20 ms·

Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

• marketgod 8y ago
  As you get older it makes sense to remove your older work experience and education. Companies don't like paying for health care and want to be know their on-boarding costs can be reimbursed.
• d4n0ct 8y ago
  Not in HR myself, but maybe they are looking for candidates that would stay with the company for a longer time. It may also be easier to persuade/manage younger minds or groom them for leadership positions. Why are you job hopping, if you don't mind me asking?
  • CodeWriter23 8y ago
    Could you feasibly retire now? I’m not suggesting you should; rather that it might be something to fold in to your cover letter or resume, that you are seeking work because you want to even though you don’t have to. Some may be thinking you’re biding your time until your 65th birthday.
  • wetpaws 8y ago
    I am sorry, but in this industry anything more then 3 years in not a job hopping, but a norm.
  • octokatt 8y ago
    I was looking for this answer, and sad to see it so far down the bottom. If a company is hiring for a senior position, then _from an HR perspective_ they want the employee to ideally stay for 2-4 years. You're at the age where not only you could retire soon, if the job gets hard then it's a permanent option on the table that an employer will need to continue to compete against and eventually will lose. Going for high-pay contracting positions will probably be hugely effective. People will understand where you're coming from, and you might get to work on more interesting things because your resume impressively speaks for itself.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    My whole team was laid off two years ago. Last year I did a startup that unfortunately folded when my business partner had a major family tragedy. This year I've been contracting and looking for work. I ran the numbers and I can't retire yet. I'm looking to work another 8-9 years.
    • blihp 8y ago
      If you're not doing it already, I'd highly suggest using every free moment you have during your contract work to network with the client, any other contractors, sales reps, account managers etc. you encounter there. i.e. don't just spend your days heads-down doing the work: get to know everyone you can, and more importantly get them to know you, while you're there. And don't be too busy to take the occasional coffee/water cooler break or group lunch. You can get a surprising number of leads this way.
• mchannon 8y ago
  One theory: The Bay Area has become seriously ageist. Many people have a hard time accepting working for someone a generation younger than them, and especially hiring a subordinate a generation older than them. The people reviewing your resume and interviewing you won't say it (they're not allowed to by law) but they'll definitely be thinking it, and it ends up being a huge waste of your time. I genuinely think it's a locale thing. I've found work outside the area to be as high-paying and fulfilling, but without the casting couch feel to the interviewing process. In particular, look to large, legacy established companies trying to stay relevant. Many of them recognize the value of experience and pay accordingly.
  • jacob_rezi 8y ago
    I thought people don't really use resumes any more
    • mrunkel 8y ago
      What do they use instead?
      • C1sc0cat 8y ago
        LinkedIn my last job search I hardly did any direct job searches and I am hem hem close to 60
        • collyw 8y ago
          linked in is effectively an online resume.
        • heydonovan 8y ago
          LinkedIn has been completely useless for me. Not a single time has it been acceptable. I'll link it in an email, and people will ask for me to send a PDF instead. Got a few complaints when I used the "Save as PDF" feature, since it was obviously generated from LinkedIn. shrugs
• tabtab 8y ago
  Try contracts instead. Agism seems to affect that less.
  • darreld 8y ago
    I second this. I'm over 60 and looking to change jobs. I've been looking at 1099 contract work since I don't need health insurance benefits (get them through wife's work).
• ilikehurdles 8y ago
  Are you putting most recent projects/employers/accomplishments/awards front-and-center? With dates? Maybe the education section reveals your age and pre-biases hiring managers. Put it nearer to the end so they see most recent work first. Do you have many short stints or other classic red flags? Also not a hiring manager.
• cadow 8y ago
  Or they might be thinking that you will retire soon or not fluid enough in thinking. Or demand too much pay.
  • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I suspect that it's pay more than ageism. As you get older, it gets harder to get jobs - not impossible, just harder. It takes longer. Why does it take longer? We're outside the knowledge of most hiring managers. They're thinking of "junior" as 0-2 years experience, and "senior" as 5-7. Where does 35 years fit on their spectrum? They don't even have a category for it. (You may be looking for jobs with the title "Principal software engineer" rather than "senior software engineer"). Those jobs are ones where your experience gets recognized as worth more money. But most jobs see you as just an older, more expensive senior engineer. And if they can get a senior engineer for half your money, why would they want you? (Yes, I know. You're worth more. You can deliver actual results faster than those people. You can avoid mistakes those people will make. I know that. Your average hiring manager who's looking for a senior software engineer doesn't know that.) For the record, I'm 56.
• duxup 8y ago
  Heck I'm only over 40. I did a handful of interviews at places where folks who I went to school with also interviewed. I got a lot of "culture" questions. My younger classmates, did not hear the world "culture" in their interviews, ever. It's hard not to be pessimistic and assume "culture" was about age...
  • rpoconn1 8y ago
    BTW, That's happening to everyone. Think about Uber, which was toxic because they didn't try to foster a good culture. Welcome to the "culture" wars.
    • duxup 8y ago
      I fear culture is just a variable for "my personal / our group bias".
  • nnash 8y ago
    Try being a minority, and consistently get rejected because you aren't a good "culture fit" on an all white team. edit: I didn't mean to sound like I was trivializing your experience. The "culture fit" is really nasty and sucks for everyone who isn't "the norm".
    • duxup 8y ago
      Naw it's all good. I hear ya. It's similar in the sense that if that thing age, race, whatever is the thing... I can't do anything about that and it seems to preempt anything else.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • neffy 8y ago
      The "not the right fit" one always makes my blood boil especially in these cases.
    • tootahe45 8y ago
• echelon 8y ago
  I'm in Atlanta, and I work for a SF-based tech company. Most of my coworkers are in their 40's and 50's, and a few are 60. In Atlanta nobody cares about age or background. We also have way more diversity by almost every measure - when I fly out to SF, people look and act the same way. I don't bat an eye when I interview someone older than me. I expect that I'll probably learn a thing or two. Message me. If you've got that kind of experience, I can get you an interview.
  • sathomasga 8y ago
    In Atlanta as well and, at 56-years-old, happily working remotely for a SF-based company. Somehow I feel that remote work places less emphasis on age. (Also, working remotely effectively is possibly something that takes experience, as, e.g. there are less opportunities to get mentored, etc.) Perhaps OP can focus more on remote work.
  • jitix 8y ago
    This. In my experience working in North Carolina, I’ve seen the same. Our team consists of people from all age groups. In fact I’ve seen that the cautious and planned approach taken by my older co workers works better than the hack-n-deploy approach taken by younger developers.
  • pcurve 8y ago
    Yep. Come to NJ. We just hired react ui developers in their early 50s and late 50s. They put hundreds of developers we have to shame. Also, if you're open to contract gig or right to hire, that might be a good way.
• codewritinfool 8y ago
  Interested in moving to St. Louis? I'd like to talk to you.
  • iLemming 8y ago
    I met many developers at StrangeLoop that looked to be in their 50s and 60s. And they live in the area. What makes St. Louis so special that older software engineers choose to live there?
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    OP. I'm originally from the midwest but we'd like to stay in California for now. I'll keep you in mind, though.
