Reading a soft skills book is like taking mandatory anti-corruption training at work. It is boring because its obvious, but unfortunately some people still need it.

How much effort should be made towards optimization, or custom data stores? Or just use {insert favorite sql dbms}?

Due to rampant ageism, most people in this field are afraid of becoming irrelevant in their forties due to the rapid evolution of the industry, therefore staying relevant is of concern.

But if we are going to talk about what drives the success and failure of projects, the "stakeholder interactions" are only one part of the problem.

I've worked with 3 startups already and have heard stories from many others ...

For startups that die, usually the blame lies with not finding the "product/market fit" however the reality is that startups only have a small window of time in which they can present their product and win customers and if your MVP has bugs or is underfeatured, it can kill your business, irregardless of how well connected you are to your stakeholders and your clients.

Going further than startups, in software companies developers do have to talk with stakeholders in order to understand the requirements.

Asking the right questions however is a matter of technical skill and no discipline will teach you how to better dissect a problem in smaller problems than math and a scientist will always be better at asking questions than non-technical folks ;-)

The people my age that suffer career losses and anxiety usually do so because they stayed in one place too long. Getting laid off or fired after 10-15 years (or longer) in one place can be disastrous. Part of it is that they no longer have practical interview skills, or even understand the current trends in recruiting and hiring. But a lot of it is because their skill set becomes company-specific, deeply tied to the business of their long-time employer. They might be (and often are) fine programmers or analysts, but their resume doesn't reflect that.

As for startups... if you think an initial product (MVP) having bugs or lacking features is the reason startups die, you're not paying much attention. I would go far in the other direction! A company that doesn't release a buggy, incomplete product will die. That's because startups are a race against the clock. They need to show results (usually measured in sales) quickly enough to not run out of money, or at least get them to another round of investment to keep them going. The longer the time to market, the harder that is. And customer feedback is the best way to find the shortcomings in your product.

The reason anyone buys from a startup is desperation. That startup needs to be offering something that cannot be obtained from an existing, stable market player. This is especially true in B2B, where businesses are actually risking something by committing to a startup, other than their free time. A startup needs to find such a big pain point, such a big market gap, that customers will put up with a buggy, incomplete app, and pay for the privilege. That is the secret to a successful startup - certainly not polishing the turd til it glows. (Read Crossing the Chasm for great depth on this, if you don't mind a bunch of boring soft-skill reading.)

I'm in my 40s, and this is _precisely_ why I mentor peers to interview occasionally with other companies after a couple of years at their gig, even if they have no intention of leaving. It's not just keeping up with the technology, it's keeping up with the soft skills, the trends in recruiting, etc.

What if they fit the gig they're interviewing for and get an offer? I could think of worse problems someone interested in keeping up and going through this exercise could have.

And especially for hiring managers, occasional interviewing is even _more_ helpful for finding better, more efficient methods for interviewing in your own company. Or finding out your own process is better run.

You might not want to do this in a small town where you're going to exhaust your options rapidly, but in major cities, if you're methodical about the roles and industries, it's an unbelievable wealth of information (and competitive analysis, to be fair).

I am rapidly approaching my 40's, and lately I am fearful of ending up in the same position. I was wondering, if I could ask you, what can I do to make sure I don't end up like that? I'm a full stack programmer with a great job, but we are very vendor locked.

I feel like I already made one step in the right direction, where I don't focus too much on frameworks, but more on the soft skills. For instance, instead of reading a book about d3.js, I started with a book about the underlying fundamentals of data visualization (Grammar of Graphics). Instead of focusing on tsql, I focus on database architecture and indexing fundamentals. Is there anything more I can do, though? I guess I should really explore finding another job.

If you go to a dev meetup reach out the organizers about how you can help them. This often gets you introductions to people you may not usually interact with. I have personally experienced this pattern:

* Go to meetup I like. * Find I'm intimidated by the topic and personalities. The groups knows each other and there are what looks like a clique of speakers. * Meetup ends and after some very brief smalltalk I go home. Opportunity missed.

I certainly learned a few things from the talks, but I missed out on opportunities to network. Many times it turns out there are some dynamics happening, and I only learned this from hearing a bit more from the organizer side:

* Group started out as a bunch of friends with an interest. * Same people are giving talks over and over. Feedback from membership is that they want more variation, or beginner talks. * The people who started the group were intermediate before they started the group, so for various reasons don't do beginner talks, or do them well. * Organizers want other folks to step up and improve the beginner experience, but struggle to find people who actually understand it. I probably had a few stories to tell the group, but didn't.

There are many more things going on, but if you get in touch with the organizers they can likely help find something for you to contribute towards which isn't necessarily speaking.

You'll get into a circle of people you wouldn't normally be in, where you can initially lurk. You can pick something that will get you visibility with other group members (potentially hiring) or recruiters (if they allow them). Most importantly you'll develop some leadership skills which will be valuable to employers. Employers also like to have organizers on their staff because then they can host events and showcase their company (just be careful with how that comes off.)

My rule of thumb is to not stay more than five years anywhere, if you want to make sure you can move when needed.

Thank you! That is one more encouragement to get my prototype started and think about how to do my marketing.

My experience from leading both engineering and product teams is that this is mostly wrong.

If it's product/market fit you're worried about, then the problem of asking the right questions is not a hard-skills problem. It's domain expertise and communication skill. Knowing what an S-expression is or POSIX internals won't make you better at any of those things. Working on your soft skills will.

Aside, I'm 43.