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It's great that he is still up for working! At risk of getting flamed... It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I

It's great that he is still up for working! At risk of getting flamed... It's tricky I think because even if he can learn to program to a suitable standard, I think the reality will be that people will see him as a "junior" but you will have a different working dynamic since it is easier for an e.g. 30 year old to coach someone who is younger if they are doing it wrong but could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine humility, otherwise your dad might feel patronised or be offended by some youngster without the experience to coach well. Another avenue, if it is just the industry he likes rather than programming specifically, he could probably get more distance by utilising his exec skills to do a technical management role like Product Manager, Product Owner or Project Manager. He could then get as much exposure to the programming as he wants without needing to produce as much of it as would be expected of a dev. Don't know, just thinking out loud.

MentallyRetired 5y ago
Was going to recommend a technical management role. This is a good call, imo. You only need to know how website/apps work, not the code itself.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
Also thinking out loud... I started teaching my self to code w/ the intent of getting a coding job at age 38, and I got my first coding job at 40. Breaking into coding was brutal for me. I couldn't get taken seriously as a junior. I just had to keep grinding until I was good enough that someone would take me seriously as a mid-level. The way I did that was go super deep on learning Ruby super well. Then I found a company that needed someone who was really good w/ Ruby. They were willing to overlook my lack of depth in other areas because I had a skill that was critical to them. After starting the job, I had to work super hard to brush up on junior & mid level skills just to do my job at a good enough or better level. After less than two years, people started thinking I was actually better & more experienced than I was. I could talk a really good game because I had spent so much time learning while I was getting experience, and then I started getting taken seriously for senior level roles. People saw my physical age & just assumed I was more senior & experienced than I was, so being older was actually an advantage to being taken seriously. After about 5 years of coding, I finally felt like my work life balance was somewhat normal. I could start having a life again, stop learning quite so hard, etc. Now I'm just a normal, boring senior software engineer making a median-ish USA salary. So I guess I'd say if OP's dad's path would be similar to mine, I'd ask him if he really likes software enough to spend a couple years learning to code & finding a job, then grinding for a few years to get to normal, and then enjoy 5 years of being a competent team member. It's certainly doable, but I think it's worth how bad one really wants this path. I think getting into software just for the money is not how I'd want to spend my 60s, but I'd absolutely do it if I found the coding enjoyable enough to self-teach & grind on learning for as long as it took. It's also possible that other opportunities would open up just because of dad's knowledge of software. Just saying he likes to program, even if that's not his profession, could open up opportunities at a tech company doing other things, such as QA, support, scrum master, etc.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I'm curious at which point you were considered valuable ? what did you have to show ? some theoretical knowledge ? actually used products ?
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    I can say w/ certainty the second half of my coding career has been more productive than the first half :)
- mhewett 5y ago
  It would take him 5-10 years to become a competent programmer. Does he want to finally achieve stability in his career at age 70? I would suggest that he become a business advisor to small companies. His expertise is invaluable and he could be useful immediately.
  - Tozen 5y ago
    I disagree that it would necessarily take that long. Per the OP, his father is not starting from scratch, and has some programming in his background. Being a CEO, CCO, etc... We can assume his father is an intelligent and successful person. Possibly, if his father applied himself, he could find himself a niche in which he would be adequately competent within 2 years. To include being a freelancer or independent developer. As you alluded to, because of his father's business background, he might do really well in sales for a software related company or starting his own business.
    - pcthrowaway 5y ago
      I know the OP said it was "maybe Pascal or Basic", but having done this ~40 years ago, I'd argue that it is basically starting from scratch, unless he was actually writing Javascript the whole time for google sheets integrations > Being a CEO, CCO, etc... We can assume his father is an intelligent and successful person. Being unable to continue working as a CEO/CCO suggests he's not currently very successful, and to put it lightly, CEO "intelligence" (whatever that means) doesn't necessarily translate to the kind of intelligence necessary for software engineering
mywittyname 5y ago
> could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine humility Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more important as we age or rise through the ranks. Accepting advice from an "inferior" with grace, humility, and thankfulness is key to gaining respect and learning at the rate necessary to stay on top of a field. I've taught things to people who were a million times more intelligent than I and 20 years my senior. I gained so respect for them after seeing how quickly they learned, and how appreciative they were of having my time. One thing I gleaned from the experience of working with these guys was how letting someone teach you something is a great way to impress them.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Yeah this is gonna be a human "problem", an emotional level requirement, if both are chill sharing their viewpoints, being positive then things are possible.
- jacobyoder 5y ago
