Keywords: Beijing, big age farmer, worked for more than 10 years, life and work

With the rapid development and transformation of the Internet, ageophobia has been discussed more and more in technology circles. After working for 5-10 years, many programmers start to think about how they will live and work in 5, 10 or more years, and whether they will be abandoned by The Times.

Especially in these years of nationwide entrepreneurship, from BAT to small start-up companies, liking young employees has become one of the invisible rules for many enterprises to recruit. Huawei, for example, has made it clear that employees must retire after the age of 45. Ali has also pursued a younger team in recent years, and the success rate of programmers over 35 applying for positions below P8 is very low. Among the enterprises interviewed by 100Offer, an Internet finance company said that when recruiting technical talents, the average developer should not be older than 30, and the architect should not be older than 35. Many fast-growing startups are dominated by young people, from ceos to Ctos, whose average age is under 30.

Nowadays, the Internet world seems to be dominated by young people. So where are all the programmers over 35 who have been working for more than 10 years? How are they living and working now? With this doubt, 100 offer background quite interviewed two qualifications in the Beijing area, and nearly 40 years old of good programmers, their anxiety a confusion, a confident, maybe this two completely different state of mind, reflects the fact that China now most of the older code farmer’s survival present situation, at the same time, for those who is about to enter the “older” phase of the programmers, Also have certain reference effect.


Huang Mingguo: 38 years old, from BAT to startup, want to try again before 40 years old

Huang Mingguo, 38 years old, graduated from a research university in Beijing with a PhD in 2004 and now lives in Beijing. He has a car, a house, a wife and a son. The first 10 years of his career went smoothly. While most of his classmates joined universities as teachers after graduation, Huang mingguo chose to join the Internet industry, which was in its infancy at that time, and has been working for 10 years since then.

At the beginning, he did technical work related to search in an Internet company that was not well known at that time, but now has become a first-tier Internet company in Beijing. After two years, he left for a branch of A BAT company in Beijing because there was no more space for his technology to be put to use. After that, he worked for eight years. From an ordinary developer to a team Leader and then to a manager, Huang has been promoted four levels in eight years. Although he was still engaged in search algorithm at that time, there were no challenges in his work because the company’s products had more powerful competitors in the market and the user scale was still at an awkward stage and difficult to break through.

“A lot of young people today don’t want to come to our company and feel like a retirement home in BAT. They want a platform that allows them to touch a product or project from zero to one, rather than reinventing the wheel on previous code bases.” Huang mingguo said that the old technology, which may be a common problem in many big companies, is also what prevents more young people from joining. But the tech world is changing so fast that even for programmers like Huang mingguo, who is approaching 40, the proliferation of new technologies still makes them feel dangerous and attractive. So this June, he chose to leave BAT after eight years to see the outside world. In his own words, “I want to try again before I’m 40.”

However the interview process is not smooth, educational background and work background are unusually good ming-guo huang in 100 on offer only received 5 interview invitation, accepted after two, one of the company after a round of interviews with his technology is too old for reject him, it has its own technical strength is confident he has brought a certain hit. But he eventually managed to land a job at another startup, working on data mining and machine learning, leading a team of about 10 people and reporting to a supervisor who was younger than him. The working rhythm changed from leaving work at BAT at seven or eight o ‘clock every day to leaving work after 10 o ‘clock in the evening, and sometimes WORKING overtime at home on weekends.

Last week, Huang Mingguo took a break from his busy schedule to meet us. At 38, he looked tired and could feel the strain of his mental state during the conversation. “Just come in a few months, every day work is quite substantial.” “I’m learning languages and technologies I didn’t work with in my previous job, like Scala and machine learning,” he said with a laugh.

“Besides that? Do you have any other business to attend to?” I asked.

“Yes. There are four main parts to my current job: writing code, managing a team, doing data mining, and doing machine learning research.”

“It sounds a little messy. Did you mention to your supervisor that you focused on one area of work, like administration?”

Ming-guo huang hesitated a moment later said: “in fact we are now doing, many are learning the ropes around here, everyone is not enough experience, hard to avoid can hit the pit, the pit delayed the progress of the project, is also one of the factors that lead to our overtime. But fortunately, encounter problems you would like to discuss, looking for solutions, at this stage, although tired, but also a lot of growth.”

When the word “growth” comes out of the mouth of a programmer in his late 40s with nearly a decade of experience, it’s a bit of a trance. Although he has a bright working background, there is no doubt that Huang mingguo has a sense of crisis. He knows that technology is a job that requires continuous learning, and he needs to constantly absorb new knowledge at any age, otherwise he will be caught up by up-and-comers. However, despite his desire to keep up with The Times, Huang mingguo, who had been at BAT for too long, felt anxious in his busy work when he first came to the Internet company’s “young man’s World”.

