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Ask Slashdot: How Do I Stay Employable?
illcar writes "Hi, I am a 40-year-old working as a senior developer for one of the biggest investment banks. I have always worked as a full time employee in my career; however the last 5-6 years have been very tough for me because of office politics, outsourcing, and economic conditions. The financial industry is not doing well, and we may be at the brink of another round of layoffs. My family is growing, my spouse does not work, and I still don't own a house. I am worried regarding my job security & career growth. Considering Medicare does not kick in till 65, I am still looking at 25 long years of career. I am wondering what the best way would be for me to stay employable in the coming years?"
illcar continues: "1. Should I stay technical, and be ready to work as consultant/contractor? How does medical insurance work in that case?
2. Should I capitalize on the domain knowledge, and move onto business/managerial side?
3. Will the MBA degree or alternate career help?
4. Any other suggestions?
Thanks."
2. Should I capitalize on the domain knowledge, and move onto business/managerial side?
3. Will the MBA degree or alternate career help?
4. Any other suggestions?
Thanks."
Why is your family growing if you are looking at possible layoff?
As a 45 year old working in the industry, my first thought is find yourself a nice quiet place to cry.
But honestly if you can do it move to management. If you've got a proven track record in the field, you've got a good chance at being one of those magic managers who actually can manage programmers (it's like herding cats). They won't respect you of course, but at least you'll be able to communicate with them which is huge.
And the IT managers I know make decent money.
Personally, I'm too much of a BOFH to go that route.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
At this stage in your career you should be focusing on the bigger picture (in terms of projects) stuff. I know the word is tainted around here, but ... project management.
Grunt development work should be done by newer developers (who will work for less), you need to be more focused on managing a team, consulting, etc.
Don't sell yourself short. You've likely seen many projects succeed and fail, and should have learned lessons on how they could be better managed. Leave the grunt work to those developers who don't have that experience, and try to get into the position of managing them.
Knowing what can be done and how will make you a better manager - you don't need to be the one doing it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
...if you've already got one. If you really think you're a candidate to be laid off, get going while the going's good. Shoot for a more senior or mgmt position at a smaller firm, get some experience in that role, and then rise with the tide when / if it comes back in.
-> 2. Should I capitalize on the domain knowledge, and move onto business/managerial side? -
This. I'm in the same boat as you without some of the office politics. However my manager is changing positions (and probably companies) soon. I managed to convince him to put the other person, far less senior, under me on the org chart. Very little actual management should be needed but it gives a bump to the resume' and a little bit of protection should the new boss want to do some house-cleaning.
If you have someone where you are now who will do that with you, go for it. If not, then start quietly looking around for a place looking for a senior developer who can manage a team. At this point in your career (like mine) it is probably more important to move up than to stay loyal. It gets progressively harder to show management -initiative- (which is what most people want in a development manager) as you get past 40. It seems like under-40 being a direct contributor is fine ... but post-40 the longer you take to make a move to management the less they feel you are able.
Also ... brush up on your PROJECT management skills if you aren't currently doing alot of it. Get Agile (scrum or similar). See if you can do scrum-master-like duties. Most development organizations will recognize that even if you don't have direct reports ... as a project leader you ARE managing not only people but also development.
Management isn't some wonderful panacea ... I don't particularly like it myself ... but especially with the huge influx of employable-but-new faces graduating that are very hungry for a job ... it is very hard to stay competitive. Like you said ... you have 25 years to go. If you don't want to manage people in the HR sense, you have options. If you don't want to be coding as much as time goes on, you have the larger group HR-ish options (but not so much until you've done a report or two for a bit).
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
You are a Senior Developer for a Bank. By all accounts, you should have job security. Why? Because banks are notorious for having antiquated technology, particularly in-house code. As a Senior Developer, you are in a position to make yourself irreplaceable. Dig your self into the old code that no one wants to touch. Dig in like a tick. If a) you are the only one who knows the language and b) the only one who can understand the logic, then they will keep you. Don't push it, because if they know you are extorting them they will cut off their arm to spite you. Lay low and know where the skeletons are buried. You should have no problem cruising through til retirement.
you won't own a house, forget about it. your spouse needs to get a job. education at your age is a scam, it won't help you as employers only care about your experience in what they are immediately using. be thankful you haven't been out of work for over a year like many.