  Accepting some advice or input on an individual item vs having someone 'manage' you are different beasts. As I come up to 50, and work with a group of folks ranging from 28-32... the age and experience gaps are highlighted often. I'm happy to contribute, and I do occasionally learn something from someone (often some specific tool I'd not seen before). But there's a resistance to 'learn' from me. We're 'equalized' on a 'team', and "we should all learn from each other!" is a common mantra. I've done many of these projects before, and will raise issues. "Let's just see how it goes!" and "well... we might make some mistakes, but that's how we learn!" And I'll say "but I thought we were supposed to be learning from each other?" "yes!". "Why does no one ever want to learn from me?" I've done XYZ longer than these colleagues have been adults, but I'm never asked for stuff, people avoid my input, etc. What's more interesting is that a couple of folks on the client side of the equation (contracting house) have been added who are older, and ... they're quite open to picking my brain. We mesh quite well, and have pairing sessions and learn from each other (but I'm giving more than taking in those cases). With the younger crew... there's just a real standoffishness, and focus on 'team' and 'learning from each other and our mistakes' but... they're willing to make mistakes (repeatedly) vs taking my input to avoid those mistakes in the first place. The client's new person seems to have picked up on this and is raising some issues. For a while, I really thought it was something wrong with me, but as I jump around between clients/contracts/etc, it seems to be more age related. The larger the age gap, the less impetus there is to work 'together'. And... I'm trying to think back to when I was 25... how open would I have been to 50 year old colleague's input? If they were 'management', I'd have to. Otherwise... possibly not? Hard to remember that far back, other than that I thought I was invincible :)
crdrost 5y ago
Yeah, it's really difficult because a lot of the drive expressed in OP is for a new source of opportunity... The problem is that ageisms and such definitely take root in our industry, trying to work healthy hours at a startuppy place when you are older seems very precarious. I think you are on point that technical management has more availability, if that's the constraint. If the constraint is instead that programming looks fun but you want to get exposed to as much of it as possible, I mean, I would suggest that OP’s Dad start building an indie game or so? Doesn't have to be a bestseller to sharpen thinking about design and aesthetic and underlying mechanics and state and data structures... I work in web but the amount of framework churn and such is kind of something I wouldn't force others through. If you did want something more webby, you would want to practice with something you find interesting... If you wanted, maybe something that touches a lot of other technologies. If you think about writing your own GitHub, you start with git repositories and cloud hosting and deployment, you can move into CI/CD type workflows pretty easily, maybe that is a better way to start off web programming? The other thing I will say is, Big Tech companies are often places where you can get one role and then ask for their developer education tracks where they teach their accountants etc how to become developers if they want to pivot. Say for example, being a manager at Google but having some 20% project that lets you contribute code and get feedback. Bigger more established companies have fewer problems with ageism, because they are much more sensitive as lawsuit targets for those sorts of things, so they have to get their s** together. Also worth saying, the prior job history is an asset. A lot of developers do not speak business-ese. If you are a solid programmer who can talk to C-levels, you are a potential CTO at the right sort of place. Because you can translate, and because you feel comfortable walking into a contract negotiation with some client as “okay, how can I not say ‘no’ to everything but push back on the really hard problems while ‘yes, and’-ing all of the tractable stuff to get them on board.” Consultancy is one of the ways to do that, but not the only one. But worth calling out that as an asset if it helps focus the journey more.
rookie_knight 5y ago
The flip side of this is true as well. Ageism is a real problem in our industry. People are just more patient with young college grads and more willing to help them out. As somebody who transitioned to SWE in a big company(FAANG) after a decade of wireless communications research, I found out despite all the processes and supposed practices a big company has in place to onboard people from different backgrounds, you need to rely a lot on your teammates for the tribal knowledge to get anything significant done. And people are far less helpful than they think they are. Often they assume things because in their minds X years of experience means you should already know this stuff. Almost all of it is non technical and specific to the company so you won’t have a way of knowing it beforehand but that consideration is readily given to a fresh grad than an experienced person. Also a lot of the times tenured people will feel insecure/threatened about/by someone else joining at the same level and would constantly point out their shortcomings in order to maintain their place in the hierarchy. Was oblivious to this until I was managing people and saw newer experienced people joining the team face this. Had to coach people to stop them doing this unconsciously.
- FWKevents 5y ago
  Well said. Thanks for the honest contribution.
- malloryerik 5y ago
  How does working remotely seem to affect ageism in software development?
  - rookie_knight 5y ago
    Honestly, have been long tenured (comfortable) at my current job for the whole of pandemic so only have second hand experiences through my direct reports. But on the whole I think remote work has made this problem kind of worse. When I was new I could walk over to someone, gauge their mood or how busy they are and have a direct conversation. Even if I lacked the ability to communicate my problem clearly it was definitely easier to get help. They could just see where i was stuck and get full context. Here for every simple thing people have to ping one on one on DMs or in group channels. There are few problems with this. One in large channels a person who asks a lot of questions is looked down upon. (Shouldn't be in an ideal world and we keep emphasizing this with processes and what not but it's human nature). Plus unlike an in person conversation every question you ask becomes a part of permanent/semi permanent record which discourages people from asking questions. Also you don't know when you are interrupting people. Even if you dont expect an answer right away when the person doesn't respond for a long time you naturally feel resentful. And repeating my earlier point it's much easier to provide full context when somebody has your undivided attention by showing them instead of typing out what you think the problem is.
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
I think you're right, but there would still be some hope in the "Don't call yourself a programmer"[1] avenue. If he can sell himself not as a programmer, but as someone who does X with programming as a tool that they're going to use to do that, preferably where X is something that he has some expertise in from earlier in his career, he might be able to get people to look at him as an expert X instead of a novice programmer. [1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

