Slashdot Mirror
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."
Its completely true, at least in México, that you can see older people pushing code.
But I blame this on the stupid idea that coding is unimportant, and everyone should go ahead to leading people as fast as posible.
I should extend over this, I'm sure I will sometime, but I can say now this is causing terrible problems on the side of quality of coding in Mexico.
The average quality of the code produced by mexican programmers is terrible.
I've been coding for almost twenty years, and have watched the other coders around me dwindle away. I've made sure to keep on the leading edge, learning new tools and technologies, but guess what? Most companies aren't interested in hiring older programmers. They feel that they can get current knowledge a lot cheaper from younger folks. Not only that, but there just aren't many jobs out there that require senior level software engineers, (and I'm not talking about all the "senior engineers" who've been doing it for less than 10 years). You accumulate a lot of knowledge and experience over the years, but today's coding tasks require less experience than you may think.
I've recently had to accept that I'm about halfway through my working life, (early 40s), and there's no way I can keep coding for the next 25 years. In today's business climate, jobs are too precarious, and I can't take a chance that I'll get laid off and not be able to find a job. So now, I'm getting my masters and moving into (shudder) management.
You'd be surprised how much technical knowledge is needed in management, however. System architecture and project management, effectively performed, are skills in high demand. I feel like, even though I prefer coding, I'm positioned well for the remaining 25 years of my career.
I managed to squeeze an almost 20 year career out of coding, and have had a great time. I'm at the end of that path now, however. Time to get on a new one that has solid employment and advancement opportunities for people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond.
I'm gonna miss it though!!!
As an 'old coder' (30 languages since 1968), I can tell you the natural process, that being one of evolution, is for the seniors to become managers. Move up, it's where you belong.
John Glenn may not be too old to pilot a big bird into space, but he may have an easier time flying back to his old job than many of the old-school mainframe programmers being brought back into the fold to avert disasters caused by the year 2000 problem.
With demand exploding for programmers fluent in COBOL, Fortran, and other "legacy languages" to apply fixes to millions of lines of code, the job outlook for elder mainframe gurus eager to get their fingers back in the bits has never looked better. A study published last year by Hunter College computer-science professor Howard Rubin predicted that up to 700,000 code-cutters will have to be spliced back into the workforce in the next three years, and callow Web-geeks schooled in C++ and Java just don't have the right stuff.
The problem? Getting the workers to the work.
For an industry that has mushroomed by dangling dad-sized salaries before unmarried post-adolescents willing to move anywhere at the drop of an IPO, the Graying of High Tech presents an intriguing dilemma. The huge financial institutions that are desperate to get their mainframes on track for the millennium, says Bill Payson, president of Senior Staff 2000, a leading database of elder IT workers, "want full-time people, on-site, in downtown Chicago, yesterday. But these guys aren't going to live in a motel for six months. They're living on a golf course in South Florida or San Diego County, and they're very hard to pry loose. They moved there because they don't like Chicago - there are no drugs where they live, and no crime."
Frances Nevarez, president of Automation Training Specialists - which offers training to programmers for Y2K-related and other jobs with AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, and other firms - sees the same problem. The retirees, she says, "like where they live. They have homes that they set aside so they could leave the rat race."
It's not that senior programmers don't want to tackle the job, Payson says. "Thirty-seven percent are interested in the money," Payson claims (which can vary from US$35 an hour for grunt-level coding to $150 an hour for top-level programming), "and 63 percent are bored."
For the generation of technicians who came of age in the post-WWII era, the 74-year-old Payson - an ex-Marine - observes, there's also an emotional eagerness to serve: "They're turned on by a sense of patriotic duty. They want to save the country's ass."
The task facing "solution providers" hired by the huge institutions to engage the services of older programmers, Payson says, is to find innovative ways to move mountains of code to Mohammed. One possible solution for linking the ailing mainframes to COBOL-gurus in retirement communities, Payson suggests, is the Net.