Be prepared to shift into a more stable job at the expense of salary.
Spot-on. Of course I'm biased, because I've tended to think that way all along.
Check out local universities - they don't pay nearly as well as the private sector, but generally they're lower stress positions with better benefits.
#DeleteChrome
Those contracting companies usually provide benefits (health care, 401K etc) for a price and do you a 1040 at the end of the year, just like you're used to now. If the company you're working for likes you, they'll usually do a full time convert or just keep extending your contract perpetually. If you know which way the wind is blowing, it's not so stressful. Sometimes I just shotgun my resume out there again anyway if they drag their feet on a renewal, just to see what's hot in an area.
It helps to keep a network of recruiters, too. I always try to help 'em out when they come looking, even if I'm not in the market. Currently most of my network of past co-workers is employed, though, so I haven't been very much help lately.
If the company you're currently working for is very sketchy, I'd farm out the resumes now and ride that job 'til you find a new one. If you get laid off before that, go for the unemployment. Whatever you do, don't let on to what you're up to until you're leaving and don't quit! One way or another you've got to ride that thing into the ground unless you find something else first.
You can go it on your own as a self-employed contractor, too, but that's really more work than I care to put into working. Sure you make HUGE briefcases full of cash that way, but you're doing all the admin and tax crap the 1040 contracting companies do for you. Some people love that. You might hear from a few of them in this story. I work to live and would rather do other things with my free time.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What if there's nothing you can do to stay employable? Then what? It's ugly out there. They will lay you off just for looking over 40 no matter how well you perform.
I'd shape up my finances as much as possible. Cut expenses to the bone. Trade in the gas guzzlers for gas sippers, set the thermostat higher in the summer and lower in the winter, use a clothesline (actually, an indoor rack works fairly well). Never go to the movies and cancel the cable TV subscription, etc. Use the Internet for that stuff. Pay off the credit cards. You know, all the stuff they advise people to do to improve their finances. As for buying a house, forget it, unless it's some foreclosure deal you can pick up super cheap. (I hear Detroit has houses for under $10k.) Keep renting, and live with the contempt and second class treatment that's routinely dished out to renters. All a house will do is tie you down, make it harder to move to a job.
With finances not hindering you, you have another option: consulting. Consultants must be set up to weather slow times.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
There's two types of companies out there: those that see the software you create as an asset and a source of revenue (directly or indirectly) to be managed, and those who see the software you create as an overhead cost to be minimized. These companies will treat you accordingly: in short, your salary is either part of a profit center, or part of a cost center. If you can help it, _NEVER_ work building software that is viewed as an expense. In all but the most spectacular, idealistic, privately held utopias of small companies you will be treated like vermin if what you build is an expense. When the software you build generates revenue and you work in concert with business, then you're respected and valued as a developer. You are not viewed as a "code producing resource" to be maximized and controlled.
A fun spin on this is to sell your experience as a consultant. BDC's (Big Dumb Companies) are full of projects in need of rescue or "quick turnaround" that the BDC will pay out a tasty premium for 6-9 months at over 2X what they pay their own coding slobs who are too dis-organized and balkanized by middle-management fiefdoms to get the chance of doing a project in the first place. When you do this, you're working in a profit center (for you consulting agency or perhaps yourself) _AND_ you get the advantage of exposure to a variety of tools and problem domains.
Oh. And for the record, don't buy a fucking house. Second worst decision I ever made, IMHO. The idea that it's the smart long term financial solution for everyone is total bullshit: http://genxfinance.com/your-home-is-not-an-investment-dont-treat-it-like-one/
I worked in IT at one of the larger investment banks for a bit.
At somewhere like Apple or Google, IT is everything. Or a lot. At an investment bank it is nothing - the investment bankers and sales people are the entire focus. You can argue about how important IT is there, but these are institutions with tons of money to burn, and if they make a mistake, the US taxpayer will always bail them out. That's the thing, they have a ton of money. I have seen insane things go on in terms of technical time bombs waiting to go off. But they have so much money, they can throw money at any problem and it will be fixed. IT is treated like garbage I would say. I think it's insane people would work there in IT over a long period of time. Where I worked, almost everyone who did not leave of their own accord was pushed out - they can people all the time, especially when the market dips. Then again, it is such a big industry, sometimes people find a good spot which seems like a sinecure, and it is not so bad. But some people who think they found a sinecure one day find out they were wrong. It can be a good experience to work at a place like this for a year or two, and it looks good on a resume, anyone who stays for a long time I think is crazy, and their personality always seems to me to change, they seem unhappy. Look how nervous you seem in your post, it does not seem the post of a content, happy person. You're at a company at the apex of world financial power, yet they make you feel insecure. You're one of the workers doing all the work that creates that wealth for them, but they seek to make you feel like a disposable peon. You are a disposable peon.
