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Ask HN: Any job boards and age-friendly companies for older developers?

• adamqureshi 6y ago
  Im working on this: https://tryoldster.com https://tryoldster.com
• znepj 6y ago
  It's horrifying how fast the transition is between too young and too old. :( 40 years' IT experience and I don't even get a reply, let alone an interview.
• znpy 6y ago
  You might be better off applying to companies directly through linkedin. I've seen many positions that require seniority and had many colleagues even older than you.
  • jph98 6y ago
    In my experience of senior positions, they're typically ignored if you apply through Linkedin. You're better off going direct with a nice cover letter.
    • dominotw 6y ago
      > a nice cover letter. Do people seriously read cover letters. I've often debated if its worth the time ivestment.
      • theonething 6y ago
        I used to always write custom cover letters to companies I was interested in and got responses often. This time, I got lazy and started submitting applications with resume only. The response rate stayed about the same. Cover letters don't really matter for me
        • znpy 6y ago
          I see cover letters as the the same as CVs/résumés: it can be a vector of either bs or interesting content. I wouldn't write a cover letter unless the company explicitly asks me to, or unless I can add additional information that wouldn't be fit into the CV. For example, when I applied to Digital Ocean my cover letter was the correct place (in my opinion) to say that I've been a customer if theirs since 2014. For the record, they were interested until I said I would have liked to work remotely (since they bragged extensively about remote work on their careers webpage).
• janbernhart 6y ago
  This is a very difficult topic. Since discriminating on age is illegal in most countries, there aren't (much) sites/platforms where age is an actual explicit factor. Generally speaking, startups/scaleups are more inclined to hire younger folks. Older companies are more open to hire older engineers. The bypass might be, looking for companies that have a lot of engineers with 15+ years of experience. You can do so with paid LinkedIn accounts. I'm happy to help with some specific searches if you don't have a paid LinkedIn account yourself.
  • OJFord 6y ago
    You might be right that's why they don't exist, but if so I'm not sure it's well-founded. The same legislation prevents discriminating on gender, but there's no problem (that I'm aware of, and there seem to be plenty of them) with women-specific recruitment/careers things. You can't use age (resp. gender) as a factor in your decision making (bloody difficult to prove one way or the other most of the time I imagine) but that doesn't mean you can't run jobs4oldies.com or Women's Careers Day with Special Guest Sheryl McHighflyer. That doesn't mean you should, but I'm pretty sure it's not illegal (in the UK, or generally against the spirit of similar legislation). IANAL.
    • janbernhart 6y ago
      It's indeed not illegal to do so. I'm just trying to explain why most job boards/ platforms don't register/work with age. Why there are a lot of initiatives around woman in tech and not oldies in tech? I'm afraid the answer is; there's a lot of karmapoints to be won first the former, while the latter will hurt your image/brand as the next best thing where magic happens. (Not saying I agree with this or I like it, it's just what I see).
  • TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    In the US, it's only illegal to discriminate based on age of 40 or older, so it would be perfectly legal to run an ad that says "under 40 need not apply".
    • 6y ago
• ttoinou 6y ago
  What about freelancing ? It'll be more flexible
• dustingetz 6y ago
  specifically what types of companies are you applying to e.g. what size, industry?
• thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Huh. What happened to oldgeekjobs.com? ("Domain currently for sale")
  • tinodotim 6y ago
    thought I was the only one remembering it -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232 surprised nobody bought it for that price (or potentially even less).
• exdsq 6y ago
  I've worked in companies that have had numerous developers your age or higher so don't worry, you will find somewhere. One thing I'd suggest is looking at consultancies in your area where experience is important. I've heard banking tends to have a slightly higher average age too. And finally, consider contracting! A senior experienced developer can earn a good bit of money and being 45 works for you rather than against! FWIW, the consultancy I worked at that had multiple 'older' developers was https://oxfordcc.co.uk https://oxfordcc.co.uk. They did some pretty cool stuff :)
  • sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    I am based in Belgium and I was external consultant since I was 35. I am now 44 and I decided to switch to employee status at the company where I am now. They are planning to fire all consultants as their contracts expire, so it's either this or out. Money-wise, I will loose, but I like the job, and good jobs are scarce nowadays.
  • ciguy 6y ago
    I second this. I am much younger than you (Early 30s) but very old looking for my age. People regularly guess that I'm 10 years older than I am. This has only worked to my advantage in the consulting space. Companies want young naive employees who will work lots of unpaid overtime but when they hire consultants they want someone who's done the work before. There is a poise and sense of assurance that comes with age as well which you can definitely use to your advantage.
    • overqualified 6y ago
      Right until some mid-level prick wants a bonus and cuts costs, so your project is closed and contract terminated :-) Been there ... But, the good thing is that nobody can fire you from your own business. Give them a finger and use existing make, along with other binutils. Good luck and don't pay attention to arrogant idiots.
      • ciguy 6y ago
        Oh totally. You have to view consulting like running a business and be constantly looking for new clients, there is no job security at all. But if you are decent with marketing and selective with your clients it can be super fun and rewarding. It's also one of the least risky paths to starting a business if that's your thing. I ended up building a consulting agency out of it (https://startopsgroup.com https://startopsgroup.com) so it has definitely served me well.
• GoToRO 6y ago
  Try automotive.
• mping 6y ago
  Send me an email, I know a nice company that may be recruiting. Remote friendly.
• ssss11 6y ago
  How about applying to non tech industry companies... most big companies have software engineers. Ive worked in shipping/logistics/warehousing, consumer goods/manufacturing and legal all of which, in large companies, had older software engineers. (These roles werent in SV - europe and apac)
• grewil2 6y ago
  Have you tried applying for a position in a public sector IT-department? The public sector should not age-discriminate, at least in theory.
• yxhuvud 6y ago
  If you are in EU you should know enough to know that it is not a homogeneous place. Where are you located? Also, what do you have experience of? Different work places may have different sources of people to employ.
• Do4oolu5 6y ago
  Sorry to hear that. It's indeed an unfair situation and nothing is wrong with you, it's the industry that has a problem. Have you considered building your own company? That's quite a change of skills, but that's what I've seen most "older" developers do.
• BossingAround 6y ago
  Give me your email or let me know how I can contact you, we can think of something.
• jerzyt 6y ago
  The situation in EU may be different than in the US. We also have the age issue, but I think the age is a red herring. People in tech change jobs so often that nobody is hiring for lifetime employment anymore. The best people leave in 2 to 3 years, because they get bored, get better opportunities, get poached, etc. So at 45 this shouldn't be an issue at all. But it is. I think that with age people become more aware of nonsense and are more reluctant to work ridiculous number of hours per week. And this awareness is highly correlated with age, the end result is the same. Have you been looking into consulting scene, where the experience counts more?
• xavk 6y ago
  I'm one of the founders of https://otta.com https://otta.com - we're specifically focused on helping people find exciting roles at fast growing tech companies in London (but we don't include FAANGs). Anecdotally, DevOps and Reliability is definitely a space where experience is valued and, although there might be the assumption that many of these startups drink the youth cool-aid, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
• wickerman 6y ago
  Have you tried applying for banks? Most of the contractors I worked with in banking in Ireland were older, 40+ including some 60 something, all python developers. I don't know what country you live in but both the UK and Ireland have anti-discrimination laws, so they can't discriminate based on age.
