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I'm pretty old, and I've NEVER had issues finding a job. I've been unemployed for 6 months now. Thinking about getting out of software development TBH. It isn't

I'm pretty old, and I've NEVER had issues finding a job. I've been unemployed for 6 months now. Thinking about getting out of software development TBH. It isn't that I'm a bad developer, I've almost always gotten good to great performance reviews, but nobody is hiring. The positions that do open up are swamped with tons of people. The culture also is pretty toxic, especially in the startup world, and with AI now entering the scene? Then again, I don't know what I would pivot to. I thought about building a startup. However it is not a good time to be doing that either.

vhiremath4 3y ago
Coming from both a place of kindness and a place of selfishness: 1. Please keep at it. We need more people with experience staying in software. I don’t know your financial situation, but software is huge and something will land! 2. Based on this comment, I highly recommend likely not ever starting a company. It’s fucking hard, and it’s not glamorous. And even though it’s hard times in the macro, it’s actually way harder for many compounding reasons that are not obvious until you do it. Again, coming from a place of love.
- kirse 3y ago
  It’s fucking hard, and it’s not glamorous "Fucking hard" compared to what? Things I'd qualify under the category of "fucking hard": - Agricultural Farming - Lifetime debilitating disease / health issue - Being enslaved or a POW - Living in a 3rd world country - Moving West in the 1800s - Fighting in the American Revolutionary or Civil War This narrative that starting a company is "fucking hard" is all part of the SV/SF mythos that needs a smooth stone straight to the forehead.
  - jannes 3y ago
    That violent metaphor wasn’t necessary to make your point.
  - jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
    Compared to a 9-5 in tech? Which is what they're suggesting instead. What is the point of moralizing?
    - kirse 3y ago
      What is the point of moralizing? Because the guy is framing his discouragement as "coming from a place of love" when in reality it takes roughly 2-3 weeks to go from zero-to-[LLC accepting payments on Stripe]. Which means it's really not that "fucking hard" at all to start small and begin the search for paying customers. I've been on this board for 17 years back when it was originally called "Startup News" and full of new-company founders, sold 2 small SW apps back in 2009, and have also done the F100 corporate adventure. The emotional challenges of starting your own company can be easier than the 9-5.
      - exclusiv 3y ago
        Starting is easy. I don't think the parent you replied to was talking about that procedural part of it. The parent is weighing working for someone or starting a newco. Also it's a completely different ballgame when you build a company that has employees versus an app. We don't know what path the parent was talking about or what their business would be. We don't know their financial position. Regardless, it's hard to build a successful business. Especially on your first attempt.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >when in reality it takes roughly 2-3 weeks to go from zero-to-[LLC accepting payments on Stripe] okay, now tell my how long and how much it costs to g from new LLC to self-sustainable. Even some of the most popular startups aren't profitable for years.
  - exclusiv 3y ago
    I understand your sentiment, but one's experience does not need to manifest like the ones you listed to be considered hard. You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. Although I'd still say it's a startup and is thus fucking hard personally. Starting a company is very easy. Building a successful and sustainable one is fucking hard. I've built a few successful companies but did it while having income (both active and passive). I recommend the same for anyone's first endeavor. I also recommend having a partner or two and maybe ONLY go solo after you've built a successful business. It's not glamorous being a startup CEO and can be very lonely without partners. 50% of businesses fail by year 5 And 80% of small businesses have no employees. Most of the 50% that survive to year 5 are just paying bills and aren't self-sustaining businesses that have enterprise value and can be sold. If you want to be a one person show, yeah that's not hard in a service business. If you are average, 50% shot to make it 5 years. If we're talking about building something that kicks off actual profit and has employees, and outperforms the opportunity cost of working for someone else or taking an equity stake in existing business, it is most certainly fucking hard. To the parent - if you have savings and get a partner or two - I say keep applying but go for the startup too. The best businesses in my opinion are ones that make money closer to day 1 than year X. Figure that path out. Riches in niches. Don't worry about the macro environment. [1] https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/ https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/
    - therealcamino 3y ago
