4 ms·

Not everyone is a machiavellian networking pro. Some people just show up, do the job, and go home.

patio11 17y ago
While I suppose it is theoretically possible to be an employed professional for the last two decades and earn six figures without ever once having explicitly done networking, it seems like he probably has a lot of free time now and there is no time like the present to start calling up all the people whose lives he has touched in the last two decades and catch up on what their current needs are.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  If he's been at the same job for two decades, and especially if his company doesn't explicitly do work for clients (most programmers work on in-house code, doubly true for those making six figures), most of the people whose lives he's touched are either still at that company or out on their asses as well. And the ones that have found new jobs are probably too new at them to be of much help getting his foot in the door. Also, there are some severe hiring stigmas against older programmers. Now, early 40s is not what I'd consider "old" by any realistic metric, but I know expert coders in that age bracket that have serious trouble finding jobs because of the overqualification issue (i.e. that a programmer fresh from school can usually meet the company's needs, but the company can pay them half as much because they have no experience), as ~15 years in the biz tends to put one into the senior developer bracket. Of course, one important question is whether this guy is even considering jobs that pay in the $40-$60k range; I find it hard to believe that there are no medium to low range programming jobs that he can find, at least if he's any good. It's very possible that he's looking in all the wrong places because he considers himself too valuable, having been spoiled by six figure salaries until his laying off... Then again, it's also possible that his specialty was too niche for him to be highly employable outside his company, like if he was primarily maintaining some legacy system written in Cobol? (which would be a dealbreaker on a resume at plenty of places...) Some of the coders doing that type of stuff make tons of money when they work because nobody programs goddamn Cobol anymore, but they have a hell of a time finding new jobs when the old ones disappear. Edit: nevermind, just saw a tweet of his: "Anyone looking for a Sr Financial Analyst/Corp Dev/Planning person in OC or Bay Area please let me know." This guy's not looking for programming work at all, so everything I said is mostly irrelevant...

While I suppose it is theoretically possible to be an employed professional for the last two decades and earn six figures without ever once having explicitly done networking, it seems like he probably has a lot of free time now and there is no time like the present to start calling up all the people whose lives he has touched in the last two decades and catch up on what their current needs are.

ewjordan 17y ago
If he's been at the same job for two decades, and especially if his company doesn't explicitly do work for clients (most programmers work on in-house code, doubly true for those making six figures), most of the people whose lives he's touched are either still at that company or out on their asses as well. And the ones that have found new jobs are probably too new at them to be of much help getting his foot in the door. Also, there are some severe hiring stigmas against older programmers. Now, early 40s is not what I'd consider "old" by any realistic metric, but I know expert coders in that age bracket that have serious trouble finding jobs because of the overqualification issue (i.e. that a programmer fresh from school can usually meet the company's needs, but the company can pay them half as much because they have no experience), as ~15 years in the biz tends to put one into the senior developer bracket. Of course, one important question is whether this guy is even considering jobs that pay in the $40-$60k range; I find it hard to believe that there are no medium to low range programming jobs that he can find, at least if he's any good. It's very possible that he's looking in all the wrong places because he considers himself too valuable, having been spoiled by six figure salaries until his laying off... Then again, it's also possible that his specialty was too niche for him to be highly employable outside his company, like if he was primarily maintaining some legacy system written in Cobol? (which would be a dealbreaker on a resume at plenty of places...) Some of the coders doing that type of stuff make tons of money when they work because nobody programs goddamn Cobol anymore, but they have a hell of a time finding new jobs when the old ones disappear. Edit: nevermind, just saw a tweet of his: "Anyone looking for a Sr Financial Analyst/Corp Dev/Planning person in OC or Bay Area please let me know." This guy's not looking for programming work at all, so everything I said is mostly irrelevant...