often enjoy what we do tremendously, and the job has few physical requirements that would exclude an elderly person (though age discrimination is very real). The author's points come from a very privileged position, and I'm not sure they realise it.
I'm all for not giving up on life at retirement age, but even though I like my job I sure as hell don't want to be doing a 9-5 when I'm 80. I don't even really want to be doing it now.
I'm a software developer myself and had a rude awakening into the life of someone who loves what they do but can't do it due to a physical limitation recently. I'm lucky that It is fixable and I'm in the process but it makes me dread a time when I have something that can't be fixed.
I developed Cubital tunnel syndrome in both elbows which leads to extreme numbness and pain in my pinky, ring finger wrist, elbow and top of the hand when doing any activity requiring using my hands or bending elbow for even small minutes of time. Luckily I can get surgery for it, but I've still had to wait this long going through months of other prevention measures that didn't work at all before I was finally allowed to consider it.
Even though its only been 6 months, its been an extremely depressing ride not being physically able to do basic daily things including my job and passion of developing/learning about development without pain.
Its made me scared for the day when I wont be able to do this and many other things anymore since even just this short 6 months has been a rude awakening into the life of someone dealing with extreme pain in just daily life, and sympathize for people who are going through the same things.
For many people "retiring" doing what they love just is not possible.
I had pinched ulnaris nerve in both elbows a few years ago. The symptoms were pretty much the same as you describe. It took two operations and more than a year to recover. The symptoms started to creep back this year, probably because I started to hit the keyboard more. Luckily I found a book about trigger points [1] and releasing the triceps trigger points, especially #3 removes the symptoms. The book is godsend; I've found help from it to so many other issues too.
I used to think I would work until I died or was unable to work.
I now realize that it would be nice to retire, so that I can work on the things that I want to (which in my case would be open source projects) instead of what my employer tells me to.
You could argue if I was self employed, I could do that now, but that would mean I have to worry about finding people to pay me for my work (as a contractor or freelancer) or running a business (as a founder). And I have zero interest in doing that.
Not easily. There aren't a lot of part-time software development jobs. And working part time typically means giving up benefits like health insurance (at least in the US).
100% this. I've also been thinking about going part time SWE, but I just haven't seen any. You can try freelancing part time, but that's not for everyone. The best bet is to get creative and go work for a large co where you can slack off part time. Maybe try joining as a junior. You can get the job done fast as senior , take the lower salary and get back some freedom. Seems fair to me.
You could also build software for fun, ie contribute to open source.
However remember that there are several other disabilities that can occur as you age. I know several people who developed Alzheimer's or MS around their 60’s. There is no way they could work a programming job today.
contributing to open source isn't fun. it sucks. it might be good for your career but it is developing software in the most hostile environment for the most entitled users
I have a side project. wanna see the code? you can't! screw you it's mine!
also MS is a wildly different disease than Alzheimer's. many women especially develop MS in their twenties and it is not always progressive and it is certainly not life ending like Alzheimer's
spreading this kind of misinformation about MS makes it difficult for sufferers to find work if their disability is visible because their level of disability can be assumed to be greater than it really is. MS is extremely variable from one person to the next.
> I have a side project. wanna see the code? you can't! screw you it's mine!
Lol. Are you ok?
> MS is a wildly different disease than Alzheimer's.
They didn’t say it is the same disease. They said “I know several people who developed Alzheimer's or MS around their 60’s.” Which is while not the typical age MS appears it can still certainly happen. (It even has a specific name to describe it. Late-Onset Multiple Sclerosis)
Do people really enjoy this industry that much? I get the feeling we have a lot of outspoken people who write a lot but almost everyone I’ve ever met is trying to get the fuck out. They want to get their payday and FIRE. They’re not interested in staying if they have the financial means to leave. Part of the distaste for the job and industry is what I think fuels the FIRE movement being so full of tech workers. If you’re in medicine or law or finance, you can do the same but you never hear of FIRE anywhere near the same level in those industries.
Yeah, I think my frustrations have much more to do with the environment than coding or whatever. I don’t spend a ton of time coding and so my frustrations naturally are abundant.
