Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Programming / IT Jobs For Older, Retrained Workers?
12_West writes "I seek opinions from the Slashdot community about entry level job opportunities as programmers (or other I.T. Staff) for seniors who want to switch careers and continue to work full time. I do not want to retire, nor go part time, as long as I can get up and drive myself in to work. I'm currently 58 years old, working as an industrial electrician in a maintenance department setting for a building products manufacturer. I like the work, but it is becoming hard on my aging body, so, I would like to begin gradually retraining and hope to switch careers in about four years. A lower paying, less physical job would be just fine as there will be pension money coming in. I'm not currently a programmer, but have done some hobbyist level coding in Qbasic and MS-DOS batch files 'back in the days.' I also have some exposure to the Rockwell Automation RSLogix programming tools that are now going obsolete. So, I will be retraining whether I switch careers or not."
It's never too late to get back to coding. I know people who are 60+ and code like there's no tomorrow. LOL, literally speaking.
then go and help to build the cloud
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
Seriously. Get a job working in tech support. You can sit at a desk all day and your hours are usually predictable. Programming, writing code all day, and having all night coding sessions isn't for someone nearing retirement.
I feel the same way.
Personally I would recommend leveraging your experience and finding a role where you can be a project manager or domain expert instead of trying to retrain for a whole new field. You would be in competition with the hoard of young people getting degrees with experience in modern tech who are also struggling to find jobs now if you switch. Whereas there is always a demand for someone who has been intimately involved in a highly technical field for as long as you have.
Let your management know you are interested in a supervisory role and if they value you as an employee they may well pay for the training to put you where you can remain useful to them.
know how to program a Rockwell Automation Retro-Encabulator? There's good money in that...
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Speaking from honest experience, it's an uphill battle for someone your age.
Generally, IT companies looking for junior level engineers or programmers want a smart, young person who is up on the latest technology. From there, they can be trained in "best practices," and specific skills for the job. Usually, they are very happy just to get the job and willing to put in 10-12 hour days and learn things as fast as possible. Once they are up to speed, the company gets to keep them for at least a couple years, paying them a low rate.
Also, there's the political issue of the fact your managers and mentors will generally be much younger than you...and that can be a hard pill to swallow for the young guys (who might behave brashly and arrogantly) and you (who might feel bad being talked down to by someone who could be your son).
Most young IT workers will have to switch companies to get into a better pay grade. There's not a lot of IT companies hiring 50+ year old junior engineers, so that's another stumbling block.
Older workers cost more for insurance, benefits, and typically salary; are likely to have families, and not be willing to put in long hours. Also, at age 58, that means an employer can only expect a few years after training you before you retire.
If you can find someone willing to hire you, go for it, but my experience in the industry says that it will be very difficult to start at entry-level at your age. Just an honest opinion.
as long as they could drive themselves to work? Ever hear of work/life balance? Or are you a work-every-day-until-I-die kind of person?
Check with your local state universities, many of them offer programs for people who have been out of school for a while. It allows people to get the proper training and job placement. Also, why not seek a management position in your field of expertise?
Seems like a pretty close mapping to what you're doing now, and there are always shortages.
Who exactly do you think will pay your pension?
Tech changes everyday be ready for continual training don't be help desk unless u like being under desks or long hours and for coding be prepared to do a lot of small projects before even looking for job. Oh and keep retraining I've been in IT for 14 years and everyday I learn and retain something new. IT isn't easy and creating batch files are nice but that's something all IT people should know already... Sorry tough love and get ready for RTFM....
It sounds cliche, but how about sharing that hard-earned knowledge with the next generation? Understanding industrial control systems and how to debug them (safely) is not something that is easily learned - if you are good at what you do, consider teaching at a local college or trade school. It will probably be less hours, definitely less stress on the body, and you get the satisfaction of knowing that in the future someone will be carrying on the trade, the right way.
Maybe you should look into a teaching position. Your life experience puts you in a better position to relate to students and help them learn.
The key here is to use your strengths. Being a senior, you have a big advantage over young people in several areas, like teaching, quality control (Q&A), or project specifications.
Also, since you worked as an electrician, maybe computer maintenance might be something that will interest you, or network infrastructure.
morcego
Like it or not, age discrimination is alive and well in the tech industry. By the time you're ready at age 62 with no significant skills or experience, you will find literally zero open doors - if you were a lifer in some obscure niche product that was still in demand somewhere, you might be able to get an interview as a last resort candidate for a fixed term contract. I'm not saying this to be mean, but it's time to be realistic... age discrimination is very strong in this industry, and guys with valid experience over 50 are getting shut out - at 62 with nothing, I can't see any scenario worth pursuing for you.
Rockwell Automation RSLogix programming tools that are now going obsolete
do you mind explaining?
There is a ton of old code out there that no longer works properly with more modern operating systems. An older coder who has retrained in .NET or J2EE or mobile programming, can really clean up right now with long term contracts either keeping the older stuff working until it can be converted, or converting the older stuff to newer patterns and languages.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If I had to make a suggestion, I would say start with a little mobile app development. Write for Android or the iPhone or something. Draw from your experience to come up with something to write - maybe an electrical debugging tool? Or a training application for someone junior? Doesn't have to be novel, even; just build one or two apps for a phone. And, if possible, try to get one out onto one of the app stores.
A couple of advantages that come from this:
1) You get some practice doing real programming with a modern language and modern environment.
2) You get to see whether you really like programming as you're older.
3) It's easy to learn on your own (lots of tutorials out there)
4) You'll have a great differentiator when you do apply for jobs (because we all know age discrimination exists and you've got a great sales pitch around 'well, I've got a few Android apps that I wrote and sell.'
5) You might even make a little money on the side.
Good luck!
