軟件開發(fā)在35-40歲之后真的是沒有前途的工作嗎（一）

Steven Ussery
I am a 65-year-old software engineer who has worked for Apple, Adobe, eBay, Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, FileMaker, XO Communications, 2Wire, Egnyte, Nexsan, and two other start-ups. I have been laid off five times in my career. I always find another job within 3 to 4 weeks — even during a recession. I have had my job outsourced to India or China four times: especially in the last eight years. Nonetheless, there is always another employment opportunity waiting afterwards.
I love what I do. I’m still doing it; and, I have no immediate plans to stop doing it. Moreover, I am good at it. That’s not so much because I am a genius but rather because I have been doing software development for a really long time and I learned from my mistakes. In fact, there is no wide-spread computer language I can’t program in. Nor is there any OS platform I am not comfortable working on. And, besides the U.S., I have also worked overseas in Apple’s factories in China and Ireland. Besides English, I’ve learned to speak (poorly) Spanish and Italian, and I can manage about a ten phrases in Mandarin.
I have managed to do all this while successfully being married for 40 years, raised two adult children (one who is a Netflix software engineer), and I now have five grandchildren. According to the last Social Security report I receive annually from the government, my total lifetime income to date is: $3,042,040;

我是一名65歲的軟件工程師，曾為蘋果、Adobe、eBay、微軟、VMware、思科、FileMaker、XO Communications、2Wire、Egnyte、Nexsan和其他兩家初創(chuàng)公司工作。在我的職業(yè)生涯中，我被解雇了五次。不過我總是在3到4周內(nèi)找到另一份工作——即使是在經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退期間也是如此。我曾四次將工作外包給印度或中國：尤其是在過去八年里。盡管如此，之后總會(huì)有另一個(gè)就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)等著我。
我喜歡我做的事，我仍在做；而且，我沒有立即停止此類工作的計(jì)劃。而且，我很擅長。這并不是因?yàn)槲沂翘觳牛且驗(yàn)槲覐氖萝浖_發(fā)已經(jīng)很長時(shí)間了，我從錯(cuò)誤中吸取了教訓(xùn)。事實(shí)上，沒有一種廣泛傳播的計(jì)算機(jī)語言是我不能編寫程序的。也沒有任何操作系統(tǒng)平臺讓我為其工作時(shí)會(huì)感到不適應(yīng)。而且，除了美國，我還曾在中國和愛爾蘭的蘋果工廠工作。除了英語，我還學(xué)會(huì)了西班牙語和意大利語（說得不好），我能用普通話說大約10個(gè)短語。
我成功地做到了這一切，同時(shí)成功地維持婚姻40年，養(yǎng)育了兩個(gè)子女到成年（其中一個(gè)是Netflix軟件工程師），現(xiàn)在我有五個(gè)孫子。根據(jù)我每年從政府收到的最后一份社會(huì)保障報(bào)告，到目前為止，我至今取得的收入總額是:3,042,040美元。

Having said all this, it is very much true that age discrimination and outsourcing is rampant in the Silicon Valley. Before age 45, I had a better than average chance of getting a job after a single interview. Now, at age 64, it takes me about ten interviews before I get the next job. Even then I sometimes have to work as a contractor without benefits. And, I have even learned to tolerate being interviewed by arrogant and entitled young preppies, most whom think they are somehow better than me even though they haven’t accomplished one tenth of what I have, nor have my superb academic credentials. (I have a B.S. in Civil Engineering and a M.S. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University — the latter at the top of my class.)
So, the answer to your question is: NO, software development is most certainly not a dead end job! It is a great job. Does it get tougher to get your next job as you get older? Oh hell yes. But, so what! If you love it as I do nothing but death or poor health can stop you. All it takes is a determination.
Never give up!