When asked about his career plans for the next few years, Huang said he doesn’t need to work for a big company anymore. After all, he has been at BAT for so long that he is already familiar with the style of big companies. He never thought about starting a business or becoming a CTO at a startup. He thought it was too risky, and as his children grew up, he could tell he wanted to spend more time with his family. Without a definite answer, he asked me, “What do you think is the right career path for my situation?”

It’s a question many programmers over the age of 35 ask themselves. “Where do I go as I get older?”

According to shuber, a landmark figure in the development history of career planning in the world, the career development topics of 25-44 years old should include:

  • Be stable in a job
  • Establish security for your future
  • Identify appropriate paths for advancement

If we put the 25 to 44 to do it again, segment, 31 to 44 should be in a stable stage, this stage can be promoted the rise of the space is very limited, so for their own positioning and guaranteed on this route, to constantly add new knowledge, increase their authority in the field of a professional is very important.

In fact, most programmers’ promotion paths are not complicated, and there are no more than one:

  • Technical: Junior Engineer -> Intermediate Engineer -> Senior Engineer -> Architect (technical specialist) -> Technical Director ->CTO
  • Management: Engineer -> Project leader -> Project manager -> Project Director -> Technical Director ->CTO
  • Cross type: Junior Engineer -> Intermediate Engineer -> Project Manager -> Technical Director ->CTO (this line of technology and management cross, each stage do not fixed things)
  • Career change: Junior Engineer -> Product, design, sales, operation, etc

Of course, in real life, many people’s growth path is not so smooth. Depending on how technically gifted a person is, most programmers will start to consider whether to continue working in technology or switch careers after 3-5 years of knowledge and skill accumulation.

If you choose to stay in technology, you should consider whether to become technically proficient or move into a management position. Although many programmers will be promoted to management post after reaching a certain stage of technical level, those who are more obsessed with technology will choose to return to pure technical field and become a technical expert or architect after doing management for a period of time, such as Winter, the great god of front-end industry.

Huang mingguo is confused because he is at an important stage in his transition from a senior engineer to a management position. This is where many older programmers get lost: are they technical or are they good at management? As long as we do not think clearly about this problem, we will be like Huang Mingguo, stuck in a state of one person with many jobs for a long time, confused in the busy work of rapid progress, and unable to see the future clearly.

About this kind of phenomenon, 100Offer consulted some HR opinions, among which there is a more pertinent suggestion:

When choosing a job, older programmers first need to know who they are, and then choose their environment and company. For example, first determine that they belong to the more passionate, energetic, willing to lifelong learning of new technology that kind of people; Or the kind of people who are willing but not able, who want to get away from front-line technology and focus more on management.

If it is the first, you can choose a fast-growing startup company to maximize the value of your technology. If it’s the second, go for big, bloated organizations that are big enough and don’t have too many holes to tread, so there’s a need for older, experienced people who can get things done.

In fact, not only programmers, “aging phobia” is almost every position in the Internet industry will encounter the problem, the world is changing so fast, no one knows when the next revolution to replace the Internet will come. Despite such uncontrollable external factors, a person’s greatest fear is caused by a lack of self-awareness.

Ming-guo huang educational background and work background has been good in most people, nearly 40 years old and he still has higher requirements to the self, away from the comfort zone, and constantly learning new knowledge and new technology, now he is short of the ideal work and the life direction clear, believe once wanted to know it, he will soon be able to adjust his state.


Yu Jun: At 40, from foreign companies to Internet startups, the golden age has just begun

And Huang Mingguo form a sharp contrast is this year has entered the age of 40 Yu Jun. The same doctoral degree, the same in early 2000 began to work, although they ended up with the same path, but they took two different roads.

After working for more than 10 years, Yu jun’s factors in choosing a job have not changed: he values what he does in a job rather than the company and industry itself.

Therefore, in order to apply the knowledge learned for many years to practice and combine with the market, rather than do some low-level technical work, he worked in two foreign companies in 3G communication network and hardware system software development respectively after graduation.

Just as Huang worked at BAT for eight years, Yu jun also worked at the second foreign company for eight years. Eight years is a long time for an industry to grow and a person to grow. During his eight years in a foreign company, Yu Jun experienced three stages from ordinary engineer to team leader and then to department leader. He started to work in architecture design and management in this company, laying a solid foundation for his future career in the Internet industry.