Anyhow, your age works against you. People are smart enough to not say any age discrimination stuff, but I've been forced to pass over extremely qualified candidates more or less because (unsaid) they were old, had a family they would have to spend time with, might stick up for themselves etc.
If you want to stay in finance, connections are everything. When the cuts come, and they always do, the managers will get together and decide who stays and who goes. Are any of the decision makers going to fight for you? Aside from this, keeping in touch with people when they move to other companies is important, especially when you're looking for work. The stupidest thing you can do is stick your head down and do a good job for sixty hours a week. No one gives a shit - at all. If you think the vultures running your company care, if you think your manager's manager cares, you are a complete fool. Politicking is everything in places like that. As far as consulting, usually these places want to deal with consulting companies, so you have to get to know the project managers and such at consulting companies. This is not hard to do - the project managers want to have a good relationship with hired staff at the company, they want their consultants supported and to get more business, they know you can always be the one who is bumped to team lead or manager.
Also, if you're not chasing the brass ring where you are there is NO reason for you to be there. Your goal should be to be either a managing director in IT (which there are very few of, because the bank considers IT a backroom joke) or in the elite architecture/engineering team. Why would someone kill themselves at these places otherwise, other than to get the experience and resume blurb for a year or two?
As far as getting a job, it is like this: there is a bell curve. Most people are in the middle. You are probably in the middle. Most interviews are looking for people on the right end of the curve. When you go on a technical interview, do you miss questions? I've interviewed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. People on the right side of the bell curve can answer mostly everything I throw at them - 99 out of 100 questions. A few people are on the left side and know very little. Most people are in the middle, you can tell they kind of know it, and could probably do the job, but you're n
(not trying to make this a religious thread). As a buddhist would say, "attachment causes suffering". Are you attached to your job? your position or status it seems to infer on you? The money? the lifestyle (and concurrent levels of debt) it seems to afford (today)? You've got choices to make, so make a plan and make the choices NOW, either try to ride out what seems to be the Titanic heading for an iceberg (if it hasn't yet hit it), or make plans.
To be honest, your current employer work won't miss you when you leave (if you leave soon, you'll turn into everyone's WTF guy in a week or two...), nor will HR have any reservations at all about throwing you under the bus to meet new headcounts or to protect someone's executive bonus or quarterly share targets if the shit really does start hitting the fan. You're not in the military, waiting to serve out an enlistment or officer obligation under penalty of law. You still have freedom of action, and you won't be acting out of desperation. If you owe them (e.g., company paid for college courses you haven't "worked" off yet), be prepared to pay them back. DO NOT LET stupid shit like that hold you back.
As others have said, it's easier to make changes to all of those things on your terms and timeline. Hopefully you've been saving up to weather a rough patch for a year or two. If not, start now. Trim back your lifestyle now while it's voluntary, and stock up cash and get rid of debt. Wife should probably get over being a prima donna stay-at-home mom if she's able to work (if you need the evangelical support for this, listen to Dave Ramsey). Kids tend to come out OK despite our best intentions, so don't let that affect things too much, either. But again, if you wait until it is a desperate situation... They need to learn that shit happens at some point, better to do it when things are sane and not desperate, and see that it's good to accept the situation, come up with new plans, and move on, not "OMG I got laid off. I'm on unemployment, we're buried by bills, and my wife thinks its all my fault!".
If you wait until the shit hits the fan, you do risk your family relationships going to shit and while you're still in shock moping around, with the world on your shoulders. Child support at this age will suck for you financially, especially since your wife won't have an income of her own to fall back on. Parenting by remote control sucks. Just sayin'.
