Some companies want someone who is already an expert at a particular tool. Some have good reasons for this, some bad. Also, you'll find that a bunch of progra

Some companies want someone who is already an expert at a particular tool. Some have good reasons for this, some bad. Also, you'll find that a bunch of programmers these days basically consider Java to be the entire programming universe. Many of them have gone through university and several jobs without being exposed to anything else. They don't really consider the fact that could be experienced programmers who have no Java knowledge, and they don't consider it a fad or a passing thing. I suggest seeking out companies that are working with Python, Ruby, Perl, Scala, etc. - not because of the tools themselves, but because they tend to expect that candidates will be learning new tools and languages all the time. Yes, you will probably be discriminated against by some companies. Fortunately, there are companies out there that don't. I expect the latter category will grow as the overall developer population ages. (Remember, our entire industry has grown from almost nothing in just 30-40 years.) At my current company, at least one engineer is a grandfather and several people have children near my age (and I'm a parent myself).