說了這么多，年齡歧視和外包在硅谷很普遍，這是千真萬確的。在45歲之前，我在一次面試后獲得工作的機(jī)會(huì)高于平均水平?，F(xiàn)在，在我64歲的時(shí)候，在我得到下一份工作之前，我需要大約十次面試。即使這樣，我有時(shí)也不得不做一個(gè)沒有福利的承包商。我甚至學(xué)會(huì)了容忍那些傲慢自大、自命不凡的年輕預(yù)科生們面試我，他們中的大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為他們在某種程度上比我優(yōu)秀，盡管他們所取得的成就還不到我的十分之一，學(xué)歷也沒有我耀眼。（我擁有德州農(nóng)工大學(xué)的土木工程學(xué)士學(xué)位和計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)碩士學(xué)位，讀后者時(shí)的成績在我的班上名列前茅。）
所以，你的問題的答案是：不，軟件開發(fā)肯定不是一份沒有出路的工作！這是一份很棒的工作。隨著年齡的增長，找到下一份工作會(huì)變得更難嗎？哦，見鬼，是的。但是，那又怎樣！如果你像我一樣愛它，只有死亡或健康不佳可以阻止你—只要有決心。
永不放棄！

Connor Stricklan
A software developer I know recently got a call from a recruiter at Google, asking what it would take for him to come to work for them.
This developer had actually already worked for Google, but he left about five years ago to pursue other projects, and he didn’t want to live in one of the cities that have a Google office. Even though he didn’t have a degree in computer science and never took a college course in OOP, he must have impressed them enough to keep him on the recruitment list these years later. The recruiter suggested maybe he could be interested in interviewing with the Project Loon team in Singapore.
He gave a little chuckle to the recruiter over the phone, and his first question was: You know how old I am, right? The recruiter confirmed that yes, his date of birth was on file, and that Google didn’t factor age into its recruitment policies. The developer agreed to think about the prospect and they agreed to touch base again in a week.
That 66-year-old developer is my father. He is collecting social security while being courted by Google. He had a fulfilling career running his own company, consulting, and being an employee. He made contributions during the early stages of numerous technologies such as TCP networking, USB protocols, 802.11b implementation, and military GPS. Then he was hired by Google in 2008, when he was 58.
While at Google, he wrote software in Java, a language that wasn’t even invented until he was 45. And he was an individual contributor, without having any other engineer report to him.
One of the great things about software development is it’s all about your passion to learn and ability to perform, which is demonstrated by my dad’s career and the careers of thousands others. If you don’t have those required ingredients, then sure, software development is a dead-end job at any age. But if you have the passion and skill, then it is not a dead-end job after 40, 50, or even 60.

我認(rèn)識的一位軟件開發(fā)人員最近接到谷歌招聘人員的電話，詢問他需要什么條件才能為他們工作。
這位開發(fā)者實(shí)際上已經(jīng)為谷歌工作過，但他在大約五年前離開了谷歌，開始從事其他項(xiàng)目，他不想住在一個(gè)有谷歌辦公室的城市。盡管他沒有計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)學(xué)位，也從未上過面向?qū)ο缶幊痰拇髮W(xué)課程，但他一定給他們留下了深刻的印象，以至于多年后他仍在招募名單上。招聘人員表示他可能有興趣與新加坡的龍計(jì)劃團(tuán)隊(duì)進(jìn)行面試。
他在電話里咯咯地笑了笑，第一個(gè)問題是：你知道我多大了吧？招聘人員證實(shí)，知道，他的出生日期已存檔，谷歌沒有將年齡因素納入其招聘政策。開發(fā)商同意考慮前景，他們同意在一周內(nèi)再次聯(lián)系。
那個(gè)66歲的開發(fā)者是我的父親。他一邊領(lǐng)取社會(huì)保障，一邊被谷歌追捧。他有一個(gè)充實(shí)的職業(yè)生涯，經(jīng)營自己的公司，提供咨詢，并成為一名員工。他在許多技術(shù)的早期階段做出了貢獻(xiàn)，如TCP網(wǎng)絡(luò)、USB協(xié)議、802.11b實(shí)現(xiàn)和軍用GPS。2008年，58歲的他被谷歌聘用。
在谷歌工作期間，他用Java編寫軟件，Java是一種直到他45歲時(shí)才發(fā)明出的語言。他是一名獨(dú)立貢獻(xiàn)者，沒有任何其他工程師向他報(bào)告。
軟件開發(fā)的偉大之處之一就是你對學(xué)習(xí)的熱情和執(zhí)行的能力，我父親的職業(yè)生涯和成千上萬其他人的職業(yè)生涯都證明了這一點(diǎn)。如果你沒有這些必要的素質(zhì)，那么軟件開發(fā)在任何年齡都是一分沒有出路的工作。但是如果你有激情和技能，那么在40歲、50歲甚至60歲之后，這都不是一份沒有出路的工作。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處