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I'm 34 and I think I'm the youngest at my current employer; most of the development team is well in their 40's to 60's. The domain is mobile networking; these people used to work on things like SMS gateways and other core technology throughout the history of mobile networks, since the first technologies started to gain ground. There's a lot to do still; right now 5G is on the roadmap, but we have to provide support for 4 and 3G as well. There's a lot of domain and protocol knowledge going on here. Reliability yes, devops, not so much - our application is deployed as 'just' some RPM packages on physical hardware.
  • chooseaname 6y ago
    I think a lot of HN lean more towards SV web dev type stuff. But there's a world of software development out there beyond that. I work in the transportation industry and there's a lot of cool things I get to work with (my SO doesn't think it's cool that our office has antenna and sensors and things that go beep randomly, though). Even being remote doesn't matter (I've been remote for half a decade), they ship me the equipment I need.
    • theonething 6y ago
      That sounds so cool. I would love to learn more about that space. If you're willing to connect, email's in my profile
    • nonines 6y ago
      Same here. I'd love to hear more.
• orwin 6y ago
  Devops and reliability will be usefull with the new DIH European initiative. My advice is looking at companies that position themselves as DIH, as they are often wiser than young startups.
  • sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    Those EU-funded projects are really not the place to be for developers. I've been in a few of them and I always ended up doing paperwork and sitting in useless meetings. Before COVID-19 one would choose to work on such projects because of travel opportunities. Why now?
• nherment 6y ago
  If you want you can reach out to me by emailing the address present at the bottom of this job offer: https://www.portchain.com/careers/611/full-stack-software-engineer/ https://www.portchain.com/careers/611/full-stack-software-en... Nevermind the actual job post :) We're based in DK and looking for remote employees.
  • andarleen 6y ago
    Not OP but I always found it odd that danish companies don’t post salaries in job ads. Just an observation vs the UK where it is common practice. Wondering if it’s one of the reasons, along with tax, salaries are so much lower in that country. Either way very kind of you to help OP, I highly recommend denmark as a country and culture.
    • cpach 6y ago
      Same thing in Sweden. Does US employers post the salaries in the ads?
      • lotsofpulp 6y ago
        Generally, the US does not. If they do for a higher paying position, I would find it weird and/or a sign that they aren’t open to negotiation, which I would take to mean they aren’t competitive (but that means you also have to be desirable enough to have options).
      • andarleen 6y ago
        Not sure about the US, they do in the UK tho. I usually don't consider ads without pay info.
• onion2k 6y ago
  They won't spit it out directly of course but people talk and what they say is that I need to be stellar or young to be hired. Companies won't invest in me the slightest bit, so the moment I miss a question in the long interview process I'm out of the door without second thought. You're saying is that you're not a good fit technically and would need some investment in terms of either time or training, and companies are choosing not to go with that option. Why is that ageism?
  • brooklyn_ashey 6y ago
    It is ageism when a company would hire a 25 year old with the same skill set but would’t hire the 45 year old in those circumstances (or insert anyone in a protected class). The point is, they arehappy to invest in young ppl but not so-called “older” ones. The only way around this is collective action that includes the young- other industries have unionized and sued again and again w class actions to protect themselves and their futures. It’s how discrimination became “illegal”
    • onion2k 6y ago
      The point is, they arehappy to invest in young ppl but not so-called “older” ones. The OP didn't say that they are. He only said they're not willing to invest in him. Based on the limited data in what was posted companies aren't hiring him for roles he isn't qualified for, and they are hiring younger people. That's his evidence for ageism. Maybe he's right. Maybe the younger people just don't need that investment. The point here is that the OP has literally said he's being rejected for roles he can't do. That changes what advice he should be getting considerably. He's trying to fix the problem he wants (being discriminated against) instead of the problem he has (applying for roles he's not going to get). I have no doubt ageism is a huge problem. I'm 43, and I've experienced it. One company was quite open that I was rejected because I wouldn't be a good fit culturally despite being the most experienced candidate. I don't think that's the case here though.
      • nonines 6y ago
        That is not what I said. That is what you understood. In any case my experience up to now is being rejected with no good reasons (at least IMO) relatively far in the game. If you are looking for reasons to reject someone it is easy to find them as you surely know. From other sources I learned that my (older) age is working against me in this game. How much so I do not know. Thus my questions.
• Grustaf 6y ago
  I'm 42 in Scandinavia and have never felt that companies care about age, I've been working both for tiny startups and a FAANG. Maybe you're in the wrong EU country?
  • jeltz 6y ago
    Another anecdote: when my dad was laid off at 65 he managed to get multiple offers without too much effort here in Sweden.
• andarleen 6y ago
  What country are you in? Afaik in the UK you shouldnt have issues. When I was a head of dev I personally NEVER discriminated based on age (or other reasons such as race, gender, region, etc for that matter), and neither have others i know nor have i heard people raising this issue.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • dominotw 6y ago
    unconscious bias is by definition unconscious.
• bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  My experience is that once I hit a certain age, and salary, almost nobody wanted to hire me full time but lots of people wanted to hire me to consult. General rule: Make sure you take at least 2 times as much per hour when you consult.
• vmlinuz 6y ago
  I'm a similar sort of age, and having trouble finding something this year - not that this year isn't a terrible time to be looking for anyone, of course. I was actually the oldest engineer in my previous place, out of over 70. I seem to have found myself in a couple of catch-22 situations - I have both wide/shallow experience and narrow/deep, but if I'm looking for senior positions that means mostly only the deep experience counts, which means I've got narrow skills. I'm also a Brit based in Hong Kong, who doesn't speak Cantonese - not a huge barrier, generally, but it just further narrows my opportunities. I've actually had a couple of people this week ask if I'd be interested in something remote for a North American company, but working at least partly in their timezone, which doesn't really seem sensible, given it would mean destroying my social life and/or sleep... I'm recently mostly a backend web/API dev working in PHP and Python/Django, but I've done Unix kernel work, written a few Android apps, and a few other random things. I've worked in large companies, in a local unicorn, and as a solo freelancer. I'm not necessarily sure it's age itself that's a problem, but maybe a combination of factors where age is part of the cause/effect chain? To be clear, as well as my thoughts, this is also a "hire me, please?" post!
• slmkbh 6y ago
  In my company (DK Based), the youngest SW dev(not based in India) is 38, so the companies are out there. I'm one of the youngest HW engineers at 35. My guess is that we average close to 50 in R&D. Granted, we are in Medical Devices, so young gun speed is not our thing, but still.
• mathattack 6y ago
  Look for bosses 40 and over who will appreciate the experience.
• eafkuor 6y ago
  You could try Atlassian, even though in the EU they only have an office in Amsterdam
• chooseaname 6y ago
  This is my perspective from the US. I think it depends on the industry. Two industries I've been in that don't care what age you are; Transportation and Healthcare. There are interesting jobs in both depending on what your interests are. I'm near 50 now and nobody is ushering me out the door yet. I do think that as you get older people expect more of you. You need to understand the business and be able to provide solutions to real business problems. You'll be in contact more often with upper management/CTO and you need to be on point.
• epc 6y ago
  No great advice other than to look for tech roles in non–tech companies. The FAANG gang will never see your resume or application as their automated screeners will silently reject you. Startups will advise you that you cannot possibly understand the complexity of the problem space they are solving because no one in the history of the industry has ever tried building complex software, which is why they are writing their own version of make in two week sprints. I wish I had better advice but after seven years of trying I’ve moved on and out of the industry.
  • bogomipz 6y ago
    >"Startups will advise you that you cannot possibly understand the complexity of the problem space they are solving because no one in the history of the industry has ever tried building complex software, which is why they are writing their own version of make in two week sprints." While this is indeed a sad state of affairs your articulation of it made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that.
