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Ask HN: How do I over ageism in tech?
I live and have worked in silicon valley, but have been unemployed since March 2020. I had a few consulting gigs here and there but nothing that pays enough to sustain life here. I have two kids who live in the area with their mother, otherwise I'd move away.
My problem is even with 25 years experience ( removed the first 15 from my resume)...I keep getting denied offers. I work with js for 10 years now, used all the modern frameworks. I don't know what else to do. It seems all the bootcamps have flooded the js market with younger people.
I know I should be a staff or architect by now, but those positions rarely exist from what I've seen for FE. Also I am self taught so when I get the FAANG style "hard core" coding challenges I usually screw up. But even when someone talks to me on the phone they pass. Not even a tech screen.
Today I just got passed up saying they wanted someone with more experience working on teams. smh
I'm 46 btw, and am thinking of a career switch. What career should I persue?
- anigbrowl 6y agoBuild your own project, or if you can't do all that make a fancy tech demo, post it here, and answer questions about it.
- chovybizzass 6y agoYou can see my github at https://github.com/profullstack https://github.com/profullstack upvotocracy is a reddit clone I'm worked on with another developer. We are in the process of re-designing the FE.
- anigbrowl 6y agoThat looks quite interesting, though I was confused when I clicked on the upvotcracy-ui thing and the readme was about something called Sapper. I think your projects could definitely benefit from some brief 'what is this and why should I care' documentation. I'm intrigued by the 'zero moderation' claim but see nothing to explain how that works from a quick look. While I'm not an investor or entrepreneur myself, there seem to be a lot of promising projects here, if you can refocus slightly articulate the concept to people other than developers. Best of luck.
- chovybizzass 6y agothere's an instance running at https://upvotocracy.com https://upvotocracy.com
- anigbrowl 6y agoThat's great. But you do need to put that prominently on your Github page. And you need an 'About' on the site itself, that explains to me what makes it different and does a better job. When I am looking for something that solves a particular problem and stumble across it, or something similar, I eagerly put in the time to figure it out. But when someone else (eg you) asks me to pay attention to A Thing, I need its merits explained to me up front, because I have no prior incentive to invest time in figuring it out. I don't know if this has had any bearing on your career stuff mentioned in the OP, but one thing I learned getting older is that asking someone to invest time in evaluating your work has a cost for them, so you need to offer some clear benefit up front. You may know your work is good, but they don't. Think of it like a buried treasure map; you need to emphasize the treasure part in order to get them to look at the map.
- radi8 6y agoIf you’re getting interviews but no offers try changing how you interview. Keep your answers short and always connect to business value. Say, “For example...” a lot. Also, if you think they are making biased decisions from the video, tell them you keep video off until after you can meet in person.
- chovybizzass 6y agoI've been turning my video off lately. It actually seems to go better when I do. Maybe I'm that ugly.
- mech422 6y agoI _am_ that ugly, and don't do video...period I just say I don't have a camera, but I have a headset and so far, no-one has complained.
- chovybizzass 6y agoNice will do.
- spirodonfl 6y agoI'm catching up to you in terms of age and experience. Also self taught and hate the FAANG style code stuff because I just think it's not properly representative of real life, most of the time. I am also easily looked over for what seems like ageist or other reasons. I have not been able to fully overcome it. Even my own projects don't overcome this.
- chovybizzass 6y agoSame.
- mech422 6y ago>>It seems all the bootcamps have flooded the js market with younger people. This might be a bigger issue then your age. I'm almost 10 years older then you, got laid off in July and rehired in November. No-one seemed concerned about my age. But, I'm in Cloud Architecture and DevOps - which has a real shortage of people atm. (Or seems to judging by all the recruiters on LinkedIn) If you're not getting to a tech screen - maybe you could do some mock interviews with a coach? With your experience you should be getting at least that far.
- mech422 6y agoYou might want to beef up your 'summary' section with any achievements, special skills, etc. with 25 years exp, I'm assuming you're going to be more expensive then an entry level person. Use that section to highlight why you're worth the money. Business case stuff is always good: reduced costs by X at company Y, or implemented XX which increased revenue, implemented scalable X that allowed us to grow to Y. Soft skills like mentoring, communications, customer focus, etc. are good as well. You have some good stuff in the experience section, but I have to hunt to find it. Put some of the best bits of that in the summary, to get me 'hooked'. Like: "Experienced in IOS and Android application design and implementation" "Built base app and API modules for company later acquired by IBM" Anyway - Hope this helps!
- chovybizzass 6y agoThanks, will do.
- chovybizzass 6y agoYeah, I don't think I know enough CS to do devops professionally. I am grabbing some books that cover the basics across the entire computing surface.
- easyas101110110 6y agoLeave the Valley, it's too expensive. I grew up there. Only you know what career to pursue. No one else can answer that for you.
- chovybizzass 6y agoCan't otherwise I'd never see my kids. In 5 years I will move out.