I think I've held on to my intellect (mid-40s), just have gotten wiser. And my tolerance for the inane, useless, and just plain stupid has dropped dramatically. I blame/credit that on having small kids too.
I’ve found my outward tolerance has had to increase. I still have an internal drive to shape outcomes in more meaningful directions. This has driven (or perhaps co-evolved with) the development of a wide range of skills to be persuasive and nudge people.
People can be so incredibly narrow-minded, short-sighted, inspiring, and/or wise, sometimes in the span of two sentences. Dealing with this juxtaposition is jarring and requires large levels of empathy.
It helps me to remember that many people vastly overestimate their individual influence and conscious awareness of what’s happening with their bodies and minds. I regularly aspire to balance what someone wants in the short run, long run with what larger groups need and expect. Kids teach you this very directly.
This touches upon something I've noticed lately, people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence.
I'm 46 and have been writing code pretty much every day since 8yo.
I used to think code was the greatest thing, and would gladly write it for free.
But I was also very arrogant, too impatient to negotiate, and didn't really give a damn about the team as a whole.
These days I find writing code pretty boring, I've already solved most kinds of problems in several different ways.
But putting all the pieces together, finding optimal strategies, negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting.
> [...]negotiating with stake holders and making sure the team works well as a whole; I find those very fulfilling and exciting.
That seems to assume that, with age, you also gain power. As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I don't expect anyone ever will, and I also expect it will be more and more of a struggle to keep convincing others to even let me keep doing that.
> As for myself, I'm hitting 40 now, and have absolutely no power over others whatsoever, and that's a pretty tough spot to be in, because now I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work, and I don't expect anyone ever will, and I also expect it will be more and more of a struggle to keep convincing others to even let me keep doing that.
Sounds rough. We're not in your situation and probably don't understand the situation very well. If you want to continue the conversation, let us know. I'm not going to offer any kind of rah-rah optimism... Low expectations might be a good way to go.
A few questions: have you asked for other kinds of work? How have you asked?
Have you asked yourself this question: Are you selling or are you buying? (What I mean is this: in terms of linguistics and positioning, are you offering something of value or are you asking others to give you value?)
Ideally, you would present your "ask" in a way where both sides benefit. (Apologies if all this is obvious or uninteresting... I'm just starting the conversation.)
What else do we need to know so that we can offer thoughts that might be useful?
Nah, I've started asking for that kind of work in the hiring process but it's mostly doing what I can where I am.
And it's not about power really, nor control; it's about not needing them; nudging things in the right direction almost without people noticing; to me, that's what people skills is all about.
But of course the level of experience helps, because with that comes some respect.
I like to think of a numerical age as a relatively high-variance (statistically) way of summarizing a lot of attributes: experience, wisdom, flexibility, free time, passion, pain tolerance, risk tolerance, technical skills, social skills, social preferences, self-confidence, over-confidence, family priorities, geographic mobility, neuroplasticity, and lots more.
I suggest taking an inventory by reflecting.
This helps in many ways:
* People are able to compensate for lots of weaknesses by using other strengths.
* Some roles, companies, industries will naturally align better than others.
* Reflection can lead to a certain level of acceptance. Own it; be confident in who you are. If there are parts you don't quite understand, be confident that you have started to increase your awareness and process of discovery. This process for many people becomes a very meaningful way to deal with uncertainty.
* Don't let others' assumptions (which are frankly, often relatively unexamined) creep into your brain unexamined.
> I'm bored with the tech stuff but nobody has ever offered me any other kind of work.
I recommend doing the work that you want (alongside your regular responsibilities) and if you're good at it the offers will follow. If you're not, you'll develop experience.
> people skills are at least as important as technology and raw intelligence.
They absolutely are, especially in a team environment. In terms of the quality and velocity of the team's output, the competent dev who works well with the rest of the team is nearly always better than the genius dev who doesn't.