  • dominotw 6y ago
    > . Startups will advise you that you cannot possibly understand the complexity of the problem space they are solving because no one in the history of the industry has ever tried building complex software, which is why they are writing their own version of make in two week sprints. This describes every project here https://github.com/uber https://github.com/uber
  • mabbo 6y ago
    > The FAANG gang will never see your resume or application as their automated screeners will silently reject you I'm an interviewer at a FAANG company. I've interviewed plenty of candidates who were over 30, over 40, and never once seen anyone rejected based on age. I've worked with guys hired in their 40s, generally very solid devs. The key thing I have seen is that if you've been in the industry for 20+ years, we expect you to be at a senior level. If decades of experience doesn't make you any better than a college grad, what have you been doing for 20 years? I'd love to have a senior dev with 20 years experience join my team.
    • 6y ago
• brianmcc 6y ago
  Where in EU, and are you up for perhaps moving?
  • nonines 6y ago
    I'm currently in Ireland. Was looking to move to Germany but I interviewed in Ire quite a bit as well.
    • dirtydroog 6y ago
      I'm Irish but have been living in London for 15 years. I think about moving back occasionally but I fear about it being 'too small', and I don't particularly want to live in Dublin. I just turned 39 and this scenario is already on my mind.
• popko 6y ago
  The hiring processes I personally experienced and have some meaning to me at the same time, all favor these traits in general: 1. Enthusiastic problem-solving attitude usually in a specific platform or set of languages / tools 2. Willingness to learn new things and to discover the unknown that a candidate proactively executes by reading or trying new things 3. Ability to adapt technology-wise and ability to collaborate with different kind of people, not necessarily just "the geeks" 4. Willingness and ability to pass or share knowledge in any area Myself, I experienced it is harder for me to keep pace mainly with point 2. and 3. because I already have learned a lot (full cup so to say) and having less spare-time dedicated for such things (as I dedicate almost all my spare time to family more than before). There are also aspects directly favoring different candidates (not necessarily correlating only with age) I would like to emphasise, which unfortunately are consciously or unconsciously considered: 5. More skilled and experienced people tend to ask for more money 6. More experienced people tend to have more hard-to-change habits which may be incompatible or hard to include into the company culture / workflows / whatever else 7. Cultural differences between generations of people tend to create tensions What I recommend to you is to embrace the above points (definitely not a full list) and try to emphasise your best traits or think about how to sell them in the context of the hiring process and at the same time try to mitigate the problematic points. In general, you have a big advantage you probably do not see now - life experience and also tech experience. Younger candidates simply cannot compete with your age. I think you need to find a way how to wire your hard-obtained experience as "your output" that definitely has a value for any company. Embrace those facts and build your self-confidence on them. It may be the case that the job you apply for will be little different from what you experienced up to now - more mentoring, more leading, more advisory work, more inter-department communication (from/to tech language of the geeks) and so on. And I sincerely wish you luck.
• djtalia 6y ago
  MITRE. (www.mitre.org) When I joined at 43 the average age of the company was in the late 50's. It's dropped a bit, but not much. And I run the DevOps group in my department, so we do things that would interest you. We're strong engineers, but we value expertise over the latest buzz words. Trust me, I plan on retiring here.
  • Cilvic 6y ago
    I have a hard time understanding what MITRE is or does from their website. Wikipedia helped: >The Mitre Corporation is an American not-for-profit organization based in Bedford, Massachusetts, and McLean, Virginia. It manages federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) supporting several U.S. government agencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre_Corporation
    • chaosbutters314 6y ago
      They do non partisan research for the government. They are meant to give them the info to make decisions. They're business is primarily run on govt dollars
    • mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      FFRDC basically means military / defense / intelligence contracting.
  • rishabhd 6y ago
    Actually, I am a big fan of the work you do for CVEs, I have had the privilege of having technical discussions on security vulnerabilities and you guys seemed to know almost every trick in the book. Now that you mentioned it, I believe you guys have been imbibed with years of valuable experience, it is an absolute pleasure to interact with your team.
  • chaosbutters314 6y ago
    I second Mitre. They didn't hire me after an interview, but they're soooooooo nice and welcoming. Such a professional, nice company that does crazy futuristic science.
• godzillabrennus 6y ago
  If you were in Silicon Valley then I’d recommend https://www.careeractions.org/index.php https://www.careeractions.org/index.php It’s from a group of successful business people who help older folks find work at tech companies using insiders. FYI - if you work at a tech company consider joining to help older but qualified people find work.
• blunte 6y ago
  The age bias is real, but it may not be as big as the perception is. My current position is with a company that pushes the "youth" message very loudly; and for that reason, I ignored them until a recruiter convinced me to allow myself to be presented. During the first interview, I brought this up. The average age in the company was 28, so why would they want me? The answer surprised me: they wanted me because of my age, experiences (generalist), and wisdom. Lots of youthful, intelligent people are an asset - but so are a few veterans to provide perspective and keep a check on reality. You are just as likely to get rejected for a reason other than age, so you might as well just approach with enthusiasm any opportunity that interest you. If you don't show up to an interview angry about age discrimination, you're more likely to be accepted irrespective of your age. Lastly, remember that companies are made up of people, and people come with all sorts of mentalities. A few will indeed have a bias against people their parents' age, but I bet it's not as many people with that attitude as you might expect. The only place we really cannot compete with is on salary (unless you're willing to work at entry/medior rates). Experienced people generally cost a good bit more, and the value proposition may not be there for some candidates/situations.
  • solidasparagus 6y ago
    I agree with this. I worked at a big company that leaned very young, but that was because we couldn't find enough senior engineers, not because we didn't want them. It's important to have experienced people who can guide the young and enthusiastic away from rediscovering the lessons that experienced devs know by heart.
  • jpindar 6y ago
    >unless you're willing to work at entry rates How do you communicate that though? Isn't it considered wrong to just say it because that indicates a lack of confidence?
    • artsyca 6y ago
      Bro don't quote dollars tell them percentiles based on industry averages as published by the Robert Half Salary Guide Say like I'm willing to start at the 25th percentile for a Cloud Computing Analyst in exchange for an upward career path over the next 3-5 years or something like that
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• overqualified 6y ago
  Start your own business. Best thing to do ever. Life just starts at 45 :-)
• peterbozso 6y ago
  Have you considered freelance consulting? If you are good, nobody will care about your age, since they are not bringing you in to be truly part of their team, but to solve a hard problem they cannot on their own. Of course it doesn't fit everybody, but still an option.
• jordanpg 6y ago
  Perhaps impolitic to mention, but to the extent that it's possible, appearing younger can affect perceptions. Consider everything: clothing, haircut, facial hair, smells, and especially fitness. My intuition is that the appearance of fitness and especially "spryness" goes quite a long way in people seeing past your age. Our monkey brains are easily fooled, up to point.
  • overqualified 6y ago
    Hah, reminds me that scene from "someone likes it hot", when they are discussing shaving legs :-) Don't do that - young chicks dig older boys :-), use that advantage!
  • dirtydroog 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVp9rKF3hag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVp9rKF3hag (NSFW-ish)
• crypt1d 6y ago
  Send me your CV along with a desired rate (my email is in my profile). I can't guarantee anything but we do occasional have contractual work where age doesn't really matter (in my opinion), its all about the attitude and getting the job done. I would even consider your age an asset as you have field experience that a lot of people dont.
