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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."
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.
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?
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
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.
Some people like to work. My step-grandpa is over 90 years old and he till does yard work in yard with covered in trees, takes care of chickens, and plants a garden. Up until a few years ago, he had a lot that he farmed corn on with his tractor. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it because he likes to.
If I was him, I would take all that saved money and spend it traveling the world.
That't not as uncommon as you'd think, because a lot of people would get utterly bored and wouldn't like it.
My father is in his 70's, and he's got his hobbies, as well as keeping a job (it takes certification to do what he does and they don't have a replacement yet, he's still being trained).
He'd be bored to tears if he didn't have several things on the go. I fully expect that he will work until he dies -- and I believe if someone forced him to stop working, he'd probably die much sooner.
For now, it keeps him out my mother's way, brings in some income, and keeps him doing things to keep himself busy.
I've known many people for whom 'retirement' mostly meant start drawing your pension and then find another job since you can't fathom not working. (And put up with less bullshit at work because you can always leave. ;-)
My father will fully retire when he wants to, but so far we've seen no evidence he wants to.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
Two weeks ago.
Yup, I always reply on these threads, I'm 62 and [having had more senior jobs that required a suit and talking rubbish in meetings] I'm usually coding as contractor part of the year. On the other hand, I've been sweating over a hot computer since about 1975 and I enjoy it, so I've been very lucky.
I think part of the secret would be a good niche or target audience. Because I'm a Perl person I do a certain amount of back-end, some glue code, some data cleaning/ETL etc. But I do also have a fair sized personal network, built over the years.
But, one of the great 'virtues' of open source is that pretty heavyweight and marketable skills can be approached by downloading something and building something with it. I didn't really know that much about jquery last year, now, I'm not an expert but I'm 'medium' and lots of people use it for commercial stuff.
May the older folks force be with you! [sort of like the Force but a bit grumpy, especially in the mornings].
On y va, qui mal y pense!
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?
Some people like to work. My step-grandpa is over 90 years old and he till does yard work in yard with covered in trees, takes care of chickens, and plants a garden. Up until a few years ago, he had a lot that he farmed corn on with his tractor. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it because he likes to.
If I was him, I would take all that saved money and spend it traveling the world.
I guess he's doing what makes him happy and feel productive.
One of my mother's Aunts in the UK is 92 and still working half days as an accountant for a local, family owned, small business. She started working for the current owner's grandfather over 50 years ago and since they actually have a delivery service she gets chauffeured to work after lunch and back home in time for Tea. I bet she wouldn't know what to do with herself without the daily routine.
Amusingly her employer never computerized so she keeps the books the old fashioned way and they were recently audited, the "kids" from inland revenue had actually never seen manually kept books.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
When was the last time someone had an all night coding session for their job?
Been a few years since I did an all night coding session for work... but I did over 160 hours in a two week timeframe back in December to make a deadline.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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.
I work with a consulting company where over half the people are over 40. (The age you can not get an IP job) And I get all the hours I can handle. I recommend looking for a expert body shop, and learning with them. Age brings experience. Both in actual IT work, and in planning a project and noticing details.
Exactly. At 60+, there aren't even any open doors if you are skilled.
There's talk -- you can get interviews -- but you won't be hired.
Here's how corporations really see it:
Older workers screw up insurance plans, are assumed to expect higher salaries (or to be discontented even if they claim they'll take a lower one), they have more extended families, they get sick more often, they take more time off, they're more chatty/garrulous, they won't integrate well with "the kids", they pose higher slip and fall risks, it's more difficult/stressful for them to travel, their knowledge tends to be stale... and you probably look like crap in a miniskirt.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I've been a professional programmer for ~15 years now; What you've said here strikes me as fairly odd.
Object Oriented Programming is nothing mystical. "Associate methods with your data structures by type." There's half of it. "Now inherit the methods in subtypes." There's the other half of it. We could talk about interfaces and polymorphism as well; It doesn't take long: "You can plug a lot of different things into the wall to get electricity, if we share the interface to the wall plug." People have been talking about that in different ways, for at least a thousand years.
Technical thought is broad and deep. Back in the early 80s, people were talking about "Structured Programming," (within the "procedural" world,) and they really hammered in the concepts of encapsulation and cohesion -- much before the popularity of OOP (itself derived from Alan Kay's ideas) in the 1990's. If there are deep ideas in Object Oriented programming, the deep ideas are ideas that share across technical domains of all kinds.
So I don't think "Object Orientated Programming" is any kind of real barrier.
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).
All night coding sessions while acceptable in start-ups are a major symptom of a business with major flaws in their development practices. Yes development can be unpredictable but if you are having employees forced to regularly stay-up you are scraping by. It might be nostalgic to say we do our best coding then, but we don't and such practices are inviting failure.
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
Here in my country, if you're an elderly person who wants a well-paid IT job, all you need to do is learn some ASM and go program industrial robots. Grey hair + not much ASM knowledge can land you a hefty salary. The reason is psychological: recruiters regard elderly applicants as coming "from the past" and are impressed when you display some knowledge of old programming languages. I'm saying ASM because it's still used a lot in niche environments and at the same time there's very few people who can code in ASM, so they're badly needed.
I'm not sure how things are shaping up in this domain for the USA, so take my advice with a grain of salt, please.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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.
Don't commit to hard deadlines further than 2 weeks out. Agile is a life saver. A 160 hour 2 week period is not even possible with Agile (unless you were a spineless moron and willingly agreed to do the slave hours up front). Worst case, some things just end up late. I would rather look for a new job than work those kind of hours, so if the boss is unreasonable about it, too fucking bad. Fortunately, most employers will not hang you for getting something in a bit late. Most deadlines slip because of a change in scope anyway, so it really is not something to feel bad about.
He's not getting back into coding. He dabbled a bit as a hobby 20 years ago. This mindset that just anybody can pick up and become a programmer is a problem in this industry. Sure, anybody can hack away and make "something" happen, but it takes a whole lot more than that to be a competent software engineer.
If he's looking for a career change, a programmer is not it. A Network Administrator is not it either. Maybe get into hardware repair somehow, ie copier repair.
People going around saying "anybody can do it" do a disservice to those who should not spend the time and resources to attempt to jump this. There's a lot of competition for entry level programmers, a lot of bad competition, but those young kids will always be given the opportunity first. They're cheaper. They'll most likely not be taking sick time (this guy even references his aging body).