      "You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. " You are pretty clearly defining "hard" differently than the poster you're responding to, as somehow being related only to the chance of a venture failing. But obviously that's not what "hard" means when the other examples include being a prisoner of war.
      - exclusiv 3y ago
solardev 3y ago
Same, in 20+ years doing this, I've never seen it this bad.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Were you around for the dot com crash? You said 20 years so it sounds like you started when the wave began right after the crash.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    I was, quite similar in fact, maybe even worse. It was quite common around 2002 to join a new company after being laid off from one, one to be laid off yet again a couple of months later. Myself, I was living from savings with salaries delayed by a couple of months, while we were trying to find a new source of income.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    I was lucky enough to work for the DoD during the .com crash, but not this time. I guess the silver lining is that I can now better emphasize with the challenges of protracted unemployment.
  - ericbarrett 3y ago
    Not GP but I was just starting my career back then. I remember commute traffic on 101 through San Jose and Sunnyvale going from bumper-to-bumper to smooth sailing, where you never even had to touch your brakes. From the crash of April-ish 2000, it was 6-9 months before the best of the best could even get an interview, and about 36 to something approaching normality.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I was around but very young and not working in Silicon Valley proper. I think my first tech internship was just a year or two after that, can't remember exactly. Never really had trouble finding work on the West Coast since then though. This year, I was unemployed for half a year (after quitting voluntarily) and finally found work with a European company. Guess the boom times are over! It's AI or bust now, lol (and I have neither the skills nor the interest to work in ML). Keep in mind though I'm also a nobody, some rando self taught web dev coming from the LAMP world into React. We're pretty much bottom of the barrel as far as programmers go, so I'm not surprised I'm not a competitive candidate! I love the frontend, but more for its visuals and UX than coding. It's a very far cry from AI or algorithms or really any sort of non visual coding. The kind of I stuff I used to get paid for when I was younger, Wix handles effortlessly now (and I recommend it my clients too... don't pay me, just make it yourself on Wix in a few hours). React's probably headed down the same path: https://v0.dev/ https://v0.dev/
martin_drapeau 3y ago
Downturns is the best time to build a startup. When things turn around, you hopefully have found product market fit and can ride the up wave.
- kgoihawoerh 3y ago
  Don't start a startup as a business unless you know how startups work from the inside. Also, unrelated to startups but with products individuals are probably not "in" on the market, so will fail even with excellent products and marketing. You can't be an outside participant and succeed (although inside may notice outside and bring them in). Maybe if a small customer base is enough for you as an outsider you can succeed.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This is so true that when I'm planning on starting a new business, I intentionally wait for a downturn before I pull the trigger.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  if you have the finances already to support a startup. The big issue in downturns is that VC money also dries up and hunkers down.
hipadev23 3y ago
Skimming your comments: You deeply detest everything related to AI, cloud, and startups. It’s not age discrimination per-se, but it’s because you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. You can probably find a job doing maintenance on some PHP or Rails app that hasn't been updated since Obama’s first term, but the pay is likely also going to come from that era.
- true_religion 3y ago
  Maybe they should try applying in the east coast. There is no AI, cloud or startups here. You will have to stomach finance or the military industrial complex though.
  - troynt 3y ago
    False
  - dgellow 3y ago
    Plenty of startups in NYC
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      plenty of other tech in NYC too. ISPs, all sorts of F500 orgs (not just finance), etc. The rents are no joke, but if I had to be out of a job and in tech, NYC or SF would be top picks (maybe Denver, Austin, DC, or RDU after that).
- ipaddr 3y ago
  What skill would you suggest he learn?
  - hipadev23 3y ago
    If he doesn't want to actually learn AI/ML itself, there's an endless number of adjacent jobs related to all the hype: * web dev - today the majority of the jobs are very heavily ts/js, react, next.js, vercel, etc. * data engineering - AI/ML is very hungry for clean, organized, and accessible data. so we're talking sql, data warehousing, spark, beam, kafka * infra/devops - nearly every tech company needs these people: docker, kubernetes, terraform, ci/cd, gitops, metrics and monitoring tools like prometheus and grafana