• greys 6y ago
  tnx for recommendation guys
• swalsh 6y ago
  I find myself biasing towards older devs. The old guys tend to trend towards reliable tech, reliable architectures. They're done playing around. They have families at home, so they want to get the work done... and go home. They do things that they know will work. They might not be using whatever the fad of the day is... and sometimes there are missed opportunties from that. But more often it means the stuff they build has less bullshit issues that comes from untested, immature technology. That said, older devs can be very stubborn. If in the interview I detect that I'm not going to be able to work well with the person. I might pass.
  • danieltillett 6y ago
    Stubbornness is the killer. The young just don’t have anything to be stubborn about, but for a manager one greybeard who knows how to cause problems by digging their heels in will make your life hell. The fact that they are probably right just adds to the pain.
    • toyg 6y ago
      > The young just don’t have anything to be stubborn about ... except that "things should be done RIGHT", "my professor would hate these hacks", "why are you using boring-tech when everyone else on the intertubes is using OMGTEKK", etc etc. I think the "stubborn" label on older men is very similar to the "bitch" label on women: whenever one meets a person who can actually fight his/her corner with calm and rationality in a way that is not easily assailable by "common feelings", it is rationalised as s/he being fundamentally unreasonable, not as my arguments being weak.
    • gedy 6y ago
      > The young just don’t have anything to be stubborn about Haha, that never stops the ones I work with. They just dig in on the exciting idea they had.
      • danieltillett 6y ago
        The young have lots of passion, but they can be distracted by the next shiny thing. Managing passion is easy compared to managing the stubbornness gained from experience.
• lproven 6y ago
  Look to the East. I applied for some 3¾ thousand jobs between 2009 (age 42) and 2013. I averaged less than one interview per year and worked 2 months full-time in that period. In 2014 I landed a role in the Czech Republic and have only voluntarily been out of work since. I am nearing the end of a 3 year contract, my 5th role over here. The former Communist bloc seems to have far less ageism than in the West. Rates of pay are lower -- I make maybe ½ what in theory this kind of role would pay in London. On the other hand, the cost of living is about ¼ so it is very much worth it.
• blockschreck 6y ago
  Ever thought about a management consulting company with a heavey it-focus? target audience: banks, insurance companies.
• S_A_P 6y ago
  I’m about your age and also didn’t get off the dev ops career path. I have found, however that it’s not all bad news. I switched to contracting about 6 years ago and have had a better year every year since. Presumably you have a lot of experience and expertise in some area and that is what you should target if you want to go that route. For me, I know myself well enough to realize that I like small disorganized businesses that need help getting tooling and process in place. Once that happens I lose a lot of interest quickly. That is often when get things done mentality and trust the people you hire is replaced by process and politics. Usually this takes 6-18 months and I know it’s time to move on. I also do project work for enterprise software which has about the same life cycle. The common thread of both types of work is that it’s temporary and I can bill a pretty high hourly rate. I don’t have to deal with most employment bs and my experience is generally respected and appreciated vs just being the old dev in a team of fresh college grads. I don’t know what the contractor experience is in the EU, but I’ve had colleagues do this in Germany and the UK so I know it happens.
  • max_effort 6y ago
    Can I ask about how you made the switch to contracting? I also look at contracting jobs but most ads only seem to want full-time staff.
    • S_A_P 6y ago
      Largely by a leap of faith. I had considered it for the 2 years prior, but it didn't really happen until I set up the business and I started pitching myself as an independent contractor. I do have a bit of a niche skill set that is somewhat regional to energy hubs so having a network helped. Also there were bumps along the road and a few times I had to tighten the belt as there wasn't much work out there. Ads will usually only care about FTE, so you will have to start with either a consulting company (and sleeve through their services agreeement) or contact people in your network. A few other tidbits I learned: - The client that wants you to cut your rate significantly is going to be your worst and most difficult. - Don't adjust your rate significantly for any "extended contract". A vendor I worked with didn't want to give me my normal rate after cutting it for a long contract. You may not get a gig for being too expensive but when the project is funded a difference of 30/hr means a lot more to you than it does to the vendor/company paying you. - There is a lot of experience to be gained if you can find multiple part time gigs. I had a lot of fun last year as I worked 3 clients about 10-15 hours per week. Lots of variety and it seems like your presence is appreciated even more than just being the 6 month contractor. - Stay in touch with your network even if you just signed a 12 month contract. Churn in business is real, so you need to know who can still hire you and who you need to meet to get hired. Pipeline management is essential to staying busy. - LinkedIn is pretty much useless for my level of contracting. I get tons of inquiries and the second I mention my rate they either laugh or think that I'm being difficult. Most of the companies that would contract you wont go through LinkedIn to find you. I always lead with my rate for those interactions as it generally ends with that and the contracting company will mostly leave me alone for a while. - Ive had to learn to say "no" a lot more. Even to paying clients. Generally I say it as something like "Anything is possible, but given time and budget constraints you cant do this. We could do alternatives such as...." - Enjoy the gaps between employment. If you put away money and dont act like you make your hourly rate you can be less than full time and not live hand to mouth. Most of the work I do is always a project that is way too large in scope for the time allotted. The stress is real(last year I billed 320 hours in a month) so enjoy when you aren't working.
• misja111 6y ago
  I'm 50, living in the EU and have switched jobs three times during the last 5 years. My extra years of working experience were seen as an advantage by most companies where I interviewed. I didn't interview at any FAANG though, maybe those are different. One tip: make sure you are good at what you do and what you will be interviewed for. Because at our age, the roles that you will be hired for will be senior roles, and the bar lies a bit higher there.
  • Lendal 6y ago
    Doing the same thing or new things? I'm 51. After 20 years in SQL and C# I'm tired of it. Last year I got myself on a Python project and I loved it. Then I got myself on a TypeScript project and I loved that even more. I imagine that if I interviewed for a Node.js job they'd probably look at me like I was nuts. They'd probably think the worst possible thoughts, as people do. After 30 years in software development, they'd think maybe I wasn't cut out for it? Like it took me 30 years to figure out what they figured out in 30 seconds of looking at my face, because they're so much "smarter". One thing you learn over 30 years working is that everyone thinks they're smarter than everyone else. Another thing you learn is that if someone is good at one programming language, they're probably also going to do well at other technologies. Since certain types of people like to do different things and not just the same thing their entire lives, HR ought to give those people a break.
    • drchopchop 6y ago
      Hmm, I'd debate your last point a bit. Being a good C++ developer involves a significantly different programming mindset than dealing with Go, or Erlang, or the React/ES6+ space. Doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be good at those as well, but it's not exactly a natural skill transition.
    • OldHand2018 6y ago
      > I imagine that if I interviewed for a Node.js job they'd probably look at me like I was nuts. Look at them like they are nuts and tell them you'll help migrate to Deno. It's a level playing field again!
    • 6y ago
• mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago
  Try large companies concerned about their public image and diversity statistics. They would sometimes hire more color/gender/age challenged people. At my last job before retirement, the manager explicitly told me, please don't quit or that will leave us with only young people of a certain race :)
  • bt4u2 6y ago
    You have to ask yourself if you really want to work for a racist company that hires based on skin color (aka affirmative action)? If you're that desperate, becoming a criminal almost seems like a more sensible choice
• scarface74 6y ago
  Not saying your situation isn’t real, but this is more of a general reply to all of the comments. I am 45 and have had no trouble getting your standard enterprise senior engineer/lead/architect roles in a major metropolitan area on the east coast of the US. After staying at one company way too long when I was 34, I’ve been able to quickly get jobs at 34, 37, 40, 43, and 44 years old. Pre-Covid, there were a few conversations I had with managers of consulting firms for full time roles as an overpriced “enterprise architect”, “solutions architect”, “digital transformation consultant” type jobs. I just wasn’t in a position to travel for family reasons until my youngest graduated. Now, actually I am targeting the three major cloud providers for an SA type position. I should be able to get into at least one of them according to my contacts. But another thing I’ve found about many older developers who scream ageism is that they haven’t stayed up to date on the latest trends and they haven’t nurtured their network.