In my opinion one practical avenue will be to get a job in in the on-call support role. Big companies like Microsoft and Amazon prefer to shield their software developers from the support kind of work (responding to trouble tickets, stuff like that), and let them focus on the development as much as possible. For that they hire support people that work as a first line of defense for any kind of trouble tickets. They usually follow SOP, and need some programming skills, but don't need to be programming experts and won't be grilled during the interview on programming skills. But you probably need to show that you had some experience in this role before, so starting in some smaller company or something like that is a good idea.
There are the programmers and the in-house folks, of course, but network field engineers are doing physical work. I've technically got a desk job and yet I'm often crawling across the floor dragging network lines, hauling servers and workstations up and down stairs, and contorting my body to fit into tight spaces to check lights, cables, etc. Whatever you do, make sure you're not getting involved in stuff that's as much work as what you currently do, or else your career will be a side grade, not an upgrade.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Dont waste your time with Programming for PC's you have PLC background and Electrical. so take classes on Robotics. all your skills transfer. you can easily learn AB programming and enjoy seeing your code do something instead of just display thins on a screen or send a tweet.
Corperate AV also is a field that is exploding. AMX programming, Crestron programming currently is a very hot field right now. Plus you get to work with stuff that 99% of the guys on slashdot can only dream of ever touching in their life.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In Denver, Galvanize offers training and, I believe, guaranteed job placement. You can see if there is something similar where you are. Or just self-educate on Drupal and hang out a shingle, starting on nights and weekends.
Study "Gorillas.bas" and you'll be ready in no time to develop in Linux!
Just abstracting a bit from the age factor (as I believe some other "comenteers" will address that in much competent ways than I), I would advice you to get your hands on virtualization. It's starting to become ubiquitous in all sorts of companies (big and small) and there is much to be done in terms of management, best practices, designing, troubleshooting, etc. :)
Your "outside" view on IT can be a good thing, as sometimes the skewed view on this-or-that-operating-system can hinder a bit the work on virtualization. Besides, as anything related to infrastructures (both IT and non-IT), it looks easy to do, but it's hard to master.
With IT, as you might know, the constant wish to learn and evolve is a must. As long as you have it in you, and you keep it during your (hopefully) successful career, you will be fine
Good luck!
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
It sucks! Try and enjoy some personal time while you can.
Of all the careers you could pursue late in life, IT is probably going to be near the top of the "not gunna happen" pile.
You'll be up against people fresh out of school who work cheap and people (only) half your age who have tons of experience.
Where would you fit in? What makes you appealing to a potential employer given the choice of you or the other guy?
I truly believe the best advice is to reconsider this idea altogether. Try management?
-Lod
Learn to code for Android or iOS. Learn how to use a smart phone. Write a decent application and sell it. It's a little more complex than that, but I won't go into the details.
First, join the ACM (www.acm.org). They have program where for $100/year you can read books from O'Rielly and Books 24X7 for that price. That will give you access to almost any technology that you need to learn to be a mobile programmer. It will also give you access to pretty much any other technology you want to learn.
I know that's a lot, but lately I've had people want to interview me for a mobile app position and they didn't care that I'd never done a professional application.
Information Assurance....there's a huge demand for ISSOs (Information System Security Officers).....
I also worked in Qbasic back in the day, but I would never mention that to an employer because it would make me look dated. There is a shortage or programmers out there and ANYONE can get a job in the field if they are willing to work at it. You can download free programming software such as Visual Studio Express from http://www.asp.net/get-started They also have free tutorials and videos. If you spent an hour every night learning this for a few months you would be an entry level programmer. The question is are you willing to put in the work?
Age discrimination will be a problem, as people have mentioned allready. Allthough, "discrimination" against people who simply aren't good enough is going to be your problem aswell.
However, if you want to move to the desk doing smart work, I'd suggest you learn to programm stuff that is close to your current field. What are those 'building products' you talk about? AC, climate controll, heating, intercom devices, etc.? Those need programming and network admining don't they? And the probably have specialized programming environments and programming languages you have to work in to make them to the special stuff, configure them and so on.
You should simply get into doing stuff closely related to you current field. You should now the brands and vendors of 'building products' that need regular programming and maintenance and your experience 'in the field' should give you an extra advantage on top of that, if it only is bragging rights and resumee fluff.
Moving from QBasic into stuff like serious web or mobile development is something you probably would fail at. And trust me: It's something you do not want to do anyway. Doing semi-embedded stuff coming from the MS-DOS times on the other hand is just right up your alley.
Good luck.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You've had some good answers. However, I want to point out that for the most part programming these days is all object oriented. This is a huge change from the procedural based programming you learned years ago. To give you an analogy, it's kind of like studying Russian 20 years ago and now being asked to study Mandarin. They're pretty different from each other. Basically nothing you did in the past will help you to learn OO programming. You will either get the concept or you won't. If you don't, you won't likely find any programming jobs unless you get really lucky and are able to do something that doesn't require OO. I've worked for two companies that have hired senior programmers around your age (including my current employer) and both companies were pleased with the hires. Basically if you can do the job, they'll hire you and being willing to work cheaper than others may actually be an advantage. But on the downside, a lot of programming has impossible deadlines. The programmers where I work now who sit somewhat close to me are really tired because they are working on a fairly new product we are selling and it's got aggressive deadlines. As an older guy, you may find the constant demand for 50-60 hours a week of work to be too much. One programmer told me somewhat recently that he has to work every Saturday too and he feels lucky if he gets a Sunday off - sometimes he doesn't.
Barista! Plus you get free coffee... granted I think everyone should do this.
Work is for people without either (a) money or (b) hobbies. It sounds like he has (a) covered, which means he suffers from a lack of hobbies. An young person with a safe financial stream and the desire to work generally starts to invent or innovate on his or her own with the ideal outcome generating lots of income. The risk associated with spending time on a pet project is not a financial concern. It should follow that someone with a great deal of experience would have a better shot, if a more limited career time to develop.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Those are our jobs. NOT yours.
If you hit a wall because of your age, what is with contracts to enhance OSS? No one can deny the opportunity to work within this field.