Do you remember what it was like to be dumped? Did you also dump others? If so, remind yourself, callous as it is, which position was it better to be in? Only you will know when it's the right time to flee the ship, but if you wait until the stern of the boat is pointing up into the sky, it's probably too late, even if the band is still playing.
I have to ask myself what happened to the pioneering entrepreneurial spirit that made America into the most prosperous country in the world
Hard to say, although the problem is not Big Government, although it's somewhat of a factor. Most of the shit that businesses get comes from Small Government. You will spend a lot more time wrestling with local restrictions than the Feds. The Fed stuff is usually pretty cut and dry. State is harder, and cities can be truly obnoxious. In general, the smaller the government entity the more of a hassle it is to deal with, which is why I always find the complaints about Big Government ironic.
By the time you drill down to condo associations, it's truly a nightmare.
In general, the smaller the institution, the worse it is. The smallest government institution in our lives is marriage. It drives you crazy, and 50% of the time it ends in divorce. If the Federal Government tried to do half the things your spouse does, there'd be a revolution next Tuesday.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Pure opinion here - if it was me in your shoes I'd have the wife getting into the job market (heck, what is she going to do at 40 if you get hit by a bus anyway?). At 40 if I was uneasy about my current job I'd start looking at sprucing up my resume and putting my name out there just to see how the market is biting. I'd like to think we're all fairly flexible in case of layoffs - I seem to always run into various people looking for all spectrums of folks in the IT world. The biggest thing is being willing to relocate. Beyond that all I can say is I hope you've made the most of your career thus far because that's what's going to keep you afloat.
Get into some entrepreneurial education program, learn how to do a business plan and where to find investors, or put something up on kickstarter
And fail, like 95% of those projects do. Entrepreneuring is the game of either the young or the rich; the young don't have enough commitments to make the risk really hurt, and the rich have enough assets to absorb the shock. If you're middle-aged, with a mortgage, and high ongoing costs in regard to the maintenance of your family, the risk just isn't worth it.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I'm of retirement age; I'll tell you what worked for me. (Electronics Engineer)
Cultivate a very positive and optimistic attitude, regardless of the outlook.
Seek and accept the most challenging assignments. If the company will pay for any graduate degree, do it.
Maintain and expand your network with calls, letters, lunches, etc. Stay in touch with everybody.
About once a year, interview for a job whether you need to or not.
Represent your employer externally, if possible, at conferences, etc. Speak to groups. If not possible, join Toastmasters.
Best of luck!
Hard to say
No actually it is quite easy to say - you stopped being a country on the frontier with lots of virgin territory (both literal and figurative) to expand into and became an adolescent country with established business interests that fight tooth and nail against any new, entrepreneurial ideas that threaten their business model.
On the good side your spirit still seems to be there - look at the boom created by the new virtual territory of the internet which allowed original ideas to flourish briefly again because the established interests did not see it as a threat. Of course now it has its own established interests and, if you start something new and successful, you'll be snowed under by patent court cases until you are bought out or shut down.
They're working on that here in the States. Problem is, they want to do it the capitalist way by requiring everybody to buy health insurance. Main problem is, the insurance companies are not required to sell it to you. And they can pull numbers out of their asses to 'justify' any premium they want to charge you with if they do condescend to sell you health insurance.
I'm all for socialised medicine. Just stop fighting everybody else on the planet and you can afford to take it out of my taxes.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
>When necessary, stay up till 4 AM writing code. Build a team of hungry programmers. Build a team of guys who code all day, and go home and code a little more when they're not playing Diablo or whatnot.
Are you looking forward to ill-health (Weekends? 4AM? Your body is not going to put up with that kind of shit forever), divorce, and/or alienated kids (assuming you even manage to keep a stable relationship)?
This isn't meant as an insult. It's just the naked truth. That kind of shit is for twenty-somethings who don't know any better.
Super post, I agree fully.
Another thing that you may want to consider is to go for "practice" interviews. Having a good interview is also a skill, and the more you do it, the better you get at it. If you interview for positions regularly (even if you are not serious about taking it up), then you become innately prepared for the type of questions that often gets asked, and don't have to overcome your nerves in the process.
I learned this lesson the hard way recently. I haven't been interviewing in the last few years, but I had to start looking for employment again - and I was shocked at how rusty I was in the interviews. Things that I *know* became difficult to communicate, because I have not thought about it for a while (even the most diverse development project takes you away from some technologies for a while). As I was struggling to find my vocabulary (I'm not a native English speaker), I became self-conscious and nervous.
