> But at 51 years old, if I were still competing for jobs based on my ability to invert a btree on the white board, I’ve done something horribly wrong in my life.
And yet some of us in our 60s still like to be down in the nuts&bolts of the code. I don't think that means we did something wrong. It's just what we prefer.
It doesn’t matter what “I like”. I saw the writing on the wall at 40 that development was going to be a commoditized race to the bottom and it was going to be hard to stand out and that developer salaries were going to plateau and they largely did in second tier cities aside from the large tech companies.
If you look at the leveling guidelines of any major tech company or even smaller companies with real leveling guidelines. “Coding” is only the differentiator between junior and mid. After that it’s about “scope”, “impact” and “dealing with ambiguity” is.
When I was looking for a job in 2023 and last year, it was much easier for me to stand out from the crowd based on my architectural experience, leading strategy, being comfortable hopping on a plane and talking to CxOs than it was as a pure developer.
I still do my share of development but only for smaller POCs/MVPs where it doesn’t make sense to bring in a lot of specialists since I am pretty good in a lot of areas.