Do Tech Careers End at 30?
Reflections of a 50-year-old data scientist
A strange thing happened to me this year. I turned 50 years old! I am a generation-x, former MTV watching, child of the 1980s. Yes, I am “old.” But, guess what? You can have a technology career beyond 35. At least 15 years beyond it appears in my case. As I am a data scientist, while my observations are primarily related to data science, there is application to other technology fields.
In this article, I will talk about some of the paths that worked for me (and a few that didn’t) during the five decades I have been on planet Earth. I will also discuss what I have observed mentoring students and working with very talented colleagues. Many paths are heavily dependent on your situation in life; perhaps a few things I learned along the way will be helpful.
My path is not entirely traditional. I started programming at age 13 on a commodore 64. Upon graduation from high school, I majored in computer science but dropped out three years into my degree. I’ve never done an internship. I did continue my education and ultimately earned a Ph.D., which allows me to conduct a dissertation related to machine learning. Writing on automated feature engineering was beneficial both to my career as a data scientist, as well as my standings in Kaggle.
I’ve always been technical; even as a large corporation VP, I still code. I’ve been married since my mid-30s, but we do not have children. I only worked for startups early in my career and never went the path of starting my own business.
Foundations: Your Early Years
I started coding in 1984, at the age of 13, on a Commodore 64. The importance of starting early is to expose yourself, or perhaps your children, to technology and see where passion might be. At this young age, it is important to try many things. You will learn what you are passionate about and also what you are good at doing. Passion and skill are not always the same. For me, I picked up computer programming quickly, and I truly enjoyed it. I am blessed to have found a passion early.
The particular paths I followed in the late 1980s are not relevant in the 2020s, so I will not bore you with tales of the 8-bit computing world. In the 2020s, you can certainly learn to code before university. There are several impressive yet achievable feats that you might consider. Always have a project. I don’t care if this is a simple video game, something to track your favorite YouTubers or a Kaggle notebook. Find something fun. My first high school project was a Commodore 64 BBS (essentially a message forum) that did not require RAM expansion. I supported several local BBSs that ran my software at this time.
- GitHub — Just having an account on GitHub is impressive in high school or below. GitHub is a great place to post your projects if you are not going to attempt to monetize. You should clean up your code and have it sitting on GitHub, not rotting away on a laptop somewhere.
- Apps — I’ve seen several high school students gain scholarships and other accolades from having apps posted in the IOS/Android app stores. Even if you are not seeking commercial success, you can post this code to GitHub.
One young person that I admire who has accomplished much during his teen years is Pratham Prasoon. At 17, Pratham is active in GitHub and already has a Twitter following of over 100K! I can’t imagine what he will be up to by his mid-20s. Pratham focuses primarily on machine learning.
However, do not let truly exemplary individuals on social media dissuade you. Do not get caught up in impostor syndrome. There is always someone better in a specific domain. Rather, look to luminaries as role models and seek to emulate what attributes make sense for you. Believe me! That is what I do.
Gaining Education and Experience: Your 20s
During your late teens and early twenties, you are training and gaining experience. There are many paths to technical understanding.
The traditional approach is the university system. Although I teach for a university and hold a Ph.D., I am the first to acknowledge that the university is not the only means to launch a technology career. I started this approach; however, I had no scholarship support. To make ends meet, I took on technology consulting jobs while a full-time student. I did not want a student loan, even back when they were fashionable. By my third year, I was much more interested in making money than being a student. My GPA took a hit, and I dropped out. While I do not advocate this approach, remember that you can always change trajectory.
If you are going into the university system, I suggest a STEM degree. Unless you are going into academia, your actual university becomes less and less important as you build experience. It’s always nice to say you went to Harvard, MIT or Stanford. However, beyond that first job, you are judged more on what you’ve done since graduation. I never did an internship during my less than stellar initial undergraduate experience. However, I highly recommend internships if you are on the university route. Once you hit the job market, lack of experience becomes your most significant detriment. Internships let you gain some experience and see what you are signing up for with a career in this field.
