I think the IT industry can be divided into the Internet and traditional software two industries, although in the eyes of laymen are engaged in IT, but insiders know that there are huge differences between them.

At present, the Internet industry is mainly concentrated in the first-tier cities, and its products are oriented to the national and even global users, with a huge user base. In third-tier cities, traditional software companies dominate.

The pressure of Internet enterprises is much bigger than that of traditional software enterprises. IT is often said on the Internet that 35 years old is a barrier for IT industry. I think this is mainly for Internet enterprises. In the traditional software industry where I work, it’s much better. I am just 35 years old this year, and I am still doing development work on the front line. Most of the people I know around me are between 30 and 35, and they are all still working on the front line.

In the traditional software industry, the technical requirements are actually very low, and high performance is basically not involved, because the number of users is so small that TPS does not need to be considered. High availability is not involved in most cases. It doesn’t matter if the server is down for 2 hours. Even in some scenarios, high availability is required. Scalability, theoretically there is a requirement, but in fact it is not the former to dig the hole later to fill? Perhaps the biggest technical problems these companies face are the complexity of their businesses and the perception of customers, many of whom believe that software can do anything, so they can demand whatever they want.

Code Review? Most companies don’t, and the boss doesn’t care about the quality of the code, as long as it passes. Every day developers struggle to keep up with unreasonable customer demands and endless demand changes. From top to bottom, no one cares how your code is written. Even if your variables are defined as fucK1, FUCK2… It doesn’t matter. (Don’t laugh, I’ve actually seen one named after a player, a Lord of the Rings character…)

I have also seen a programmer who worked for one or two years, but did not know the associated query of the database table. He separately queried the data of two tables and used the for loop to associate them in the code. Such code, like running on the production line, but also ran for more than a year.

A few years ago, a friend told me that he was doing CRUD (add, delete, change and check) every day, which was very boring. After working for several years, he even couldn’t learn MVC, so he wanted to change to a company that uses MVC and learn from doing several projects. Then he did switch companies and did several MVC projects. Then he told me that MVC was a little better and could handle the current requirements, but found that HE was still doing CRUD every day.

This is probably the portrayal of many traditional IT company programmers, writing for many years, but still mediocre, because the “advanced” point of technology, do not use, or even never use. Even if some people are originally eager to learn, in this environment, gradually there is no passion for learning, especially after marriage, family and children, there is no time to study these things that can not be used in the work. What’s more, even if you learn a lot of things, there is no real combat, it can only be an armchair level, and a long time to forget all.

He said something to the effect that if the interviewer doesn’t ask you about data structure, be careful if the company is using you as a coder. Big Fly wrote in his planet: Programmers can be divided into two kinds, coder and programmer. Code farming refers to repetitive work (such as CRUD) that requires little skill and makes money by selling physical strength. A programmer needs to be creative, like an artist.

I’ve been with two companies for most of my 10 years, one for 4 years, and my current company for almost 5 years. But I’ve interviewed over a dozen companies, and none of them have asked me about data structures, including some that do written tests, and none of the written tests… Although the projects are different, in terms of their essence, I think they are just CRUD.

I think this is probably the reason why 35 years old in a traditional software company in a third-tier town is not as big a hurdle as many articles on the Internet say.

In this industry for a long time, there will be some friends to ask me, some are children to the college entrance examination, ask how this industry will develop in the future, some are children graduated from the job is not ideal, want to turn into this industry, ask whether it is possible. Under normal circumstances, if it is a girl, I will advise to quit, because this industry is too bitter, let alone 996 Internet industry, in the traditional software industry, the same fierce overtime, low technical content also can’t stand the customer three days to change a demand ah, can’t stand the boss feel what demand are simple minutes to fix. Boys, I have tried to persuade their parents, no matter the child is born or training class, let the child go to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou hard work for 5 years, a hone technology to broaden their horizons, for the future to lay a solid foundation, two, after all, money. (Many parents, especially grandparents, are reluctant to let their children leave home.)

IT is bound to be a passion industry, a hard industry, so if you have a dream, get out of your comfort zone.