    • souprock 8y ago
      Well, there is your problem. This is the "why you might not even do a phone interview" issue. Off to the reject pile you go. Put yourself in our shoes, and see how similar the frustration is: Why are you rejecting us? We hire people older than you, we have interesting work, the finances probably work out better... but you reject us. If at some point you decide to evacuate California, we'll still be around: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912861
      • anonOver60 8y ago
        The main reason is we have 4 kids living in the Bay Area and my wife doesn't want to move away from them.
        • souprock 8y ago
          Fine, take them with you. Can they code too?
          • raarts 8y ago
            His kids are probably adults by now and the reasons his wife won't move away is because of grandkids that are already there or expected soon.
• jonbronson 8y ago
  Are you tailoring your resume specifically to the jobs you're applying for? This can be a big issue for people who have a long broad history of experience. The more experience you have, the smaller percentage of it will appear 'immediately relevant' to the job at hand. This isn't actually true of course, but it's a recruiter bias.
• DrNuke 8y ago
  Legal matters aside, interaction is a basic human process that often comes very awkward in over excited, under pressure, small environments if someone too different from the resident crop is around. Other than that, people just won't try. You might act as a consultant and sell your time, instead? Good luck and keep going!
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• joewee 8y ago
  Speaking from experience you need two resumes (I’m much younger, but with a long career). One that’s management focused and one that’s developer focused. Use the appropriate resume for the role you are applying for. Even though I’m a hands on engineer people didn’t want to consider me for roles because I had management experience and they thought the engineering role would be too boring, and vice versa. Reduce your resume to your experience from the last 10 years. They don’t need to see your first job. Don’t put dates next to your degrees. Don’t say “35 years of experience.” You have to accept that there is age discrimination but there is also manager discrimination and developer discrimination and all sorts of biases, you need to use that to your advantage by crafting resumes with different narratives, highlighting different strengths, dependent on the role.
  • poulsbohemian 8y ago
    So if you've been in and out of management and technical roles (like myself), how do you make those gaps between two resumes not look like gaps? Or, do you simply address it in interviews when asked?
    • RangerScience 8y ago
      He said not to put dates on degrees, but could you also not put dates on jobs, just durations?
      • joewee 8y ago
        You need dates on jobs because they want to identify gaps in employment. The only exception would be if you are a contractor and all of the engagements were under your company. You would list the start and end of your consulting practice in that case.
        • gargarplex 8y ago
          I've screened thousands of resumes and I've never searched for gaps in employment. Some companies may do this but I haven't witnessed it. The things I search for all things obviously within a person's control: consistent formatting, sane file format & filename, and flawless grammar.
• grmarcil 8y ago
  With 35 years experience, I expect that you have a pretty wide professional network - consider whether you're using those connections to get warm introductions and pointed to good-fit jobs to the greatest degree possible. My apologies if this is stating the obvious, but if your applications are starting with just a resume, you're already at a disadvantage at any age. And I suppose that effect only increases with years of experience and seniority of positions applied to.
  • cortesoft 8y ago
    Yeah, at this point in my career the idea of doing a cold interview is nearly unthinkable. When I am looking for work, I just reach out to the people I have worked with before that I like and let them know I am in the market. Cold interviews should probably only happen for your first job.
  • 88e282102ae2e5b 8y ago
    Also, consider this from the manager's perspective. They have to ask themselves: if this person has 35 years of experience, they must have a substantial network, so why aren't they just tapping that resource? Not a single person from this applicant's past wants to give them an interview?
    • lj3 8y ago
      Do you know many developers who hang out with management? Most of the engineers I've worked with over my career have not transitioned into management and have no sway as far as the interview process goes.
      • ido 8y ago
        Really? I have on many occasions weld a lot of sway on tech hires as senior and lead developer at several companies. It's generally the tech lead/lead developer who has the most say on hiring programmers from my experience.
      • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
• rb808 8y ago
  I wonder if its ethical to change some of the dates. Eg if you graduated in 1980 it makes it obvious how old you are. If you leave dates blank it kinda doesn't make much difference, but if you said you graduated in 2000 it would mean you get an interview at least. Edit - I get it the issue will come up at some stage. But explaining why you changed the dates later in the process is better than not getting an interview.
  • wild_preference 8y ago
    Well, surely it's better to leave your integrity up in the air than lie and leave no doubt.
    • rb808 8y ago
      If you have an interview and they complain about the date on the resume, I'd think your integrity would be better than the company's.
  • CodeWriter23 8y ago
    It is not ethical. Criminally, it would be called “fraud”, though I doubt anyone will call the cops on you. The way this bites you in the ass is HR figures it out and uses it against you or to coerce you somehow, post-hire.
  • alphakappa 8y ago
    If you have to ask, then yes, it’s hugely unethical. If the date is an issue, leave it out of the resume. But fudging anything is deception, and expect it to come out during a background check that many companies routinely do.
  • electricslpnsld 8y ago
    Most background checks verify graduation dates with the institutions you have degrees from, so this would almost certainly come up.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    Absolutely not! It's a slippery slope when one starts fudging "just a little".
• docker_up 8y ago
  Anything more than 10 years old on your resume is worthless. Yes, you may have 3 STEM undergrad degrees, but no one cares because it's not relevant anymore. What modern technologies have you recently worked with? What does your resume show, 20 years at the same company, or do you have experience at well-known, "prestigous" companies like FANG? Are you pigeon-holed into a specific area, or are you a generic, back-end or front-end expert that has worked in relevant and useful technologies for 2018? Also, with 35 years of experience in Silicon Valley, don't you have a network of former coworkers that you can contact for references or jobs? I'm 50 years old, and I've had no problems getting jobs and recruiters from FANG won't stop contacting me even now. Sure, things might change over the next few years, but I also have a rolodex (old man's terminology) of former coworkers that I routinely have lunch with still and can ask for jobs, etc. I'm sure things will change, but I'm also doing my best to ensure that I can retire in the next 10 years as well.
  • rb808 8y ago
    > rolodex of former coworkers that I routinely have lunch with still and can ask for jobs, etc Yeah this is an important thing everyone should be doing. I used to be shy about this but everyone is in the same boat and most do appreciate a quick drink or meal every few years to network, even if you're not friends.
    • khalilravanna 8y ago
      Even if this wasn't a great tool for networking, it's at the very least a great tool for being happy. I love catching up with old coworkers and I'm only 27-- I'm excited to see how many I have when I'm older. Coincidentally, I just got a drink with an old VP of eng. last night and spent a good portion of the time asking about all my other former coworkers. It's wonderful to hear all the crazy, interesting things people are doing after they leave your personal bubble of perception.
  • sonnyblarney 8y ago
    "3 STEM undergrad degrees, but no one cares because it's not relevant anymore" Anyone hiring people for specific things they learned in University is doing absolutely the wrong thing. Many high end schools don't even have very rigorous applied computing standards, meaning, they might have some hardcore CS stuff, but they don't necessarily encourage good programming habits, patterns, culture etc.. So the education I think always counts for a lot, it's the work experience from 30 years ago that actually may be less relevant. One opportunity might be to find something 'related' - for example, writing documentation, doing sales support, technical product management - basically anything but front-line engineering. There are a lot of such jobs.
• anovikov 8y ago
  Do some high-value per hour consulting and forget of full time jobs, they aren't for guys with your level of experience, who could leverage your skills and pay you appropriate money without putting off other employees? Do consulting and charge $300 per hour.