Corwyn B
I am in my early 60s, and I have worked in operating systems development my entire career, and for some high profile companies. I have a long track record.
On principle, I do not accept job offers from places where I do not like the product, the company vision, or the general vibe. I tend to stay at a place of employment until it goes seriously bad. The longest sojourn was about 14 years at one place that was peculiarly interesting until a series of high-level management mistakes brought the company to its knees and prompted me to go elsewhere.
I have been successful at all the places where I have worked, but when I went out into the job market again in January ‘18, it was a very eye-opening experience.
The first thing I learned was that people didn’t read the resumes closely. I stated explicitly what I had worked on and what I was interested in working on, but people saw that I had worked in a storage division at one point, and were asking me about being an HBA driver grunt. I know something about such software, and have even helped people debug them, but HBA driver expertise is a very specific skill that people specialize in, and I did not anywhere sell myself as an HBA driver developer. In fact, although in my career I have developed various device drivers (probably more than 20), it’s not something I much enjoy.
The second problem was the quiz show method of uation: go to the white board and code up this problem. I can code on the fly — I do it for a living — but I am accustomed to design something carefully first before coding. I had to learn to jump in and just wing it to cope with these sorts of lame quiz show questions.

我今年60出頭，在我的整個(gè)職業(yè)生涯中都在從事操作系統(tǒng)開發(fā)，并為一些知名公司工作。我有很長的工作記錄。
原則上，我不接受這類工作：我不喜歡產(chǎn)品、我不喜歡的公司愿景或氛圍一般的地方。我傾向于待在一個(gè)工作的地方，直到它變得非常糟糕。我在一個(gè)特別有趣的地方呆了14年，直到一系列高層管理失誤導(dǎo)致公司倒閉，促使我去了其他地方。
我在所有工作過的地方都取得了成功，但當(dāng)我在2018年1月再次進(jìn)入就業(yè)市場時(shí)，那是一次非常令人大開眼界的經(jīng)歷。
我了解到的第一件事是人們沒有仔細(xì)閱讀簡歷。我明確地說了我在做什么，我對做什么感興趣，但人們看到我曾在一個(gè)存儲(chǔ)部門工作過，并問我做HBA驅(qū)動(dòng)的事我對這類軟件有所了解，甚至幫助人們調(diào)試它們，但是HBA（適配器）驅(qū)動(dòng)程序?qū)I(yè)知識是人們專門從事的一種非常具體的技能，而且我并沒有把自己標(biāo)榜為HBA驅(qū)動(dòng)程序開發(fā)人員。事實(shí)上，雖然在我的職業(yè)生涯中，我開發(fā)了各種設(shè)備驅(qū)動(dòng)程序（可能超過20個(gè)），但這并不是我很喜歡的東西。
第二個(gè)問題是展示了評價(jià)方法的小測驗(yàn)：走到白板上編寫這個(gè)問題。我可以隨時(shí)編寫代碼——我以編寫代碼為生——但我習(xí)慣于在編寫代碼之前先仔細(xì)設(shè)計(jì)一些東西。 我必須學(xué)會(huì)投入并即興發(fā)揮來應(yīng)對展示問題的幼稚測驗(yàn)。

