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I have spent half of my career around developers in their 50's. It's true that in a lot of cases the work becomes less exciting. Of those who don't exit into

I have spent half of my career around developers in their 50's. It's true that in a lot of cases the work becomes less exciting. Of those who don't exit into management, many become "solutions architects" (i.e. the technical guy who tags along with the sales guy, and makes bad promises that some other developers have to deliver on later). Others tie their career to particular vendor products... and spend their older years tweaking Oracle Financials, SAP, WebSphere Commerce, etc. However, there are also plenty who have kept their skills current along the way, and wind up coding on cool projects well into their 60's. They generally work for large companies rather than start-ups, and that entire world is a blind spot for most people on HN. I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume that the original poster's REAL problems are: * His resume looks terrible. It's a one-page bucket of random meaningless buzzwords (e.g. skills include "open source", "parser", "VPS"... wtf?!?). He puts more energy into highlighting his age than he does his relevant skills. If he wasn't constantly reminding me that he's near-60, I would assume at first glance that this was a junior-level recent grad's resume. * His email, website, GitHub account, etc are build around his "brand name" of "OldCoder". That's a pretty horrible brand. * He's blogging from the domain name "christfollower.me". Nothing against anyone's religion... but politics, religion, etc do not mix with professional career-related writing. Even if it is religion or politics that match my own, it's still a turn-off to see someone wearing it on their sleeve during the recruiting/interviewing process. Nationwide, the United States has a NEGATIVE unemployment rate for computer programmers. Almost every large company is filled with middle-age and older developers. I'm not saying that ageism doesn't exist, but if you are a "near homeless" computer programmer then you are doing something very wrong. You might have a bad resume, or be a bad interviewee. You might live in a small market, and be unwilling to move to where the jobs actually are. Your salary expectations may be out of whack with your current market value, and you're not willing to hear that. Etc.

maxjones1 13y ago
>Nationwide, the United States has a NEGATIVE unemployment rate for computer programmers. lol....
humanrebar 13y ago
> but politics, religion, etc do not mix with professional career-related writing. Even if it is religion or politics that match my own, it's still a turn-off to see someone wearing it on their sleeve during the recruiting/interviewing process. I hope you realize that this is a bigoted attitude as some religions require their practitioners to literally wear their religions, though perhaps on their heads or faces instead of their sleeves. Likewise, prejudice against "old" people is also a bad thing. That being said, your conjecture that some sort of -ism might be at fault here is apt. And a reasonable person could believe that someone should hide his identity in the service of getting a job. However, if it's a tragedy that Jew or homosexual has to hide their identity and lifestyle to get by in the world, why would you want to force a middle-aged Christian into the closet?
- StevePerkins 13y ago
  I'm sorry that I did not paint a real-world picture with sufficient tears to satisfy you. My comment was not directed at the way the would "should be"... but rather at the way the world "is", if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your faceless resume on a pile of them. Besides, I didn't say that you have to "hide" your identity or opinions on the job. Just that it's dumb to mix your personal identity with your professional identity in materials that fall solely in the latter realm (e.g. resumes, TECHNICAL blogs, etc). A significant portion of my colleagues over the years have been Sikh, and another significant portion have been non-heterosexual. Who cares? We work in one of the most diverse fields on the planet. However, if your blog about Node.js is hosted on "sikh-time.com", or if you list "homosexual" as the mission statement on your LinkedIn profile, then you are not "refusing to hide". You're just being flaky. It's not the identity that's the issue, is the signal you're sending about boundaries and judgement. EDIT: Hmm... reading your comment more carefully, you may have had the impression that I'm turned off by seeing outward appearances of religion during a face-to-face interview. That could be an issue for certain religions, such as Sikhs or Hasidic Jews, where outward appearance is a part of it. However, to clarify... I was not talking about a face-to-face interview, but rather the faceless materials such as resumes and technical blogs that are seen prior to that stage. Again, the issue is not so much the identity as it is the judgment. Moreover, if you share your politics or sexual orientation during a face-to-face interview, then you're definitely doing it wrong.

maxjones1 13y ago

>Nationwide, the United States has a NEGATIVE unemployment rate for computer programmers. lol....

humanrebar 13y ago

> but politics, religion, etc do not mix with professional career-related writing. Even if it is religion or politics that match my own, it's still a turn-off to see someone wearing it on their sleeve during the recruiting/interviewing process. I hope you realize that this is a bigoted attitude as some religions require their practitioners to literally wear their religions, though perhaps on their heads or faces instead of their sleeves. Likewise, prejudice against "old" people is also a bad thing. That being said, your conjecture that some sort of -ism might be at fault here is apt. And a reasonable person could believe that someone should hide his identity in the service of getting a job. However, if it's a tragedy that Jew or homosexual has to hide their identity and lifestyle to get by in the world, why would you want to force a middle-aged Christian into the closet?

StevePerkins 13y ago
I'm sorry that I did not paint a real-world picture with sufficient tears to satisfy you. My comment was not directed at the way the would "should be"... but rather at the way the world "is", if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your faceless resume on a pile of them. Besides, I didn't say that you have to "hide" your identity or opinions on the job. Just that it's dumb to mix your personal identity with your professional identity in materials that fall solely in the latter realm (e.g. resumes, TECHNICAL blogs, etc). A significant portion of my colleagues over the years have been Sikh, and another significant portion have been non-heterosexual. Who cares? We work in one of the most diverse fields on the planet. However, if your blog about Node.js is hosted on "sikh-time.com", or if you list "homosexual" as the mission statement on your LinkedIn profile, then you are not "refusing to hide". You're just being flaky. It's not the identity that's the issue, is the signal you're sending about boundaries and judgement. EDIT: Hmm... reading your comment more carefully, you may have had the impression that I'm turned off by seeing outward appearances of religion during a face-to-face interview. That could be an issue for certain religions, such as Sikhs or Hasidic Jews, where outward appearance is a part of it. However, to clarify... I was not talking about a face-to-face interview, but rather the faceless materials such as resumes and technical blogs that are seen prior to that stage. Again, the issue is not so much the identity as it is the judgment. Moreover, if you share your politics or sexual orientation during a face-to-face interview, then you're definitely doing it wrong.