vhiremath4 3y ago

Coming from both a place of kindness and a place of selfishness: 1. Please keep at it. We need more people with experience staying in software. I don’t know your financial situation, but software is huge and something will land! 2. Based on this comment, I highly recommend likely not ever starting a company. It’s fucking hard, and it’s not glamorous. And even though it’s hard times in the macro, it’s actually way harder for many compounding reasons that are not obvious until you do it. Again, coming from a place of love.

kirse 3y ago
It’s fucking hard, and it’s not glamorous "Fucking hard" compared to what? Things I'd qualify under the category of "fucking hard": - Agricultural Farming - Lifetime debilitating disease / health issue - Being enslaved or a POW - Living in a 3rd world country - Moving West in the 1800s - Fighting in the American Revolutionary or Civil War This narrative that starting a company is "fucking hard" is all part of the SV/SF mythos that needs a smooth stone straight to the forehead.
- jannes 3y ago
  That violent metaphor wasn’t necessary to make your point.
- jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
  Compared to a 9-5 in tech? Which is what they're suggesting instead. What is the point of moralizing?
  - kirse 3y ago
    What is the point of moralizing? Because the guy is framing his discouragement as "coming from a place of love" when in reality it takes roughly 2-3 weeks to go from zero-to-[LLC accepting payments on Stripe]. Which means it's really not that "fucking hard" at all to start small and begin the search for paying customers. I've been on this board for 17 years back when it was originally called "Startup News" and full of new-company founders, sold 2 small SW apps back in 2009, and have also done the F100 corporate adventure. The emotional challenges of starting your own company can be easier than the 9-5.
    - exclusiv 3y ago
      Starting is easy. I don't think the parent you replied to was talking about that procedural part of it. The parent is weighing working for someone or starting a newco. Also it's a completely different ballgame when you build a company that has employees versus an app. We don't know what path the parent was talking about or what their business would be. We don't know their financial position. Regardless, it's hard to build a successful business. Especially on your first attempt.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >when in reality it takes roughly 2-3 weeks to go from zero-to-[LLC accepting payments on Stripe] okay, now tell my how long and how much it costs to g from new LLC to self-sustainable. Even some of the most popular startups aren't profitable for years.
- exclusiv 3y ago
  I understand your sentiment, but one's experience does not need to manifest like the ones you listed to be considered hard. You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. Although I'd still say it's a startup and is thus fucking hard personally. Starting a company is very easy. Building a successful and sustainable one is fucking hard. I've built a few successful companies but did it while having income (both active and passive). I recommend the same for anyone's first endeavor. I also recommend having a partner or two and maybe ONLY go solo after you've built a successful business. It's not glamorous being a startup CEO and can be very lonely without partners. 50% of businesses fail by year 5 And 80% of small businesses have no employees. Most of the 50% that survive to year 5 are just paying bills and aren't self-sustaining businesses that have enterprise value and can be sold. If you want to be a one person show, yeah that's not hard in a service business. If you are average, 50% shot to make it 5 years. If we're talking about building something that kicks off actual profit and has employees, and outperforms the opportunity cost of working for someone else or taking an equity stake in existing business, it is most certainly fucking hard. To the parent - if you have savings and get a partner or two - I say keep applying but go for the startup too. The best businesses in my opinion are ones that make money closer to day 1 than year X. Figure that path out. Riches in niches. Don't worry about the macro environment. [1] https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/ https://www.lendingtree.com/business/small/failure-rate/
  - therealcamino 3y ago
    "You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. " You are pretty clearly defining "hard" differently than the poster you're responding to, as somehow being related only to the chance of a venture failing. But obviously that's not what "hard" means when the other examples include being a prisoner of war.
    - exclusiv 3y ago

solardev 3y ago

Same, in 20+ years doing this, I've never seen it this bad.