The quiz show questions are often not very interesting or applicable to the sort of work you do, or will do. But the examiner knows that particular area, and he’s all eager to check you out.
Another feature is what I call the immature interviewer problem. This occurs sometimes with younger interviewers whose view of themselves does not permit them to admit that someone knows as much or more than they do about a topic. They will play games to try to demonstrate their assumed superiority. You learn to cope with them by going along with their attitude, even if it seems absurd.
Generally, highly experienced engineers who are skilled at designing and building systems tend to shine in the high level systems design tests that companies subject you to.
When you get a bunch of 20–30-somethings asking you to code, you’re rarely going to please them. This is very different from my own method when I hired people at a previous job — one guy I hired who had just got his doctorate in CS admitted to me that he did not think he was all that skilled at programming in C. I told him that I cared more if he could think and design, and I was satisfied about that, because I would make sure he knew C thoroughly before he was done.
I do not think the sextion processes at all these companies are entirely effective, but that is what they do. They optimize to sext a certain type of employee who best fits the profile of a relatively recent graduate.

小測驗(yàn)的問題通常不是很有趣，也不適用于你正在做或?qū)⒁龅墓ぷ鳌５侵骺既酥肋@個(gè)特定的領(lǐng)域，他迫不及待地想了解你。
另一個(gè)特點(diǎn)是我稱之為不成熟的面試官問題。這種情況有時(shí)會(huì)發(fā)生在年輕的面試官身上，他們對自己的看法不允許他們承認(rèn)別人在某個(gè)話題上的了解程度和他們一樣或者比他們知道的更多。他們會(huì)玩游戲來展示自己的優(yōu)越感。你通過順從他們的態(tài)度來學(xué)會(huì)應(yīng)對他們，即使這看起來很荒謬。
一般來說，經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富、擅長設(shè)計(jì)和構(gòu)建系統(tǒng)的工程師往往會(huì)在公司讓你參加的高級系統(tǒng)設(shè)計(jì)測試中脫穎而出。
當(dāng)一群二三十歲的人要求你編寫代碼時(shí)，你很難讓他們滿意。這與我在之前的工作中雇傭人時(shí)的方法非常不同——我雇傭的一個(gè)剛剛獲得CS博士學(xué)位的人向我承認(rèn)，他不認(rèn)為自己在C語言編程方面不夠熟練。我告訴他，如果他能思考和設(shè)計(jì)，我會(huì)更留意他，我對此感到滿意，因?yàn)槲铱梢源_保他在完成之前徹底了解C語言編程。
我不認(rèn)為所有這些公司的甄選過程都是完全有效的，但他們就是這么做的。他們優(yōu)化選擇特定類型的員工，這些人最符合剛畢業(yè)不久的人的特征。

I went through the interview process at about 7 places. I was fortunate and did well enough in more than one that I got to choose my offer. But I came away convinced that certain large, self-important companies were planting the seeds of their own problems in future and made the decision to keep my distance.
You can find a job when you are over 60. Finding a job at 35–40 is easy by comparison. You just need to have the goods. But when you are REALLY experienced, they will look at you very closely and critically. Finding an entry-level job is impossible. You need to have a diverse skillset by the time you hit 40, and it’s not just being a coder.
Now the question: does being in software development after a certain age have a future?
I am no longer sure. What constitutes software development will continue to evolve, and the hot areas will change. But this profession is notorious for using people up by working them very hard. People get tired of it and move into other areas, or they get promoted and do not need to code every day, or they move into management or marketing or product support. If I were talking to a young engineer of 22 now, I would caution him to get what he wants out of the experience as much as he can, but keep his head up and look around. What you see today is not what you will see in 20 years. Definitely not in 40 years. Can you plan a career where it’s uncertain how your job will evolve and develop? This is very difficult. I did not think of this at all when I was in school.