  • mrdependable 8y ago
    I second this. I know a couple people in their 70s who do nothing but consulting. They make great money and mostly work directly with the founders of companies who have ideas about big projects they want their business to undertake and need guidance.
• rrggrr 8y ago
  Late 40's and above... the reality isn't pretty in tech. I'm pretty sure I've missed out on two positions because age. On the one hand, we need to protected classes to prevent discrimination. On the other hand, bad faith discrimination claims have made older hires high risk. On balance... I am wondering if these laws are doing more harm than good.
• uptown 8y ago
  Is there any possibility you can use the connections you've made over your career to get past the initial screening? At all stages in my career, I've found that personal references do more than almost anything else when trying to get hired. Consider sending an email out to people you used to work with if you can find a way to reach them. There's a good chance many of them have moved to new companies, and a possibility some of those companies may have openings that a former colleague could recommend you as suitable to fill.
• rpoconn1 8y ago
  If you are applying at startups it may just come down to money, and the fact that startups are a ton of 20 somethings trying to get that sweet IPO / acquisition release. How does your Linkedin profile look, in terms of libraries? Many recruiters / managers look at libs / tech FIRST, which is kinda backwards. Do you have the latest tensorflow or [insert cool new thing] on the resume? If your resume is really what you posted - any outside recruiter can help you getting interviews. They may give you lackluster opportunities at first, but that's part of the process (think of it like dating, but for jobs).
• honkycat 8y ago
  I feel like Google / Amazon / IBM / any of the larger companies would love to have you on board. Maybe look bigger instead of going for start-ups which are often run by children. Anymore people like hiring young inexperienced devs they can abuse and pay poorly. And then they wonder why we have to take months and months to pay off technical debt... Hiring managers and inexperienced management think anybody can learn to code so they just hire who they think is cool. It's a bad trend. So tired of working with people who are fresh out of code bootcamp and are basically useless. I've posted about this before so I'll repeat myself: > More than anything have learned that education and training are hugely important and hiring to train leads to mediocre staff who think their two years of development work stack up to your 4 years of college and 6 years of professional experience. > They take forever to start writing productive code, if they ever bother leaning at all. > I will never hire someone without a degree or equivalent experience again. Even for Jr. roles
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    I've applied to Apple several times over the last 10 years for jobs requiring some very specific and rare skills that I have. They have never responded. I've gone through the interview process at Google twice and was "close but rejected".
    • solipsism 8y ago
      Twice is nothing. Seriously.
      • honkycat 8y ago
        This was my understanding as well
  • Permit 8y ago
    >Maybe look bigger instead of going for start-ups which are often run by children. If you are personally having difficulties interacting with people <30 years old a good first step would be not to patronize them.
• jgrahamc 8y ago
  I can only speak for Cloudflare but we have a very wide range of ages and age is not an issue.
• vincentmarle 8y ago
  You need to focus your USP (unique selling proposition) and gear it towards the position you’re applying for, and yes this may mean you need multiple resumes (as a forcing function, try sticking to 1 page). When I interview you I don’t really care about the hundreds of things you can do or have done, I only care about the one thing I’m interviewing you for. The oldest person in my team is close to 60 years old and works as a developer next to 20-30 something year olds (doesn’t do any management or VP-ing or whatever on the side). You need to be OK with that and the fact that your boss may be 20-30 years younger than you. All I remember from his interview is that he had more than 10 years of specific development experience for the job he was applying for. That’s impressive and not something that a younger developer can easily beat you too.
• ajaalto 8y ago
  Use this as your application, don't write anything else: My summary: 35 years in Silicon Valley; 3 STEM undergrad degrees, MS in AI from Stanford, PhD in AI from a top-10 program; ICPC champion; always considered to be an elite programmer; very current knowledge; constant employment; wide variety of skills; management experience with small teams; very stable life; no vices; very healthy and energetic; I get along with everyone and like working in teams.
  • seattle_spring 8y ago
    So a few impressive but outdated credentials alongside a dozen completely subjective opinions.
• poulsbohemian 8y ago
  With those credentials, you should be able to get any job you want. Thinking out loud here, I'm wondering if you are truly over-qualified for some of the positions. Or, are they worried about being able to keep you or afford you. That's not entirely agism, though it can appear that way on the surface.
• fecak 8y ago
  I'm a professional resume writer and job search strategy consultant (20 years of tech recruiting experience), and I'd be open to taking a look to see what the issue might be (see my profile for contact info). It might not even be the resume, but instead your approach to how you're applying. If you're just sending resumes through Indeed and hoping for responses, you're doing it wrong. The age thing may be an issue of course. If it's abundantly obvious from your resume that you are 60 or older, a reader may make assumptions about you that aren't true. Once a client reaches 40 I typically start to at least address the possibility of ageism and options to mitigate the risk if they are interested. There are even some simple things such as resume formatting that could be at play. For examples, resumes with tables and images can be more difficult for ATS systems to parse. Dozens of possibilities. I'm happy to take a look if you'd like.
  • TomVDB 8y ago
    I assume that you've worked with 60 yo customers in the past. What's your experience with placing them?
    • fecak 8y ago
      I’ve had a few, but I don’t always hear how they did after we work together so I couldn’t provide a metric.
• fooblat 8y ago
  If you are in a position to relocate, I would consider looking in cities like Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Dublin. The job market for software engineers in Europe is really hot and most companies will pay for relocation of senior engineers. Additionally, age and experience are valued.
• infecto 8y ago
  Serious question. Is ageism a huge deal? I am not arguing it does not exist but I think about what I have seen in the interviews I have done. We all have biases and I will never be completely unbiased but I try to at least be aware. I sometimes feel that ageism is actually the filter. I notice people I have worked with they at some point stop caring and they kind of give up. They don't stay relevant with whats happening in the industry. Some of the issues I have seen that can be construed as ageism I will list. * Candidates lack of awareness. They have a 2-5 page resume. I see the resume and I wonder how unaware they are. Yes, resumes do not matter but when I get 3 pages filled with large paragraphs I worry the candidate lacks awareness. So far its been a good indicator. * Candidates who belittle me during the interview process. * Candidates who have not kept up with technology. No I don't expect you to know the latest framework but understanding patterns that have emerged in the past 5 years seem relevant. I dislike the latest and greatest technology but its important to understand the general trends. * Candidates that generally who have had zero prep for the interview process expecting the resume/experience to tell all. Yes, algorithms are not the best determining factor but it's at least a minor indicator. When we work through a problem does the other person just give up? Let me state again that I believe it exists but I sometimes have a hard time separating true ageism and just a clear distinction between people who have stayed relevant and not relevant.
  • mattlondon 8y ago
    With respect I think that those characteristics could equally apply to anyone - old, young or somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't say any of those are specific to people approaching their retirement age. For example I interviewed someone in their early 20s a little while ago who knew Angular 1 inside-out and to the absolute finest detail, but that is obsolete now that we're on Angular 6/React etc - they had never used modern Angular, Typescript or React... just good old Angular1 + JS. Did they stay relevant? nope. Are they old? nope. The benefit of the doubt for the early-20s person could be to just assume they don't know Angular6+TS because they were working on legacy code and didn't get the chance, but should I treat the early-20s person any different from a 60s person all other things being equal? nope. I am sure they could both pick up the new skills just as easily. I know a lot of retired people socially (parents/friends of friends, neighbors etc - alas not that many from work) who are still 100% as sharp as a tack - quick-witted, intelligent, energetic etc. It would be unfair to use their age as a filter based on assumptions of how they would perform in an interview based on how other entirely different individuals have behaved in previous interviews.