Don Heath, president of the Internet Society, thinks using the Net and the Web to coordinate Y2K problem-solving teams is a "great idea." But Heath, who sits on the board of a company that builds problem-prevention tools for IBM databases, also acknowledges that many of the older firms that will be slammed hardest by Y2K glitches - like banks - are the most skeptical of engaging the expertise of an off-site, online work pool.
"They're reluctant. For the larger data centers, it's an issue of style, methodology, operating procedure," Heath says. "It's ill-founded, but it's based on history as well as inertia."
Steven Laine of Systems Partners - a solution provider with clients like Intel, Wells Fargo, and Charles Schwab - agrees with Heath that the typical project manager "wants people who will be sitting there on site, where they can see them." As the supply of up-to-speed legacy-language specialists are snatched up, however, Laine says, "the clients are going to have to be more flexible."
Another group that has been looking at the Net as a way of enabling older programmers to get back on the job is educators. When the University of Santa Cruz Extension launched a course called "Year 2000 Orientation for Experienced Programmers" in September, the class f
Don't hate. I just think the reason the market is shitty is because people think they can just rely on doing simple coding all day. What people should have really done in college (that is if they went, and not to a pussy 2 year college, and no SAMS Learn C++ in 24hrs doesn't count either) is diversify their options. For example, mixing Comp Sci with Biology or even Chemistry is a great idea. Chemoinformatics is becoming a pretty hot field. Hell even datamining is becoming a big field along with AI. I blame 90% of the colleges in the US for some of the job problems is that they get confused what a CS degree is. Colleges now tend to mix in IT/CS together in some ugly mess. Where I come from, mathematics should slightly more more then 50% of your CS degree. CS majors are mathematicians right? Not coders.
First of all, an employer who hires someone younger as opposed to older with similiar creds better keep his mouth shut. It's a small world, and it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. These days, older can mean more experience. And with companies spending less, age increases the chances of a company getting a developer whose been around the block a couple of times and can step right in and be productive. As for those two ladies, I hate to say it, but they're screwed. There's such a disproportionate amount of male engineers, and male-biased engineers at that. When they do get a job, unfortunately, they will be looked at as a quota-fill, until they prove otherwise. I hope they read this and get motivated!
Sorry, but many companies aren't interested in hiring scraggly-bearded hotshot hacker-wannabes to write payroll code. They're looking for stable and mature people who will show up, on time, everyday. Not finger-signing really cool dudes who part-tay every weekend then come in with hangovers on Monday and spend the rest of the week trying to put undetectable backdoors into the check printing code or copy the executive payroll file for their own enjoyment.
The poster who noted that leading-edge programming languages are only leading-edge for a couple of weeks is absolutely correct. COBOL may not be cool, but it was once leading-edge and has persisted because it works. Want to take bets on whether applications written in COBOL or applications written in (enter name of flashy new language here) are more likely to still be running in 20 years>
Since young minds are better suited for learning, they are going to be hired more often.
This is, of course, nowhere near the truth. I'm 36, and not only do I have a boatload of relevant experience, I also have learned to learn _faster_ with age. Experience (in most programmers I've known) leads to wider horizons and opportunities for understanding the many new technologies that come our way. There's also the axiom (followed by the experienced) that if you start slow, you'll finish fast--while the opposite is believed by the young and inexperienced (who often think that racing out of the gate will somehow help them accomplish the development of a complex system faster--it doesn't--it leads to doing it over and over again, even after it's in production, but I digress).
Oftentimes, managers will confuse the high energy and enthusiasm in younger people with the ability to deliver fantastic, high-quality results--boy are they ever wrong, wrong, wrong! Grumpy "old" men in their 30's and 40's usually turn in the best work, IMHO.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
If you are an older person with the same level experience as someone fresh out of school (in a particular domain), you are much less hirable regardless of profession. Why? You're value as an investment has dimenished greatly. If you are going to be collecting retirement in 20 years, why would I hire you verses someone who won't for another 40 years? Chances are, if you're just getting into something at age 40, you're not going to do anything that changes the industry.
If you're older and have experience, well, that's a different story entirely. Mostly depends on why you're making a career change.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
There are always going to be more and more college graduates coming who are willing to code for less money. Younger people who are willing to work longer and harder who may not have established a family of their own yet.
The demand is going down and the supply is growing fast.
The real shortage is COMPETENT management. If you learn and can implement real software management practices, then your more marketable.
"Code Monkeys" are dime a dozen, and most younglings dont pay much attention to the management practices of software development endevours until after they are in the business a while.
Just a tip for professional growth...
I read once in a while stories about students having difficulties finding their 1st job in the IT industry, but from what I see around me, it also seems hard to keep your job when you pass, say, 40. My uncle was a damn good software engineer, but now that he's 50+, he has a hard time finding and keeping jobs. I'm not complaining for myself, I'm 30, with a good job, but I wonder, how long is it going to last? I think it's pretty sad to see a lot a sw engineers transitionning to management, not because they really like it, but because it's the accepted conventional way up. What if I love development and want to stay in it?
:)
And now, you tell us about mid-aged (and over) people *starting* a carrer in IT.. I don't know, but it looks like it's going to be tough for them.
But again, my view is totally biased by my personal environment and experience. I haven't checked any statistical resources out there (may be I should have before opening my big mouth
{Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme}
how all the older coders say: "Companies don't want us, in this market they want all you kids who will work for peanuts"
while we kids all say: "Companies don't want us, in this market they want people with experience."
Bah. You know, as I finish undergrad (graduation tomorrow - woot!) I see SO many just BAD programmers. It seems like any idiot can get through a CS degree. I only have a 3.2 (*sigh*) and I don't see myself finding a decent job. So, I did this 'fast track' thing and did 6 grad hours this semester. While I don't see many jobs with BSCS + 0yrs exp, I do see a few jobs for BSCS + 2yrs or MSCS + 0yrs.
sig
I think the biggest issue is simply keeping up to date. I work at an academic lab that does DoD contracts. 95% of my co-workers could be my parents. The problem we're having is not of age but of abilities. The current people there are all stuck in their particular languages. We have an Ada person, and the rest are old school C people. The newest ( and relatively younger ) people that have come in, including me, are pushing to start using c++ and OOP methodologies. Our problems are two fold, updating the C people, and highering new people that already have a handle on c++ and OOP.
:P )
It's not so much about age but about what the person can do when hiring. I've interviewed a couple people this week already across a range of ages, and luckily of both sexs. We haven't gone with anyone yet because they aren't versed well enough in what we want even if it is the baby boomer of languages.
So wether you are young or old, don't pigeon hole yourself into a single technology or language. Investigate the new ones that look promising.
( Note: I only used the c++ issue as a particular point, there is obviously much more that we care about than knowledge of a certain language, so don't flame me for being short sighted
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I've been programming since 1968, from vacuum tubes and punched cards to today, custom OSs, drivers, softare and hardware testing, web sites, networking, firmware, translators, and all sorts of jobs, some boring, most interesting, some exciting (like the one using a real gun, had to test with Michael Jackson playing real loud to drown out the shots :-). I was laid off in September when the company shifted direction to a Windows project which they planned to convert to Linux, but not yet, and I know next to nothing about Windows (in fact, that was why I got the original job years before). Haven't even had a response to any resume yet. Northern California, no where near the bay area, and I like that.
I do NOT attribute my dismal job search with age, I have never felt my age was a problem. I believe my problem right now is that I am a jack of many trades and master of only a few. I am a good employee, havbe always worked smart, not hard, 8-9 hour days, never had a job which expected 12 hour days, but I have no problem with them in emergencies and rushes, just not days on end for months and years. I have worked with people who routinely put in 12 hour days, and frankly, their code sucked hind tails.
I think it is a matter of so many programmers out there that companies can hire the best buzzword match, if it doesn't work out, fire them and try again. Or a new project comes along, one new skill required, fire the old buzzword match, find a new one. I have learned Java three times, always got the job done, but didn't use it again for several years, and it had changed enough in between to require partial relearning.
But I do not think my age is a problem.
Infuriate left and right
I just started a new job and I am 48. We do xsl and xml web development. Who gets the job is based on ability, not age. I am the old man (wise?) on our team.
With the market flooded with experienced engineers with BS and MS degrees. Mid-life crisis cases with a class or two on their resume don't stand a chance in the job market.
Actually, I take offense to that, partly because that's -precisely- what I do.
I'd really, -honestly- like to see a remote (ie. in India) sysadmin fix a downed node in an HPC cluster. I'd like to see that -same- admin work with 4 different academic departments, plus the overriding IS department to have disparate linux machines working correctly, in a short span of time, while making all five groups literally worship the ground you walk on. I'd like to see that SA in India do a network transition remotely, when it requires hand massaging of config files on internal machines that have -zero- availability to an external network.
It simply doesn't happen. There will -always- be a need for onsite, hands on people. With the research that goes on around me, they will absolutely -not- trust the administration of those machines to someone that they can't get into the office within 35 minutes. The same goes for my previous employer and their data center.
One hour of downtime can cost one of their clients a million bucks.
Go ahead and try to replace me. Said previous employer has had to hire two experienced admins to replace -each- of the two guys that have left in the last 7 months (I was one of those two guys that left).
Actually, open source is employing about a hundred and fifty people at at least one company in Baltimore, MD (and I hear they're looking for a couple of -good- SysAdmins). Add to that all the sysadmins at the various research universities that are running Beowulf and Mosix/openMosix clusters, and you start to see a different picture.
Honestly, I personally haven't had a problem finding a job...
I'm over 40, have only 5 years as a coder, and after a long search, I found a good job at a reasonable salary. While it may seem obvious to say 'no one will pay for software when you can get it for free', it's simply not true. Most coders don't make, and never have made, shrinkwrap apps. The jobs lost in this area are negligable compared to what happens when the companies clamor for more IT people based on a ridiculously overhyped economy propped up by VC's looking to make the fast buck before the balloon pops. Even if you weren't paying attention, it was obvious that most of the tech companies would fall down, go boom. Anyway, old apps are getting upgraded, and new ones are on the horizon. :P Times is bad; you just ride it out.
I know an accountant having trouble finding work too. Though he blames Bush
Write code becasue you enjoy it or have a problem to solve. Don't go to school because you think your going to get rich coding. The software world is moving away from the closed source model faster than you can imagine. Those dummies in jail won't have a clue and the crap they make, even if guided by those who do know something, will never measure up in quality to free software. Being able to use free software to solve real problems will be useful and valuable. The source is alive. A CD full of binary crap is just a coaster and might as well be written by convicts.
Bill Gates would be the RIAA of software. He did not count on free software eating his lunch. I wonder if he funded this Indian programming effort. Here, he's going the other way. Instead of trying to get convicts ready for life outside of jail by teaching them progrmming, he's trying to get programmers ready for jail by changing the law. Screw you Billy!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Where I work, almost all of the tech people are in their 50's. Unfortunately, none have taken the time to learn about new technology, so things like token ring, Novell 3.51, and crappy X.25 modems are the norm and will continue to be until these people retire. I myself am "old." But I keep up on new tech and no matter what I do I am always met with fierce resistance because everyone fears change or doesn't understand how the new technology works. It seems to me that when most people get as old as me, they don't care anymore, they figure they aren't going to advance any farther than they are now, so they do just enough work not to get fired until they retire.
I've been pushing hard to get some of the younger applicants hired, people just out of college with a fresh look and new ideas about how we should do things, and the younger guys we've hired are doing some amazingly brilliant things. Unfortunately, they are not well liked by the older guys because they are taking away the things that keep these guys coming into work every day.
I'd still hire "old" people, but only if their resume showed strong skills with new technology and new ways of designing/doing things.
You might consider reading something more useful than IT related books. A good place to start is "War and Peace" by Tolstoy. This is coming from a hardcore closet geek that also happens to have a life on this side.
I will totally disagree with you. In my experience older people with who are married with children and a house tend to not work as much overtime and tend to do less work outside of "work." They also seem far less interested in learning anything other than what is needed for the job at hand. But they also seem to be more professional, they come to work and leave work when they say they will and they just behave in a more appropriate and easy to work with manner.
Younger people on the other hand are more likely to stay in their cubicles all day and night coding. They are also more likely to be working on other computer related stuff outside of work and they most certainly are more interested in constantly keeping up with and experimenting with new technologys. But of course they are less reliable than their older counterparts when it comes to "corporate professsionalism."
Personally I think that it is best to have a team comprised of coders of all ages so that you get the best of all worlds.
The advantages of going to grad school, particularly when slightly older, during a recession are numerous. I did it during the last two recessions (MSc in the early eighties, a Ph.D. and a couple postdocs during the early nineties), so I speak from experience:
the net boom started in the late 90's, it was common for 20 somethings to fill a company. It wasn't because 20 is like the prime of your logical abilities in life! It was because there were damn few programmers older! There had been few jobs, especially for totally self taught people... and oh, there were few self taught people because there was no PC around if you were older than say 10-15 circa 1980. We were the first wave of computers programmers in any popular sense... the idea of "personal" computer software and consumer software such as games.
I learned computers on the school computer in the closet somewhere, the schools I was in got computer labs just as I left them, and that was still a couple years before other schools were getting them (there were dilligent pro-computer math teachers at my junior and high school).
I'm used to being and old timer. When I was 27 I was already an old timer at these startups. It's like being the oldest sibling, you are oldest even when you are 7 and the little brother is 4.
So we're still here ten years later (7=10 true enough for software engineering purposes), don't be suprised. In ten years you'll notice the ages go up to the 40's. When were 60+... well you get the idea.
Computers are not a thing of the youth. The
Startups might still have 20 year olds becuase they can risk more... but many companies or well funded startups will continue to have ages that rise to my generations level with a few baby boomer guru's flitting about (if they are not busy buying the Seattle Seahawks or something).
In places where computers have existed for fifty years (like science, banking, government, universities etc.) you see the full age range. Not because those places are more conservative. It's because the semi-specialized employees hang around where they know how to make a living.
Young executives and managers are another thing entirely.
-pyrrho
Those 40+ workers won't have a snowball's chance in hell in the current market. Roughly what anyone that doesn't currently have a job, I might add.
Not only that, but I suspect that many people with CS degrees - the technical rough equivilent of an Engineering degree or such - are getting a mere fraction of what other people in technically inclined career paths are getting. The situation doesn't look like it's going to improve, either - at least not within the decade, and probably longer.
I see tech workers having several options from which to chose from. The available options are probably not anything that will happen without a fairly large pull on the government from the private citizens of the US: civil liberties have been pretty low on the totem pole of things to do for the government of late.
The first thing that could be done would probably be to form a union. Many people in the tech industry protest this it seems, though, because they might see 'union' being attributed to 'lower' work, such as manual labor. However, I do not see this as meaning that it shouldn't be done, or that it would be bad for tech workers if it were done. It would provide for wage and sallary standardization for specific tasks and job requirements. Granted, the people with lucrative 200k$/year jobs would probably lose out.
Another option - and probably the best - is to get a government licsensure board set up, such as what conventional engineers have. This would act positively on several fronts. First, it would change being a 'tech worker' from being simply that - someone with technical skills that is seen by management to perform menial technical tasks - to a trained and licensed professional.
Then, in turn, commericial software could not be sold without a licensed programmer's 'signature'. (This could work much like the current engineer scenario of a single engineer watching over draftsmen - the real programmers (people that hvae been programming for years, with many languages, etc - programming managers, basically, instead of the clueless IT Managers we have now) look over, debug, and LART the 'coders'. Granted, there'd probably be a higher ratio of programmers/coders than there is of engineers/draftsman, simply because it takes a lot more man hours to review code than it does to look over a blueprint.
Additionally, this would do several things for the quality of code. It would increase, one, because there would at least be a minimal level of competence on a given project (as shown by the licensure test taken by the programmer).
Second, an programmer putting his stamp of approval on a project is much more likely to pay attention to the overall quality of the product, since his license is on the line. There will have to be some more thought done on how to determine whether or not a programmer is responsible for a problem with his software, of course, but I think it can be safely said that large vulnerabilities and inherrently insecure software design would result in such a license revocation. It would, of course, be determined by the governmental licensure board.
Thirdly, this would be a positive long-term thing because all the Indian and Asian imigrants that are currently working here without their blue cards, and many with, would not be able to work in the capacity of programmer. Hopefully 'coders' would have to be licensed too, a requirement being that they be a civizen.
Similar rules can be drawn up for system administration, although I'll argue that the infastructure is already largely there. sysadmins follow previously defined guidelines, for the most part, and work within a boundry. They have things like Cisco's intensive certification program which is largely respected in its higher manifestations. Etc.
The fact of the matter is, the software industry has been going through an 'industrial revolution' of sorts, similar to what occured about 100 years ago. Ideas have been formulated, mistakes have been made, and now we're still going over step 1 and 2 wi
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
With the industry in the shitter like it is, I am having a hell of a time finding work. I just recently graduated with a degree in CS from UCF, and it's near-worthless. There are a million people out there with actual on-the-job experience in ADDITION to their degrees, and they too are working for pitiful wages in whatever they can get right now. I think if anything, age is a BONUS as long as you have the experience that usually goes along with it.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Well lets see, I'm 62 years old, I wrote my first program in 1968, I currently make over $100k writing embedded application code. You can make out like a bandit even if you are an old fart
After reading these posts, I seem to be the old man around here. Here are a few of the OS's I've used over the years:
IBM1620 using Witran, Fortran IID, SPS (1961)
IBM1130 using PL1 (1968)
PDP8
PDP10 RSTS
PDP11/34
Wang 2200 (early 70's)
Microdata and Basic/Four (around 76)
IMSAI (with an 8 Mhz zilog Z80) (This was my first home computer, 1977)
Data General AOS/VS
PDP1170 Running Unix Release 3 (circa 1980)
Seiko running CP/M (1982)
From 1983 until 1993 I worked on a variety of intel products runing 286 Xenix on Altos computers and later SCO xenix and SCO Open Server. I discovered Linux in 1993. My first installation was from an Infomagic Linux developers CD with slackware. I then moved on to Yggdrasil, Redhat and most recently Gentoo. In 1999, we started replacing our SCO servers with linux boxes.
I never really spent much time with Microsoft products. Until recently most of my time has been spent writing business software.
I can personally attest to the fact that code I wrote 40 years ago (cobol) is still in use today.
The bottom line is that it's not the speed of the coder that counts but rather it is the ability to turn out quality code that's both clear an concise as well and being well documented. If you can meet this challange, you can stay gainfully employed until well into your seventies while still pulling down a low 6 figure salary.
I went through a tough transition from techie/code writer to manager. I hire people old or young that will improve my team. Sometimes that means young people with enthusiasm and a misplaced sense of what the latest technology can really accomplish and sometimes it means hiring someone older who has lived through several "revolutions" in programming that will "forever change" the IT world. The more experienced (often but not always older) programmer/analysts are the better listeners who remember that our primary purpose is to build software systems that people can use intuitively to accomplish their work more effectively. They are also the ones that can resist the temptation to build "clever" code remembering from past code maintenance nightmares that just because something is possible doesn't mean it is good idea.
Lately, to help screen applicants we have found it is extremely useful to test and interview. This quickly helps us identify those with a balance of technical and communication skills. It is remarkable how few applicants carefully listen to our questions before answering. Most use every question as a starting point to launch into a detailed technical diatribe of their favorite projects, scattering acronyms throughout, forgetting that only one of the interview committee members (who have all been introduced and identified by position) has a technical background suitable to understand their answer.