MentallyRetired 5y ago

Was going to recommend a technical management role. This is a good call, imo. You only need to know how website/apps work, not the code itself.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

Also thinking out loud... I started teaching my self to code w/ the intent of getting a coding job at age 38, and I got my first coding job at 40. Breaking into coding was brutal for me. I couldn't get taken seriously as a junior. I just had to keep grinding until I was good enough that someone would take me seriously as a mid-level. The way I did that was go super deep on learning Ruby super well. Then I found a company that needed someone who was really good w/ Ruby. They were willing to overlook my lack of depth in other areas because I had a skill that was critical to them. After starting the job, I had to work super hard to brush up on junior & mid level skills just to do my job at a good enough or better level. After less than two years, people started thinking I was actually better & more experienced than I was. I could talk a really good game because I had spent so much time learning while I was getting experience, and then I started getting taken seriously for senior level roles. People saw my physical age & just assumed I was more senior & experienced than I was, so being older was actually an advantage to being taken seriously. After about 5 years of coding, I finally felt like my work life balance was somewhat normal. I could start having a life again, stop learning quite so hard, etc. Now I'm just a normal, boring senior software engineer making a median-ish USA salary. So I guess I'd say if OP's dad's path would be similar to mine, I'd ask him if he really likes software enough to spend a couple years learning to code & finding a job, then grinding for a few years to get to normal, and then enjoy 5 years of being a competent team member. It's certainly doable, but I think it's worth how bad one really wants this path. I think getting into software just for the money is not how I'd want to spend my 60s, but I'd absolutely do it if I found the coding enjoyable enough to self-teach & grind on learning for as long as it took. It's also possible that other opportunities would open up just because of dad's knowledge of software. Just saying he likes to program, even if that's not his profession, could open up opportunities at a tech company doing other things, such as QA, support, scrum master, etc.