我在大約7個(gè)地方完成了面試過程。我很幸運(yùn)，在不止在一處工作之地把工作完成的很好。但當(dāng)我離開時(shí)，我確信某些自大的大公司正在為他們未來的問題埋下種子，所以我決定與他們保持距離。
在60歲過后，你都可以找到工作。相比之下，在35-40歲找工作很容易。你只要有貨就行了。但當(dāng)你真正有經(jīng)驗(yàn)時(shí)，他們會(huì)非常仔細(xì)地、批判地觀察你。找一份初級工作是不可能的。在你40歲的時(shí)候，你需要擁有多樣化的技能，而不僅僅是成為一名程序員
現(xiàn)在的問題是：在一定年齡后從事軟件開發(fā)有前途嗎？
對此我不再確定，構(gòu)成軟件開發(fā)的要素將繼續(xù)演變，熱點(diǎn)領(lǐng)域?qū)l(fā)生變化。但這個(gè)職業(yè)因讓人們拼命工作消耗他們的精力而臭名昭著。人們厭倦了它，轉(zhuǎn)而從事其他領(lǐng)域，或者他們得到提升，不需要每天編寫代碼，或者他們轉(zhuǎn)向管理、營銷或產(chǎn)品支持部門。如果我現(xiàn)在和一位22歲的年輕工程師交談，我會(huì)提醒他盡可能多地從經(jīng)驗(yàn)中獲得他想要的東西，但要抬起頭來四處看看。你今天看到的不會(huì)是20年后看到的樣子，肯定不會(huì)是40年后的樣子。你能在不確定工作發(fā)展方向的情況下規(guī)劃職業(yè)生涯嗎?這非常困難。我在學(xué)校的時(shí)候根本沒有想到這一點(diǎn)。

Ian Drake
If you are talking about commercial development (e.g. Google, Facebook), there may be some truth to that.
However, the vast majority of software developers work in corporate environments of all sizes building custom applications for internal usage. In this case, the following can extend your career indefinitely. I am 64 and still going strong.
Don’t get stuck in a rut. Be ready and willing to switch applications and/or platforms relatively frequently. People who are recognized as single talented are the easiest to outsource
Be responsible for your own development. Successful developers are constantly understanding industry directions as well as changes in internal architectures. The best training course in the world is never more than a brief intro and road map. Past that point you have to get your hands dirty with real world scenarios and a ton of web searches
Provide extra value to your employer #1. Be prepared to mentor more junior staff and leverage your experience to build new approaches. Be willing to do “Lunch and Learn” type demos for a wider audience
Provide extra value to your employer #2. High end developers are constantly building reusable frxworks and architectures that enable other staff to complete their assignments quickly and reliably. Once a reusable component is tested and deployed, no further testing of that component should be required and bugs, by definition, should more often than not be in the new code
Become more business focused. Pure coders will cap out on learning very quickly and find it hard to compete. Someone who understands the business of their company (manufacturing, insurance, finance etc.) as well as the role of their end-user department (sales, customer service, legal etc.) is incredibly valuable

如果你談?wù)摰氖巧虡I(yè)開發(fā)（例如谷歌、臉書），這可能有一些道理。
然而，絕大多數(shù)軟件開發(fā)人員在各種規(guī)模的公司環(huán)境中工作，構(gòu)建用于內(nèi)部使用的定制應(yīng)用程序。在這種情況下，以下幾點(diǎn)可以無限期地延長你的職業(yè)生涯。我64歲了，仍然很受歡迎。
不要墨守成規(guī)。準(zhǔn)備并愿意相對頻繁地切換應(yīng)用程序和/或平臺。被認(rèn)為是單一人才的人的工作最容易被外包。
對自己的發(fā)展負(fù)責(zé)。成功的開發(fā)人員不斷了解行業(yè)方向以及內(nèi)部架構(gòu)的變化。世界上最好的培訓(xùn)課程就是簡短的介紹和路線圖。過了這個(gè)階段，你就得親身體驗(yàn)真實(shí)世界的場景和進(jìn)行大量的網(wǎng)絡(luò)搜索工作。
為你的雇主提供額外的價(jià)值：
1、準(zhǔn)備好指導(dǎo)更多的初級員工，并利用你的經(jīng)驗(yàn)建立新的方法。愿意為更廣泛的受眾做“午餐和學(xué)習(xí)”類型的演示。
2、高端開發(fā)人員不斷構(gòu)建可重用的框架和架構(gòu)，使其他員工能夠快速可靠地完成任務(wù)。一旦測試和部署了可重用組件，就不需要對該組件進(jìn)行進(jìn)一步的測試，根據(jù)定義，錯(cuò)誤應(yīng)該更多地出現(xiàn)在新代碼中
變得更專注于業(yè)務(wù)。純粹的程序員學(xué)習(xí)速度很快，別人會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)很難與競爭。了解公司業(yè)務(wù)（制造、保險(xiǎn)、財(cái)務(wù)等）終端用戶部門(銷售、客戶服務(wù)、法律等)角色的人是非常有價(jià)值的。