• jhabdas 8y ago
  I saw an architect with a family depending on him get fired from Trunk Club (selling your car back to you kind of company) and he was probably in his 40's. What I decided was that the company didn't care about quality just the bottom line. Which not only makes you unemployable for life Gen X can't even get a job because of capitalism.
  • jhabdas 8y ago
    selling your fat* back to you. if you need a car head to CarMax. thanks Gboard. programmed by geniuses
• pmarreck 8y ago
  There may be ageism but I hate to admit appearance also matters to some degree, in case that may be a factor. Also, a lot of what people call "ageism" should more rightfully be called "culturalism" IMHO, and it's harder to fault people for simply getting less along with someone much older (on the other hand, I've had MANY older friends)
• mojomark 8y ago
  Your resume sounds interesting to me. If you're willing to relocate to DC (although there could be some west coast or consultant type roles), we are looking for folks with your type of background to enhance our AI capabilities. At the level you describe, we're looking for active/direct leadership. I'm an engineer myself, not a recruiter, but if you want to post an email, I'll take your resume and share it with the right people.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    I do like the DC area but we have kids living in the Bay Area and my wife doesn't want to move away from them. If there is some way to work with you with that constraint I'd be interested.
• austincheney 8y ago
  Abandon the Bay Area. It seems to me that ethnocentricity is rampant in the bay as a sub cultural norm. For example the Bay Area is big on tolerance, but if you choose to voice political concerns that challenges the area’s popularity you will be silently shunned and ignored which counter-intuitively is intolerance. As a solid example review the firing of Brendan Eich from Mozilla. This kind of self-satisfying inward-facing deceptiveness allows any manner of isolating justification, such as ageism. In other areas wisdom and experience are rewarded commodities. The Bay Area is also stupid expensive. You will make less money elsewhere but be instantly more wealthy. I would need to multiply my salary x3 to live the same in the Bay Area with a House half the size.
  • antisthenes 8y ago
    From everything I've seen, heard, and read on HN, the Bay Area isn't really big on tolerance. It's big on virtue signaling specific kinds of tolerance towards certain groups, but that's about where it ends. Apparently people past middle age aren't one of those groups. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but those are my observations as a 3rd party - I have no skin in the game.
    • city41 8y ago
      I think it depends on the type of company. I've never worked at a startup but it wouldn't surprise me if they tend to avoid older workers. I work for a larger company in the Bay Area and there are plenty of older workers (myself included). Anecdotally I've also known of older workers succeeding at other large Bay Area companies.
    • gaius 8y ago
      Apparently people past middle age aren't one of those groups. If Zuck had said whites or Asians or men “are just smarter” he would have been flayed alive, but he was (is?) brazenly ageist and not a murmur. That’s Silly Valley in a nutshell.
      • datavirtue 8y ago
        Don't worry...he will be old soon.
• mmmBacon 8y ago
  I’d say the biggest obstacle is that a requisition for someone at your level is just really hard to get. It’s hard to convince people that we need an expensive gray beard. Without a requisition at your level some companies have a policy that they won’t talk to you because they don’t want to leave you with a bad experience (sounds like bs but this is true). The view isn’t entirely just financial. People at your level challenge things and in particular challenge leaders. That’s because you should be a leader at this point, either by title or by influence. Someone like you can come in and disrupt the power dynamic, particularly if the leadership is weak (often true), and the leadership wants nothing more than to preserve itself and make its life easy. Another piece is the more senior you are, the more the soft skills come into it and how well you’ll fit into the team. I’m not talking about skinny jeans here but rather whether your values align. If you are trying to get VP of Engineering jobs, I’d say that few would believe that you’ll be satisfied just coming in and grinding out walls code to a spec that someone else wrote.
  • zwieback 8y ago
    Good observations. I'm currently employed in my 50s and starting to worry about my chances should I have to take them. I'm often challenging my leaders because I believe they work for me, e.g. their job is to make my life easy. I usually get away with it simply because I've been here long enough to know how projects usually unfold. As our workforce gets younger and younger (we don't generally hire graybeards either) I start wondering how I fit in - I don't want to ever become a manager so I guess I have to fake it with the skinny jeans!
• mattlondon 8y ago
  Personally if I were in your situation I'd remove all "old" dates and just put the last say 4-6 years of experience on the resume and leave the rest off so you've just got a few years of experience just like someone with 4-6 years experience would have (it is probably also the most relevant). If you've been at the same company all that time, break it down by major projects. Also hopefully this is obvious but dont put your birthday, gender, photo, "married with 3 kids and 2 dogs" etc etc on their. My thinking is, if there is no indication of your age ("35 years of experience", graduation dates in the 70s/80s etc), then there is less scope for unconscious bias (or just overt ageism) to creep in since there are less clues. Same with adding potentially "irrelevant" experience from older jobs - less clues for people to jump to assumptions about (both tech/industry, as well as just the age thing again) Once you've got your resume through the bias-blockers you can then wow them with your energy and enthusiasm when you get a chance to talk to them on the phone, then wow them again when you bounce into their office and blow them away with the interview. If you do really well in the interviews, you've given them some really solid evidence of your awesomeness that they've seen with their own eyes that will be hard to ignore, even if they think (consciously or otherwise) that you are old. Resumes are so easy to pass on when you've got a stack of them to work through (so impersonal and instantly forgettable), but interviews are "real" events with real memories and real personal interactions that - I find - helps override assumptions and unconscious biases. Good luck!
  • gaius 8y ago
    Personally if I were in your situation I'd remove all "old" dates and just put the last say 4-6 years of experience on the resume and leave the rest off so you've just got a few years of experience Doesn't that strike you as a little weird tho'? I mean experience is one of those things that the more, the better right? If you could choose a surgeon or a lawyer with more or less experience, which would you prefer?
• gambler 8y ago
  >If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone interview? Ph.D. in AI will probably scare off anyone who has a typical business app development or integration job. It's just hard to imagine someone with this level of education grinding out bugs in garbage legacy code, or calling vendors to ask why their SOAP web service doesn't work according to documentation. Now, whether you would even care for such a job is another question. Some of them are quite challenging and require excellent system thinking skills, but there is zero glory in delivering the final product. I'm not familiar with the specific of Bay Area job market, though.
  • shakkhar 8y ago
    Exactly the first thing that came to my mind. OP may be overqualified for the jobs he is applying for. Your run-of-the-mill AI startup doesn't have any suitable problem for a Ph.D. Yes, the OP happens to be 60. But there is no reason to speculate ageism based on just that. May be he / she has a 4-page resume. May be he is applying to series A start-ups. May be OP has switched a few jobs in quick succession recently. Too many unknowns to provide any answer.
