Life experiences
It blows my mind. I’ve skipped so many steps in life.
I’m only one month shy of 22. Out of everything, the one thing that sucks the most about being a 22 year old software engineer is being 22. Many of my colleague are around twice my age or at least in their 30s. Anyone below 25 in my field is rare professionally speaking. Many of the people I work with have kids, houses, cars, etc. I’m just a kid really. It’s so much harder when I can’t rent a car and get carded everywhere I go. Can’t get a loan because I just haven’t been around long enough to build up any credit.
I’ve been in the job market programing since I was 14 years old even while going to high school at the same time (working summers and with work study programs for half my school days). That gives me 7 1/2 years of work experience and about 10 years general programming experience (was writing BASIC applications in Quick-Basic when I was 12) which is pretty much makes me a senior level developer in many companies. I’m not in to for the money so much as I like programing in general. That is to say the money isn’t to bad.
I’m always been a little overwhelmed with everything and because of that I’ve had to grow up extremely fast but always gotten by pretty well. I’ve have never once worked in any type of job that wasn’t tech related. Never once worked at a fast food place or bagging groceries or anything like that like almost everyone of my friends my age where doing. I didn’t even start driving (legally 
) until I was 20. Never needed to drive anywhere. I always managed without it. I even got by with my out of state expired drivers permit instead of real driver’s license. Never had to ware a tie more then past the interview most places ethier. Just never had to do it and I’ve worked at some pretty big places.
Working on and learning new engineering practices and methodologies and how they fit into software development, figuring out the complexities of how SOX compliance plays into IT these days, constantly figuring out how things work and why they are designed the way they are, and learning how to be mature and professional on a job site. That’s my teenage years in a nut shell. A young nerd trying to make it as software engineer.
However, more recently, I took some risks and now it looks like I might have made some bad choices. Funds are running dry waiting on paychecks. So long to the end of those contracts and getting paid. Way after I really need it. These long waiting periods that wouldn’t bother most of those 25 to 40 year old colleague of mine. Waiting for checks to clear, shiping and handling, mail delays, and holidays making things move slower and slower. I don’t have the luxury of credit cards and loans here so I have few options. Makes me feel like a kid. When I’m broke, I’m totally broke. Really I’m a victim of horrible timing and not enough planning for this scenario I guess so I’m having a really tough period personally. I’m trying to pull a few rabbits out of my hat to get by this month and hoping I get lucky and I hoping I get through this bad patch. This is one of the worst though. I’m hopping it will all work out ok.
I wish signing bonuses where more common place in software engineering jobs or there were venture capitalists that invested in individuals. Oh well. Live and learn. Life experiences are fun
Tags: Mono & .NET, Personal, Tech Notes, Work
July 11th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
I know exactly the way you feel, I’m in the same situation, same age, I’m 22, it sucks.
I started out at the age of 13~14 with Java, then moved to PHP… been working “professionally” for 7 years (by professionally I mean I got payed), I’ve NEVER been into a job interview, neither have worked in a fast food restaurant and the like and oh well, just got my first credit card 2 moths ago.
I grew up fast just as you, trying to keep up with my environment.. mix all that with: I live in Latin America (Chile) which is not a developed country, not much high tech job offers floating around so I manage to start my own bussiness with two partners one is 34 and the other 56 years old. It’s just crazy.
Add a little new ingredient to the recipe, my girlfriend is specting a child :), yup, I’ll be a father in 2 months!
It might sound that I’m complaining about the situation, but I’m not, in fact, I’m PROUD of it, I know I still have a long way to go, and so much to learn and explore, which helps me to keep the hype!
I just wish things would be easier for anyone in our situation, it’s so hard to keep up with no credit, slow bussiness and a bunch of responsabilities.
I wish you the best, I know one day you’re gonna look back to all the things you have accomplished and smile. The best part of it, you’re gonna be 30.
Cheers!
r.
July 12th, 2006 at 4:58 am
Wow, just read your post and it’s amazing how closely it resembles my professional life.
