In the past two days, I saw an interesting question on the platform: Why do traditional professions such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers become more and more popular with age? Unsurprisingly, the number of views on this question is very high, and there are different opinions on the answers below, but what impresses me is the answer below, which is sharp and true.
As a well-known high-paying profession, programmer-related topics have always been the focus. Such as: high salary, 996, baldness, youth meal, unemployment at 35, midlife crisis...
There are no absolute conclusions on these topics. But truth be told, extreme anxiety isn't that common though. But the sense of crisis brought about by this age is like a little spark splashed on the skin from time to time, waking up the nerves that had been paralyzed by life with a sudden burning pain.
When you wake up, everyone will have a more realistic judgment about the future of this profession, the future of the industry, and your own future. So, let’s talk today↓↓↓
1. Can programmers work for a lifetime?
Some people say that programmers can do it for a lifetime. For example, the 69-year-old C++ founder Bjarne Stroustrup has not yet retired. He is currently the managing director of Morgan Stanley's information technology department and a visiting professor at the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is currently actively involved in C++ under development.
From the Internet
Another example is the 64-year-old "Father of Python" Guido van Rossum, not to be outdone, tweeting that retirement life is too boring, so he decided to join Microsoft and carry out open source to the end.
From the Internet
Second, in China, can programmers work for a lifetime?
However, there are huge differences in the environment at home and abroad. Compared with foreign countries, it is more and more popular now. Being "optimized" at the age of 35 in China has become a widely circulated stalk. Although there are some bigwigs in China who use their personal experience to prove that programmers are more than 35 years old, the promotion of positions is always pyramid-shaped, and those who can be promoted to the top are, after all, a small number of events with a small probability.
For example: 29-year-old Zhang Tongru, who graduated with a master's degree in computer science from Shanghai Jiaotong University, said:
I will definitely not be able to work for the rest of my life. I am too tired. Besides work, I still work. I dare not slack off for fear of being eliminated. The mental and physical pressure is too great!
Zhang Tong, 29 years old this year, holds the title of high-education from a prestigious university. He received several offers from major manufacturers as soon as he graduated. After many considerations, he chose a section in BAT to engage in algorithm research and development. But with the start of this enviable career, the anxiety turned into a haunting nightmare in his life.
The colleagues around are all very good at work, which makes people feel nervous about the survival of the fittest. The work intensity is also very high. Even when I leave work at 12 o'clock in the evening, the office building is still brightly lit. I have a little personal time until the weekend, and I don’t dare to relax——If you don’t read technical posts and papers, you won’t have time to keep up with the pace of technical updates. Life is dominated by work, and I want to lie in bed and sleep when I go home, let alone socialize.
Zhang Tong's situation and ideas can be said to be the epitome of a considerable number of domestic programmers. Therefore, this [can] answer has room for doubt for most ordinary programmers.
3. Then why can programmers in foreign countries be able to work until they are 60/70 years old, and the older they are, the more popular they are, but why can’t they work in China?
1. Too many programmers
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From a macro point of view, the expansion of computer majors in universities has led to an oversupply in the market. There are about 8 million college graduates in my country every year, and it costs hundreds of thousands a year to join the computer industry. There are still many programmers from training schools, but the market demand is not so much. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic, with these few The annual Internet bonus period has passed, and it is not uncommon for programmers to be optimized
The picture comes from the Internet
2. Many people are not programmers but coders in essence
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First of all, the new technical knowledge these people learn is all knowledge translated by others. English only knows 26 letters, and they don’t know much when they are combined. Even if they learn, it may not be the latest or correct knowledge. After that, the technology is almost no longer refined, and it is purely based on the old.
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Secondly, because the basic knowledge is poor or not solid, they can only do CRUD work, and they have spent 10 years of experience in one year, so these people can't go far in technology. So, if you belong to this group of people, please pick up the basics and English from today, and you can salvage them.
3. Technical ability and age are not growing at the same rate
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In the industry of programmers, it is not that the longer you work, the stronger the technology. Because to keep improving technology, these three factors are needed: good methodology + deliberate practice + a lot of actual combat opportunities.
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But as people grow older, people's thinking acuity and learning ability will decline, leading to the inevitable solidification of the knowledge base, which is fatal to front-line development. Therefore, it is difficult to satisfy all the above three conditions. When the boss finds that the value created by these old programmers to the company has not increased, and the price/performance ratio is too poor, he dismisses them. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that some of them fled voluntarily.
4. Not paying attention to things other than code
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Yao Dong, vice president of Jinshan Office, once said this sentence in the question of whether he can be a programmer for a lifetime: "Programmers can not be in management positions, but they must have management skills. This is why it is rare to see people over the age of 35 in the workplace. Grassroots code farmers, but managers over 35 years old can be seen everywhere.
In fact, in other words, when you have the management ability, as long as you want, you can work in any line of work for a lifetime.
So from this level, we don't have to worry too much about whether to be a programmer for a lifetime. As long as we have our own core competitiveness at each age stage of our life, we can develop according to our career goals, our own advantages, and market opportunities. We can find new careers at every stage of our life through the intersection of those people.
Fourth, write at the end:
A lifetime is both long and short. We take care of the present. If we are fully prepared, enter a company with better prospects, and get options, we may be able to achieve financial freedom in a few years if we are down-to-earth. Xiti is retired.
Alright, that’s all for today’s sharing~ I hope that all programmers, no matter they are newbies or masters, can continue to shine in their favorite fields!
A preview of the next issue [How should programmers improve their own competitiveness in order to make themselves more and more popular in the industry? 】 Interested friends can pay attention to it~
*Part of the content of this article comes from the Internet, such as intrusion and deletion
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