I've been in IT for 30 years; not having actively programmed for 10 years, I wouldn't even try to get back into it in any serious way. Technology moves too fast, and most companies are looking for younger programmers anyway. Coming from outside of IT, I really don't think you have a chance as a programmer.
If you have some related experience at it (as you may, being an electrician) you might be able to retrain as a network technician, or something along those lines.
Really, though, I think you'd be better off sticking to your own field, or a closely related one. Move to a supervisory position, or management, or consulting, or teaching. With lots of experience under your belt, one or another of those should suit.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
See if you pick up some of the interface technologies for the equipment you're already familiar with: UPS, ATS, Air Conditioner, Generator, PDU, remote sensors. Most modern infrastructure like this has hooks for SNMP or Modbus, and few vendors (even the folks who manufacture these items) know what to do with these, or even what *can* be done with them. If you can also pick up an open source monitoring system like Nagios, and some basic networking, and a bit of Perl, you can put together inexpensive infrastructure monitoring. If you can talk your current employer into letting you play around with this stuff, then you both win, and you are doing fun stuff that is less physically demanding.
If you have some experience with RSLogix and already do electrical work it might not be a big step for you to get into electrical engineering and do mostly system automation. You are right that Rockwell is not used near as much, but the airline industry actually uses it pretty heavily still for things like bag room automation. If you get your foot in the door with that you can probably segway into some Siemens PLC programming in Step 7 as that is used in some airports as well (but is much more heavily used in other automation areas, i.e. expands your opportunities). As long as your can do decent programming with it most companies are fine with doing additional training for other PLC programming.
Expected to see, under the "click to see the rest of this post" link, something to the effect that you got scared and sent your son off to live with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air. Didn't see it (or, barring that, anything at all relevant to the thread topic). Post disappoints.
First, welcome. You're probably going to get a lot of comments telling you you're too old, but I don't think that's true. I'm in my late 30s and have often worried about what happens when I have to (or want to) completely retrain for something new down the road. And believe it or not, the 25 year olds will eventually run into this problem too. I love IT work, but if I ever win the lottery, I'm going to go back for my PhD in chemistry and be a scientist when I grow up. :-)
I can think of a few things in your favor switching into IT, although youth-obsessed workplaces may not agree with me:
- You probably have a better handle on troubleshooting, which is my #1 complaint with newbies in our field. 70% of this job, especially on the IT side, is figuring out what's broken in a methodical, logical way.
- You also probably have more discipline than someone straight out of school to design a system or application in such a way that it doesn't need to be babysat 24/7.
- You can probably document what you do clearer than younger people (although that's subjective -- I know a lot of older people who refuse to document their work, and 20-somethings who write perfect docs.)
- It also sounds like you're lucky that you're not going to be the guy constantly begging for raises in a job where salaries are contracting overall.
The problem. as I'm sure you're aware, is that not every employer sees your age and experience as strengths. I'm very lucky to be working as a systems engineer for an IT company that services a very mature industry. Most of the guys on our team are around my age or older, and experience is highly valued. Some of the stuff we do is proprietary, but the vast majority of it is implementing off-the-shelf IT stuff for our customers. This means we're constantly learning new things, or at least enough of those new things to get things done. The flip side of this would be a place like Google, Facebook, Zynga, or any Silicon Valley startup. Those places are all about youth and time-to-market, and are much less likely to take someone older regardless of skill set.
So, given the age problem, you can either selectively cut things out of your resume, OR, you can fall back on your network of people if you have one. I learned a few years ago that the best chance of getting a non-crap IT job is to call someone you worked with and ask them for help finding something. Even if they don't work in IT, they'll be able to find someone who does and get you past the cold call resume HR filter. My experience with this was good - a company I was working with for a while decided to move their IT department to Florida, and I was told to move or be laid off. I hate the heat and sun, so I called up one of my former managers and asked if anything interesting was brewing. 6 weeks later, I had a job and never had to be unemployed. And I don't have to deal with 100% humidity and 95 degree temperatures for 8 months of the year. So yeah, networking is a good thing.
The other problem you face is this - entry level IT is shrinking as well. I started out doing help desk work. These jobs can still be had, but with so many companies contracting out basic IT services like helpdesk, network and systems management, they're more consolidated than they were and the pay is lower. This means that you may have fewer choices about where you work, and you're going to have to deal with very low pay until you have that magical experience under your belt.
So what would I recommend doing?
- If you're really interested in IT, get yourself hands on experience. Pick a specialty (software development, sysadmin, etc.) and learn on your own. Amazon EC2 is giving away compute power for new customers to get started. You can download VMWare ESXi for free and build a whole lab on spare hardware at home. It's easy to train yourself now, much more so than it was.
- Stick to more predictable, established companies that don't have a culture that prizes youth over experience. Since pay is less of an issue, and the hiri
Pick up a couple of cheap Android phones and start learning how to code for it. You can do the same for iPhone, but Android cost of entry is cheaper. Sift through one of the many good tutorials on the internet and pick up most of the basics. Pick one of your hobbies and write a small app for it. Pass it along to friends and learn what they like/don't like. Finally when you think it is ready for Prime Time, release it onto the Play store. Now you're a business owner with an application. Congratulations.
Why not go the I.C. route? That way, you get to set your own hours, pick and choose which jobs you take, and also have the opportunity to learn about new technologies then subsequently implement them. Fun fun.
Hell, were I not in a station in life that basically requires a steady paycheck, or if I had the client base to make a real business out of it, I'd still be doing IC work myself.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You can do a quick test to find out whether you love programming. Find any open-source project on sourceforge.net that you like, and download the source code. Compile, run, and use the program until you're familiar with it.
Here's the test: Find any bug that's listed in the program, and try to fix it.
I do NOT expect you to solve the bug. (If you do solve it, then you're ALREADY a programmer.) But I want you to watch how you react to the search:
If you're energized by trying to understand code, by bouncing back and forth between a half-dozen different levels, by searching out documentation on the language or the libraries or the plug-ins, then you'll succeed as a programmer.