agumonkey 5y ago
I'm curious at which point you were considered valuable ? what did you have to show ? some theoretical knowledge ? actually used products ?
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I can say w/ certainty the second half of my coding career has been more productive than the first half :)
mhewett 5y ago
It would take him 5-10 years to become a competent programmer. Does he want to finally achieve stability in his career at age 70? I would suggest that he become a business advisor to small companies. His expertise is invaluable and he could be useful immediately.
- Tozen 5y ago
  I disagree that it would necessarily take that long. Per the OP, his father is not starting from scratch, and has some programming in his background. Being a CEO, CCO, etc... We can assume his father is an intelligent and successful person. Possibly, if his father applied himself, he could find himself a niche in which he would be adequately competent within 2 years. To include being a freelancer or independent developer. As you alluded to, because of his father's business background, he might do really well in sales for a software related company or starting his own business.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    I know the OP said it was "maybe Pascal or Basic", but having done this ~40 years ago, I'd argue that it is basically starting from scratch, unless he was actually writing Javascript the whole time for google sheets integrations > Being a CEO, CCO, etc... We can assume his father is an intelligent and successful person. Being unable to continue working as a CEO/CCO suggests he's not currently very successful, and to put it lightly, CEO "intelligence" (whatever that means) doesn't necessarily translate to the kind of intelligence necessary for software engineering

mywittyname 5y ago

> could be tricky trying to coach an older person unless they have genuine humility Bingo. This goes for young people too, but is more important as we age or rise through the ranks. Accepting advice from an "inferior" with grace, humility, and thankfulness is key to gaining respect and learning at the rate necessary to stay on top of a field. I've taught things to people who were a million times more intelligent than I and 20 years my senior. I gained so respect for them after seeing how quickly they learned, and how appreciative they were of having my time. One thing I gleaned from the experience of working with these guys was how letting someone teach you something is a great way to impress them.

agumonkey 5y ago
Yeah this is gonna be a human "problem", an emotional level requirement, if both are chill sharing their viewpoints, being positive then things are possible.
jacobyoder 5y ago
Accepting some advice or input on an individual item vs having someone 'manage' you are different beasts. As I come up to 50, and work with a group of folks ranging from 28-32... the age and experience gaps are highlighted often. I'm happy to contribute, and I do occasionally learn something from someone (often some specific tool I'd not seen before). But there's a resistance to 'learn' from me. We're 'equalized' on a 'team', and "we should all learn from each other!" is a common mantra. I've done many of these projects before, and will raise issues. "Let's just see how it goes!" and "well... we might make some mistakes, but that's how we learn!" And I'll say "but I thought we were supposed to be learning from each other?" "yes!". "Why does no one ever want to learn from me?" I've done XYZ longer than these colleagues have been adults, but I'm never asked for stuff, people avoid my input, etc. What's more interesting is that a couple of folks on the client side of the equation (contracting house) have been added who are older, and ... they're quite open to picking my brain. We mesh quite well, and have pairing sessions and learn from each other (but I'm giving more than taking in those cases). With the younger crew... there's just a real standoffishness, and focus on 'team' and 'learning from each other and our mistakes' but... they're willing to make mistakes (repeatedly) vs taking my input to avoid those mistakes in the first place. The client's new person seems to have picked up on this and is raising some issues. For a while, I really thought it was something wrong with me, but as I jump around between clients/contracts/etc, it seems to be more age related. The larger the age gap, the less impetus there is to work 'together'. And... I'm trying to think back to when I was 25... how open would I have been to 50 year old colleague's input? If they were 'management', I'd have to. Otherwise... possibly not? Hard to remember that far back, other than that I thought I was invincible :)