  • nonines 6y ago
    latest trends - not an issue for me. Nurturing my network though. I might be too arrogant or proud but I think I have worked too hard to be dependent on my network for a job. I should be able to move to a nice job without any network push.
    • scarface74 6y ago
      How’s that working out for you? I can honestly say that I have never in over 25 years gotten a job based on blindly submitting my resume. My first paid development gig in 1990 was based on someone at another college reaching out to me based on some Mac shareware they found on the ftp Info Mac archives (yeah I’m that old). My first job was based on an internship I had the year before from bugging the career center at college. Every subsequent job has been based on either former coworkers recommendations or working with local external recruiters.
      • nonines 6y ago
        Well, I'm so fed up with feeling a failure after all that effort that I'm kicking my past young self in the arse for not joining the merchant-navy when I could (too old for that now too). So - no it's not going overly well(1). Yet I have had 5 jobs up to now in IT and I got them all without any network push so that probably has given me a warped view of how things actually work. (1) I have a job atm. It's mostly the prospects that fear me out.
• jason0597 6y ago
  How about upgrading to management with your many years of experience?
  • loopbit 6y ago
    Management and engineering are two different careers, so I wouldn't call it "upgrading". Having the technical chops definitely helps as a manager. And knowing what the managers expect and be able to talk their language helps as an engineer. If you reach certain level its easy to jump between them. But they require a different set of skills and the work is different. If you like it, there are a lot of rewards. If you don't, it can be soul-sucking.
  • nonines 6y ago
    No opportunities arose plus office-politics make my stomach turn. Perhaps it is my long stint in a Byzantine multinational that spoiled that path for me.
• ofcrpls 6y ago
  Look at Telcos/Semiconductor/Aeronautical industries if that's an option. They are notoriously ageist in the opposite direction and value experience far more than tech in general.
  • non-entity 6y ago
    On the other hand, dont they strongly value that experience from within the same domain?
• miblon 6y ago
  I am 49, living in the Netherlands working as a self employed devops. Keep trying. Solid companies will value your seniority. But you also need to remain flexible and invest in much needed technology knowledge. Don't give up, be confident that you have what it takes. Radiate your confidence.
• parasight 6y ago
  Where in the EU are you? I'm 43, living in Berlin and working as a software engineer. From what I can tell there is not much age bias here. Some German companies I know have an average age beyond 45 in dev teams. I even interviewed with a FAANG for a Berlin-based engineering position 2 years ago but canceled the process myself. Being over 40 did not seem to be an issue at all.
  • toyg 6y ago
    I bet it's London, the kingdom of the young cool professional.
  • nonines 6y ago
    I'm in Dublin but I'm looking to either move up to a FAANG (well that plan went the Titanic way) and/or relocate to Germany. My impression too is that German IT companies don't care so much about age but there are other handicaps for me there (e.g. not speaking German). Not much age bias in Berlin IT job market? Weird. I mostly see start-ups there. That might be interesting.
• saadalem 6y ago
  A marketplace for retired professionals to post their resume and skillset for part time work.
• mark_l_watson 6y ago
  I retired a year ago, but before retiring in 2013 I was invited to work at Google on a Knowledge Graph project and I don’t feel like there was any age discrimination. In 2017 I interviewed at Capital One for a deep learning team manager job, which I got, and I never felt like there was any real age discrimination there either. So, try those two places. I did feel like I was the target for extreme age discrimination at WikiMedia Organization. All the phone interviews went great until one was a video call and the interviewer literally started laughing when he saw me and he quickly ended the call, and their HR immediately sent me a no thank you, thanks for applying email. The same thing happened at Electronic Arts about 15 years ago. They kept calling me with invites to come up to Vancouver for an interview. Three of people, when they saw me and realized that I was in my 50s, they literally started to laugh. So, I would say to stick with quality companies and you will have better results.
  • scambier 6y ago
    > the interviewer literally started laughing when he saw me and he quickly ended the call Wow. I have a hard time imagining being an interviewer and literally laughing at the face of a candidate before he even said anything. Unless he's dressed as a clown or something...
    • mark_l_watson 6y ago
      It was disappointing. But such is life and I would not have had the experiences of working for other companies if they had hired me. In Latin “Amor Fati” means to love your fate. Accept what happens and move on.
      • sizzle 6y ago
        Love this mindset, hope you get something worthwhile friend.
    • ryandrake 6y ago
      I wonder if they would dare do this in a face to face context, or does the videoconference medium enable this extreme antisocial behavior? I've never ever considered laughing at a candidate face to face or for that matter even politely ending an interview early. Don't all companies give potential interviewers at least basic training that shows them what things you shouldn't do on an interview?
• Unklejoe 6y ago
  Come to the defense industry. If anything, the age bias is the other way around, and contrary to popular belief, there are some very cool cutting edge projects.
  • blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Yeah but you have to work for the military, with all of the ethical conundrums that brings. Plus you usually need citizenship and a clearance.
• drchopchop 6y ago
  40+ here. There is definitely unconscious age-ism going on, and if you want to beat it: * If you have 20 years of experience in the software industry, let's be real, you kinda need to be at a senior/lead level (whether IC or manager track). If you're not, then people are going to wonder why you aren't, and whether you're stuck reliving the old days * Decades of experience in C/Java is not going to work at a React shop. Either learn (and be opinionated about!) frameworks built in the last 5 years, or stick to somewhere within your expertise * Don't make yourself appear ancient on your resume, but don't lie either. If you got a degree in the 90's then it should be apparent from reading your resume, and if they want to discriminate they'll do so right from the start and not waste your time. * Avoid the "grumpy old programmer" stereotype at all costs. Instead, you want to be the "bad-ass wizard" that people need to solve hard problems, and people want Gandalf, not Saruman
  • Lendal 6y ago
    Are there people who only want to spend their lives doing the same thing every day? Decades of experience in C and Java ought to work just fine for someone who wants to try something new, like React. I learned React after decades of experience in other things, and I loved it. I don't see why it should matter what I did in the past. Was I successful? Did I enjoy it? Will I come to work every day energized and ready to work on new things? Those are the things that matter.
    • drchopchop 6y ago
      Well, I spent years doing C, then Java, and now I'm a CTO at a tech company that's a React/Typescript/Ruby shop. However, I needed to sit down and spend the time to actually learn those technologies. What you don't want is to interview for a React job with only a cursory/tutorial knowledge of it, and try to fall back to "well I'm an expert at 10 other languages, it's all easy". A lot of companies are looking for that expertise now, not to spend 6 months training you on the job, especially at a big salary and title.
      • vonmoltke 6y ago
• mnishizawa 6y ago
  Not saying this is the case for you, but a lot of being older and more experienced is also the fact that you are usually more expensive. The young up-and-comers are cheaper, often come with more bluster but are also less jaded... for lack of a better word. People like to feel like they are coming up with something new. They don't like the old guy in the corner saying, "Oh, that's just like X, I was doing that 30 years ago". Also, many smaller companies, especially startups, bias toward action. They like seeing people produce code. Experienced developers usually like to make smaller changes that don't produce a lot of code and sometimes end up deleting more code than you add. I finish just as many tasks/cards as anyone else, but my LoC is not even close to my younger peers. So when I have a big number + I don't have a large, quantifiable amount of code being produced + I tend to sound "pessimistic" even though I say something isn't going to work based upon experience... I can understand why that would be hard to justify. Even though the experience can prevent them from making very costly mistakes that other people have already failed at.