I think a lot of finance these days is kinda bullshit though. My friends in NYC who are in finance and making a killing (easily making more than faang engineer comp) are barely working and seem to be happy with their jobs. What a joke it is to be in the tech industry when you’re also working one of the lowest social status jobs on top of being ground into dust.
Personally I've enjoyed it a lot, at points, mostly when I'm permitted to keep my head down and build useful things or meaningfully improve existing things.
That said, I'm based in the UK so I don't think FIRE* is so prevalent here, because our salaries are much lower and there are barely any opportunities for a big payday compared to the US. I make 2x the median UK salary as a lead dev and live in a fairly low cost of living area, but that only puts me at the same salary as a junior dev in much of the US. I'm not paying my mortgage off any time soon.
* Financial Independence, Retire Early for anyone wondering—I had to look it up as I wasn't familiar with the term
The industry? Meh, not so much, as other sibling comments elaborate on. But the work? Oh, I do/did love the work. I retired in May, after like 35 years in software. I've been programming computing machinery since I got my Atari 800 back in, what, 1981? I still enjoy even in retirement, as just this morning I was wondering how to automate around a limitation of Square's offering for a non-profit I help out with. And as I was pondering that, I found myself looking forward to doing the work, 'cuz puzzle-solving, amirite?
But the industry? I'd bet one of my old paychecks that there are plenty of doctors and lawyers that will say the same thing: "love the work, hate the industry". Because MBAs didn't just ruin software development, you know.
Usually because medicine, law, and finance comes with huge student debt. There's also a certain level of prestige expected with those profession that it seems par for the course to buy a $1M house, a car with a 6 figure price tag, etc. Those two things probably make FIRE hard to fathom for most of those people.
They can come with large debt but it's not guaranteed. The one thing I will say though is that you typically do need to go to a more prestigious university.
Also, tech is no exception to the expensive lifestyle. It's basically a requirement of living in Silicon Valley. Crap homes in Santa Clara are averaging $2.5m right now. People still plan to FIRE in the bay area.
That's my point. Techies lived an expensive lifestyle not by choice. Now that we have remote work, how many have left to lower cost of living areas? Most of us are not driven by prestige and because of that we're a lot more amenable to FIRE.
Remote work is not that common still. All the return to office mandates should make that clear…
The Bay Area still is attracting tens of thousands of immigrants from across the world every year. I have not seen any big difference in population within the bay for tech workers. If I saw any big migration - it was that all the single men have been trying to get to NYC. There is a massive amount of single men in SF that are trying to get to the NYC offices for nearly every big tech company right now. Everyone finally got sick and tired of how hard it is to meet women in SF. The ratio is obscene. (33-50% more single men than women depending on your subregion of SFBA)
> the passionate artist who isn't actually very good
Your point stands even if said artist is good but can’t network. Hannah Gadsby makes that point about van Gogh in Nannette¹: people actively avoided him, so he didn’t find success in life.
"Early retirement was not associated with a higher risk of mortality. On-time retirement was associated with a higher risk of mortality, which might reflect the healthy worker effect."
(but it also says "It is important to consider information on prior health and demographics when studying the association between retirement and mortality to avoid biased findings.")
I kind of suspect it might be imagination and realistic planning.
You should imagine retirement early and if you can't afford it, try to mentally do it. and then transition while staying happy and healthy.
If you work work work, then "retire", you might just jump into the laz-y-boy at retirement, become comfortable, less active and adopt unhealthy habits.
I am the author and I am very much aware of my privileges. I also know that I am writing these things not to everyone out there but to people like me.
That said, I am also aware of my privileged situation can change anytime. That’s why I am focusing on what I can do to cover myself if I lose these privileges while I still have them.
Most probably, I don’t know and not aware of a lot of things as well and I am willing to figure out on the way, lose something, earn something else, but never give up.
> I don't even really want to be doing it now.
This sentence is what exactly I want to avoid in my life.
How do you see our profession evolving until and past your retirement age? Are you not worried that, besides the LLM revolution (and whatever comes next), ageism will cause you to be out of a job at say 60 at the latest?