crdrost 5y ago

Yeah, it's really difficult because a lot of the drive expressed in OP is for a new source of opportunity... The problem is that ageisms and such definitely take root in our industry, trying to work healthy hours at a startuppy place when you are older seems very precarious. I think you are on point that technical management has more availability, if that's the constraint. If the constraint is instead that programming looks fun but you want to get exposed to as much of it as possible, I mean, I would suggest that OP’s Dad start building an indie game or so? Doesn't have to be a bestseller to sharpen thinking about design and aesthetic and underlying mechanics and state and data structures... I work in web but the amount of framework churn and such is kind of something I wouldn't force others through. If you did want something more webby, you would want to practice with something you find interesting... If you wanted, maybe something that touches a lot of other technologies. If you think about writing your own GitHub, you start with git repositories and cloud hosting and deployment, you can move into CI/CD type workflows pretty easily, maybe that is a better way to start off web programming? The other thing I will say is, Big Tech companies are often places where you can get one role and then ask for their developer education tracks where they teach their accountants etc how to become developers if they want to pivot. Say for example, being a manager at Google but having some 20% project that lets you contribute code and get feedback. Bigger more established companies have fewer problems with ageism, because they are much more sensitive as lawsuit targets for those sorts of things, so they have to get their s** together. Also worth saying, the prior job history is an asset. A lot of developers do not speak business-ese. If you are a solid programmer who can talk to C-levels, you are a potential CTO at the right sort of place. Because you can translate, and because you feel comfortable walking into a contract negotiation with some client as “okay, how can I not say ‘no’ to everything but push back on the really hard problems while ‘yes, and’-ing all of the tractable stuff to get them on board.” Consultancy is one of the ways to do that, but not the only one. But worth calling out that as an asset if it helps focus the journey more.

rookie_knight 5y ago

The flip side of this is true as well. Ageism is a real problem in our industry. People are just more patient with young college grads and more willing to help them out. As somebody who transitioned to SWE in a big company(FAANG) after a decade of wireless communications research, I found out despite all the processes and supposed practices a big company has in place to onboard people from different backgrounds, you need to rely a lot on your teammates for the tribal knowledge to get anything significant done. And people are far less helpful than they think they are. Often they assume things because in their minds X years of experience means you should already know this stuff. Almost all of it is non technical and specific to the company so you won’t have a way of knowing it beforehand but that consideration is readily given to a fresh grad than an experienced person. Also a lot of the times tenured people will feel insecure/threatened about/by someone else joining at the same level and would constantly point out their shortcomings in order to maintain their place in the hierarchy. Was oblivious to this until I was managing people and saw newer experienced people joining the team face this. Had to coach people to stop them doing this unconsciously.

FWKevents 5y ago
Well said. Thanks for the honest contribution.
malloryerik 5y ago
How does working remotely seem to affect ageism in software development?
- rookie_knight 5y ago
  Honestly, have been long tenured (comfortable) at my current job for the whole of pandemic so only have second hand experiences through my direct reports. But on the whole I think remote work has made this problem kind of worse. When I was new I could walk over to someone, gauge their mood or how busy they are and have a direct conversation. Even if I lacked the ability to communicate my problem clearly it was definitely easier to get help. They could just see where i was stuck and get full context. Here for every simple thing people have to ping one on one on DMs or in group channels. There are few problems with this. One in large channels a person who asks a lot of questions is looked down upon. (Shouldn't be in an ideal world and we keep emphasizing this with processes and what not but it's human nature). Plus unlike an in person conversation every question you ask becomes a part of permanent/semi permanent record which discourages people from asking questions. Also you don't know when you are interrupting people. Even if you dont expect an answer right away when the person doesn't respond for a long time you naturally feel resentful. And repeating my earlier point it's much easier to provide full context when somebody has your undivided attention by showing them instead of typing out what you think the problem is.

TheCoelacanth 5y ago

I think you're right, but there would still be some hope in the "Don't call yourself a programmer"[1] avenue. If he can sell himself not as a programmer, but as someone who does X with programming as a tool that they're going to use to do that, preferably where X is something that he has some expertise in from earlier in his career, he might be able to get people to look at him as an expert X instead of a novice programmer. [1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...