If you are not going the university route, then you are responsible for your education. There are boot camps, but be careful. Bootcamps come in a variety of qualities, and some have no evaluation whatsoever. On the one hand, yea! No tests.
On the other hand, my dog could take the course with me and get the same certificate. I did essentially go this route myself. Bootcamps did not exist back then, and I just sought out what I needed and learned. I read a lot of books. These days there are a number of guides for self-learning.
At this stage in your career, get experience wherever you can. When you go to get that first job, you are in an immediate “trap.” The catch-22 is that most entry-level jobs will ask for two years of experience. Anything that you can claim to make up this gap is useful. Paid internships are great. Volunteer your time, if you must. Some of my early experience came from small startups financed on a shoe-string. Just get that experience.
Also, use this time to build up your social media presence. GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, and to some degree Twitter are all beneficial. An exemplary example of this is Khuyen Tran. Khuyen focuses primarily on data science. I’ve followed her for several years as she completed her undergraduate studies and built an amazing social media following by posting Python programming content applicable to both data scientists and experienced Python programmers like. Even before working her first job or internship, she is already building her brand as an expert.
Responsibility and Focus: Your 30s
Getting that first job is excellent, and getting that first promotion or second job with higher pay and more responsibility is even better. Ideally, first promotions and movement beyond the entry-level occur in your 20s. However, your 30s will be a time to take on additional responsibility and focus on what sets you apart. What do you want to be doing? What are you good at doing? For me, this has always been the eternal balance. Pivots are acceptable. I started in Information Technology (IT) and then moved to data science.
I always found that my getting a promotion was directly correlated to the amount of tasks that I took on and and removed from my manager’s direct concern. As you advance in your career, you should need less direct supervision. Understand and help shape your manager’s vision and policy, you must ultimately help execute this agreed upon vision. This builds trust between your superiors and you and leads to more responsibility.
If you stay highly technical, make sure your company has a path for individual contributors. What is the highest level that an individual contributor subject matter expert can attain? There is always a ceiling for highly technical individual contributors — obviously, a CEO cannot be an individual contributor. However, if your path is a highly specialized individual contributor, and the company’s ceiling is low for such talent, your career will hit a wall with that company.
Managing Change and Staying Relevant: Your 40s
I know 6510 assembly language, I’ve implemented websites in CGI-BIN with static HTML, I’ve created advanced user interfaces on an 80x25 character terminal, I can create remote applications with VT100, and I got good at squeezing every byte out of 640K of memory. These are all skills that I spent months perfecting, and was they earned me reasonable compensation from companies. These are all skills that are utterly worthless in 2021.
If you are a technology worker, the world will change right out from underneath you. This progression will happen not once but multiple times in your career. If you do not adapt, you will not be a technology worker for long. This trend is perhaps why you see many stories about technology careers that come crashing down around 35. I have been through many technologies. Oh, there have been so many. The day that you begin questioning why you must learn something new, for the same tasks that your beloved technology performed nearly as well, might be the beginning of the end for a technology career — particularly as an individual contributor. Learning which skills will last, which are fads, and how easily you can pivot. No one can predict the future, so you will never get this decision entirely correct.
Thinking Beyond Your Career: Your 50s (and beyond)
It would be best if you continued to stay technical and relevant. This is particularly challenging as a data scientist, as new techniques and technologies are constantly introduced. I still code nearly daily; however, this may not be the path for all. If you move entirely into management, try to keep track of the technology your teams are implementing.
Hopefully, by 50, you are in your prime earning years. Even if you plan to stay employed forever, your health will eventually thwart you. Hopefully, you have put away some money by this point. It is essential to have learned the basics of personal finance by this point. Knowing when to defer and eliminate future tax payments can be critical. My family falls into the millionaire next door type. That book had a great impact on me in my younger days. My family built a nice net worth, and we know how to invest it. My house and cars are comfortable, but not lavish, but the bank does not own any part of them.
I do agree with the old saying, that “money cannot buy happiness,” however, lack of money has a high probability of buying sadness.
I also posted this as a YouTube video:
