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

[pyrrho]

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.

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).

17+ = "Forget about it gramps!"

[infonography]

It's Logan's Run all over again folks.

Who knows, we just called those guys dad...

[drink85cent]

Yeah, you see a few of them here or there in your cse classes. We always called those guys dad. WE had Dads 1-6.
I saw that Dad 2 got a job with a local software company. It was good to see him go because it was gross to see him always hit on all of those mediocre cs girls.

Re:Who knows, we just called those guys dad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having boobs as a CS major still doesn't mean you're a girl.

Two cents...

[AntiOrganic]

Younger coders tend to be (erroneously) hired because many people think they're on top of the newest technologies. Here's a news flash: Newer technologies are only new for a short period of time.

This is why you see so many corporations, and smaller companies too, with interned developers, and why it's so common to hear, especially in the IT world, of rounds of layoffs followed by hiring fresh new faces from India or someplace.

The truth of the matter is that enthusiasm about programming, and computers in general, is what a lot of people should be looking for. It's very easy to keep on top of the newest technologies when doing so is a hobby rather than a once-a-week training seminar. One enthusiastic programmer can easily do more than an entire group of slack-jawed code monkeys with no real desire to do what they're doing.

Younger programmers might get hired more quickly, but they also run the risk of getting laid off pretty fast, too, if they pick the wrong place to get a job.

At least you didn't pick screenwriting

[sammyo]

Look for ways where all the life experience you have can be use to advantage. There is more to many software jobs than pure code. Solve problems. Pure code can be jobbed out to India ;-)

Don't count on it

[Anonymous Coward]

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!!!

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!

Show me the money!!!

[Kefaa]

Most of what you will be competing against is dollars. As single person, coming out of college, with limited expenses is a cheaper date. While we would wish it otherwise, the wisdom of age, and to some extent even experience, is not valued greatly in the IT sector.

Today, as the "way back link" shows people buy experience or "hot tech". They buy it cheap because most of it is learned by students or people fairly young. They are always exceptions, but they are exceptions.

If you are 40+ you are going to have a hard time switching positions, unless you know a hot tech. The fact is you want more money than the developer who is 24. You believe your experience brings value and to some extent it does, but...how much? With CS grads coming out of college, glad to make 26k a year, can you take such a job? Can you afford a 10k pay cut?

What I found is people will not let you take a pay cut because they fear you would leave for better money, but they will not hire you for better money, because they could hire someone 24, for 40% of what you make now. So I see more stay with companies, waiting to retire, or go into consulting.

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

It ain't cuz they're geniuses...

[PCM2]

Younger coders tend to be (erroneously) hired because many people think they're on top of the newest technologies.

I doubt that's true. I think younger coders get hired more quickly because:

1. they'll accept lower compensation, and
2. you can work them harder

Older coders are much more likely to have families, children, and (dare we say it?) lives than fresh cannon-fodder from the universities. They're going to want to spend the weekend helping the wife paint the nursery, and they're going to want to go home before somebody yells at them because dinner's cold. They're also going to raise more of a stink when the pointy-haired boss decides to cut corners on the healthcare policy yet again, and they're more likely to notice that company-wide salary freeze plus ever-decreasing benefits equals less compensation every year. They might be wise enough to realize that those paper stock options aren't going to mean as much as, say, money. Et cetera.

University of Life stands for very little in I.T.

[aaaurgh]

I've been in the industry for almost 20 years (25 if you count school/uni.), mostly contract both here in Oz and formerly in the U.K.; I find it bad enough having to run to stand still and keep up to date on all the new technologies - you all know what I mean! Unfortunately, people still see the I.T. industry as the universal panacea to employment problems, after all "how difficult can it be to programme one of those computer things?"(!)

What few of these poor schmucks are told or realise is that different languages are basically just a change of syntax (plus some relatively minor technique changes) and therefore easy to pick up if you already have the grounding. It's the underlying design and analysis skills (the ones you can't really teach) plus straight-forward experience that people are looking for in the more mature developers.

If an employer wants inexperienced developers, the newbie graduate will be be favoured as they will have lower salary expectations. If they are looking to the more mature person, it's because they are looking for the I.T. skills and not the "life" experience.