I was messing with computers since… well forever. I got my first programming gig at the age of 14, my dad was working at some coding firm, and as a joke gave me a little task to do. Afterwards he got a job at some bigger place and told his current firm to take me instead, since I already coded for them
I’ve been working ever since. Always with people twice (or even more) my age.
It’s been extremly weird and sometimes awkward. The thing that helped me so far is a total separtion of work and out-of-work life. I have lots of friends my age, so I try not to feel old just because I work with older people.
I am 24 now, and the age difference is getting thinner every day…
Cheers!
July 12th, 2006 at 7:06 am
Funny, I think how much different my experience has been than yours. My story is a bit unusual, I suppose, but my intention is to indicate that it really doesn’t have to do with age at all.
I learned (c64) BASIC around 94, got a computer in 95′, learned C and HTML, did some web development around 96-98. Graduated High School in 00′. Went to university for one year before flunking out — which worked out because I had decided to get married during that year. I took a job as a junior Linux sysadmin for a year. At 20, I married and started telecommuting. Today, I’m working as a senior level sysadmin at a brick and mortar employer, and yes, I’m still the youngest guy — at 24.
With the dual income and the control a woman can place on a man’s spending.. we had little problem buying a house.. at 22.
Today, I’m 24, looking to rent my house and have my renters earn my equity for me. The funniest thing is that I still can’t rent a car without paying an “underage tax”.
July 13th, 2006 at 6:50 am
Hi Zac,
In France, we use to say that the wheel turns…
I’m not as young as you do (Oh! God! Am I really saying this?!?) as I am 29 almost 30.
But I went over your own experience maybe even worse. As a quick fact sheet, I earn my first computer at 12 (back to 1989) which was at that time an Atari and I quickly entered in the development/graphics field. At 14, I used to program assembler for Atari and Amiga demos for some piracy groups. In 1994, I was then 17 and I worked with the Columbia university to attack some of their internal IP networks using BBS, FTP and Gopher accesses (this was the starting blocks of the known Internet).
I then entered in the Web Start Up industry and built several websites for some companies (most of them are not here anymore) and I was hired as CTO at the age of 21 for one of them.
2 years later, 2001, the bubble exploded and I was unemployed and I kept this way for 2 long years because I couldn’t make myself coming back to a developer level after managing a team of 15 engineers where some of them were twice my age.
Life is hard and that’s a real fact but everything is solved if you put the right effort and have patience.
If I can give you an advice, during these hard times, don’t think about it too much as stress is the worst thing any person can feel.
And moreover it won’t change a thing to your situation.
No, just visit some friends (don’t go out, it costs money ;-)) make some sport outside while the weather allows you to (this is definitively true in France!!!) and do not hesitate to ask your friends for a hand: good friends are also those who support you when trouble comes.
My 2 cents for your cause
July 14th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
This is absolutely the wrong place to post this and for that I apologize. However, I made some changes to your net-pop3 and wanted to give them back.
added to POP3Connection:
public String RetrRaw(short msgID)
{
string response;
BaseWriter.WriteLine(”retr ” + msgID.ToString());
BaseWriter.Flush();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
response = BaseReader.ReadLine();
if (response.StartsWith(”-”))
{
return null;
}
else
{
while ((response = BaseReader.ReadLine()).Trim() != “.”)
{
sb.Append(response + “\n”);
}
return sb.ToString();
}
}
changed Close() per ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1939.txt
–BaseWriter.WriteLine(”exit”);
++BaseWriter.WriteLine(”quit”);
Hope this is useful, Lars.
July 14th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Thanks! I just commited it…
July 28th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Zac,
I got back from vacation to find out you went MIA. After reading your blog, I am even more confused about what happened. Anyway, I hope you can get things sorted out and I wish you the best of luck in the future.
Scott
November 20th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Life experiences, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
March 15th, 2008 at 9:40 am
March 15th, 2008 at 7:12 pm