  • randcraw 8y ago
    Another challenge might be how much AI has changed in the past 35 years. In 1983, AI meant expert systems, small neural nets, phrase-structured NLP, symbolic reasoning, and a lot of custom models that embedded knowledge into heuristic-driven unstructured functions, like Minsky's Society of Mind. The challenge now may be how to present your skills in ways that convinces others that they're up-to-date or relevant. I can definitely see why many employers might be wary of a PhD with a 35 year old history working in R&D who might have drifted away from the cutting edge (i.e. published research). Obviously if you can emphasize relevant domain expertise (a major advantage of being experienced), you may be able to turn your liability into an asset. I know military and intel contractors value domain experience much more than do startups. Sell yourself as a principal scientist with "the right stuff". Large corporations buy into that.
• insvwallhitsyou 8y ago
  Can relate to most of that. After passing on-site day and hiring committee at a FAANG, was nixed at the executive level for "career trajectory" issues. In other words, "too old". Another place opined "skills rusty" after I pulled a recursive-descent parser off the top of my head in five minutes. One of the problems with rich companies is that they can afford to have nonsense hiring policies. There's no real pressure to do right by candidates, so why bother? I ultimately stumbled across a solution of sorts, which was to find a money-poor, non-SV organization with serious tech problems to solve. They're f___ing lucky to have me, they know it, and I'm treated accordingly. Very gratifying.
• Townley 8y ago
  I wonder if this is less a problem with your skills not keeping up with the industry, and more with your job search practices not keeping up. I recently helped a friend through a job search, and was shocked by how much the process has changed in the past 3-4 years. Recruiters are inundated with thousands of resumes. So traditional job application practices ("Write a cover letter and email in the resume") or semi-recent practices ("Cast a wide net on Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn...) perhaps no longer have the rate of return that you're expecting. I read through the book, "What Color is your Parachute: 2018 Edition" to better help my friend, and the book offers full sections on how to do better than just "putting your resume out there." Working personal connections, announcing employment intentions during coding meetups, writing specific emails to companies you respect (independent from whether they're currently hiring for your position) or getting even more creative with getting your info out there... all of the above are practices that might not have been necessary during your last search (they certainly weren't during mine). Maybe I'm underestimating the massive extent of blatant ageism in the software industry, but I'm quite surprised that someone with your skill set can't yell from a crowded street corner and have six recruiters materialize. That leads me to think it's not a matter of what you're offering, but rather how you're selling.
  • pydeveloper22 8y ago
    Hello, I read this post of yours on job searching of those over 60 and found it quite interesting and helpful when it comes to finding creative ways to establish connections to possibly stand out in a job search. Now I'm nowhere near 60 and around half that age but trying to take a cue from your post I see that you work for Atlantic Media. Don't know if that still holds up but I saw job their job board recently that there's an opening available at Atlantic Media for a Backend Python Web developer. I'm a guy who enjoy using and working with Python as far as learning purposes go. And after quickly reading your post here I figured to reach out and try a somewhat different approach than the old cover letter and resume email method and contact you if you may have any info to this current opening at your company? So with that said, here I am..and I wanted to inquire to find out if this opening is still available? If so, do you have a contact to learn more about this position and the things you require in regards to the nature of the job? My apologies in advance that this may not be the response to your post that you were looking for but I figured why not take some ideas from your post and apply it..hehe.. Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thanks --K
• InTheArena 8y ago
  DM me your resume ;-)
• vertol 8y ago
  My team would like to take a look at your resume. Shoot me an email with your resume (and linkedin profile link if you have one) at vertol.next@gmail.com.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    I'm sorry - my brain says "recruiter" when I read your message for some reason. I'm not sure what it is pattern matching on. If you can assure me that you're not a recruiter I'd be happy to send you my resume, although a little more information about what your company does would be helpful.
    • kjsingh 8y ago
      have u tried amazon?
• mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Others have hit the main reasons. One additional I'd guess is that you have "too much" on your resume making it hard to follow. Start with a one-pager with a medium-size font and plenty of whitespace. Expand to two pages if you are still getting no hits.
• pmoriarty 8y ago
  Have you tried trimming your resume so that only some of your most recent work experience is on it? You could also try removing school graduation dates or any other hints of your age. If after all that you're still not getting interviews, then the fault can't be with how old you are.
• mfer 8y ago
  A few thoughts... 1. A resume isn't a CV. It's more like a sales brochure to sell yourself. Have resumes tailored for different things that show how having you will help them. 2. Age discrimination is a problem. Even though it's illegal and not useful. But, companies would rather spend on lawyers to work around their illegal antics and are not focused on useful (see the open office craze). If they hack around being useful or legal it's ok to hack around their processes. 3. Try looking for something outside of the valley or the companies that want to be like that. There are tech jobs all over and remote gigs for some of them. Look for sane companies where they are at.
• prisionif 8y ago
  Why aren't you running your own business, maybe as a consultant? You shouldn't be selling your services but your knowledge.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    Actually, I would appreciate some advice on this. I truly don't know what services to sell. I can set up machines, design databases, write graph algorithms, train machine learning models, design web services, etc. But I'm not a "leading expert" on any of those things. I'm a generalist and usually have an answer for any problem I run into simply because I've run into it before. How do I market myself as a general problem solver?
    • darreld 8y ago
      I'm in the exact same boat and would love to hear some ideas.
      • anonOver60 8y ago
        There should be a market for people like us. My personal network is not large enough to build a practice around. Have you had any ideas on this?
• crimsonalucard 8y ago
  Why this isn't a bigger issue than sex discrimination boggles my mind.
• diegoperini 8y ago
  May sound entirely unrelated but I'm really curious. What kind of job (which area of expertise) do you think would satisfy you most? Excuse my ageism but I think I would be intimidated if I interviewed you as a hiring manager. That could cloud my judgement in the end.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    VP of Engineering at a startup is probably the best fit. Managing small (< 10) software teams is probably next. Anything with lots of novel and/or interesting problems is next. I also seem to have a knack for listening to customers and figuring out what they really need and want.
• supERbro 8y ago
  Also, consider the language especially non-technical jargon you use on your resume. I suspect many companies are screening their resumes using ML and likely their "ideal" candidate uses non technical language like, "I crushed my project goals, or I dominated the blah blah..." You get the idea, every new-gen of business updates their non-technical (and technical) keywords. Try to figure out how these people are talking and try a few submissions with those empty lame-brained phrases these people use.
• dep_b 8y ago
  Well US companies don't ask for details that could give away your age. I mean removing the date of your graduation and only including the last 10 ("relevant") years of your experience is not a crime in any sense. I don't feel my age is as much a problem as raising my rates. That definitely makes things a bit more challenging. I have two experiences in the last year that were a bit strange. One was a guy that kind of already hired me and casually asked my age to never reply again after I disclosed it. OK. The other one was a company that had two early twenties co-founders I worked for remotely for more than half a year and were genuinely surprised about my age when I stepped in their offices for the first time. Still working for them though. In Europe a lot of companies (I think it happened with a German and a Swiss company) straight ask for your age, which somewhat shocked me when seeing it for the first time after mostly dealing with US companies. On the other hand some US companies asked me if my "race"* is "Latino" whatever the hell that means. Sometimes I feel like it I guess? Depends on the music? Me and most of the other people I see in my country look pretty caucasian to me though. Must even be more confusing to black people from Latin-American countries. Do I get a double race bonus or should I pick the one that gives me most benefits? If so which one? * they asked it in a very PC way and made it an optional field
  • yellowapple 8y ago
    "Must even be more confusing to black people from Latin-American countries. Do I get a double race bonus or should I pick the one that gives me most benefits? If so which one?" Most US-based forms along these lines ask the Latino question separately from the general race question. "Latino" not fitting cleanly into any particular racial group is specifically why it's a separate question. So if you're simultaneously black and of Latin-American origin, you'd answer both questions accordingly ("black" for race, and "yes" for whether or not you identify as having a Latin-American ethnic background).
