Old and Confused Dev | Hacker News Reader

Old and Confused Dev

6 pointsrlndb11 comments

hey HN! I'll be 35 in 2 months, recently became a dad and am a little confused about what's next in terms of my career.

My background: having no formal education I started out working in classic IT (fixing Windows related errors on client laptopts) for 6 years. Picked up programming & started tinkering with linux as a hobby, which led me to become a sysadmin/devops for 5 years. Eventually I became a backend developer mostly working in GO. My company had a merger, new teams were created and for the last year my title has been ML engineer. I even started tech leading this year. My company loves me, they're telling me regularly.

But I feel like all I'm doing is gluing together AWS services, and even though I'm busy I don't feel like I'm being challenged. Because of that about 3 months ago I started studying in my free time. As I said I have no formal education, so things like system design are all new to me. I'm going through the MIT 6.824: Distributed Systems course which is a blast! I also started learning Rust and learning about low level stuff, and wrote a couple CLI apps. Also spent time strengthening my DS & algo skills.

I don't have a clear idea though where to go next, and based on my study list you can tell I'm a bit all over the place. Learning about all these new things got me super excited though. I have this voice inside me that says I should specialize in a particular domain & the tech around it. And I need to do it NOW since I'm considered "old" as a dev. I'm also embarrassed that it took me this long to get to the point where I'm at. My questions:

- is it reasonable to specialize in something like distributed systems, or all most of the problems solved at this point?

- If I decide to go the route of systems programming, would companies even consider me with my background? Like I write python during the day, but will they care that I dedicate all my free time to other techs/languages?

Maybe it's a clickbait title, or maybe you really feel old and confused, I'm just not seeing it - only 35 years old, experience in devops, backend, ML, getting good feedback for your work. It just looks like you don't know what to do next, and it's kind of hard for other people to decide that for you, especially since you've had exposure to several fields and you should have some idea about what you like and what you don't like.

35 isn't old. And much of what many of us do is glue systems together.

And you can't be hurt by trying a few interviews here and there, to get a feel for what people are looking for.

But also remember you've a child, and those can be quite rewarding.

I would continue to study and "play" with various new tech until you find something you want to do more of a deep dive into. And you if you find a company or two continually coming to the forefront, take a look.

Depending on how large your company is, you may also be able to do a lateral transfer, too.

As to the questions:

- Distributed systems are not solved at all, we've perhaps made it worse, heh. The number of high-profile outages shows that.

- Companies don't really know where you have your expertise; if you get comfortable with Rust for example I'd just put it on the resume.

imo systems programming is more old fart friendly and arguably more interesting than most "fancy" new tech jobs out there. I'm 35 myself and so far age was never an issue during an interview.

due to high demand in Europe where I'm at, I don't expect we will be forced to change careers in foreseeable future, however sometimes I think driving a garbage truck may be more desirable to pop-ing yet another problem from the never ending task queue.

age in itself is not a problem. the real problem is losing enthusiasm and drive to perform for others. that may or may not come with age and realization you are a hamster in a wheel as opposed to building something of long lasting value you can reap benefit of in old age.

What skills do you think are most beneficial in your case? I’m 27 and want to migrate more into systems/low level dev to prepare for being an old fart next year.

I’ve been doing some assembly/C stuff for fun.

imo there are two ideas about what embedded is in current world:

1. low level embedded - RTOS, bare metal programming, micro controllers, C

2. higher level embedded - linux, android, qnx, various arm platforms, c++, yocto, cmake, various open source libraries depending on your specialization

for both cases you will need to know your c/c++, know how to read schematics and use oscilloscope, know how to read datasheets and apply that knowledge into drivers, know how to work with debuggers and digital analyzers, know embedded OS of choice and the surrounding ecosystem

its very interesting field where you get to work with and interact with things you implement

there are some downsides, like you need HW or remote jig, so remote work might be challenging or you end up dragging HW with your if you want to be on the move

I feel for you if you feel "old" as a dev, you've internalized some form of ageism. Some of us have careers the same age as you. Maybe some jobs didn't materialize for ageism for such ancients, but jobs are there.

What companies do you want to work for? Do you have any domain specialties? Where are you looking?

The fact that you have your own drive for learning things is a plus. Companies want explorers and self-trainers. School's long enough ago to be irrelevant. Make something that works and build a github portfolio. You'll be fine, maybe after a period of anxiety.

35 is not yet old.

Things on AWS and the like are inherently distributed, so going in that direction would build on your existing experience. There are definitely problems left to solve in that field.

Systems programming is on another level entirely. It might be a big gap to jump even if you have golang proficiency.

Hey old man, have you tried studying startupschool.org? You don't seem risk averse, maybe it's time to step up by having a career and a side gig or side business? Extra cash flow helps

Edit: lol at this thread everyone saying he's not old, good laugh

Ha! He'a new dad — he's just got a challenging and extremely time-consuming new 'side gig' (more of a new main gig), and I doubt he needs another one at this point.

(to OP:) I would talk to your managers and see what challenges would be interesting to you and beneficial to the company. Wait until you've adjusted to the being a dad before you go changing careers.

I'd imagine that most actual work in any software or systems domain isn't so much about solving new problems, as it is about working through problems that are made unique in context.

You aren't old

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