On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:33:05 GMT, William W. Plummer wrote:
Paul Tomblin wrote:

In a previous article, "William W. Plummer" said:

user wrote:

snip

Personally, I prefer working in IT, where the surest way to get
a huge pay increase is simply to threaten to quit. ;-)

Threatening to quit works until you are about 35 years old. Maybe a bit
longer if you walk on water. But later in life you can expect to be
pushed out in favor of younger, technology-current engineers.


There is no hard and fast rule that says you can't stay technology-current
as you age. I started off doing FORTRAN on mainframes, went to C and
Unix, then C++ and Unix, and here I am at 44 doing Java on Linux, making
50% more than I was making when I was 35. And every step up the ladder
was done by identifying what I wanted to do next and teaching myself.

What's the next technology trend? I don't know, but I'm damn sure I'm
going to teach it to myself before Java on Linux jobs dry up. Although I
have a nagging suspicion that my next "technology" will be "how to manage
a team of programmers in India to make sure that what they produce isn't a
giant cluster **** like every other outsourcing project I've seen".

I agree and have a very parallel career to yours. But at about your
age, I got into management. And wound up doing DoD acquisitions work.
Technical work is much more satisfying (like flying!), but doesn't pay
as well and you don't get the management bonuses. I'm partially retired
now and can't quite justify purchasing "Dot Net" and taking classes.


That really depends where you work. Even after the dot-com bust,
you can find good development jobs that pay in the high 5/low
6 figures, and include substantial bonuses. Granted, they're not
easy to find, but they are there.


And you are right about labor in India. Once they master the
technology, we will be the customer and will completely lack the ability
to compete.

Depends on the field. With one glaring exception, I've always worked
at manufacturing companies that are in need of constant systems changes
on the shop floor. When it comes to that kind of work, you need IT
people who can regularly walk around the machines on a regular basis,
and see what needs to be done. You're not going to get rapid and
relevant suggestions from a guy 6000 miles away who can't put
his hands on the binder, for example. But you'll going to have to
be the kind of developer who doesn't mind crawling around and getting
dirty, to make sure you're doing the right thing for what your
company needs. And if you're the sort of person who develops
only systems that don't need a hands-on-approach - well, all I can
say is, you'd better have some money saved up for a career change
10 years from now.

- Rich