Job Chances for Older Coders?

emtboy9 asks: "As the semester winds to a close, exams fall upon us students once again. Today, outside of one of my programming classes, I overheard a conversation between a pair of middle aged women about programming degrees (which they are involved in), and this made me wonder. With the job market in IT being as pathetic as it is, what are the real-world chances of someone who is taking a programming course getting a job. In the places I have worked, all the coders were fairly young. So the question is, what are the chances for an older person, who is just now learning programming to get a job in that field?" Ask Slashdot last touched on this topic back in February of 2001. In the intervening two years, have things gotten worse or better for those who have been in the industry for a long time?

"With the increasing popularity in such places, tech and trade schools and even colleges and universities are spitting out MCSEs, CCNAs, A+, Net+, etc certified techs, as well as people of all ages (one person in my VB class is nearly 60) who are trained to write code.

With that in mind, I guess I thought I would throw that out to the Slashdot crowd to see what kind of experiences they have either as a middle aged person entering the IT workforce for the first time, or as a younger tech, or even a manager, faced with either working with, or hiring someone who is from a completely different generation."

Comments

Older coders welcomed where needed

[Exocet]

I don't know about everywhere else, but the coders where I work (Liberty Northwest, who's parent company is Liberty Mutual - both big insurance companies) are all pretty goddamn old. Even the people who do web stuff (relatively "new" technology) are at least 30+. I don't think I've ever seen a coder under 30 here.

Of course, a lot of it has to do with the type of company you want/are working for. LNW/LM has lots of old but fairly stable hardware in use. I see lots of COBOL books on shelves, litterally. There's no place for flashy people with their flashy coding - at least not in this insurance building. The management seems to like their coders old, experienced and on the crotchety side.

Note: I'm a young, brash contractor that was brought in for a Win95(!) to Win2k migration project six months ago. So my views are somewhat biased, though not any more than anyone else's I suspect.

Re:Older coders welcomed where needed

[kimgh]

Let me provide a case in point: myself. I'm 50+ (and never mind how + that is!). I got a physics Ph.D. and went to work in wafer fab processing, but early on realized that what I really wanted to do was program computers (as it was called in those days).

So, I looked for ways to get there without going back to school, and discovered that there was a niche supporting process and device simulation code (written in (ugh) FORTRAN, but it was programming, anyway). I took advantage of an opportunity to branch into circuit simulation, and once I was something of an expert at that, went to a startup as their SPICE expert. I drifted along in that job for many years, went through a couple of mergers, and served as a group manager for a while.

When I was surplused from that job, I worked on simulation and modeling at a small company supporting a contract. When that dried up, I had (at age 48) about three directions I could have gone, but chose to get into signal integrity simulation as a support person (rather than a coder, although there were opportunities to write code also). My background in simulation made it natural to branch into signal integrity. That job, in turn, led to an offer for the "job of a lifetime" at age 51, and I've not felt it necessary to look any further (so far, anyway). At present, I can either work for a vendor of SI software or for one of their customers as a supporter of the software. This is in a field that will only become more in demand as system speeds push past the 1GHz range. I figure that I can be employed as long as I want to be, and age has not mattered much.

In fact, the last few job searches I've done have landed me at companies that appeared to value older employees for their experience; I suspect there are many such companies.

Looking at where I came from, there was no way to predict that I would end up where I am now. Every move was logical at the time, and grew out of prior experience.

While I wasn't a computer science major, and I wasn't a mere programmer or software engineer, I suspect my experience in terms of career evolution is not that unusual.

Maintaining employability in any technical field can be summed up in three rules: Look for jobs that will build on what you already know and let you branch into new areas and learn new things (never stop learning); when you find a job, start looking/thinking about the next job (you are working for yourself primarily and only secondarily for your company); and finally, build a network of friends so you can get them or their bosses to hire you should the need come (networking is job one).

Re:Young minds absorb quicker

[Abcd1234]

A programmers value is determined by experience and ability to learn. Since someone new to the IT field has little experience, being hired is determined mostly by their ability to learn. Since young minds are better suited for learning, they are going to be hired more often. This is the trend I have seen at my company.

Oh please. Anyone who is capable of earning a University degree, old or young, is quite clearly capable of learning... after all, at least when I went through Uni, we had to learn to get the damn degree in the first place! What you describe is just a prejudice... the "old dogs can't learn new tricks" mentality which is, unfortunately, prevalent in our society.

I*M*HO, there is no specific reason to assume older people make poorer techies. In fact, the manager I work for is in his late forties, and he's probably one of the smartest men I've come across. He's constantly learning new things... hell, he seems to have an easier time keeping up with trends than I do!

Re:Young minds absorb quicker

[cfury]

Not true. I am an adjunct professor at a local community college. Most of the brightest students I have are actually 30-40+. Granted, this isn't always the case, but the tendancy is that the older individuals actually *want* to learn.

This isn't to say that there aren't young people who are bright and gifted (these *want to learn* too.) But I honestly have to say that age has very little to do with learning capacity. Rather, it's the inquisitive mind, one who is willing to learn new things, that do the best.

IMHO, the most important aspect of a programmer or technologist is the ability to solve problems and the capacity to figure things out on their own. In the end, the technology becomes a tool, and nothing more. This requires an open mind, insight and a huge helping of curiosity....
None of which are directly related to age.

To simply think that younger people are automatically terrific at figuring out new technologies is a silly idea, at best.

Chris

No geezers need apply.

[Anonymous Coward]

From an actual Monster job posting.

SW EMBEDDED SYSTEMS ENGRS (56 positions open)

Candidates will be developing embedded encryption systems and network security systems. Full
relocation will be provided.
Must Have:
* BS or MS in Computer Scient, related technical field, or equivalent experience.
* Active "Secret" Security Clearance.
* NO MORE THAN 3-5 years experience. (Candidates with 6+ years experience fall into different job
classifications with this company. These 56 openings are for candidates with ONLY 3-5 years
experience.)
* C/UNIX and Assembly and the development of multi-tasking software.
* Cryptography experience is a strong plus.
Also, familiarity with Power PC architecture, Network Processor architecture, TCP/IP, ATM, Wind
Rivers' Tornado operating system, and ClearCase is a plus.

Care to guess how many older workers will get these jobs?