  • ikeyany 6y ago
    Not only are younger people cheaper ("We can't pay your bonus with money, but we can pay you in warm labels like rockstar and ninja."), they make less noise when you squeeze them. If you pull a fast one on a younger person ("Can you come in this weekend? It will only be a temporary thing."), they are more likely to believe you.
    • blaser-waffle 6y ago
      They also don't have any excuses in the way that kids / pets / aging relatives push older workers to get out of the office. It's 5pm and I need to pick my kids up from practice -- so I'm out.
      • ikeyany 6y ago
        Even then, older people are less inclined to need an excuse to go home and do other things like hobbies; they're more likely to value work-life balance in general.
• travisgriggs 6y ago
  My experience is anecdotal and second hand. I've seen it twice now. It began with a friend who was in the job market as a 50+. More on the hardware side. This guy has some cool experience. He gets lots of interviews, they go well, but no offers. As his frustration grows, he grows desperate to try something different. He dyes some color back into his hair, gets some tinted glasses, and lets his daughter take him shopping for some more hip interview clothes. A month later and he's in bidding wars for who to hire him. He said the difference was night and day. He was now pointing out his age in interviews "are you sure I'm not too old?" and the interviewers were like "no way man." I wondered how one off this was. A year or so later, knew another guy who was having this same struggle. We shared the story with him. He raised his eyebrows, hesitated for a week or two, the colored his hair, got his niece to take him shopping. And pretty much same thing. Obviously, this is a small sample set. But the lesson I took from this (and haven't had a chance to prove for myself yet) is that it's not your age that will limit you, but your apparent age. If you are old, but look like a younger/fresher version of yourself, you do well. If you appear "old", you struggle. Best of luck.
  • drchopchop 6y ago
    100% agree, it's not the physical age so much as it's the perception of age (and all the framing/baggage that comes with it). Note: this also applies to personality - if you give off a "grumpy old person" vibe, or are far off the mark culture-wise, you're gonna have a rough time.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • marcus_holmes 6y ago
      I'm over 50, and this is the killer. Not only for others, but also to avoid personally. It's very, very easy to get into a "grumpy old fart" mindset, where anything new or changing is dismissed out of hand. I've had to fight hard to stop this from happening, and it's still my first response to anything new. Having said that, there are sometimes good reasons for dismissing something new. But only after taking the time to understand it and why everything else thinks this is cool. If I'm interviewing a 50+ for a job, I want to see evidence that they haven't fallen into Grumpy Old Fart syndrome. The converse is also true - if I'm interviewing someone younger, I want to see evidence that they're not caught up in tech fads. Too many times I've seen good tech thrown away because it's not in the hip-and-happening language/framework/platform/etc. And there's a lot to learn from the mistakes of the past ;) And having some idiot kid explain to me why Mongo is soo awesome and SQL is obsolete gets tiring fast [0]. But to be honest, I'd be worried if I had to interview for a role. It'd be a sign that my network wasn't where I'd like it to be. Keeping that up to date is as valuable as keeping the tech skills sharp. [0] example at random cough
• alkonaut 6y ago
  I keep getting more and more recruiter spam the older I get (41). This probably relates to e.g. how many linkedin contacts have etc, but I make a point of not accepting invitations by people I don't know such as recruiters. If you are interviewing and they think 45 is "too old" then there is a risk that everyone there is 30 or younger so you might not want to work there anyway (I wouldn't). If you find a company that's at least 30 years old, and has an average retention of over 10 years - then that company is probably a nice place to work, and has old people too (because even 30year olds are 40 once they worked there 10 yearrs).
• nybblesio 6y ago
  I've been programming since 1979. So long that "programmer" has become an integral part of my identity. I don't think I'll ever stop producing software. However, starting around 2016, finding work started to become difficult. The work I did find was no longer enjoyable. It took a few years, but I finally did enough self introspection to realize: it's not them, it's me. I aged out of the industry. I didn't notice it in the moment, it just happened. I cannot work in open-office fishbowls. I cannot stomach Agile process and how it has turned something I love into menial factory work (N.B. I get it, your [A|a]gile shop is awesome. I only had such luck once). There are many more things about modern software development shops with which I disagree. Now, it hadn't occurred to me until later that this was showing through in my attitude. Of course, I really did not want to work on the 500th BBA in my career with six Scrumm Masters all demanding 30 minute meetings every morning. I did not want to write more JavaScript or deal with yet another hotness-of-the-week library that does the same thing as the previous 10 such beasts. I did not want to play Schedule Chicken yet again. Is it my age? Sure, people change. I'm not bored with the programming I enjoy but I did grow bored of modern corporate software slave shops. Hey, more power to them. It's their shop; they can do what they want. However, it does mean I have to move on. I'm not saying any of this is true for the OP. Just something to ponder if you're constantly facing rejection.
  • ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Damn, from personal experience I echo your feelings about modern SW development bullshit and I'm 30 years old, though I ground my teeth on embedded SW which is more conservative. I don't think I can make it to retirement at this rate.
    • nybblesio 6y ago
      First, I had to wrap my head around something very simple: who one is (I am a software engineer) and what one does to acquire currency are orthogonal. This is simultaneously obvious and difficult to accept in modern western culture. I admit this took me a few years to digest. Next, I had to honestly explore other aspects of myself. What else held interest for me besides electronics and software? Further, of these other interests, which of them were reasonably "safe" from outsourcing, offshoring, and automation? I do not want to transition into new currency acquisition activities that are themselves a race to the bottom. Tangentially, I considered the perceived prestige of each of these. I could give two shits personally, but I've learned the hard way that the perceived prestige of an activity impacts how others will treat you. Finally -- as I am a software engineer -- how can I use this skill to augment my effectiveness in performing any of these new activities? This is an ongoing process for me. I've always had an interest in the law. Law school is out of the question, so I've looked into paralegal work and how I could provide a unique service in this space. Additionally, there are mundane dirty jobs -- specialized trash hauling, electronic recycle brokering, etc. -- that are poorly serviced in many localities. I believe I'll end up doing something here as well. I view this transition as open ended. It's no longer about "career" but staying in a lateral thinking mode about combinations of possibilities.
• taffronaut 6y ago
  I changed jobs when I was over 50 and it was certainly tough. Hiring via the front door process didn't work for me. My best performances were typified by (i) the recruiter would push me as a good fit for a difficult-to-fill (ugly even) role because I had maturity and gravitas as well as technical skills, (ii) the shop had grey heads/beards already, (iii) I was known and vouched for by someone already on the inside.
• netcan 6y ago
  One thing to note is that "front door" recruitment is generally more youth oriented than back channels. Most people apply for jobs out of college. As they age (a) they tend to switch jobs less often and (b) they have accumulated former colleagues, clients and such that can open back-channels. Work back channels if you can. Otherwise, just keep in mind that the youth bias you experience at the front door is worse than the actual bias. For practical advice, I suggest you search outside of the software industry... companies that make their money mostly from software. Most jobs are actually in other industries, and I think they're less youth biased. An "app factory" probably hires very young, mostly
• cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Why do you say FAANGs aren't right? I'm 45, work for Google, and while the median age is lower than me there are lots and lots of people my age or older around, and many of them are newer hires. I don't particularly like working in a BigCorp, and it's tough to feel like you're ever actually getting anything _done_, but at least I'm not having some 28 year old 'manager' demanding I work weekends and rewiting to use his/her favourite new web framework... I personally would love to do something else now, and go back to having programming being my passion/hobby instead, but I don't think I can walk away from the money. And yes, the age bias is real. I hadn't interviewed in 10 years but did so recently and while I am not visually old, my resume certainly shows it, and I could feel the bullsh*t from the younger developers in the interview.