Summary - those managers who want the best team members will find ways that do not prohibit older programmers from making it through the screening process. We will occasionally miss the truly gifted but this is unfortunately but part of risk management.
"In fact, most people I see in this business fell into it from other fields entirely. I've only met a few out here in the real world that actually went to school specifically for programming. Most got degrees in other fields."
I've been in the industry since I graduated... with an English degree. Most of the EECS graduates I've worked with were... salespeople. Most of the admins, programmers, engineers, and trouble techs have been liberal arts types, chefs, and general knock-abouts who get involved because there's no jobs in the field they came from and this stuff is fun.
There's a basic dichotomy in mindset here: those who think that school is for education and those who think that school is for socialization. If you think of school as a factory which is churning out skilled individuals, you're a) probably disappointed with the American school system and b) probably going to be on the dustheap in ten to twenty years, whether through personal burnout or skill rust.
School to me was a piece of paper that I knew would open doors with people who think papers are important; but I did enough research ahead of time to see that few of the people I respected had studied what they were doing for a living. So I took a degree that I cared about and that I thought would be fun. I had a great time, I learned interesting stuff, I met cool people, and when I was done the BA degree opened doors just like a BS degree would have done.
YMMV.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
The only tactic I can think of that I'd be comfortable with is: "disarm them with honesty!"
How do you think the typical interviewer would handle a nearly-forty sysadmin/programmer who points out:
-
-
-
-
So, what do you think? Am I unemployable?my greatest weakness is my inability to work a regular schedule. i need flex time in order to work efficiently. i put in above and beyond in terms of number of hours, but sometimes i come in four hours late; sometimes i take off a friday and work saturday instead; sometimes i'll come in at 7pm and work until noon the next day. however, when i'm at home and not sleeping, i am almost always abvailable on call should something come up. if you have more rigid scheduling requirements, i'll do my best, but no promises.
in my everyday life, i love things that are quick and easy. just like my wimmins. but when it comes to writing code, i will not rush to get a project out the door. i understand that i will be maintaining that code probably until hell freezes over, and i'm going to do it the right way the first time. if you misbudget development time - that's your problem.
i don't like microsoft. there, i said it. i will not use a microsoft development environment, and i will not use a microsoft os on my development desktop. i will not program in asp, com components, or vb. if you need that stuff done, surely there are less principled employees on the payroll that will take up those tasks.
when it comes to public web applications, i will not write any code that is not standards-compliant. life is too short, and the art of web development is so broad, that i won't waste any time on platform-specific or browser-specific code. if we're talking about an internal application where the user-base is known, i will still strive for standards-compliance, but will consent to using proprietary technologies if there are no other options.
ah, what the hell. I figure it would keep me out of places that i'd hate to work in anyway.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Late forties! Hah! I'm in my mid fifties doing software development for a NASA contractor, and doing quite well, thank you! I'm always amused by these Slashdot posts agonizing about turning thirty ...
...
Here's what works for me.
1. Position yourself so domain knowledge counts, don't just code. In my case I have learned about orbital physics, scientific modeling, and simulation. I do more than code - I architect systems, facilitate articulating requirements, design, code, and test. I also get involved in technical analysis projects that are solved using software.
2. Get a decent education. I have a strong background in mathematics, and I have gone back to school for more courses many times over the years, though I have yet to take a "programming" course.
3. Resist becoming a pure project manager. As the years of experience grow, the pressure to manage projects grows more and more intense. I decided a long time ago not to abandon a technical career. But I do mentor younger people and take on some project management roles.
4. Study, read, and learn, all the time. Not everybody continues their technical interest at home, but I do. I play with my home computer farm and participate in open source projects.
5. Be an advocate for change. NASA is incredibly conservative about computer platforms. This makes things easier for older programmers (C and Fortran still rule), but the amusing part is I find myself among those working aggressively to upgrade the software development infrastructure.
