To stay pursuing software engineer career in 30's or even later.
Upon completion this another internship in Palo Alto, I'm about to head for Texas where my sweet room and (all the more!) dearest girlfriend is waiting (hopefully). While I've been actively taking advantage of the last moment of the stay in silicon valley by looking for a job in robotics software industry, I also try to meet people I know or I have interest in as much as possible (so bad that I still can't meet everybody).
So the other day I met this person for the 1st time since 2005 and this was our 2nd meet. Last time was when I was thinking about changing job and especially interested in applying for *oogle, where this person (let's call randomly as Mr. B or just B) was (and is) working for. At that time he gave me a good insight about how competitive and how technologically demanding to work in *oogle. Or even more in general, he made me realize what I was lacking at that moment in order to pursue my career further in software engineering. Due to those, I felt I wasn't good enough for applying for their positions, which led me to shift to academic training (ended up taking a job offer from a research sector where I indeed got good chunk of high level on-the-job training, and then later coming to US for higher degree in engineering). In a way, his advice had a great influence on my career decision of the succeeding 7 years up to now.
Then now I happened to find him on linkedin's suggestion and contacted him again to find he's still working in *oogle and living in San Francisco bayarea as well. Although he's forgotten about me, we had a very nice chat over hamburger the other day. His career sounds more evolved, and filled with the decisions & kind of struggles that I think I can learn a great amount from - he was working in management side at the company 7 yrs ago but couldn't give up software development, took corporate internal exam to transfer to engineering section but rejected. But then he kept applying his software development skill to his not-so-much technical tasks and got acknowledged by it, and finally was able to move back to software position again (at the age of probably late in his 40's). Right now he's working with "young and smart as they wannabe" engineers in the same team who are straight out of computer science schools, tackling challenging theme while writing programs/codes for very large scaled systems.
As a man who's pursuing his career in software engineering in his late 30's, here I wanted to cite some lessons I personally received from the conversation:
N-1. Accept the reality that you might not be able to take advantage of your experience, either in general sense or in specific domain (if you're moving into field somewhat different from what you've done). Particularly in IT, things become obsolete so quickly and new stuff pop up everyday as you easily imagine. In addition, even general skills that require experience (e.g. software/system design that allows extendability/reliability/robustness/efficiency etc etc) might NOT be required especially in rapid development environment (which a lot of jobs in R&D phase that happens the most in sillicon valley are situated in). Instead, knowledge in new language, API, are often much more valued, which don't require the long time that is spent on and students can be good at.
N-2. (Derived from N-1) Instead of relying on your experience for your search of your strength, get used to new things as fast as possible.
N-3. (Related to N-1) There is once (or maybe more) in software engineer's life when s/he has to accept that you're not able to take advantage of your experience. Just embrace it and keep working (N-2).
Since I'm running out of time (gotta go somewhere), I leave the volume of each bullet unbalanced and might possibly update later on. But my core thoughts after the conversation is it's still achievable and worth trying to pursue software engineering career (something I love and most of people might give up / get away at some point) no matter how old & where I am. I'm so thankful that I have found a role model like him.
So the other day I met this person for the 1st time since 2005 and this was our 2nd meet. Last time was when I was thinking about changing job and especially interested in applying for *oogle, where this person (let's call randomly as Mr. B or just B) was (and is) working for. At that time he gave me a good insight about how competitive and how technologically demanding to work in *oogle. Or even more in general, he made me realize what I was lacking at that moment in order to pursue my career further in software engineering. Due to those, I felt I wasn't good enough for applying for their positions, which led me to shift to academic training (ended up taking a job offer from a research sector where I indeed got good chunk of high level on-the-job training, and then later coming to US for higher degree in engineering). In a way, his advice had a great influence on my career decision of the succeeding 7 years up to now.
Then now I happened to find him on linkedin's suggestion and contacted him again to find he's still working in *oogle and living in San Francisco bayarea as well. Although he's forgotten about me, we had a very nice chat over hamburger the other day. His career sounds more evolved, and filled with the decisions & kind of struggles that I think I can learn a great amount from - he was working in management side at the company 7 yrs ago but couldn't give up software development, took corporate internal exam to transfer to engineering section but rejected. But then he kept applying his software development skill to his not-so-much technical tasks and got acknowledged by it, and finally was able to move back to software position again (at the age of probably late in his 40's). Right now he's working with "young and smart as they wannabe" engineers in the same team who are straight out of computer science schools, tackling challenging theme while writing programs/codes for very large scaled systems.
As a man who's pursuing his career in software engineering in his late 30's, here I wanted to cite some lessons I personally received from the conversation:
N-1. Accept the reality that you might not be able to take advantage of your experience, either in general sense or in specific domain (if you're moving into field somewhat different from what you've done). Particularly in IT, things become obsolete so quickly and new stuff pop up everyday as you easily imagine. In addition, even general skills that require experience (e.g. software/system design that allows extendability/reliability/robustness/efficiency etc etc) might NOT be required especially in rapid development environment (which a lot of jobs in R&D phase that happens the most in sillicon valley are situated in). Instead, knowledge in new language, API, are often much more valued, which don't require the long time that is spent on and students can be good at.
N-2. (Derived from N-1) Instead of relying on your experience for your search of your strength, get used to new things as fast as possible.
N-3. (Related to N-1) There is once (or maybe more) in software engineer's life when s/he has to accept that you're not able to take advantage of your experience. Just embrace it and keep working (N-2).
Since I'm running out of time (gotta go somewhere), I leave the volume of each bullet unbalanced and might possibly update later on. But my core thoughts after the conversation is it's still achievable and worth trying to pursue software engineering career (something I love and most of people might give up / get away at some point) no matter how old & where I am. I'm so thankful that I have found a role model like him.
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| 1st 1 day off since June at airshow in Watsonville, CA. |
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