  • nonines 6y ago
    Well I was judging by the results mostly. Got the cold shoulder deep in the hiring process from a lot of them. I totally agree with the sentiment about the tech trends. It's particularly evident in anything frontend which is why I mostly focus on backends and reliability.
    • cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      Keep trying with Google. And you might have better luck applying as an SRE than a SWE. SRE job description is pretty serious engineering at Google.
    • wyclif 6y ago
      This is a good point that I'd like to see someone with experience expand on, maybe in a blog post: why backend or DevOps is better for older devs than front end. My TL;DR version would be that front end, especially JS, is a fast moving target. Backend dev is based more on time tested and reliable platforms that incentivize solid framework and design choices.
      • nonines 6y ago
        Yes, backend seems to be a little slower paced. With the notable exception of cloud-native platforms, especially kubernetes ecosystem where seems to be one new framework every week.
• dvtrn 6y ago
  In this thread: an uncomfortable amount of straight up denial right in the faces of people expressing the affects they've felt of age discrimination. What do the deniers get from denying any experience other than their own experience as 'untrue' or 'doesn't happen', I wonder.
• JackFr 6y ago
  1) Don't give up. 2) Try boring industries banks, insurance, local govt. 3) Be excellent at something and pretty good at everything else. 4) OK to be opinionated about tech, but more important to be current. It may be a straight Java shop, but you should know what Clojure and Kotlin are if your a Java guy who's current. 5) Maintain your personal & professional networks. 6) Although it's very hard, try to remain upbeat. Enter every interview with the attitude that the interviewer is a friend who wants you to succeed. Good luck. Its hard but doable. (53 yo who just started a new role)
• DelaneyM 6y ago
  Independent of age, there are a number of areas in tech which are heavily biased towards experience and perspective (usually correlated with age), particularly in SRE/DevOps. I know we're struggling to find folks in EU with that kind of background - DM me for the specific positions, or consider areas where your experience is a tremendous asset.
• tarsinge 6y ago
  I'm a bit younger and it may not be the only solution but the one that worked for me was to stop positioning myself and competing for a pure SW dev role altogether. In my opinion one of the key strength you get with experience is perspective on solving problem efficiently in a no bullshit way, and more importantly in the business context. There is a limit on how much value a developer can bring by working on assigned stories and tickets, and experience after a few years plateau (and age discrimination start to kick in), but go higher in the chain and suddenly you experience becomes very valuable. I don't know how it is at FANNGs but even there are huge architecture decisions really made by young developers? Most companies burn millions on poorly driven software projects, with layers of useless abstractions and accidental complexity. Execs love when you bring them a working solution no matter how you did it, e.g. the dashboard they are dreaming of all the while the official team and the consulting company that is costing $$$ are stuck in their big-data/blockchain/whatever grandiose project. So I would look either expert small shops, or consulting companies with a career track for experts. Anecdotal but you can have a better time in a consulting company as "the guru" moving from projects to projects every few months than stuck in a mono product company for years.
• xtracto 6y ago
  And yet here I am trying to find an experienced Sr DevOps engineer in Mexico...
• tharne 6y ago
  I work in the financial services industry (insurance), and so far I've found it to be very friendly to older developers. Sure, it's not the sexiest work, but you're working on real products that people want or need. I would recommend looking at insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions.
• remote_phone 6y ago
  I’m almost 50. I haven’t stopped getting calls from companies across the board. I’m not worried as long as I keep up my skills and can be useful to the company that I talk to.
• HorizonXP 6y ago
  I can’t find your contact info in your profile, but I am looking for DevOps help right now. We should chat.
• throwaway_sun 6y ago
  One possible factor when interviewing an experienced developer: how will they share their experience? Some people want to lecture, but many people do not want to be lectured at. I once worked with someone who explained to me every day -- and in great detail -- all of the problems that my technical decisions would cause. He wasn't wrong, but it was still a demoralizing experience. But at least he was only criticizing my decisions, and not my right to make them. In the same way that an older dev does not want to be perceived as incapable of learning new things, a younger dev does not want to be perceived as cavalier or irresponsible, and I have absolutely seen talented people discounted solely because they haven't held a particular title for enough years. People are complicated, and we make a lot of assumptions about each other that we don't want others to make about ourselves.
• ksec 6y ago
  Slightly Off Topic: As someone who dont work in Silicon Valley. ( Edit: Opps it seems it is in EU as well ) Why ageism? Even assuming you start developing professionally in 20, you would need to be at least 30 - 35 before you finally understand, everything you believe in so strongly in your past 10 - 20 years were possibly a FAD and had finally witness the industry moving from one FAD to another and start ignoring hype. You would finally understand most code you once thought were short, concise and clever, and others that once were long, boring, over the top stupid code are actually the better code. You would have learned KISS not because you love it, but you would have hopefully understand this because it has been burnt deep into your memory. And that Not doing something, or inaction, is possibly the best action. Seriously I would have thought developers only start to become productive post 30+. And 40+ is still in their prime. I understand people older don't like working long hours. But working hours have absolutely nothing to do with productivity. Especially in software development.
  • toyg 6y ago
    Long hours are not the only way to exploit the naivety of youth. In fact, more likely than not and particularly in Europe, the critical element is usually pay. Older guys will have a family and an expensive lifestyle to support, they might have seen how much higher-ups take home, they might have been burnt in the past... so they will typically have higher demands for compensation. Also, the young are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to corporate bullshit. Case in point: my first reaction nowadays, any time an exec calls for a "all-hands meeting" is, we're going to get shafted or even fired, the company must be in trouble, someone high-up needs more cashflow to go in their pockets and not ours... And maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong, but the point is, I'm not going to drink any koolaid. Younger folks struggle to understand this attitude, and I don't blame them, because they lack the necessary experience and trauma.
  • lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
    I think a lot of what gets seen as ageism is push back against the explosion of "software developers" (i use this term very loosly) that cropped up during the dot com boom. Especially in industries that aren't purely tech (finance, healthcare) a lot of really terrible developers have found lasting success just riding on percieved experience. After enough time interviewing these sorts of folks it takes effort not to form biases or let them precolor your experience with new candidates. Believing the that experience implies wisdom can be a trap. It's very possible to have been coding 30+ years (and even find career success) now and still have a host of bad habits further amplified by an entitlement now fueled by a career of false assumptions of self competence. In my experience the distribution of talented developers tends to be bimodal at all ages it's just the older ones stand out more because they should know better. Also as mentioned else where in the thread, the best developers build up network so they tend to self select out of bad deal start ups and the normal hiring processes so you're not even sampling randomly from the population if you're just doing open hiring.
• Tade0 6y ago
  I suggest Roche or Pharmaceutical companies in general. During my time in Roche (through a consultancy) at 29 I was one of the youngest on board.
• metalforever 6y ago
  I work at a healthcare nonprofit as a developer and we have a lot of developers in their 40s and 50s. I would suggest less trendy places and more “get stuff done” places.
• gwbas1c 6y ago
  I'm 39: I recently interviewed at a FAANG and almost every engineer who I interviewed with was visibly older than me. I was afraid that I was too young for the job! Ironically, I've had age discrimination go the other way. In my early 30s I looked like I was in my mid-20s, and I had to push for pay in line with my experience. I still get carded when I buy beer.