Andrew McGregor
For me, a 56 year old software developer, it was 50 not 40 that was the cutoff. When I was 40 the company I was working for went bankrupt and I was looking for work. I applied to about 10 companies, got 8 interviews and multiple offers.
At 50, I was applying to jobs and there was virtually no response. After 20 applications - nothing. I ended up working with a headhunter who said “You’re old but you’re still pretty with it.” and I ended up with a couple of offers and took one. 5 years later it’s all but impossible so I’m working with a couple of startups for little to no salary. Fortunately I’m financially secure so it’s not a problem.
My observation is that most 35–45 year old developers transition to another area within high tech such as:
management
product management (deciding what to build next)
sales
sales support
customer support (for big/critical systems)
(note that these jobs are not generally open to new grads)
Most of these roles are good to 55+, but pure development jobs are hard to get later in your career. I think a bit part of that is that at 30 or 40 you will improve as a developer as you understand the product and company faster than you will degrade with age. Past 50 most developers will get so much weaker each year that it is a losing proposition to hire them (similar to pro athletes).
Overall I’m happy with how my career went, but the last few years have been frustrating. I’m now settling into partial retirement and I’m ready for that now (and I wasn’t ready for that 5 years ago).

對我這個(gè)56歲的軟件開發(fā)人員來說，50歲是底線而40歲不是。我40歲的時(shí)候，我工作的公司破產(chǎn)了，我正在找工作。我申請了大約10家公司，得到了8次面試和多份工作機(jī)會(huì)。
50歲時(shí)，我正在申請工作，但幾乎沒有得到任何回應(yīng)。20次申請后，什么結(jié)果都沒有。我最后和一個(gè)獵頭合作，他說:“你雖然老了，但你還是很漂亮?！弊詈笪沂盏搅藥追菅垼疫x擇了其中一個(gè)。5年后，這幾乎是不可能的，所以我進(jìn)入幾家初創(chuàng)公司工作，薪水很少，甚至沒有。幸運(yùn)的是，我有經(jīng)濟(jì)保障，所以這不是問題。
根據(jù)我的觀察，大多數(shù)35-45歲的開發(fā)者會(huì)轉(zhuǎn)向其他高科技領(lǐng)域，例如:
經(jīng)營
產(chǎn)品管理（決定下一步要構(gòu)建什么）
銷售
銷售支持
客戶支持（針對大型/關(guān)鍵系統(tǒng)）
（請注意，這些工作通常不對應(yīng)屆畢業(yè)生開放）
這些角色大多適合55歲以上的人，但在你的職業(yè)生涯后期很難再有純粹的開發(fā)工作。我認(rèn)為其中的一部分原因是，在30歲或40歲時(shí)，作為一名開發(fā)人員，你會(huì)因?yàn)楦斓亓私猱a(chǎn)品和公司而進(jìn)步，但此能力會(huì)隨著年齡的增長而退化。超過50歲的大多數(shù)開發(fā)者將會(huì)變得越來越虛弱，此時(shí)雇傭他們(類似于職業(yè)運(yùn)動(dòng)員)是一件虧本生意。
總的來說，我對自己的職業(yè)生涯感到滿意，但過去幾年的情況令人沮喪。我現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好半退休了（5年前我還沒有準(zhǔn)備好）。

Mike Thomas
I wouldn't say that there's no future in it. It's just that the future is a bit different than when you're in your 20s. I'm currently 53 years old, and I'm still a software developer. I make a very good living, and I still enjoy my job. I always say it's like being paid to have a hobby.
I currently work in a small company where the youngest person is over 40. We are all developers. But we're also all architects, and DevOps guys, and testers, and project managers, and leaders to a greater or lesser extent. We've been doing it long enough that we've had to do just about everything In our careers.
Once you're older, you've seen a LOT of projects succeed and fail, and you've done it in a lot of different types of places with different types of technologies and processes. This gives you a perspective on the software industry that younger people generally don't have.
Here's where that different future comes in: the challenge for a very experienced developer is to find companies that value the perspective provided by experience. So, the available jobs are more scarce and provide less variety for very experienced people.