If you consider the exercise torture, then you won't succeed as a programmer.
Good luck!
Seriously, if you want a helpdesk job at a place that trains people and promotes from within to administer Linux servers and you live in or want to live in Houston or Austin PM me. Also, if you know enough to be an entry-level Linux application troubleshooter or mail/web/DNS admin definitely let me know. Relocation assistance is possible for some positions. I could definitely use another referral bonus, and we're always hiring (just some times more than others).
I know you don't want part-time work, but you admit your skills are out-of-date. But I think you'd be great at Python coding. It's easy for a BASIC programmer to pick up (any programmer really) but it feels "QBASIC" to me.
I would also recommend you foray yourself into Linux administration based on your DOS skills.
Once you've updated your skills to that (or even beforehand) I'd list yourself on Fiverr.com or elance.com and start picking up jobs. You can bid on jobs at your level of expertise and set your own schedule.
Once you have a proven track record with those sites, you'll have verifiable skills that you can use for a full-time job.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Older workers cost more for insurance, benefits, and typically salary; are likely to have families, and not be willing to put in long hours. Also, at age 58, that means an employer can only expect a few years after training you before you retire.
I agree. At 58, you better have decades of relevant experience if you're looking for a job. No one is going to hire a 50+ or even a 30+ year old for an entry level coding job. It doesn't even matter if you drop your wage demands to a level appropriate for your experience, he's not going to get interviews. With education and work experience dating back to the 70's, employers will be able to guess his age. If he leaves all that away, and somehow manages to score an interview, he'll get a very short interview followed by "don't call us, we'll call you".
You keep reading alarmist reports about a shortage of techies, particularily programmers, but there is no such thing. There is a shortage of people willing to do that kind of work for minimum wage, 70 hours a week, with no benefits, which is what some managers without a technical background really feel they ought to be paying their digital janitors.
If anything, the IT business has been a buyers market for several years now. Rates have been dropping, especially at the "more experienced" side of the equation. There is always a matter of diminishing returns with experience, and especially so in such a rapidly changing field. There's noone out there with 10+ years of iOS experience, and very few with 5+ years. The 25+ years you previously had with obsolete technologies usually aren't worth the extra cost.
TL;DR -> Op, keep programming as a hobby, but find a new job where your experience matters.
Possibly as you get older, you find you can do the more mechanized type of work required for Quality Assurance. Learning the tools, creating the design framework, and integrating pieces can be a huge undertaking without the excitement and vigour of youth. Ensuring a system works as per spec might be more up your alley.
What about looking into a SCADA operator/analyst position? It dovetails somewhat nicely with your work experience.Our local "big" power company has a whole mess of SCADA people sitting in watch floors and providing support services.
This is a stream of thought comment. I remember QBasic, and MS-DOS vividly (though I did not study them as much as my friends - and I had started with XT BIOS BASIC, BASIC.COM, and GWBASIC on an old PC XT machine), and the world now requires more training. I think that it is now best to start either by learning Python (which is relatively easy to learn and minimalistic and still widely useful and used), or by learning Perl 5 or Ruby (which are more pluralist, easier to express oneself, and less lock you into The One True Python Way). See what we wrote about it in the Freenode ##programming FAQ (which you are welcome to visit).
Anyway, there are few entry level jobs, and I think that you can try building a reputation by learning one or more of those languages and contributing to open source projects, chatting on IRC in order to learn and help, helping on mailing lists, web forums, Stack Overflow/etc. and even starting some blogs (blogs should be as specialised as possible). Some people tease me that at 35 (1977-born) I am now too old to be a programmer, but I feel that I have improved in most aspects, and have a more solid methodology and more discipline than I used to have (and also have some knowledge). I don't think it's ever too old to start or to continue because you should learn as if you were going to live forever. (See what I wrote in “Advice for the young (or the young at heart)".
Good luck!
We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
I worked with someone that was in the same boat as you. By the time I met him he was with the company for 5 years, and at that time he was a lead developer. So it can happen. That persons coding skills weren't the biggest asset to the company either. He had a really good work ethic and could organize work and teams well.
Here is a tip. Get your hands dirty with code right away. You need to know if its something that you really like doing, because if you're not passionate about it you'll give up soon. Your nights and weekends need to be filled with research. So, pick a project, and start. See if you can find a mentor or maybe someone at slashdot can suggest a good project/tutorial to get you started.
You should seriously consider the wide-spread sentiments here about broadening your options. Your wealth of experience is your greatest asset here. I would recommend to you some writing done by NPR reporter Adam Davidson on the current and future state of American Manufacturing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/308844/
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146297224/the-future-of-americas-manufacturing-jobs
Basically, Adam makes the case that while low skilled, labor intensive work has gone overseas, the American economy still has a lot of opportunities for qualified workers to fill less manual but highly skilled positions in advanced manufacturing. Your work history and familiarity with industrial control stuff positions you nicely to enter the job market he writes about. You didn't mention where you live (and presumably where you'd be job-hunting) however. That may play a significant factor in available opportunities for you.
========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
Due to my age.
I think they dump my resume due to too much experience, and not enough in the new technologies (that you won't be taught in school).
Probably also because my manager might be younger and less experienced than me and see me as a threat.
There is also the fact that due to my experience they may not see me as mold-able as a young eager to please "I'll do anything" Newb.
They probably don't want to waste their time pitching me for a substandard wage and working conditions that they know I won't be happy with.
Find a niche,
I am retrofitting old cars with new fuel injected motors and building my own Electronic Engine Controls
and rebuilding old Harley's
Rick B.
I'm currently 58 years old, working as an industrial electrician in a maintenance department setting
You are getting some pretty poor advice about working on help desk telling kids how to plug in a mouse and useless stuff like that. And start writing android apps, wtf?