    • dep_b 8y ago
      Nope, black and latino were in the same group.
  • drewmol 8y ago
• symmitchry 8y ago
  From a technical point of view, I keep a "master" resume with every job I've ever had. Then I do what top comment recommends, which is break out the parts I want for whatever roles I happen to be applying for. I also agree that applying for dev roles when you have manager experience is really going to raise questions. I was only a manager for one brief stint and I still had to reassure every single interviewer that "yes, I was interested in a purely technical role". Age: very late 30s
• zwieback 8y ago
  Have you tried using a headhunter or is that totally unrealistic nowadays? Sounds like there should be a good fit for you in lots of places if you can circumvent the usual hiring process.
• taytus 8y ago
  We are not hiring right now but I would love to have someone like you on our team!
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• anon7429 8y ago
  Ageism is pernicious in the Valley. Do whatever it takes to hide your greys, avoid anything old, be fit and show you're on-top-of-it and not slow or outdated in any respect.
• AlexanderNull 8y ago
  Very current knowledge is one of the main things I look for when evaluating a potential hire. It not only hints at an ability to learn, but also at a passion for the industry. I think that's where a lot of ageism comes in to play. I personally worked at two enterprise dev shops where the older engineers didn't give a hoot past what they had learned years ago and managed to stay writing ever since. Their code might potentially have been more stable but it also was slower, had a hell of a lot of unnecessary boilerplate, was a pain to navigate, and couldn't actually do much anything impressive because it was working with such a minimal toolset. I'd say focus as much as you can with your resume on highlighting those current library/framework/patterns that you're passionate about. Those are often times the things that recruiters will look for as well (in addition to the basics).
  • codingdave 8y ago
    > it also was slower, had a hell of a lot of unnecessary boilerplate, was a pain to navigate, and couldn't actually do much anything impressive because it was working with such a minimal toolset. Funny, that is the same impression I get from younger coders' work who haven't been around much, only know one narrow stack, and start from the boilerplate that you can get from various CLIs. Maybe age has nothing to do with it and there is simply a variety in skill level no matter how long you have been doing this?
• botswana99 8y ago
  Please come work with us. We have people from 63 to 23 in engineering roles. Age, like sex, nationality, height, weight, shoe size, sexuality orientation, and favorite ice cream has no bearing on whether you can do good work.
• commandlinefan 8y ago
  > 3 STEM undergraduate degrees I'm honestly just curious... how does that happen? Most people just stick with the one - did you do some career changing early on?
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    I started out in Math, realized I liked to build things, switched to EE, and took all the CS courses I could for fun. When I was done I had enough credits to get all three degrees.
• balousek 8y ago
  Send me your resume, we're hiring in SF and PA. robert.balousek+hn@carta.com
• justin_vanw 8y ago
  You have been in the industry for around 40 years and you have no personal network you can call on for referrals? You are obviously leaving out critical parts of your story.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    Well, I'm not very social. My personal network exists but most of them have been at the same job for 10 years or longer. A few are at FANG-CxO level where I'm not sure they'd be helpful.
• kareemsabri 8y ago
  I think a lot of startups are, frankly, ageist. They worry about "culture fit" from an older guy. There's a lot of twenty-something running around. They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations, or that you may want more than they can afford to pay. If you're still on the market, we're hiring, and not ageist. I'm the CTO, 34.
  • iamdave 8y ago
    They may also worry you don't want to put in the late nights and long hours they want due to perhaps family obligations Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that needs to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either. I'm 32 with a dog and a highly opinionated cat. Hire me, or don't. Plenty of other companies out there that respect work life balance and don't insist on the awful notion of "well you don't have anyone waiting on you to get home anyway, why do you care?" (of course I'm deliberately phrasing that awfully, but let's be honest with ourselves here).
    • kareemsabri 8y ago
      Good for you. As you correctly point out, there are lots of companies that will allow you to strike the work life balance you're looking for.
    • knightofmars 8y ago
      >Unless there's something broken, a system down, or a critical issue that needs to be fixed yesterday, I got news for you: I ain't staying late either. This times 1000. The concept that any company "deserves" more than 8 hours of 5 days (or more) is (in my opinion) disgusting.
      • datavirtue 8y ago
        I can work 4 hours in the morning...very productive. I come back from lunch and work 2 more--usually dealing with politics and mentoring. Done.
    • 8y ago
• d4n0ct 8y ago
  Hopefully you find some of these comments instructive. Let us know how things go from here, and best of luck to you.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    These are all very helpful. My next resume is going to be much shorter...
• zhobbs 8y ago
  Consider hiring a resume writer. The guy I hired was older, and had some very specific techniques to combat ageism (I'm still pretty young, but was good to learn about them).
  • amorphous 8y ago
    Can you give a recommendation?
• ummonk 8y ago
  That is weird. In general, what I’ve observed with a sizable fraction of older candidates is that a lot tend to be architecture types with weak coding skills. That would be the stereotype I would expect to be going against an experienced engineer, but I'd think that having ICPC champion on your resume would protect against that. If you email me (email is on my profile) I can provide you referrals (including to my current employer) and information about resume-blind services that I’ve used in the past which might be helpful.
• dostres 8y ago
  I imagine you're making the Engineers mistake of pitching your credentials. Think of the hiring from the their perspective. A 25 yo recent Stanford Grad with no idea what they're doing with crippling insecurity. If they actually hired someone with experience then they might be outed as 'not the smartest guy everyone has ever met' and that would be devastating to their self image. In order to send a signal that you're a safe hire that won't undermine them, either intentionally or accidentally, you'll need to show that you're a team player who will go along with their ideas no matter how obviously stupid they are. Crossfit is perfect for this.
  • Pfhreak 8y ago
    Is this an attempt at humor?
• wins32767 8y ago
  As a hiring manager, we've found that there isn't a ton of good quality resumes that come in via applications; referrals then recruiters are the best sources of high quality candidates for us. You may be getting circular filed because you're direct applying. Try reaching out to someone you know at the company or talk to a recruiter and your response rate will go up quite a bit.
• Immortalin 8y ago
  What's your email?
• g051051 8y ago
  > 3 STEM undergrad degrees, MS in AI from Stanford, PhD in AI from a top-10 program I think that flags you as vastly overqualified for most jobs you're applying for.
• ChuckMcM 8y ago
  Feel free to contact me (email is in my profile) if you have specific questions. A couple of things stand out; 1) Your resume has the potential of being very intimidating to someone, sometimes less is more. Trim it to just what they hiring manager cares about. 2) You said "Everything from senior engineer to VP of engineering" have you applied to "just engineering" roles? I ask because both senior engineering and VP roles typically have a very high level of "hiring risk" associated with them. Specifically, if you are interviewing at places outside the network of people who know your work, whether or not your idea of how to fill a senior role is the same as the company where you are interviewing its a very real question. It can cause a tremendous amount of churn in an organization to hire someone in at a senior level who ends up not getting along with the rest of the team or company. As a result you may find it easier to work initially at a lower level and then negotiate a raise/promotion rather than jumping in high. Everyone's situation is always a bit different.
