I taught myself to code on a C=64. I took a detour in life and was in management of a completely non tech related industry while putting myself through an engineering degree. I've been programming professionally for some time now. Through it all, all I have ever wanted to do was program. Why is it so bad that that is all I still want to do that at 47? Especially when I'm damned good at it!?
I also started programming in 65C02 assembly in the 80s on an Apple //e and have been a professional developer since 1996. During that time, I’ve only been anything close to management (the dev lead for a medium size company) for 2 years. I hated every minute of the lead part.
I left the company to work for a small startup and negotiated not to be a team lead. I reiterated that at my last review. I’m much more effective just being a member of different teams and guiding the teams through just mentoring, advising and demonstrating.
If at all possible, I plan to be here at least another 4 or 5 years, but this will be my last software development full time salaried job hopefully. I’ll be 50.
I personally haven’t heard ageism being that much of an issue from other developers who are also 40+ who have kept their skills and their network current - ie we hardly ever get rejected from jobs we apply for. But, I definitely plan on contracting or consulting after I leave my current job.
The US Military used to have a separate track for technical specialists. The only rank left over from that track is "Specialist - E4". That line went all the way up to SGT Major, IIRC.
So, you aren't bad for wanting that; specialization (to the degree of artisan) seems to have fallen out of vogue (except for rockstar roles, which some exist in programming).
It was before my time, but I really love the Commodore 64's accessibility and learning curve in certain ways. One could mess around in Basic and slowly learn programming, as well as decide to drop into 6502 and manipulate things more intimately. Someone interested could slowly learn the ins/outs of their computer and become a competent operator while having fun making something interactive.
I really admire the generation older than me having that sort of experience, as I think by the time I was exposed to later PCs things had become more and more abstracted. Not that we should return to my romantic notion of Commodore 64s, but there's something that feels holistic about it than a more conventional PC setup today.
Greed. There's a lot of money in the industry and it's a common personality trait to reduce competition for it, so old people, self-taughts, deformed, disabled, brown, etc. are denigrated and run through gauntlets of interviews for the privilege of writing code that puts a number in a little red circle on a webpage.