LEVERAGE your massive and unusual electrician skills. So you don't want to pull cable while hanging from a ladder 50 feet in the air, or wrestle 0000 gauge spools around... I didn't either (well, I was wielding cat-5 and singlemode fiber, but I sympathize) and that was when I was 22.
You'll hear clowns complaining about there being no manufacturing in the USA but they're wrong.
First of all you've probably been wiring power to CNC gear and PLCs for decades, now figure out how they work past the power wiring. google for linuxcnc. Buy a manual Sherline mill like I did and CNC it as a basement project, then make 30 little "somethings" on it and take them to your next interview at a CNC plant. Lift a simple PLC off ebay and some software from "where-ever" and make the worlds most elaborate christmas light system on the front lawn.
You wanna go in describing yourself as the electrician troubleshooter for their company. No longer will they have to waste money installing things that'll never be approved by inspectors, you've been doin it right for decades and know all the tricks. And you know how to do it fast and safe, which they don't. No longer will they be mystified about NEC grounding regs, or delta vs wye, or three phase wiring. You're going to save them fat stacks of cash because you know how to wire stuff. Just because you don't want to pull the cable anymore, doesn't mean you can't tell some kid how to pull the cable correctly... Why pay an outside electrician $45/hr plus trip charge when I'll handle it all for you... meanwhile learn all you can or want about various cnc control software, cad software... the thin edge of the wedge is the power lines you'll be the local expert about, but in the long run you may end up sitting at a desk doing CAD if you want, or programming PLCs out on the floor or who knows.. once you sneak in...
Another way to go is project management. If you don't want to be a supervisor that's fine, project management is not necessarily that hands on. But big electrical projects need a guy who can tell when the kids are trying to BS them, and who better than an old timer from that very field... they can get away with telling a 22 year old girl who's never held a screwdriver that its gonna take an extra week to ship in some frequency grease and a left handed crescent wrench, but they are not going to get away with that kind of BS with you. You're gonna save them tons of money by expediting wiring projects because you know this industrial electrical stuff backward and forward. You know what kind of prints electricians need, you know if you're getting BSed, you can look at see if they are doing a good job rather than relying on a paid inspector as the only QA/QC. You're gonna save them fat stacks of cash. So you gotta learn some computerized project software, maybe some other tools, thats OK. Maybe someday you'll sit in a cube updating GNATT charts all day and sending update emails, but today you'll be their secret weapon against full time electricians.
If you wanna move, there's a lot of CNC and robotic manufacturers in the USA all over the place. They have, and need, guys on staff who know about wiring stuff. The problem is I donno if, or how, your license if any would transfer to, say, the Tormach manufacturing plant in Wisconsin. But they surely need someone who can talk to other industrial electricians and knows the NEC etc etc.
I think you might be pigeonholed into contracting, if there's about ten local CNC companies all needing about four hours per week, that's not so bad on average. Depending on how you feel and your health and attitude you can hire and fire yourself as you please. Wanna work 60 hrs, that can be arranged. Wanna
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
tldr: make stuff and put it on the web so hiring managers and interviewers can see it.
Longer version:
I just had the pleasure of interviewing an older applicant for a job. In this case he was a whip-smart C programmer. I would guess mid 50's of age, with a resume saying he'd been in the industry for nearly 30 years.
The job he was applying for was a web developer position for my shop, a Ruby/JS outfit.
While he hadn't coded JS or Ruby professionally, he mentioned he had done many little side projects with those tools. I asked to see them, and he said they may be on his computer at home, but he wasn't sure: that hurt his prospects. A lot.
The ideal thing would be putting his web apps up on Heroku (free), and any other code on Github (also free). These things speak to me almost more than anything.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Have you heard of a programming language/environment called WonderWare? It's quite popular in the industrial manufacturing setting and it is specifically targeted to be used by electricians and electrical engineers. Half of the interface is graphical and half is actual (simple) coding, similar to QBasic. The purpose of the software is to monitor and manage assembly lines using voltage or current readings from basic sensors on the line. You can make a lot of money being a contractor or full time employee with knowledge of WonderWare or any similar software. As someone said earlier, play on your strengths. In order to get a job using a software product like that you usually first have to be a certified electrician, it sounds right up your alley. Most plants regard such software as a trade secret since it provides insight into their manufacturing process, so use your contacts and ask around to see if it is worth your time to learn. It should probably only take a year or two, maximum, to learn everything about it if you have no prior experience. The best way to get familiar with it is through a classroom setting as you probably won't find too many people willing to sacrifice their job security to teach it to you. Google it and check it out, don't forget to check out their competitors. Hope I gave you something to consider, good luck! :)
You can't really make a decision on whether to try to switch career in this way, without first seeing if you can produce useful output using modern technologies.
qbasic and DOS batch files are hardly representative of anything that you will see on current computers.
Personally, I would find it difficult to hire anyone, without some track record of development in a relevant technology. You will have to be able to demonstrate your knowledge in the relevant subject are. It is not enough to just know the mechanics of a programming language - that's pretty trivial. The difficulty in software engineering, is the design aspect, understanding large complex systems, and building software that is extensible, maintainable, and well documented. If you go for something like C++, there are also additional difficulties of occasionally being bitten in the back side, due to the sheer complexity of the language, so choose wisely. If you have controls experience, there is a lot in embedded. Maybe learn some matlab, and how to write good MISRA C?
I have seen numerous pieces of code produced by grossly incompetent programmers, many of them contractors. How could such software pass code review? Who knows? Would your code pass review by an experienced developer. If not, there's probably more to learn before making any decision to change career.