• jetcata 8y ago
  I want to say that people might feel intimidated by your resume. Maybe try excluding all but the most relevant degree and heavily tailoring the rest.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    I have run into this in the past. Usually a Technical Lead or Director of Engineering is grumpy, gives me a very perfunctory 5-minute interview, has clearly already made up their mind. It was just a waste of time for me and their company.
    • jetcata 8y ago
      Yeah, I interviewed someone over 60 a few months ago and myself and the other engineers who interviewed were all intimidated. It was fine once we were in the interview room but reading the resume scared everyone a little.
• encoderer 8y ago
  Find a company you want to work for. Pay for linked in premium. Find engineers there with common ground, reach out, ask for coffee. Tech companies all have lucrative referral systems so you really can network your way in through a person on the team. This is the way to get a good job in SFBA. There is a good chance you are not even passing a recruiting screen.
  • sanderjd 8y ago
    I think temporarily paying for LinkedIn premium is an undervalued tool when actively looking for work.
    • emit_time 8y ago
      Assume you make >$200 a day (~$70k). Assuming linkenin premium helps you get a job one day sooner, it's worth it.
• 01100011 8y ago
  Look for an engineering services firm and work as a subcontractor. We're currently employing several guys who are 60 (+/-5). Also... sorry... but try the defense industry. They have insanely low standards.
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    OP: Not sure why you are down-voted. The HackerNews Community seems to dislike telling the truth if it is surrounded by even a hint of negativity. Can you be more specific about what you mean by "engineering services firm"?
    • insvwallhitsyou 8y ago
      I think the downvotes are for suggesting the defense industry. "We won't hire you because you're old, but don't you dare go to those guys who will, because we hate them." lol
    • 01100011 8y ago
      There are many small companies which provide anything from staff augmentation(engineers for hire) to full product design services(come to us with an idea and a bag of money and we'll make it happen). I'm in San Diego and know a couple companies that do this: http://www.serranosystems.com/ http://www.serranosystems.com/ https://fairwaytech.com/ https://fairwaytech.com/ http://www.a2etechnologies.com/ http://www.a2etechnologies.com/ http://www.jetheaddev.com/ http://www.jetheaddev.com/
• jlrubin 8y ago
  I think a part of it is that resumes are more or less dead for a lot of roles; you need a referral from someone (don't even have to know them) in the team to land the job. It seems that having a jobs listing is similar to having to put newsprint ads for two consecutive sundays to get an H1B through. That said, drop me a line (email in my bio) with your resume, happy to forward I know a few places that might be interested!
• mancerayder 8y ago
  What do you folks think about consulting as a 'late career' choice? Is age discrimination as much a factor?
• x0b4dc0d3 8y ago
  #1 - find multiple recruiters to be working for you. They already have relationships and can get you in the door. #2 - Tailor your resume to the job. Remove bullshit and be frank. Show them you're there to kick ass, not play politics. #3 - Many companies probably think you're going to ask for a ton of money or that you are way too overqualified. #4 - Join MeetUps for domains you want to be working in, network, make it clear you're looking for work. #5 - You're a programmer... automate your resume submission. Get your foot in the door. #6 - Build a business case for something you want to build, or find someone who wants to build something who has money, through the SBA or MeetUps and get to work. #7 - Consider humbly approaching professors directly (via email) at top tier universities with your resume. They may have ins. I am certain they will have empathy. We all know ageism is rampant. #8 - Make sure your resume is achievement based and that your objective says what you really want to do. Remove fluff and be specific.
• dba7dba 8y ago
  I've heard similar story from a non coding engineer. He's not that old but getting no responses. Apparently his current pay is too high.
• qubax 8y ago
  > I've been applying for everything from senior engineer to VP of engineering. Ever since I turned 60 last year, I'm getting no hits on my resume. For senior engineer, the sweet spot is around 10 years of experience ( like early 30s ). Too young or too old or too little experience or too much experience, you're resume is going in the trash can ( or more likely just filtered by software ). Your degrees and ICPC champion are not important for a senior engineer position. Nobody really looks at it. Domain knowledge and experience with tools ( current ) is more important. For VP, I suspect you have better shot getting a position through your network rather than sending resumes. Ask people you worked with if they are looking for a VP and then try that route. Think of it from a prospective employer, why would they want to hire you when you are going to be hitting retirement age? I don't think you'll get much success by just sending resumes. > If you were hiring, can you tell me why you might not even do a phone interview? I need to know what (mis)perceptions I apparently need to overcome. Everywhere I've worked, we've never hired any developer in the 60s. To be honest, we've never hired anyone over 30 through resumes. The people we hired through resumes are college grads or devs in their 20s. The people who were over 30 either started in the company in their 20s or got the job through word of mouth. Don't underestimate how much a good reference from a current employee matters to a hire manager. Also, the tech/engineering sector is going through a "cultural" or "diversity" change. The execs/HR are encouraging managers to take in younger, female and minority workers and of course promote them. There is a push for a less white ( or asian male ) workforce and a more diverse and representative workforce. So if you are an older white or asian male, you are really facing headwinds. I think your best bet is to ask your friends and co-workers.
  • insvwallhitsyou 8y ago
    > push for a less white (or asian male) workforce I hadn't thought about it, but this might be an alternative explanation for the apparent ageism in hiring. Assuming that most "old" candidates are white/asian males, which is probably true, and assuming a bias against white/asian males, also probably true, you could end up with apparent ageism even though no one actually cares much about age. Interesting. Doesn't matter that much in practice, as getting less white (Warren notwithstanding) isn't any easier than getting less old.
• dgzl 8y ago
  Maybe it's the stigma of your resume? Could try knocking off some things. Maybe they want someone with a youthful spirit, to match other coworkers? Could try joining coworker antics?
• banner2018 8y ago
  You need a H1-B , no pun, most manager s are so addicted working with H1 or contract ors they humanely don't have the caliber to work with regular folks. I am on a job as FTE, kept out of meetings and information emails for 17 months and accused of not impressing others. When I went around my Mgr, found out my Mgr had explicitly taken my name off the list of people to be informed. Probably you are fortunate not to be in a crazy job. Beauty in the eyes of a beholder... So someone not threatened by your knowledge will hire you. Stay strong.
• virmundi 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, are you liking outside of California?
• InclinedPlane 8y ago
  I was advised years ago to try to make it harder to determine age on my resume (I'm just over 40). Some techniques that are helpful for this: - only list the last 10 years of work experience (add a comment about making available prior work experience on request if you like) - pull any other skills or experience into a specific skills/experience section - don't list the dates for your degrees/graduations If you survive the resume cull then you're much more likely to survive in person interviews unless the place is horribly ageist.