My personal experience is that aptitude does not diminish with age, but mental resistance to diving into something new increases. When you give in to that tired feeling, you are on the road to obsolescence. If you are out of direct technical work for even a year or two, it's hard to come back. When you resist the mental fatigue, if you are fortunate, you will experience once again the rush of submerging yourself deeply into a problem and solving it.
Oh yes, I have an advantage over the 20-and-30-somethings. My kids are grown up and gone, I actually have some time
We try very hard to hire the best and compensate accordingly - young or old. Experience is an asset but not a necessity. A college degree is an asset but not a necessity. The key to catching our eye and getting an interview is to have a resume that stands out in some way. The key to getting hired is to demonstrate flexibility (our market changes daily), fast learning ability (we move fast, gotta keep up), a clear understanding of the items on your resume (how can we expect you to learn what we do if you don't understand what you did?), reasonable communication skills (can't team-work without it) and good problem solving skills (gotta fix your own bugs). Does that mean a middle-aged greenhorn college grad will have an easy time? Of course not. Do something extraordinary outside the confines of your coursework and we'll take notice. Participate and contribute in a significant way to an open source project, write a complex and amazing piece of code and bring it with you, etc. Is that hard? Yes. Will it take a lot of time above and beyond your coursework? Yes, of course. Is that the only way in in this market? Yes, absolutely.
Trees have visible rings because they make a lot of wood during fat times, and only a little during lean.
It's the same way with programmers' ages. During boom times, companies will pick up a glut of programmers, including youngsters. This is what happened during the late '90s: They were hiring a lot of people, fairly indiscriminately. Further, the population of new programmers (or new people in any career) is disproportionately young. Young people are more likely to be either switching careers or just beginning a career than are older people, so we made up the bulk of this boom's new recruits.
You can see they cycles if you look at an older technology company. For example, I got started working for an air traffic control company (Lockheed Martin (formerly Univac, formerly Sperry-Rand, formerly...)) which had been in the computer business for 50 years. The programmers came in generations, because when there was an economic upswing, young engineers were hired, and then a decade or so would go by in which there were few new hires (and usually a few losses) and then the cycle would repeat again.
I think that the illusion that only young people can/should be programmers has a lot to do with the newness of the companies: Companies that didn't exist, or weren't in the computer industry 10 years ago haven't had the chance to develop a good age spread of employees, because this is their first cycle.
Of course, it depends a lot on what you know and what you've done: At LMATM, the coders in their 60s were freakin' good: They'd survived several rounds of layoffs for a reason, and they were seasoned veterans before I was born. If someone has 40 years of relevant experience doing good work, that's hard to argue with. On the other hand, someone whose experience is soleley with 40-year-old ways of thinking might actually be a hindrance. I think it would also be hard to be a new programmer in your 50s or 60s: There are biases out there in favor of youth, and a brand new programmer would not have the experience to offset that.
On my last Job (all staff laid off on Dec. 31, 2k3) I shared the office with the Senior Developer, a 40 year old with 20 years expierience in Pascal/Delphi Developement who had a University Diploma in Informatics (that's what it's called in germany, go figure...). :-) )) who new all those new goodies and he has the RL expierience. I'd pick him over any hotshot podknocker on *any* IT related project I can think of. And I'd advise anybody to do the same. 3 Days with him are more worth than 2 weeks with a team of twens with all but a handfull of coding-years each. The same would count if he were fifty or just before retirement.
He didn't know zilch 'bout OSS, Linux and the lot. I went about evangelizing him and six months later he was way ahead of me in gcc, Python, Java/Netbeans and co.
I was/am the young guy (well, sort of young (32
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So the coding future doesn't look good at the moment if you live in the US and want to work in voice telecom (not that I would recommend that industry after working in it for 10 years, perhaps VoIP has a better track record). However, if you want to do high and low level design documents and integration test when the code comes back you might be able to find something.