nebula8804 3y ago
Were you around for the dot com crash? You said 20 years so it sounds like you started when the wave began right after the crash.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  I was, quite similar in fact, maybe even worse. It was quite common around 2002 to join a new company after being laid off from one, one to be laid off yet again a couple of months later. Myself, I was living from savings with salaries delayed by a couple of months, while we were trying to find a new source of income.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I was lucky enough to work for the DoD during the .com crash, but not this time. I guess the silver lining is that I can now better emphasize with the challenges of protracted unemployment.
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  Not GP but I was just starting my career back then. I remember commute traffic on 101 through San Jose and Sunnyvale going from bumper-to-bumper to smooth sailing, where you never even had to touch your brakes. From the crash of April-ish 2000, it was 6-9 months before the best of the best could even get an interview, and about 36 to something approaching normality.
- solardev 3y ago
  I was around but very young and not working in Silicon Valley proper. I think my first tech internship was just a year or two after that, can't remember exactly. Never really had trouble finding work on the West Coast since then though. This year, I was unemployed for half a year (after quitting voluntarily) and finally found work with a European company. Guess the boom times are over! It's AI or bust now, lol (and I have neither the skills nor the interest to work in ML). Keep in mind though I'm also a nobody, some rando self taught web dev coming from the LAMP world into React. We're pretty much bottom of the barrel as far as programmers go, so I'm not surprised I'm not a competitive candidate! I love the frontend, but more for its visuals and UX than coding. It's a very far cry from AI or algorithms or really any sort of non visual coding. The kind of I stuff I used to get paid for when I was younger, Wix handles effortlessly now (and I recommend it my clients too... don't pay me, just make it yourself on Wix in a few hours). React's probably headed down the same path: https://v0.dev/ https://v0.dev/

martin_drapeau 3y ago

Downturns is the best time to build a startup. When things turn around, you hopefully have found product market fit and can ride the up wave.

kgoihawoerh 3y ago
Don't start a startup as a business unless you know how startups work from the inside. Also, unrelated to startups but with products individuals are probably not "in" on the market, so will fail even with excellent products and marketing. You can't be an outside participant and succeed (although inside may notice outside and bring them in). Maybe if a small customer base is enough for you as an outsider you can succeed.
JohnFen 3y ago
This is so true that when I'm planning on starting a new business, I intentionally wait for a downturn before I pull the trigger.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
if you have the finances already to support a startup. The big issue in downturns is that VC money also dries up and hunkers down.

hipadev23 3y ago

Skimming your comments: You deeply detest everything related to AI, cloud, and startups. It’s not age discrimination per-se, but it’s because you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. You can probably find a job doing maintenance on some PHP or Rails app that hasn't been updated since Obama’s first term, but the pay is likely also going to come from that era.

true_religion 3y ago
Maybe they should try applying in the east coast. There is no AI, cloud or startups here. You will have to stomach finance or the military industrial complex though.
- troynt 3y ago
  False
- dgellow 3y ago
  Plenty of startups in NYC
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    plenty of other tech in NYC too. ISPs, all sorts of F500 orgs (not just finance), etc. The rents are no joke, but if I had to be out of a job and in tech, NYC or SF would be top picks (maybe Denver, Austin, DC, or RDU after that).
ipaddr 3y ago
What skill would you suggest he learn?
- hipadev23 3y ago
  If he doesn't want to actually learn AI/ML itself, there's an endless number of adjacent jobs related to all the hype: * web dev - today the majority of the jobs are very heavily ts/js, react, next.js, vercel, etc. * data engineering - AI/ML is very hungry for clean, organized, and accessible data. so we're talking sql, data warehousing, spark, beam, kafka * infra/devops - nearly every tech company needs these people: docker, kubernetes, terraform, ci/cd, gitops, metrics and monitoring tools like prometheus and grafana