IT is much easier to get into. I believe that anyone can administer and maintain systems, these days. I have administered both Linux and Windows networks as a side task, and with a little curiosity, you can easily learn how to configure and deploy most of the common services that would be expected in a corporate environment. I wouldn't really regard IT staff as real professionals. Many of the IT staff in my own firm have numerous 'skills' labelled with various Microsoft marketing terms. Most of them are utterly useless, when confronted with any problem outside their narrow area of knowledge, and their narrow range of knowledge rarely seems to extend to anything that I can't trivially fix myself, before they could even get to my desk. For example, I recently dealt with an Exchange 'expert' who knew nothing of how IMAP works, and didn't even know how to debug connections with a packet sniffer. So what do they actually teach these people...? Why would anyone want to employ someone who can only click on tree items in MMC? I can hire a CS student that can do that. If you interview someone, and ask a few questions, you can spot the people who haven't any real knowledge. Put someone in front of a machine, and ask them to perform a few simple tasks like installing a web server, database, configuring DNS or NIS entries, or installing an Infiniband switch/driver/software stack. If you can make a reasonable attempt at these sort of simple tasks, you have a reasonable chance of being able to get through an interview, and end up being a useful medium grade IT person. If not, and you can't learn in a week or so, then you are probably best sticking to what you know. Anyway, these are my thoughts as a grumpy software engineer.
While not being 50 yet, I'm getting closer... In my opinion, starting in a junior position for general programming at that age will be hard. The reason is that, while not being nice or at some places illegal, discrimination by age does happen (as does every other kind) and a lot of possible grounds for this were already mentioned.
Having experience in some area changes things quite a bit - also remember that near-obsolescence of a technology not always means that there is no demand for expertise in it - after all stuff using it needs to migrated, rebuilt or even maintained indefinitly without manufacturer support.
So I in your case would try to evaluate whether prospects for monetitzing your RSLogix experience are really that bland and if not, improving your experince in that.
Don't despair, I work in a shop with a veritable dinosaur pen always on the hunt for fresh blood with experince in long obsolete technologies like COBOL, RATFOR or JCL. Since this kind does not grow on trees the average age of the dinosaur herders is close to 60, although I'm not sure on which side of it.
Location is a factor but in my world (web & JavaScript development in London, England) there is such a shortage of talent for the demand that many companies will hire just about anyone who demonstrates a basic grasp and enthusiasm.
Some on this thread have obviously had worse experience of ageism but I'd actually tend to err on the side of life experience when hiring a developer. Or at least I'd like a good mix of youthful exuberance and wily know how on my team. I've frequently worked with guys in your age bracket and generally find them much easier to communicate and compromise with (there are always some compromises when a team builds software).
Pick a language. Personally I'd chose a 'web' language, JavaScript, c#, ruby, python, hey whatever... and I'll maybe attract some ire here but that's where the money is and I'm confident it still will be in 4 years time.
Get dabbling/learning and start pushing some small open source projects up onto sites such as http:www.github.com coupled with a http://www.linkedin.com/ profile and you may well find that job comes knocking before the 4 years are up.
Good luck & enjoy.
I was in the IT industry for many years. Its brutal out there for people of our age range, to get or keep a job.
With all the mind games in the IT industry you have to go through i wouldn't bother. Been there, done that, and i am not
going back.
Have you considered learning an easy high level programing language, like Python. Then go to your local schools and see
if they could use someone to teach Python to the kids in their IT program or start a after school program and teach coding.
There is little or no pay, but you will keep busy and learn a lot while teaching coding.
Buy a Raspberry Pi and learn its hardware capabilities, integrate that with programing and you will have year(s) full of
interesting projects to teach.
Try to find a niche area and start a small business in your garage, basement or extra room. If you don't invest much; laptop, doc's, manuals, internet connection you won't loss much.
If your business grows, you won't have to worry about keeping busy.
Cheers
Get into project management, or documentation & training, or something in between. There should be some way to leverage your awesome experience.
It's great that you want to learn more programming or something more "white collar". But a lot of that stuff is a tool, not a trade. And sitting around programming all day is actually pretty hard on a body.
And I don't think industrial programming toolkits really ever go obsolete, or even advance enough for the skills to not be transferrable. So don't be afraid to dive into any of that stuff if it interests you. I'm sure a lot of those automation kits go pretty underutilized, so I'm sure you can make some kind of living going around optimizing them or something.
Many non-profits and governments can't afford to pay for top- or even average-level talent unless that talent is willing to work for less.
If you can offer them the skills they need plus the wisdom and experience that someone your age has to offer at a price they are able to pay, they'll consider it a gift.
Some government and non-profit IT-related jobs really are 40 hour a week jobs, and you actually DO get to go home at 5 and not think about work until the next morning.
Choose your prospective employer carefully though - in some governments, office politics can merge with real-world politics and that can make working there unpleasant.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Since I'm pushing fifty and I'm in the U.S., I know the job I have now will be my last job in any computer related field, and probably my last job, period.
I've just about concluded that, if I get let go before I qualify for retirement pay, the best course to help support my family will be to blow my brains out in the company parking lot right then and there, before the company-provided life insurance expires. (yes, I've had it more than two years, so it should pay off even for a suicide)
Rather than trying to become a (generic) developer, you might consider specializing in one (very popular) application. If I were in your shoes I would go sign up for a free developer account at salesforce.com. Then click on the "Help and Training" link at the top of the page and take all of the free admin training they offer. Study up for a while, then pay $200 to take the "Salesforce Administrator" certification test. All of this requires zero coding and the admin certification is a marketable skill. Go find a non-profit using Salesforce who needs some administration help; that puts some real world experience on your resume. Then go looking for some (perhaps part-time) paid Salesforce admin work while you start learning how to be a salesforce developer. This is a path that's probably not going to popular among the slashdot crowd (because it's vendor specific) but it's one possible path for you to consider.
Seems to be a competitionbetween the major political parties who can give away the American Dream the fastest. One faction will have unlimited immigration for those with STEM degrees. The other, unlimited immigration from our neighbors.
Only some people can stomach it as a career (I love it, but I'm Abby Norma), but once you rise above the rank and file of read-the-script jobs, there are a lot of IT assistance jobs that benefit from someone with years of experience working with computers. Generally when you are one of two or three IT Help Desk for a business, you have to be more knowledgeable and flexible than a mere script can cover, and many businesses are smart enough to compensate accordingly.