• racl101 6y ago
  It's times like this I'm glad I have an oily face. I'm 38 years old but people think I'm 24. I guess an oily face helps keeps wrinkles at bay. But also, let's not forget how important it is to get sleep.
• gldev3 6y ago
  This is something im very afraid of, i feel like as i get older my oportunities of finding new places gets shorter and shorter, how do you people deal with this? Personally i have had the chance of working with older devs (50+) and it was awesome.
• craftinator 6y ago
  Interestingly, I've been hitting the age bias from the other end. I mostly work with factories and NDT companies, retrofitting old CNC systems. I have a hard time getting work at certain types of companies because they think that I "look too young" to be experienced enough to work with their systems; granted, I do look pretty young for my age. It's kind of funny to hear it coming from the other side, but I imagine at a lot of pure-software companies, the age biased is reversed from what I've experienced.
• groby_b 6y ago
  Where does your idea come from that FAANGs aren't right? I'm 50, doing fine at a FAANG. My team has a good chunk of 40+ people on it as well. I see a good number of 40+ people on other teams, too. I get regular pings from other FAANGs about recruiting. So, def. try for FAANGs. Just invest a couple of weeks into prepping for the interview process. Yes, it's stupid, but "behold my algorithmic chops" is what they want to see, so you cram algorithmic chops.
• mr-developer 6y ago
  Reminds me of Creed from Office (US) coloring his hair black with printer ink to look young !
• yters 6y ago
  What about self identifying as a 20 year old? Not entirely facetious, I saw someone in Europe took such a case to court, so he could self indentify as younger on dating apps.
• d33lio 6y ago
  I'm 25 and bald (not by choice by genetics haha - I don't really mind it at this point). Oddly I think this has gotten me hired as a "diversity" hire, even though I'm a white male. I've only had one experience at a "cool" media startup in LA where I think I was passed up because I wasn't "cool" enough - PM if you want the name of the startup. But LA sucks, so who cares! I do worry about my looks as I get older in terms of work, but tbh I'm already pretty average or ugly looking anyways. If anything, this post has given me more energy to dump into my side-hustles in order to avoid having to deal with this shit at all. Anyone else who's bald at a young age get discriminated in interviews?
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• ssdevda 6y ago
  Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon experience, you are not alone. This isn't a plug, it is something I am passionate about. The company I co-founded (restless.co.uk) is working really hard to change perception and age discrimination across the entire employment market in the UK. Many of our members have similar stories to yours, although we are largely aimed at 50+, we hear the same from 45+ too. Sadly I don't think this is something that will change overnight, changing societal opinions is never easy and takes persistence, which we are committed to. We are engaging with our membership base and listening to their experiences in order to better educate employers on the importance of an age-diverse workforce and how to ensure that's happening for them. We are making an impact but as you have seen there is a long way to go! I know that doesn't help you right now, I'm sorry. However, we do write a lot of content in this space that may help, restless.co.uk/career-advice/. We're always keen to hear feedback, so drop us an email if you have any. Incidentally, I am the CTO at Rest Less, and my first hire was a 58-year-old software engineer so I hope that gives you a boost. Although we're not looking for someone in your specific area of expertise at the moment I'd be interested in having a conversation, please reach out if that's something you'd be interested in doing. Personally, and this is obviously my own opinion, I don't think you should be looking to change career if it's something you enjoy. Best of luck.
• psmithsfhn 6y ago
  I got a job after 18 months of looking I'm doing some bullshit specialty software i hate but that I happen to know pretty well The lesson there, to me, is think about specializing. Why? Because...why not? Outside of that My advice to older folks looking for IT work is It is not going to happen -- think about stocking shelves or anything you can Once you come to terms with the situation, then you can get real about what is really required to get a job A miracle and tons of hard work of the type you don't want to do I've seen lots of good advice on here that I think is pretty good Like Look younger Act younger Dress younger Be younger Reach out on LinkedIn and other places -- it won't help but I think it is important to check the boxes -- it's a pretty good way to quickly get to rock bottom shame or shamelessness -- completely remove your ego from the equation Even busted my ass for an AWS cert -- worthless I've started losing weight and people are noticing I figure each 10 lbs you lose takes off a year or two of age What would I do if I got shitcanned tomorrow? I would probably become an 'out' specialist in this particular software I know I _hate_ this gd software But a job is a job There have also been sites that claimed to specialize in helping to hire older workers I figure it was just a scam but I would also check it out I did occasionally get play from startups that I was actually interested in -- by writing authentic-ish notes of interest But yeah nobody but the 1%ers are getting jobs in this market And that is some weird mix of the geniuses, connected, etc. Nobody else getting hired -- I don't care if you are 25 yo or 75 yo -- not happening
  • nonines 6y ago
    >> But yeah nobody but the 1%ers are getting jobs in this market You mean the current and looming crisis or the IT job market in general. >> Even busted my ass for an AWS cert -- worthless Thought about that too but then occurred to me that I'd also need to go for a K8S one and perhaps one of the security ones and ... this never ends whilst I might land in a job where I just need to know bash and basic python. (Also these certs seem to offer little basic knowledge and a lot of shopping-list-like details.
• wbsun 6y ago
  Hmm, DevOps+Reliability experience, I am surprised Google is the wrong door. Did you try SRE role at Google London or Zurich office? I can help forward the resume if you'd give G a chance. Contact me at <my HN username> AT google.com. Edit: can't represent all Googlers but people I know and have worked with (including the SREs in EU offices) don't give a sh*t on how fancy/normal/bad you look or wear.
• lowbloodsugar 6y ago
  Interviewed at Amazon three times before getting hired. Last time I was older than you. Got into a great team, in an incredibly important part of AWS. You can apply every six months. Thing of each attempt as an opportunity to learn.
  • nonines 6y ago
    TBH I kind-of self sabotaged my Amazon interviews as I was terrified by what I was reading about working conditions there in Glassdoor. Half of my brain was pulling me out the whole time.
• 2rsf 6y ago
  Another anecdotal case here, I am based in Sweden and around your age, I didn't have any problem finding new jobs in the last years. Same for many of my colleagues around the same age when our local office was closed. I mainly used Linkedin and a few connections, but i doubt if it matters. The only exception I have seen is for cookie cutter type of developers, it is easy to prefer young unmarried ones if they have the exact same qualifications as you.
• mcv 6y ago
  My impression has always been that the EU is much less ageist about this than Silicon Valley. I have no problem finding anything, and I'm 46. My brother is 48 and has recently switched jobs a few times after being with the same employer for 25 years. Of course it helps if you have more experience than a young developer, and you know how to apply that experience. And you should always stay up to date with new developments. Although there are tons of companies still working with older systems. Also, developer salaries in the EU are often terrible. My income has gone up quite a lot since I became a freelancer. I'm currently considering becoming an employee of a client (because I want to continue working on the project and they have rules about how long they can hire a freelancer), but I'm encountering a lot of resistance negotiating the pay I think I'm worth. My approach as a freelancer has been very simple: My CV is on Linkedin, and recruiters find me there. In the distant past when I had regular jobs, I tended to find them mostly through Monster and CVBank (Netherland). Or sometimes a recruiter; Linkedin is still useful.
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• sys_64738 6y ago
  A lot of startups want just young people as they don't have families, don't know any better, and will burn out after a few years. Do you really want to work there? Same with an inherently young demographic at a company. My last place I was one of the older ones in a very young crowd who liked to hit the bars after work. Not my scene any more. I prefer to be the younger person in an older work environment.