Ask Slashdot: Re-Entering the Job Market As a Software Engineer?

First time accepted submitter martypantsROK writes "It's been over 15 years since my main job was a software engineer. Since then I have held positions as a Sales Engineer, then spent a few years actually doing sales as a sales rep (and found I hated it) and then got into teaching. I am still a teacher but I want to really get back into writing code for a living. In the past couple of years I've done a great deal of Javascript, PHP, Ajax, and Java, including some Android apps. So here's the question: How likely would I be to actually get a job writing code? Is continual experience in the field a must, or can a job candidate demonstrate enough current relevance and experience (minus an actual job) with a multi-year hiatus from software development jobs? I'll add, if you haven't already done the math, that I'm over 50 years old."

Comments

Good Luck

[najay]

As someone who just went through this, it is going to be tough

do it

[Anonymous Coward]

honestly our young software engineers are uninspiring, we give them lots of opportunities but they don't seem to have the work ethic of the more mature and experienced engineers, they make a lot of mistakes and won't work very much (if any) overtime without complaining. On my project we have about 8 software engineers, only one of them is under 30, the rest are all late 30's to early 50's.

Re:Forget it.

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Coding is the opposite of stressful. I'm 45 and it gets less stressful every year... Working with noobs? Yes, that's stressful.

Re:Awesome watered down title there

[macs4all]

A sales "engineer"? Much like a "sanitation engineer"?

Save the engineering titles for people that actually do engineering. You were a glorified sales rep-- that's it.

There are sales positions that require enough specific knowledge of the systems involved that they actually do require a person with an engineering degree and/or experience.

Get over yourself.

Ah ! The old US of A

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK (and most places in the EU I guess ) asking your age is illegal, and screening old timers out would be suicide.

To top it all, you can request to see in which basis they didn't give you a job.

I know, I know, evil socialist Europe.

Re:Double do it

[HornWumpus]

This is amazingly bad advice.

There is a national glut of shysters right now.

Parent is attempting to grief the OP.

Don't tell them your age on your resume

[honestmonkey]

I went through this as well, and as macs4all above mentioned, if it hadn't been for a job offer at a place I used to work, where the people knew me and trusted I could do the job (as I'd already had), I'd still be out of work. Don't put your age down on your resume, that might help. I stopped putting my graduation date, and only put jobs 10 years old or newer. Before that, I lumped everything together, if I put it down at all.

Of course, it didn't really work for me, so who knows if it's even good advice.

Re:Craigslist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Reader does this without having to write your own solution. When I was job-seeking, I had it looking at the local software/qa/dba and sysadmin Craigslist entries. I also use it to find music equipment I'm interested in - Hammond/Leslie/Rhodes/Clavinet. Google Reader also has a handy Android app so you don't have to be sitting at your desk to receive timely notifications.

You had your turn, buddy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you apply for an entry level position, they won't hire you because they expect you will will keep looking for a higher-paying mid or senior level position, and that you will jump ship as soon as you find it.

If you apply for a mid or senior level position, your resume will be outclassed by others who don't have a large experience gap.

Also, because of rampant agism in the industry, potential employers will prefer people 20 years younger than you who are also applying for mid or senior level positions. Employers will (perhaps wrongly) expect that your old brain isn't as effective at learning new technologies like their young brains are, and that they are therefore more valuable. Also, they are less likely to suddenly die of a heart attack.

So do yourself a favor, and don't bother entering an already over-crowded and competitive labor market that no longer wants you.

Re:You had your turn, buddy

[Grishnakh]

The addendum to this is that if there's any kids reading this and thinking of going to college to get into this profession: think again! It can be lucrative if you're one of the 0.0001% like Mark Zuckerberg or Shawn Fanning who starts a new company that becomes the Next Big Thing, and it can also be useful if you just become a regular employee and avoid places like EA that work you to death, and then use your experience and skills to start a company doing something perhaps not as popular as Facebook or Napster (circa 1999) but still decently profitable for you and perhaps a small number of employees.

But if you're looking for something that can be a lifelong career without either starting a company (and all that entails, which is a LOT of skills beyond just writing software, for any business), or going into management, then forget it: this career is a dead end.

Re:You had your turn, buddy

[wdef]

So you say you were an early bloomer if not a prodigy. Good for you. Be warned that many prodigies fail to achieve the predicted heights in their art and still others fail in the ancillary skills needed for success (eg Mozart was a pauper). And peaking very early in any field presents high risks, politically as well as in terms of setting the benchmark so high for oneself that it can never be bettered. It's a pernicious and ageist myth that middle aged and older people cannot learn new skills and cannot blossom in new endeavors.

Re:no words

[tomhudson]

. What the hell do you people think these folks did in their coding years? 9-5'ers?

We were younger and stupider then. Now, unless there's serious equity involved, forget it, Charlie Brown. There are too many places that "assume" you'll do the extra hours at no extra cost. Let them hire extra bodies instead. That management, after all these decades, STILL hasn't got a clue as to how to allocate manpower is indicative of how badly we need a union.