• eagsalazar2 8y ago
  There are a few things that might be going on here. I have done a lot of dev hiring over the last 10 years in the Bay Area and this is what I've seen: 1. Ageism is very real in the bay area. People see a huge list of experience going back to 1985 and graduation dates in that range and they filter you. It is terrible but true. If you are sending a 5 page resume of experience to win them over, try including only your best and most relevant work from the last 10 years and omit graduation dates, etc. See how that works to at least get to the first interview. 2. In addition to the conscious ageism, there is a lot of unconscious stuff people do that also excludes older devs. Even if someone doesn't include dates, I can tell almost immediately they are from another engineering culture (either physical or temporal aliens). There are a lot of little cues that people might interpret as you not being "a good fit", "old school", or "enterprise-y". If you are friends with any hip 30-35 year old devs, have them review for cues like that and squash them. Quite possibly you'll also find there are real holes in your resume or way you are presenting yourself. 3. On that note, have that same hip dev friend cross reference his version of what tech is hot with your expertise. You might be a great dev in 100 ways but your attachment to php (haha, jk php lovers!) will peg you as "old school". If you really don't have experience in any of that hot tech, "I can pick stuff up" only goes so far especially if people are already wondering because of your age. Build something real (!"I did a tutorial or toy app and it seems cool") using one of those hot tools and put it on your resume. Everything above applies to LinkedIn or Github profiles too, not just your resume since people will immediately check those also. Of course, when you get to a first interview, you might still get filtered but at least you'll have a shot. I know it is pretty callous to just try and work around ageism as I'm recommending but sadly I think this is the hurdle older devs need to tackle to get to the first interview. I see older guys not finding work all the time. To be clear, this perspective isn't coming from someone in their 20s. I'm 45 and am already seeing these harsh realities. I feel like I get to see both sides of it since I own my own company and I've been immersed in the 25-35 year old hipster dev culture all along which helps me to stay very current in lingo, trends, appeal. Because we see it all the time, we're very careful to avoid this ageism trap in our hiring by moving people forward using very well defined criteria, not subjective "I got a good feeling about him" type heuristics that might lead us to filter really great devs because of our unconscious biases.
  • 8y ago
• espeed 8y ago
  No hits??? Or no callbacks after first contact? Send me your resume, and I'll take a look (email in profile).
• slouchyMouse 8y ago
  Bear in mind, that there are also some people who are 30 who are not getting jobs. You list all your accomplishments (35 years, 3 degrees, etc)... what do you say on your resume or your cover letter that indicates you are also hungry to learn? to explore? to be humble? to be part of a team? And I wonder at 35 years, why are you not leading a team and mentoring others? Why are you still on the lower tiers? Lastly, there are many job situations, which let's just say, the employer / managers are not even ambitious. They just want somebody in the chair. They have a budget to maintain, or they are in transition. or they have billable hours to meet. They just need a warm body. Forgive me, but at a minimum, I find it hard to accept that someone who is really job hunting hasn't at least found one of these. Also, what are you requesting for salary? Do you do the coding challenges? Do you call them back promptly? When you are on a phone interview do you talk over them, or listen and answer succinctly? There are many, many factors beyond the mere resume to consider as well.
  • eagsalazar2 8y ago
    You make some good points (I agree about people refusing to do coding interviews) but I think your comments don't really fit the situation this guy is describing. I know many of the devs at my company get hit up proactively by recruiters multiple times per week! They aren't looking at all and have 1/4 the experience this guy has. Also regarding the phone screen, he isn't even getting to that point.
• master_yoda_1 8y ago
  Do you do leetcode ;)
• mark_l_watson 8y ago
  I am 67 and I have always been able to get very good consulting gigs. I took a full time job a year ago and had to accept a manager role. Your background sounds very impressive, keep trying!
• lingan 8y ago
  If you're not even getting to the phone interview, it might be ageism and/or your resume isn't written for the role you're applying to. I'm a hiring manager and all too often I get resumes from people that think listing more is better. 5, 6, 7 page resumes are exhausting to read. Write for your audience. Know the company you're applying to. Know the role you're applying for. Write addressing those points. Take it from the perspective of the reader. I have 20 resumes on my desk, I need yours to stand out. As for the ageism, take out dates. Don't need to know what year you got your degree. Don't need to know past 10 years. That should get you on the same level as everyone else for the phone interview. After that, it's a different story.
• techcode 8y ago
  Reading through your comments/replies (e.g.: "knack for listening to customer", "generalist", "can setup machines"...etc) make me think I'll be in your shoes once I reach your age... Hence I have to ask - any advice you would give to younger self? Should I focus on having some/one/few "unique selling propositions" - something I can say I'm expert in? And what would those be? Anyway back to trying to give you (and other younger folks) some answers. I've been interviewing candidates for a while. From technical phone interviews, over F2F, and now mostly so called Fit interviews. And first time I interviewed someone with CS PhD that they have since around the time I was born - I was happy to be paired with another older colleague. Not that I was scared/intimidated or felt inadequate. I was really worried about candidate getting impression we're a bunch of "teenagers" ;) So actually on that point I've got nothing for anonOver60 - other than saying to others that instead of being intimidated, you should just be yourself and there is nothing to worry about. If the candidate is good - being more experienced they'll know how to handle situation in a way that won't make you feel like 2nd class compared to them. I second the idea of different/customized CV for different roles/positions. In fact each place/position you apply for should be it's own tuned/customized veraion of generic CV..
  • anonOver60 8y ago
    The advice I've given to younger generalists like me is to force yourself to become an expert on something. That's what people are used to seeing when they are hiring. Pick something long-lasting like databases or search or machine learning.
• emmanueloga_ 8y ago
  Tangentially related, the other day I learned that Carl Sassenrath [1], 60+, according to wikipedia [2], has been working in Roku for the last 10 years. Maybe it is a good company to get in touch with? Also, I don't have hard numbers or anything but I've worked or meet people in Google and YouTube that are north of 50. There's even a nickname for them [3] ... I guess depending on your personality you can take the nickname the good or the bad way. I wanna think, good :-) 1: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-sassenrath-02699b84/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-sassenrath-02699b84/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath 3: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Greygler#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Greygler#English
• deanmoriarty 8y ago
  I know this is OT, but pardon the curiosity: are you looking for work because you have to work, or because you want to work? I assume with your impressive credentials you had a very lucrative career so far, and could more than comfortably retire?
• tinkerteller 8y ago
  C/C++ is one of the domain were 60+ year old can shine - if you had been writing code in it regularly. These are the languages that are hard and requires years of experience and bit of history of evolution.
• emmelaich 8y ago
  Don't tell them your age -- or even hint at it. It's illegal to discriminate on age in CA but if they can infer it they'll find some way to exclude you. Do interviews by phone / teleconferencing if possible.
• jbms 8y ago
  I (UK, aged 27 at the time) hired a contractor who was aged 73. We needed someone with a variety of experience to help us through a particular need, and a recruiter found him for us. He was brilliant: He knew a lot, did a lot, and still wanted to learn. He kept his skills up-to-date trying out a new technology every year for personal projects. Having contracted for years he'd been in lots of companies and that also gave a lot of variety of skills and experience. Edit: He worked 4 months for us, and we'd have kept him longer but he had plans to travel around Europe in his caravan for the summer.
• vicaya 8y ago
  Hey OP, are you still looking? My company (a well funded AI startup with SV office) is definitely looking for eng roles from senior IC to VPE. PM if you're serious (email in profile). I can at least give you specific feedback on your resume.