Don Denoncourt on Aging in IT and Being a Lifelong Learner

Show Notes

• 0:45 Introductions & having a passion for programming
• 1:15 Don’s reasons for not wanting to move into management
• 1:50 The enjoyment of working with people who share the passion for development as a craft
• 2:00 Looking back over Don’s history and programming language changes as a programmer since the early 1980’s
• 3:45 The emergence of the personal computer as a development platform
• 4:45 Wondering about how many mainframe-era programmers left the industry because they didn’t get the opportunity to work on the new platforms?
• 5:10 The importance of lifelong learning and putting your personal time into remaining relevant and up to date with new development platforms
• 6:10 Advice for people who haven’t remained abreast of new developments – take a salary cut if necessary and go and learn the latest languages
• 6:50 Being jealous of people who had the opportunity to work on new platforms and being motivated to learn new things
• 7:45 New graduates get to work on new things because they have just learned about them and they are prepared to take the lower paid roles than “experienced” people
• 8:15 If ongoing learning is not fun, then maybe you are in the wrong profession
• 9:10 The importance and value of a drive for excellence and building valuable products
• 9:40 Your past successes are not necessarily relevant to the latest technologies – you need to have the ability to learn
• 10:35 The only advantage to having younger people is that you can overwork them, which is a limited time opportunity before they either burn out or leave
• 11:15 The story of how someone in the medical profession needs to be a lifelong learner, and how it shouldn’t be different in our profession
• 12:35 If you do not exercise your brain it will atrophy, just like your muscles
• 13:35 Meshing generations in the workplace is not difficult
• 14:00 The unconscious bias against older workers in a few teams and how they miss out on great insights
• 14:35 The example of NO-SQL – older programmers probably worked in environments before SQL was invented, they know how to work in NO-SQL
• 15:10 The primary piece of advice for “oldies” – never stop learning, never stop challenging yourself, aim to be among people who are better than you are so you can learn from them and others can learn from you
• 15:30 If you can’t achieve this in your day job, then join an open-source project that challenges your skills, make sure you learn something new every day
• 17:05 Advice to “youngies” (especially managers) – entice an older person on to your team because there is a lot you can learn from them, tap into their wisdom and experience
• 18:05 Older workers should be good at identifying human patterns and smoothing the interpersonal relationships in a team
• 18:26 Advice for younger teammates – remember you are only as good as your accomplishments over the last two years

Mentioned:

• QCon New York
• Don’s article – On Getting Old(er) in Tech
• GetPocket
• Pomodoro Technique
• Email contact: dondenoncourt@gmail.com
• Twitter: @Denoncourt