We can safely say that nobody can predict how our profession will evolve. I don't want to assume I will stay in this profession forever. I currently love my profession and am trying my best to do it well and learn the fields close to my field (like psychology or philosophy). On the other hand, I'm doing other things I enjoy (like writing on my blog), although they don't bring any income. However, writing is a skill I can learn, grow, and become an income in the future (if I enjoy doing it professionally).
I'm worried that not only ageism but also a sudden accident or any other sickness can put me out of a job. That's exactly what I meant by "have enough savings to cover detours during the journey." That's why I used to "only" word in, "Instead of relying only on forty years of commitment to retirement schemes, ..." I still have retirement and government support to cover my problems up to a certain point. However, it's up to me to make the journey safer by investing according to my goal.
I am well past 60. For the first 30 odd years I was an individual contributor in both programming and system administration and manager of the same.
When one of the financial crises and ageism ended my management career, I went back to school and switched fields. After a few years I got the chance to teach new computer support professionals in vocational program. I have been doing that for 15 years.
As a side note for ageism "victims" our school is growing and is struggling to find enough competent teachers (Window/Linux Admin, Database, Scripting, Networking, VMs, Cloud, Mobile devices...).
Check out your local vocational programs. You can find permanent or bridge work teaching at this level. Usually industry experience is more important for these jobs than a teaching degree.
If the 'LLM revolution' proves to be as effective and scary as you imply, a motivated 85 year old coder could easily hide their identity behind whatever deepfaked voice/video/photo/text identity they choose and never be revealed to be aged
>ageism will cause you to be out of a job at say 60 at the latest?
Do you feel like you'll be much less productive at 60? Why would you work for a company that thinks that way? Can you no longer solve business problems by that age? We have 80 year old politicians, so I'd hope not.
It’s hard to overstate how much I want to see this topic the same way as you do. I think, so far, I’ve only become more productive, and I don’t feel the cynicism that many seem to acquire past a certain age (“all frameworks are just the same”, “wheel is reinvented all the time” etc - I have a more nuanced view on this). I’m not really worried about my productivity at 60, but that the market will favor cheaper, superficially quicker-minded folks, who tend to be young.
No the reason why they want young people is not speed.
Managers hate mature people because they are a lot harder to command. You also run into the problem of someone being more qualified than their superior.
I work in healthcare and seeing a child manager clash with a 60 year old nurse never stops being hilarious.
I'll be 60 in a couple of weeks time (I hate typing that - get off my lawn etc!). I know I'm not less productive now than I was 10, 20, 30 years ago. Maybe a bit more cynical - but then I can hide that with humour.
The one think I do feel strongly is that my current FTE job is my last one. Ageism is a real issue, when it comes to finding a job in tech when you're in your 50s; running the recruitment race in my 60s is not something I want to face. Which means I feel like I've lost the chance to walk away from my current job if anything goes wrong.
I get my pension in 7 years time: I'm looking forward to it already!
I have first hand experience with this.I am late 50s and still at top of my game in my area of expertise. It was time to move on from last job last year and had zero interest from anyone. All through my network so no cold calls either. I know for a fact those positions were filled with late 30s mid 40s people.
So my answer was luckily i retired. The interesting thing is after being in tech for 35-40 years i have no interest in any of it now. Hell after 3 weeks of retirement i didnt.
I have a small farm now and play with tractors and such all day.
No true Scotsman - Joe Biden is old, but plenty of young conservatives are far, far less likely to enact any progressive legislation. People age in lots of different ways, some people will face dementia in their 60s, others will be lucid into their 90s and beyond.
Fair enough, it sounds like perhaps I misjudged your intent and I'm sorry to have implied any ignorance on your part. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts. It’s good to hear other’s challenges on my words so I can reflect on how my sentences sound on other people’s minds.
It's no surprise that the author is a software developer, as we are the rare cases that are often well paid, often enjoy what we do tremendously, and the job has few physical requirements that would exclude an elderly person (though age discrimination is very real). The author's points come from a very privileged position, and I'm not sure they realise it.
I'm all for not giving up on life at retirement age, but even though I like my job I sure as hell don't want to be doing a 9-5 when I'm 80. I don't even really want to be doing it now.