My current employer just sent round some c.v's for us to comment on for a work experience (read: unpaid) position we have - God, I hate doing that - and half of them were "mature" people moving from other industries which have slackened off. You try to ignore that you are potentially consigning the unchosen to failure and potential unemployment, thinking "there but for the grace of God go I". You look at the scant overview of I.T. skills that their three/six month "training" course has given them and know that most haven't got a chance - they've been sold a fantasy by the training agency.

The fact is that I.T. is a young person's industry, be it due to misconceptions or not, and unless you get in early it will be very hard to make it stick. We all know how rapidly the technology changes and how hard it can be to keep up; when you have a house and family there's even less time available - I've learnt to read and walk (without bumping into things/people) just so I can use the train/walk to work to read manuals - it's only my long experience, adaptability and up-to-date skills that have seen me through these last few years of lean times.

If you can show the ability to adapt, have plenty of hands-on and can keep up then contracting is the way to go for the older developer IMHO. Employers don't want to take on permanent oldies (like me, shit I'm only 41!) but the contract industry cares less about the person and looks more for the right skill-set and the experience to back it up. It's kept me in good money thus far but I have to admit it's getting harder to keep up all the time.

Re:You know...well, um, yeah. good thinking.

[stanwirth]

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 cost of living goes down during a recession, which does make it a little bit easier to get by on what you'll be earning during your graduate school indentu^h^h^h^h^h^h^hadventure.
• You'll use the time and the freedom and the access to resources to develop a new technology which could be a super-big bargaining chip when you get out of jai^h^h^hschool.
• As a more mature person with, presumably, assets, a decent credit rating and a good relationship with your banker, it's much more reasonable to consider starting your own business when you get out -- based perhaps on some of the ideas you've had the time and freedom to develop in grad school -- and the advanced degree will make it much much easier for you to respond credibly to RFPs, particularly for SBIR/STTR grants to do ongoing technology transfer/R&D/productisation of what you developed in graduate school.
• You make terrific international contacts in graduate school, and are usually required to master a second (spoken, natural) language. This expands your opportunities and employability immensely.
• University career services are particularly helpful to graduates with advanced degrees, because they're able to think creatively about how your unique skills and the technology or principle you've developed (it certainly better be unique and useful, otherwise you've wasted your time and don't deserve the degree!) can be useful to their more interesting corporate and industry contacts. i.e. you're not just the 654th MSCE that just rolled off the assembly line. You have something unique and important to contribute, beyond just coding coding coding for some dumb-ass business process. You're more likely to find yourself in new product development, R&D,
• Play Co-Ed Softball in the graduate intramural league. This may be your only chance to make contacts in the B school and Law school that will be extremely valuable to you in the future, especially if you're considering starting your own high-tech business in the real economy when you finish. Uh, and the med school students might be helpful if you're, like, really old...:)
• Faculty (and people in general) find it easier to relate to people their own age, so being older is a benefit. Also, (on a more cynical note) since you're obviously industry-oriented rather than truly academically inclined, you're not offering any future competition for their little pets and bright-boys, so they're less likely to shaft you.
• It's NOT just "more years of the same academic crap." Some terminal masters' programmes are like that, but in general, in grad school, you will be challenged to think more creatively and critically than you ever have before. You will be required to zoom out to the big picutre and then zoom back in again to the finest details--and then synthesize them into something comprehensive: a new big picture. It's about creating new knowledge and new technologies, understanding things that have not yet been understood by anybody else in the world except you , not just learning more stuff from more stuffy old professors. And it will be this ability to think that will make you valuable over the much longer term, not just specific coding skills on specific platforms.
• They pay you, rahter than you paying them, and the class sizes are much smaller. What a deal!

Speaking as one of the managers...

[gmacd]

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.

Advantages & Disadvantages

[mrobinso]

Good Things about young coders
1. Work cheap
2. Work long, work hard
3. Don't die as easily.

Bad Things about young coders
1. Transient, bored easily
2. Fuck everything in site
3. Inexperienced.
4. Priorities b0rked (cock first, code later)
5. Client schmlient
6. Fuck everything in site
7. Normalization is too conformist
8. Want everyone else's job
9. Fuck everything in site

Good Things about older coders
1. Stable
2. Experienced
3. Choosy about who to fuck

Bad Things about older coders
1. I forget

-mike

-- Karma Whore? You betcha!