There is still the need to learn new things and keep up to date on the latest operating systems, but a bit less of the '20 year olds can do it better' stigma, because it is demonstrably false; young people are often poor at the customer support side of the equation, and rarely have the breadth of experience necessary to troubleshoot issues calmly when the user is frustrated or confused. YMMV.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Learn , learn , learn and build your own startup. If you succeed , you 'll be able to hire too.
This goes for all people (not just the elderly) looking to become low level programmers without spending too much time learning the theory, etc.
I think learning to program is a great thing. It really helped me to think in a way that has been very useful and personally enlightening. However, writing code that goes beyond hobby level dependability, maintainability, and scalability requirements requires a good deal of knowledge and understanding to do properly. Maybe you can take solace in the fact that there are plenty of terrible programmers out there to make you look good by comparison if you achieve even a modicum of competence, but quite often doing something poorly actually creates more work than not doing it at all. A programmer who knows what he is doing can do the work of 20 programmers who don't.
There will always be people out there who are willing to take a gamble and hire an amateur at a discount rate, but I think as more and more people begin to realize that it is actually cheaper to hire good programmers who charge more but deliver a more reliable product that is easier to maintain and scale up, I think the market for low level programmers will shrink. I don;t think this market will shrink to zero, but I don;t think it's a good market to be trying to get into.
If you have the stomach for it, I would suggest learning the theory of computing. I am talking about time/space complexity analysis, automata theory, etc, in addition to programming specifics like object oriented programming. They really provide a mindset of how to do things correctly the first time, reducing the need to fix things later. The problem as that these ideas aren't easy to learn quickly. The good thing is that nowadays these things can be learned for free or very cheaply. I had to learn them at an expensive university, but now you can just watch videos of those same lectures on youtube for free. You won't have a degree, but you'll know how to do it without spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It isn't for everyone, which is why almost 3/4 of the people in my major dropped out before graduation, but if you really enjoy it, it isn't like work, but more like a fun puzzle/game that you get paid to solve/play. I find the theory of computing absolutely fascinating. I watch lectures on youtube frequently. I love applying what I've learned so much that I program at home in my spare time everyday after doing it at work for 9 hours a day. If you love it, it's not work. If I didn't love it, I can't imagine how I could manage doing it. I feel sorry for all the people out there who hate their jobs.
I didn't always like computer science. I found it quite frustrating at first, and even dropped out of school twice. But somehow I managed to stick with it and now I can't imagine doing anything else. My advice is to learn to love it if you can manage.
Programming will/should always be challenging. The difference is whether you are challenged by tedious/simple problems that have already been solved, or whether you are challenged by interesting/hard problems that people are willing to pay a lot of money to have solved.
There is more need for tech workers than there are tech workers. That is why the H1B issue is being pushed so hard. Employers can't find people to do this work.
Of course, there is also a salary dispute, where employers want CHEAP tech workers, and that helps drive the H1B issue. Also, working conditions and commitment expectations are an issue.
But, ultimately, employers need workers. And there aren't enough workers to go around. You CAN find a tech job in this environment. It might not be your dream job, but there are plenty to pick from (at least if you live in the right place).
It sure looks easy to be some kind of developer or programmer. We sit on our butts all day, staring at monitors, clicking with our mouses...how hard can it be?
I mean, I can drag some wire round the frame of a room and put some caps on to fasten up a switch or outlet, but that doesn't make me an electrician by any means. Even if the lights turn off and on without sparking and burning down the building, there's a lot more to the job than knowing to turn off the power before touching the wires.
Likewise, there's a lot that happens between the chair and keyboard that often gets overlooked. I know many out there will disagree with me (and I get paid well to clean up after some of them), but writing software can be hard work. Sure, slapping a few loops and conditions together is pretty easy, but there's a lot of finesse in making sure it actually does the right things in a reliable and robust fashion. There's also the downside to the job including digesting incomplete requirements, meeting unrealistic expectations, and suffering through unexpected panic from your customers, whether internal or cash-paying.
Taking a little hobby development and desire doesn't do justice to you, your potential future employers, or those of us who've schooled, trained, and worked our craft for years to make it look easy. I like that you've noted that you're looking for an entry level position, but make sure that you're looking at it for the right reasons and not just because you like the appeal of sitting in a cubicle all day drinking Jolt soda.
I also noticed you mentioned a "lower paying" job; I'm sure after years doing your craft you've worked up some ranks, but indeed.com points out that software pays better. With this comes the competition. As others have said, be prepared to compete with young, energetic people who haven't got experience, but who also don't have mortgages...
Of course, I'm not saying don't do it. I say the more the merrier; there's lots of software yet to be written. Just respect the craft and the effort it takes to do a good job.
End the FUD
One of the entry level jobs at my company is working in our Network Operations Center. This job is part system administration, part customer service and part security guard :) Typically a NOC engineer watches monitoring systems and performs actions when things go wrong. They also execute changes on our production systems and occasionally communicate with customers about system issues. There are also routine administration tasks that need to be performed.
The hours can be challenging since the NOC is staffed 24/7. But the shifts are regular and predictable, and more desirable shifts open up after some time on the job. The best NOC engineers are resourceful and reliable, which seems achievable by retrained elderly workers. You can learn quite a bit on the job as well, since there are so many different ways that systems can fail :)
Take it from me, what ever job you have in your late fifties is the LAST JOB YOU'LL EVER GET!
NOBODY heirs 60 year olds (except for crossing guards and sometimes security guards).