Yu jun last year, leaving the foreign formal into the Internet industry for many years, he joined a media transformation via a friend recommended the Internet enterprise, at the same time as the CTO is responsible for the two lines of business, including foreign a taxi software is the company’s new product, after him in to design architecture can be from 0 to 1, One of the main reasons he was attracted to the company was to make a product that went directly to the market and users, and to touch and realize high availability and high concurrency as users grew.

From traditional foreign companies to Internet companies, Yu Jun does not deny that he will face a variety of discomfort. “Since the company had no prior technical director, many projects are pieces of brick home, home to a certain height after look away a found that the overall more disorderly, at that time, demand, once the change is not applicable. So I went in after the first thing is with the product, operational departments work overtime to meet the needs of the first. But the old code wouldn’t touch, so I was constantly refactoring.” In addition to these tasks, as the technical director of the company, Yu Jun also takes charge of communication with other departments as well as personnel recruitment and management, which makes his responsibilities more comprehensive.

“But the reason I wanted to jump ship was to get out of my comfort zone and mess around.” With a self-deprecating smile, Yu jun said that in his opinion, the traditional IT industry is not so different from the Internet industry. No matter which technology stack is used, everyone will encounter the same problems in their work. Moreover the network is so developed now, want to learn what new technology can be obtained through various channels on the Internet. Therefore, we can see from his experience that each time he made a career choice, he accepted greater challenges and unknowns, but he was able to solve them well each time.

I was curious about how he did it, and after communicating with him, I realized that it might have something to do with his mentality. Although he is two years older than Huang mingguo, Yu Jun does not look like a 40-year-old. From his appearance to his words and deeds, he is calm in the face of difficulties and confident in his skills, rather than the anxiety inherent in older code farmers.

In his opinion, every age has its own problems. For example, he often talked with the young people in his group before, and found that the topic always ended up with buying a house, buying a car, and starting a family. In these aspects, young people still have great anxiety. But for older programmers, the “settling down” part of “settling down” is pretty much done, and it’s time to focus on “settling down.”

“Of course the pressure of age on programmers is inevitable, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s a big deal, because young people also get old, it’s a normal metabolism. If someone of a certain age is in trouble now, then someone ten years younger will be in trouble soon, and from that point of view, no one has an advantage over the other.” Yu jun said.

Unlike most older programmers, Yu Jun, who is married and has a son and a daughter, is not a person who pursues work-life balance completely. He likes to arrange his working time according to his own pace of life. Although he leaves work at around 7 PM at his current startup, he goes home to clean up after a rest. But I get back to work.

Yu Jun said that he is a practical person, for many of the older code nongkou said that “writing can not move” puzzled. It would be understandable if family and life commitments broke down the hours. But if it is purely spiritual, it is a kind of self-abdication.

In Yu jun’s view, writing code is a test of IQ and EQ, rather than labor work. Those who can really write code very well must be highly commercial. It can be seen from this that Yu Jun is proud as a senior programmer. During the conversation, he talked about a foreign code farmer in his 50s who worked in a foreign company. The code he wrote could not detect bugs no matter how much he tested it, and his tone was full of admiration.

In October this year, because the project of the last company was stopped due to the failure of the capital chain, Yu Jun joined this Internet startup company as an architect through 100Offer. The company now suits him both in terms of its technology stack and platform, and his current position allows him to maximize the technical experience he has accumulated over the past 10 years.

Will big age code farming be abandoned by The Times? It seems that Yu Jun’s golden age has just begun.


100 offers say:

From Huang Mingguo and Yu Jun, we can see two states of elder code farmers: anxiety and confidence. In many cases, there are two main reasons why older programmers are anxious: one is the choice brought about by difficult family life, and the other is a lack of confidence in their own skill level. The latter is the source of anxiety for most senior code farmers.

Those who are unsure of their skills are likely to spend years in general development positions, neither promoted nor interested in learning new skills. As an HR employee at an Internet finance company said, this phenomenon can be reflected in the interview process. For example, many senior code farmers they interviewed used old frameworks and technologies. Although they had some understanding of new technologies, they did not implement them due to their limited energy. Naturally, this type of programmers did not match the enterprises with rapid development.

The cruel part is that the world is changing so fast that no one can relax for a moment. The fair part is that no matter you are young or old, you have to rely on your strength to speak for yourself. Those who have been abandoned by The Times are always running slowly or even wandering in the same place, namely the so-called ten years of work but only one year of work experience.

The advantage of young programmers is youth and passion, the advantage of older programmers is experience and experience. So, young programmers should not feel anxious to leapfrog their age, and older programmers should not feel that young people are taking their jobs. Each age group has their own problems to solve and face, recognize their real needs and desires, and then to find their own place to fight strange upgrade, is the top priority.