我不會(huì)說它沒有未來。只是未來情況與你20多歲時(shí)有些不同。我現(xiàn)在53歲，還是一名軟件開發(fā)人員。我的生活很好，我仍然喜歡我的工作。我總是說這就像還有人付錢讓做你愛好做的事情一樣。
我目前在一家小公司工作，，最年輕的員工超過40歲。我們都是開發(fā)者。但我們也都是架構(gòu)師、開發(fā)運(yùn)維人員、測試人員、項(xiàng)目經(jīng)理，或多或少都是領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。我們干這行已經(jīng)夠久了，在我們的職業(yè)生涯中，我們幾乎做了所有的事情。
一旦你長大了，你會(huì)看到很多項(xiàng)目的成功和失敗，你會(huì)在很多不同類型的地方用不同類型的技術(shù)和流程來完成工作。這給你一個(gè)關(guān)于軟件行業(yè)的視角，這是年輕人通常不具備的。
這就是未來的不同之處:對于經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的開發(fā)者來說，他們所面臨的挑戰(zhàn)是找到重視經(jīng)驗(yàn)所提供的觀點(diǎn)的公司。因此，可供選擇的工作更加稀缺，為經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的人提供的多樣性也更少。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處

Paolo Tozzo
I'm 43 (turning 44 in October), and three years ago I moved from Italy, where I had my own start-up, to London, where I worked as a permanent employee for the 1st year, and for the following two as a contractor, doubling my salary and the opportunities to have fun.
Even though I had a lot of chances to increase my daily rate even more, I was sick and tired of the big city so I've now moved to Malaga, Spain, where after 18 years of career I find myself currently working on the most interesting projects I've ever worked (I didn't honestly think it'd happen), in a company that pays me almost the same as London's but with one third of the cost of life (enjoying also a far better lifestyle and weather btw).
Note that I'm still coding, not doing any management or leading position (my team lead is two years younger than me). While here I'm already getting offers from the few companies with offices in this small (at least compared to London) city. If you consider also the high unemployment rate of Spain, especially the region of Andalusia, it is remarkable how by doing this job you can basically reinvent yourself everywhere and in every way.
So, don't worry, software engineering is not a dead end career.

我今年43歲（10月44歲），三年前，我從意大利搬到倫敦，在那里，在那里我有了自己的公司，在那里我第一年作為正式員工工作，接下來的兩年我是合同工，薪水翻了一番，而且享受樂趣的機(jī)會(huì)。
盡管我有很多機(jī)會(huì)進(jìn)一步提高我的單日工資金額，但我對大城市感到厭倦，所以我搬到了現(xiàn)在所在的西班牙的馬拉加，在那里工作了18年后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己目前正在做著我工作過的最有趣的項(xiàng)目(我真的沒想到會(huì)發(fā)生這種事)，這兒薪水幾乎和在倫敦的薪水一樣多，但生活成本卻只有倫敦的三分之一(順便說一句，我還享受著更好的生活方式和天氣)。
請注意，我仍然在編碼，沒有擔(dān)任任何管理或領(lǐng)導(dǎo)職務(wù)（我的團(tuán)隊(duì)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)比我年輕兩歲）。在這里，我已經(jīng)收到了幾家在這個(gè)小城市(至少與倫敦相比)設(shè)有辦事處的公司的邀請。如果你再考慮一下西班牙的高失業(yè)率，尤其是安達(dá)盧西亞地區(qū)，那么通過這份工作，你基本上可以在任何地方以任何方式重塑自己，這是非常了不起的。
所以，別擔(dān)心，軟件工程不是一份沒有出路的工作。