Boomer Developers: 10 Lessons I Learned From Them

Jan Kammerath
17 min readApr 23, 2023
Boomers build the technology we all love today

I am now in my late 30s and started to learn to code around the age of 12, in 1996. My professional career as a software engineer took off in the early 2000s when I started working for a local software company. Only aged 17 when I started programming professionally and in a commercial environment, I was the youngest guy a around. I was a kid. A kid with a massive passion for computers, networks and programming.

My boomer colleagues taught me essential hard and soft skills back in the days. I consider them my mentors to this date. With many of them I am good friends besides the age difference. With some of them I’ve lost contact for years now. All of them have taught me valuable lessons which I want to share with you. Especially with those of you who did not have had the chance to work with them. When I was 17 years old, they were in their late 30s and early 40s. Pretty much the age I am in now. Many of the boomer developers have already retired or are in the phase of retiring now and I somewhat fear that some of their legacy might get lost in time.

People change, problems remain. — Anonymous colleague

#1 It’s all been done before

New inventions, new software, new hardware or new programming languages are not as new as they seem or often claim to be. Many paradigms…

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Jan Kammerath

I love technology, programming, computers, mobile devices and the world of tomorrow. Check out kammerath.com and follow me on github.com/jankammerath