Been there, done that, didn't get the (any) job!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
As a 56 year-old software developer I have to tell you to forget this idea, It is not any easier to do software development, in fact it is MORE strenuous than what you are doing right now. First of all software replies serious mental effort, the kind that makes your head heat up from all the brain activity. It can also be stressful physically from all the mental effort. And as for physical activity, developers have a tendency to sit in one place for far too long without breaks. You begin to get physically uncomfortable from sitting so long and when you do get up, there is extra physical stress from changing from being sedentary to being active, And you do need to be physically active on your non-work time otherwise your physical health will go straight downhill, AND your brainwork will be of lower quality. You need that physical activity to keep your conscious mind focussed on the physical and let your subconscious solve the tough technical problems that you have to deal with.
Learn programming if it interests you but do not expect it to turn into any kind of easy career.
You could try to build some inventive arduino products and sell them yourself.
I'd like to do the same thing, but in the other direction. I've been a software developer for 30 years, and I'm pretty bored with it. I'd love a job as an EE, ME, or even working in a machine shop, but no one would ever hire me because I'm not trained in any of those fields.
"There isn't a real-world problem I've come across that doesn't have common human ignorance at its core."
You should be thinking of getting out of the programming business, not getting in. Besides programing is a young peoples job, and they're generally past their best work at about thirty, never mind sixty two ...
As I read the posts, one of the sub texts is that there are a bunch of career opportunities for you.
The opportunities are geographically spotty and some of the opportunities might be within the company you work for now.
One way of looking at the problem is first is one of your underlying assumptions that you are going to stay in your present home? OK yes. So how many companies within a reasonable drive are there and why not make a sorted list of the nearest and most desirable. Out of that list pick a few companies to use for practice. Research the companies and slowly do one informational interview. Solve the problem of being well dressed, driving up in a presentable car, knowing all kinds of stuff about the company, and developing a model of what kind of automation strategy they are following, what equipment and software they have used, and how strong they feel about their success in automating. Then, having researched the kind of stuff the company ought to be doing or having determined how the implementation process is going, seek an informational interview with an internal affairs executive.
When you have the small things working, like having some printouts and flow charts in a briefcase. Do an informational interview with a high value candidate for your next career move. There are two reciprocal motions taking place, you are solving the problem of presenting yourself as a plausible high and equal status problem solving player on a specific field of activity. Yes I said 'status'. See the last quarter NY Review of Books article reviewing Tom Wolfe's books for a discussion of status. Or this article http://observer.com/2012/10/tom-wolfe-has-blood-on-his-hands-back-to-blood-reviewed/ The second problem is having well tuned and thought provoking questions for your interviewee.
I am 65 and I transitioned out of a lacklustre computer career and I am holding a low pay school aide job for at least 4 more years and probably as long as I can keep working. Well money isn't going to be my legacy for the kids so I have compromised for a dual strategy: I am going to be an aide of excellence and then to give my kids something to be proud of, I am running for a minor elected position in my community. The HR departments can take their age bias and eat it. Changing your status and acquiring the competence to support work at that level you can do.
There is always the z axis if you want to change your plane of operation.
It is a lot easier to get "certified." You get to learn about all kinds of other things on the job. Decent technical writers make about as much as decent programmers but only have to work 40 hours a week. The work is a lot easier to schedule once you have some of the basic planning done. It is mostly desk work, but also lots of time spent talking to people. If you have technical experience as an electrician you are miles ahead of most of the English majors in the field who can't change a light bulb or fix a toilet. Learning proper grammar is not as hard as learning most current programming languages. Especially if you don't try to memorize all that grammar terminology. (They don't test you on your ability to diagram a sentence. They just look at samples of what you have written.) And ... you never have to worry about tracking down that elusive typographical error that prevents your document from printing.
Your have wasted your years, dude!
Hi,
there's always room for professional and honest contractors for residential building and maintenance. Open an small bussiness and keep it local, near the family and friends.
My father did that, with some little not too expensive advertising he earns more than before plus retirement plan profits, has plenty of free time to spend with his family.
I wish you the best
Take a course as a VoTech school. That will help you determine if you like it or not too.
Why re-train older workers in IT when trained IT workers over 40 can't get jobs?
Hi 12_West, I work as a Network Engineer and have influence in our department's hiring decisions, so I think I might be able to offer some helpful advice. Higher age, in my oppinion, is a positive thing. IT Departments need, and frequently can't find, reliable technical people. Every 40, 50, and 60 year old I've worked with were better at their jobs than the younger ones. Technical skills are important, but they can be taught or self-taught. Maturity and the capacity to follow through on commitments is very hard to find in younger engineers. So, age is not such a huge barrier in my oppinion. Experience is a bigger problem, so if you're planning on transitioning to a new career in 4 years, you should decide what you would like to do and start working towards it. System Administration is pretty typical, and frankly it's the easiest field to get work in. It may be worth your time to volunteer somewhere in the evenings or weekends to gain experience and maybe make friends with someone who works in the field so that they can show you the ropes. If you do well in that line of work, there are definitely oppurtunities for reliable, sharp people. Cerification is "okay" (and I speak as someone who has quite a few of them), so since it looks good on a resume getting a couple couldn't hurt. But, in the end, people are hired to solve problems not hang their certificates on walls. If you can help people, they'll be interested in you.
has a spot for you
I finally got a temporary assignment for 4 months. I am grateful for that.
I have been in the IT business for almost 40 years. I have "retrained" myself over and over again through the years.
I have been constantly honing my skills over the years, and have been laid off 3 times. Each of those times, I had to hone my skillset with new stuff.
This time I didn't. I said screw it. If I didn't get a job I was just going to retire. Not optimum, but at least pragmatic.
I know perl and python, and some ruby. along with sql on various databases. And that's where I wanted to be. Either a job where I could leverage my current skill set, or just retire.
I finally got this 4 month job, because I knew python and perl. And no other reason.
Do they know that I am 64? probably not. And I am going to keep it that way. In the IT business there *IS* an age bias. Screw the laws against it. There still *IS* bias.
But for someone who is just starting out like you? I hate to burst your bubble, but it probably won't happen. I at least had a lot of experience.
Sorry.