But once I interviewed a few times, I found that the common topics came much more naturally to me. My confidence improved, and I think my overall image in the interviews improved a lot.
By the time I was 40 I had grown up, and I hope you do too. Knowing what I now know, I wouldn't hire you, because your driven lifestyle makes you likely to miss the big picture ("obsess over every little mistake" - no, you need to get a sense of proportion to fix large code bases), and you want a team of people like you (overly narrow focus). Fine, no doubt, if you want to design HFT systems, but not so good when a variety of real world problems with different priorities are flooding in all the time and a balanced, rational approach is needed to manage the workload and stay sane.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The only thing I've really gathered from this thread is that no one knows dick about what's going on and no one knows their ass from their head about what to do about it. It's simply amazing that there is no real guidance here and all views are diametrically opposing.
This tells me a few things:
1) No way's better than another, no method of thinking is better than someone elses; do your best.
2) Everyone is still fighting for the same slice of pie and it's only getting more random as to how that's done; competition is a bitch.
That's the whole point of discussion, to have different views and opinions even if you, in your infinite wisdom, don't think that any of the opinions posted have value. Personally I think that your post is flamebait and didn't add anything useful to the discussion at all.
The original poster, and all of those of us who are in a similar position, are interested in those different opinions which will apply more or less to each of us as our situations, while similar, are each different. Training, for example, might not help a 40 year old programmer find a job, but might well be of use to a 40 year old network engineer who is also looking for work.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Passion is important, but so is effectiveness. It seems obvious that the more time I spend doing something and the more attention I give to it, the more I will progress. However, this is not true. Programming is a task of the mind. If you are not alert, there will be things that slip by you. I'm not talking about bugs, I'm talking about missing the abstractions that make you a better programmer. Not only that, but the mind requires time to sift through the information you're giving it. You actually need time to forget what you are doing in order to reinforce it.
I highly recommend that you limit the time you spend at the keyboard. You will progress faster as a programmer. You need activities that allow your mind to wander. This will consolidate what you are doing. I actually quit my job as a programmer and now only spend about 2-3 hours a day (if that) programming. In the 5 years that I've done that my programming ability has improved at a much faster pace than when I was working 70 hour weeks. Because I have so little time, I'm focused and aware of what I am doing. Because I am not tired, my ability is much higher and I discover things faster. Because I give my brain time, the concepts coalesce faster.
Anyway, give it a try sometime. I think you'll be surprised.
Well there's a big part of the problem right there. Maybe her free ride needs to end.
When necessary, stay up till 4 AM writing code.
Oh, just fuck off. People like you are part of the problem, not the solution.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In the 70s careers tended to last 20+ years, in the 80s this number dropped to 6 years, The 90s came and distinctions blurred between jobs, careers, hobbies and survival. Buddy, we're 10+ years into the new millennium. Figure out what you need to do and quit looking at standard models.
Can you work for yourself?
Is there something you can manufacture or service you can perform without needing an overseer?
Are members of your family old/strong enough to contribute to a family business?
If you can quit relying on others for your prosperity, you can dump this whole useless line of worry.
IT has been a bust for careers, compared to the promise of the 90s. We may even be forced into ludditism by coming solar storms in the next few years.
Find a need or demand and fill it. Think outside the box. Learn self sufficiency and quit mourning money you threw at the last "career", it's gone and tomorrows challenges may not be helped by it. Dammit, you're a geek, get flexible and quit thinking about the obvious, overcrowded, overrated, overused path to a paycheck. Find something that people could pay cash for, too. If they don't know you have it, they can't tax it.
If you really need a moment to think and a jumpstart, it may sound ridiculous on the face of it, but, join an MLM. Even if you aren't successful, you will have a low cost education in business,sales and people skills, self motivation and probably a cupboard full of vitamins. These ingredients, less the vitamins are vital to being self employed.
Good luck with your search, may you satisfy your dreams along with your wallet.
Keep the kids coming, that's how we achieve some immortality and offset the scumbags of the world, who are breeding too.
Don't spend your time worrying, it can't help and will hurt. Replace worry with planning and get a good nights sleep.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!